Chapter 1
Milah had always loved the rain. From her earliest memories as a cobbler's daughter, rain meant a pleasant drumming on their caravan's roof, cool fresh air blowing away the dust of the road. Even in her former husband's hovel, it was snug and warm during rainstorms. Baelfire always sought her comfort as the thunder rumbled. She shied away from the memory of her son, his untidy fringe of hair just like hers, and the earnest sweetness in his brown eyes—just like his father's.
"Penny for your thoughts, love?" Killian's faintly accented voice interrupted her reverie. The Jolly Roger rocked gently beneath them, the storm's voice dulled to a murmur for the nonce. She mustered a smile.
"Not worth that much," she replied, accepting his welcome kiss on her lips. He moved to the sideboard and poured a tot of rum for the two of them, expertly balanced against the ship's pitch.
"Here. Rum is never amiss on a night like tonight," he said, lounging back in the seat beside her, feet crossed on the edge of the table.
"Aye, thank you," she said, resting her chin in her cupped palm. In the soft lantern light swaying from the ceiling, his blue eyes glowed from beneath their fringe of kohl-darkened lashes. Dark stubble roughened his cheeks and framed the curl of his habitual smirk. By any measure, he was a trim, powerful man, exuding danger and passion.
He embodied the adventure she longed for and the passion she craved; they were cut from the same cloth. Introspection did not become either of them. Perhaps it was the rain that conjured these memories . . .
"So. Will you tell me what ails you? Charlie tells me you only trounced him once in practice today."
That drew a half-hearted laugh from her. Charles 'Twin Swords' Turley was a magician with a cutlass, and had taken it upon himself to tutor Milah. She had taken to it like she was born with a sword in her hand. At first, the crew had treated her with a wary deference upon Killian and his first mate Black Jack's order. She was not the first mistress of the Jolly Roger, but definitely the last, she thought with savage satisfaction.
"It's nothing, love. Just dreading shore leave. The sea and The Jolly Roger are home. You taught me that." He smiled briefly at this.
"Aye, you're a trueborn pirate. Your crew is your family . . . and the crew loves you, Milah." Her throat closed. As they sailed together, the crew had taught her the skills of a sailor with alacrity and she had earned their respect and love for herself, not just as their captain's lover.
She took a long drink to loosen the knot in her throat. At her uncharacteristic silence, Killian exhaled through his nostrils and paced to the large bay windows at the Roger's stern. He squinted through the thick glass at the churning surf, gleaming black at each crack of lightning.
"We'll make port at Djinn's Bay tomorrow."
There was a certain sharpness in his tone that made her wince. The Jolly Roger lay anchored outside the harbor, waiting for the dawn guard to lift the chain drawn across the bay's mouth. She was due to dock with her swag at Djinn's Bay, and Killian and his men were to sell or trade it in the city of Brandyton. The same city where seven years ago they had run away together. Milah rose and rested her chin on his shoulder, winding her arms around his waist. Nudging aside his high collar, she breathed a kiss onto the side of his neck.
"Ah yes, I remember Black Jack saying something about returning to that tavern on Silk Street, what was it called?"
"The Lemon Tree," he said, still stiff and radiating deadly tension.
"Killian . . ." He shrugged out of her embrace and turned to face her. A muscle fluttered in his jaw, the first two fingers of his left hand drumming on the pommel of his cutlass.
"Do you regret leaving with me?"
"That's not fa-" He grasped her shoulders, hard. A flash of lightning illuminated his thunderous scowling face, burning the afterimage onto her eyes. Mingled fear and arousal settled in her belly, curling sweetly around her innards. She loved when he played the ravaging pirate.
"You were miserable with that mewling weakling of a husband, dying by inches. The boy was the same-"
"Shut up! Don't you dare say anything about my son! You should know better, after what your father did to you and Liam!" she shouted. She used ire to conceal the guilty pang of Killian's jab. She had left Baelfire behind. He had too much of his father in him to enjoy the sea.
Her own words struck home, Killian snarled and shoved her back against the wall, just hard enough to hurt. He leaned close enough for her to smell the rum on his breath, hard hands gripping her hips.
