Upcoming chapter preview for "Daughter of the Sky," enjoy!
They had just started to think the jungle might be giving them a reprieve when it decided to produce another myth.
It burst from the tree line ahead of them like a thrown spear: white, impossible, horn lowered. For a split second Margot’s brain supplied the childhood version. A unicorn with soft eyes, long glittered eyelashes, Lisa Frank stickers. The reality was pure violence: flared nostrils, muscles like carved marble, hooves chewing up earth. Its golden horn gleamed wickedly.
“Is that a—” she started.
“Unicorn,” Hook said tersely, already moving. “Get down.”
She didn’t move nearly fast enough. The creature barreled straight for her with a scream that sounded nothing like what could come from a fairytale.
Everything happened in one blur. Hook closed the distance in three strides, grabbed her by the waist, and yanked her sideways. As the beast’s horn slashed through the space where her chest had been, his hook arced in a clean, practiced line. Steel met flesh; there was a hot spurt of blood, a choking whinny, and then the unicorn collapsed in the fern-choked mud, legs twitching.
Silence fell like an axe.
Margot stared at the body, then at Hook, still wrapped around her. His arm was banded tight across her middle; she could feel his heart slamming through his ribs into her back.
“You killed a fucking unicorn,” she breathed.
“Yes,” he said, panting slightly. “Violent beasts. That one was about to impale you.”
The corpse twitched once more to prove his point; its horn had gouged a gash deep into the tree behind where she’d stood.
Margot swallowed. “Okay. Fair point. Thanks.”
He released her slowly, stepping back only when he was sure she was steady. Blood slid down the curve of his hook when he lifted; he flicked it once, almost delicately to clear it.
He turned with a grin that was far too pleased for someone standing over a dead legend. “Nailed it,” he said, repeating the phrase he’d overheard her use with her mother.
Margot blinked at him, then barked out a laugh so sudden and bright that birds exploded from the nearby canopy in alarm.
“You almost nailed that phrase,” she managed between giggles. “Almost being the operative word.”
James looked absurdly proud. “Ah, but I used it, and you laughed. That is how your modern idioms work, is it not?”
Tink, who had been hovering several yards up in a state between horror and intrigue, descended enough to glare at both of them. “You cannot just go slaughtering sacred creatures and then flirt over the corpse.”
“We absolutely can,” Margot said weakly, still giggling. “Apparently.”
James watched her laugh with open satisfaction. The sight of her, breathless and bending at the waist, tears in the corners of her eyes from amusement not shock, did something disorienting to his spine. He’d faced entire armadas with less exhilaration.
“There is,” he said thoughtfully, “another way your people use that term, is there not? ‘Nail’ someone?”
Margot’s laughter dropped an octave into something throatier. “Oh, look at you, Captain Context Clues.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Crude word for such a devotional act.”
Her breath hitched. “Devotional?”
“What else would you call it?” His eyes drifted over her face, then lower, unapologetic. “When it’s done properly.”
Tink made a strangled sound. “I am right here.”
“Yes,” Hook said dismissively, without looking away from Margot. “Regrettably.”
Margot’s cheeks blushed red enough to rival the unicorn’s blood. She arched a brow anyway, refusing to yield. “In my world, if you ‘nail’ someone, it can be anything from a regrettable one-night stand to… well. Something worth worship.”
“And which category,” he asked, almost idly, “were you filing me under?”
“That depends,” she shot back, “on whether you ever get me somewhere that isn’t a swamp or a war zone.”
“Oh, I fully intend to,” he murmured. “Strictly for comparative research.”
Tink clapped her tiny hands over her ears. “I did not raise you for this.”
“You barely raised me at all,” Margot said automatically, then winced as soon as it left her mouth. “Sorry. Reflex.”
Think flinched but couldn’t quite deny it.
Hook recognized the wound there and, shockingly, let the moment pass without stabbing it. Instead he gestured at the unicorn with his bloody hook. “For the record, they are not all rainbows and wishes. They skewer first, ponder moral implications later.”
“That sounds familiar,” Margot muttered, shooting Peter’s absent direction a look.
Hook smirked. “See? You don’t need the boy. You’ve an entire island of murderous fauna and at least one pirate willing to stand between you and them.”
“At least one?” she repeated.
His grin turned sharper. “Volunteers are scarce, but my crew obeys their orders.”
“You like doing it,” she said. “Playing hero.”
He considered that. “I am not playing. I enjoy having an excuse to touch you without scandalizing the trees.”
“That ship sailed,” she sighed. “We scandalized the jungle just yesterday.”
“True.” His gaze warmed. “But I find repetition soothing.”
“Stop,” Tinker Bell whispered. “For the love of everything evergreen. Just stop.”
Margot tried to smother her smile and failed. She took a step closer to Hook again, emboldened by the absurdity of it all. “You keep practicing my slang, Captain, and I might actually let you earn ‘nailed it.’”
He leaned down, mouth close to her ear. “Consider it a challenge. I have an excellent record with practical examinations.”
A shiver ran straight down her spine. He felt it, of course. His smile went positively indecent.
Tink groaned. “I am going back to the Evershade and pretending this conversation never happened.”
“You wish,” Margot said. Then, quietly to Hook, unable to help herself, “Thank you. For the unicorn. And for… almost nailing it.”
His eyes lit with that dangerous, fond gleam she was starting to crave. “Oh, I’ve only just begun to practice, witch.”
And somehow, standing over a dead unicorn in a haunted jungle with a furious fairy mother hovering overhead, Margot thought she had never felt more alive.
Story summary: When Tinker Bell disappears from Neverland, it starts the most violent war to date between Pan and Hook. But Tink has no interest in returning to Neverland... so it's the fairy's half-human daughter recruited to put an end to the war. When Margot Belle returns to the home she never knew, will the compelling and infamous pirate Captain distract her from her true destiny?
Platform (s): Currently fanfic.net and soon migrating to ao3 as well!
Rating: M for language and hot and heavy sexual situations, but no outright smut.
Most recently published chapter (12) here.
Chapters 13-16 are all finished and awaiting publication, I'll keep ya'll posted here! This preview scene will likely pop up in Chapter 17.