"Admit it. You wanted more than just a reprieve from a pauper's life! You wanted—"
"Yes, you fool man! I wanted you!" Milah lunged forward for a kiss, a savage thing of lips and tongue. Heat surged through her, eager fingers finding the buttons of his vest and breeks.
"Gods yes," he rasped. They pawed and bit at each other in mutual, glorious madness. It had been like this from the first. Passion so bright it was blinding, so hot it burned. He uttered a wordless sound, clawing at her clothing. With careless strength, he shoved her down on their berth bed, palming himself as she kicked out of her boots and breeks.
"You're mine, Milah," Killian said. He slid home and Milah stifled her cry of pleasure by biting his wrist braced beside her head. His pace was relentless, deep and hard. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips, glorying in his possession of her.
"Yours. Oh gods, I'm yours." As the storm raged, they found peace together in the dark.
XXX
The patrons were trying too hard not to notice him. He supposed having the Dark One lurking in the corner was bad for business. The serving maid hovered, hands trembling on a flagon of ale.
"W—Would you take a drop to drink, Sir?" she said. Rumplestiltskin peeled his lips back in a feral smile.
"Leave me be before I flay the skin from your bones," he muttered. A flicker of heavy movement to his left distracted him from the quivering maid. The lowly sailor who sought to deal with him, even sending a little bird to find him. The maid scurried away with no further encouragement.
It was only after Mr. Smee hastily took his leave, the warning of turning him to dust hanging over his head that Rumplestiltskin allowed himself to savor the discovery. If that idiot knew how frantically and thoroughly the Dark One had searched for the bean, he would ask for a thousand lifetimes of youth. Bae! He could find him at last, right the one deal he'd broken! Gods, it had already been seven years. Bae would be a man now.
A stray thought reminded him to investigate how Mr. Smee had learned his origins. The Dark One could not have weaknesses such as lost sons. Much of his power came from fear, from the illusion of omnipresence. Beneath his breath he uttered a simple spell to fix it. If any poor soul said his name, he would know.
"Are you sure you don't want anything?" the serving maid asked, noticeably pale.
An arrogant, horribly familiar voice caught his attention. Rage sang through him, magic churning in near-visible thunderclouds around him. The pirate who took Milah. Killian Jones. The mood broke with an almost audible noise. He would make the pirate pay, in blood and humiliation. But for now, Rumplestiltskin would watch.
"You know I suddenly find myself quite thirsty."
Oh, how he reveled in his newfound power! To see the crew quiver, to see that cocksure grin fall from Jones' face upon hearing his name was a pleasure in itself. Crocodile indeed!
"How's Milah, of course," Rumplestiltskin said.
"Who?" Killian said. Did women really fall for that vacant expression, those even white teeth? Rumplestiltskin ran his tongue over his own stained teeth, measuring the pirate's words. A giggle rose in his throat, half-mad.
"I'm only too happy to dig out the memory. But, it gets really messy," he said.
"She's dead," the pirate said, his handsome face carefully neutral, "died a long time ago."
Rumplestiltskin faltered at this. Dead? For all their quarrels and cruel words, he had loved her once. She had given him Bae, and now she was dead because of this pirate. His insides churned with conflicting emotion as he set the terms of the duel. It was a measured cruelty to give Killian one last night alive—Rumplestiltskin wanted him to stew in fear. Part of him wanted the pirate to run, so he could give chase and vent some of this well of feeling.
The next morning, a savage joy filled him as he traded blows with the pirate. Then, when he was on his knees, he looked so like the weakling Rumplestiltskin used to be. He set the cutlass to the pirate's chest.
"You know what it feels like, to have your wife stolen from you? It feels like having your heart ripped from your chest." The pulse leapt erratically at Jones' throat.
"You know what? I'll just show you." Rumplestiltskin thrust his taloned hand into the pirate's chest with a ripple of dark magic. He felt the firm shape, the pulsing heat of life. Magic always told true, the pirate's heart would black with all the evil he'd done. A sharp yank and then he'd crush the heart to dust before his eyes.
"Stop!"
And there she was, resplendent in leather and scarlet.
"Milah."
The terms were set. They sailed to the cove specified, and all that was left to do was wait. The scalawag crewman Smee—a runt she and Killian had picked up in the dregs of a coast port—sat tied and gagged in the brig. He had brought this ill luck on them. Milah studied the magic bean, translucent and faintly shimmering in the predawn light. A pretty bauble, but why did the Dark One want it? Milah gripped the rail as The Jolly Roger rocked gently beneath her.
Rumplestiltskin, her coward of a husband, he was now the Dark One. None knew such a thing was possible. Where had he found the stomach and the wherewithal to wrest power from an immortal being of darkness? The mind boggled. The trade was the bean for their lives, a small price to pay. But Rumple's words echoed in her ears. Tick tock, dearie, tick tock!
"We've bested him before, we'll do it again," Killian said, pecking a kiss on her cheek. Some of the tension ebbed from her, and she rested her forehead on his shoulder briefly. A brisk wave surged beneath them and she saw Killian wince as he righted himself, kneading his chest.
"He's different now," she said, unable to keep the tremor from her voice. She had never seen Rumple vengeful; he had always been meek and quiet. She had been the dominant one, the powerful one. But he had power now, would he seek to take his power back and steal her away from the family she loved? To see her former husband scaled and dark with his hand inside Killian's chest was a shock, to say the least.
Killian had told her what lies he had spun for Rumple all those years ago, and she felt a faint pang at the thought. Action and the thirst for adventure were not the only traits she and Killian had in common—petty malice was another.
"Aye. A demon, surely. But he wants the bauble. We give him that and fight our way free," he said, gripping the hilt of his cutlass. A sharp grin curved his lips. Killian disliked being bested in anything, and he would go to considerable lengths to salve his pride.
"Perhaps," she said, squinting at the sky. The sun was now blocked by a thick layer of cloud.
"A squall, do you think Jack?" she shouted to the first mate, keeping watch in the crosstrees.
"Nay, Mistress. It's an ill wind." He made a brief reflexive sign against evil. There was something in the scent of the wind beyond salt and cold, the tang of ozone—magic. Milah shared a glance with Killian and saw her dread reflected.
"The anchor, Mr. Mullins," Killian said, calm as could be at the helm.
"Aye, Captain!"
An hour passed after the first bell, then another. Milah, Killian and the crew waited, in terror and boredom by turns as the sky blackened and the wind lashed.
"Well the Dark One surely isn't punctual," Killian said dryly.
"Rumplestiltskin said would come. He does have some reputation for deal-making, after all," Milah said.
"You rang?"
Her skin prickled at the high-pitched voice, the grating giggle. He appeared wreathed in red smoke, dressed in scaled leather. He looked. . . dangerous. Killian stepped forward, half between her and Rumple. The crew as well, shifted closer, their hands on their weapons.
"Dark One," Killian said, his lip curled in a snarl.
"Well it seems you finally found the family you could never have with me," he said, ignoring him. Thin lips peeled back in a ghastly grin. Gods, he was repulsive. Mossy teeth, glittering scales, he truly was a crocodile! Milah brandished the bean.
"You asked to see it and now you have. Do we have a deal?" Killian said.
"Can we go our separate ways?" Milah said, unable to keep the nastiness from her tone. Her heart was lodged in her throat. Rumple grinned, dancing a few steps around the deck. Milah curled her fingers around the bean, tension singing through her. All their lives hinged on this trumped-up weakling's whim!
"You mean: do I forgive you? Can I move on? Perhaps. Perhaps." This persona was startling and unfamiliar. When had he pranced, giggling and trilling? Rumplestiltskin turned, facing them.
"I can see you are truly in love." He drawled the word mockingly, wagging his eyebrows. In favor of caution—and the abiding desire to get his filthy form off the deck of The Roger—she allowed the barb to slide.
"Thank you," she said softly. Maybe—just maybe—they would get out of this alive.
"Just one question." Milah glanced at Killian, seeing his skepticism beneath the air of arrogant swagger.
"What do you want to know?" she asked, dread curling in her belly.
"How could you leave Bae?" he said. Milah blinked, taken aback.
"Do you know what it was like walking home that night-"
The waves churned beneath them, the wind a dull roar in their ears, rope and rigging snapping like string. Killian and the crew blanched white, clinging to The Jolly Roger. Gods, it was coming from Rumple! He'd kill them all!
"-Rumple-"
"-knowing I had to tell our son-"
"Please," she said, pierced by the image of Baelfire's face.
"-his mother was dead?"
"I was wrong to lie to you. I was the coward. I knew that," she begged. Anything, any words he wanted to make it stop!
"You left him! You abandoned him!"
"And there is not a day that goes by that I don't feel sorry for that!" Her words were so feeble, even to her own ears. Bae, oh Bae.
"Sorry isn't enough!" he shouted. Rumplestiltskin stood, quivering, lungs heaving. Just as suddenly as it began the storm disappeared like magic. The sun was warm on her shoulders.
"I let my misery cloud my judgement," she said at last. He sneered.
"Why were you so miserable?" he said. Milah found her feet, twisting her expression into one of familiar disgust.
"Because I never loved you."
There was a half a heartbeat where she saw pain ripple across his features, and part of her exulted in it. A change settled over him, that unfamiliar danger. Killian saw it too, and shoved her out of the way as the Dark One struck.
XXX
He'd acted without thinking, ruled by a dark instinct to hurt as he had been hurt. Rumplestiltskin stood poised on a knife's edge, a tipping point. I never loved you. I never loved you. I wished you'd fought. Run home, Rumple. Run home . . . The pirate had leapt between them and a part of him was relieved. Killian Jones was no loss to the world. Many a king's navy would thank him. In fact, this was better. If Baelfire's father had to live without him, then so did his mother.
"No!" Milah cried, reaching for her sword.
A negligent wave of his hand knocked Milah against the foremast, ropes anchored to a steel hook snaking around her. He flexed his fingers in the pirate's chest, gripping the heart. A sharp yank and it was free of its owner. It pulsed, a red thing of living beauty, glowing with magic. Strange. Rumplestiltskin would have thought it would be black to the core. The pirate's wild blue eyes sought Milah's face.
"I love you," he rasped. How nice. Rumplestiltskin curled his fingers inward. With a sharp cry, Killian fell dead and his heart was dust trickling between Rumple's fingers. He loosed the magic binding Milah.
"No." The word was a broken moan as she drew the pirate's body onto her lap. She petted his face, tears pelting the corpse like rain. The force of her baleful gaze was familiar as she looked up.
"You may be more powerful now Rumple, but you are the same coward you have always been." Before, he might have flinched at the barb, begged for an apology. But no longer.
"I'll have what I came for now," he said, his voice dripping venom. She rose over the pirate's body, quivering with rage and grief. The bean, he realized, was still in her left hand.
"You'll have to kill me first!" Milah said. He grinned, wagging his finger in her face.
"Ah-ah. I'm afraid that's not in the cards for you, dearie."
The sword flashed, and he watched her crumple to the deck beside her lover's corpse with a sharp cry of pain. He plucked the severed hand from the deck and tucked it in his robes. Rumplestiltskin crouched close enough to smell the spice and smoke in her hair, and set the edge of his blade at her throat, red with her own blood.
"I want you alive because I want you to suffer, like I did," he turned, sheathing the sword.
Let her fester in her agony. It would be fit recompense for what she had done to him and Bae. Thudding footsteps caught his attention, he shifted in time to catch the hook Milah had found in the chest. There was a brief wince of pain, but that was swallowed by a mad, wicked glee. He giggled. A pirate wench couldn't kill him. No one could. And she would spend the rest of her days pining for revenge she would never find. It was a sweet thought.
"Killing me is going to take a lot more than that, dearie," he said, mockingly tapping the hook lodged in his chest. Pale with pain, livid with fury and grief, Milah swayed on her feet.
"Even demons can be killed. I will find a way."
"Good luck living long enough," Rumple said, disappearing in a cloud of red smoke, leaving the hook behind.
XXX
The leaden sky mirrored her bleak mood. The wind was calm, a fine cold drizzle settling over The Jolly Roger. Milah huddled into the warmth of Killian's black coat and watched from far away as Black Jack sewed her love's body into one of their bedsheets. Cannon shot linked to chains were wrapped gently around his ankles to guide him into the sea. Milah closed her swollen eyes. There were no tears left. Just a hot lump in her throat and twin echoes of pain in her chest and her hand, or where her hand had been. A grim smile touched her lips. She'd learned more from Killian than piracy, she'd learned pickpocketing too. The bean was safe and snug in her pocket. Milah knew they had to find their heading quickly. She'd seen the Dark One's wrath, and he would not enjoy being outsmarted by her again.
"Mr. Foggerty, bring me the prisoner, please," she said to the ship's gunner.
"Aye, Mistress," he said, tugging his forelock.
Ed Jukes, The Roger's cook, also had some skill with healing and had bandaged her severed hand. The . . . stump ached horribly beneath the leather cuff, set with a steel plate. Milah twisted the hook into place, admiring the glint of steel and the faint ping as the rain struck it. Instead of a hand, a weapon. Something had shifted within her, as if all that was warm and loving had died with Killian, and the darkness had expanded to take its place.
William Smee landed with a thud at her feet, smudged hands peeling the gag from his mouth. Clad in only his breeks and his red hat, he shivered violently—from the chill and from the glares of Milah and the crew.
"What . . . what are you going to do to me? It wasn't my fault! I had no idea Mr. Jones-"
"Captain Jones," Milah corrected, leaning over him, "and he's dead because you brought Rump—the Dark One upon us. He's dead. Because of you."
"I'm . . . I'm sorry! I had no-" Milah silenced him with a backhanded blow. His whining hurt her ears. Milah knelt beside him and set the tip of the hook at the tender flesh just beneath his right eye.
"Now you are going to tell me everything to know about the bean and that crocodile," she said with a suggestive dig of the hook. As much of a coward as her former husband, Smee vomited on the deck at her feet. The sour smell and this puling weakling offended her. At her signal, Black Jack and Charlie Turley held down their prisoner.
Alternately coaxing and hurting, Milah extracted Smee's story. It was rumored that the Dark One had sought to protect his son, and had lost him. The bean transported the carrier between realms. Milah dragged in a ragged breath. Bae. Gone. Despair yawned beneath her, like the black depths they were about to consign her Killian to. Killian dead, Bae gone. All that was left—her only guiding star in the dark—was revenge. But Rumple had been right. Even if she lived, if she fought, she was mortal.
"Tell me, Mr. Mason. What do you know of different realms?" she asked. Jack, his boot casually braced on Smee's head, scratched his stubbled chin.
"Not much, Mistress. But the cap'n heard tell of a fanciful land where boys went in their dreams, where they could fly and never grow up." Milah nodded. She'd heard of it too, a child's tale.
"Neverland. Then I suppose we have our heading, then."
"Aye, Captain," Black Jack said. Milah blinked in surprise. She had assumed the first mate would take Killian's place at The Roger's helm.
"Captain?" she asked, glancing around at the crew. They doffed their caps with murmurs of agreement.
"What shall we do with him, Captain?" asked Bill Stark-Eye, the ship's second mate and navigator, kicking the shivering form of William Smee. Milah smirked.
"His boots look a bit light. What's say we add a bit of lead, eh mates?" she said to a rough shout of enthusiasm. The crew did love a bit of bloodsport. Black Jack grinned, fetching shot and chain. Smee whimpered and wept, struggling vainly as they fitted him with his new bootstraps. Coward. Weakling. Pathetic. In his soft features, Milah saw Rumplestiltskin and remembered what he'd done to her.
"I told you everything I know! Why are you doing this?" he cried.
"That was not part of the bargain. I never said you would get to live," she said, "Farewell Mr. Smee."
It took three of her crew to heave him onto the plank, but it was ease itself to watch him fall. A faint splash, a surge of bubbles as water filled his lungs, and Smee was no more. Something like relief washed over her. It was harder to watch Killian's body sink, though plans of revenge were a small comfort.
"Shall we plot our heading, Captain Jones?" Black Jack asked.
"Aye, harden up and get ready to set sail, mates! There's rough seas ahead," she said, striding to the helm.
The bean was warm in her hand, and she fixed the thought of Neverland in her mind, and threw the bean into the sea. Milah squinted at a flash of blue magic. A whirlpool appeared, as if the bottom of the world had collapsed. A crank of the ship's wheel, an adjustment of sail, and they were sailing for the pool.
"No, not Jones," she said, almost to herself. She and Killian had been lovers and partners, but not wed. And a large part of Milah had died with him.
"Hook. Captain Hook."