A door slammed down the hall, shocking Archer awake. In his scramble, he bashed his head into the bunk above him—the now-empty bunk, thanks to Kerian.

Running a hand through his hair, tried to get his bearings. He was still fully dressed in a crisp's uniform, and the moonlight still streamed through the porthole. There were the telltale noises of the crew celebrating somewhere above him, wild and loud. And the slam? It came from the door at the end of the hall—the corner room. Her room.

She was sleeping there more and more the last few weeks, but never once had she slammed the door. He blinked the tired feeling from his eyes as he lulled over it in his head. Maybe Bardarian had pissed her off. Maybe she was mad over Tanner. Or maybe she had been trying to get Archer's attention.

He threw himself back on the bed with drama. She didn't slam doors out of anger; there was method to everything she did. He slid his legs off the bed and stood, walking over, placing a hand on the door handle.

Something about you, Kingsley. I don't know what it is, love.

He could feel the evening air, the smell of the salt in her hair, the echo of her words. It had to be magic, something more than just her. He felt like he was being pulled, every part of him.

He took his hand off the handle. He could beat this. He had last time.

You make me want to risk everything I have.

He put his hand back on the handle and twisted, tossing his previous thoughts to the wind and letting the breeze carry them away. She baited him with those lines. She wanted him to remember them, and what she wanted, she got.

He made his way down the eerie hallway, footsteps quiet. When he made it to the end, he didn't knock. She expected him to come, and he knew that. Instead, he simply twisted the handle and pushed it open. The room was expansive and beautiful, but there was only one thing worth noting.

She sat there on the bed, one leg underneath her and one off to the side. She looked up when he entered, ethereal as ever with those bright eyes in the low lighting.

"Kingsley," she said.

He shut the door behind him, leaning back against the wood, heart thundering in his chest. It was dark in there, too warm, too stuffy. He was too far away from her and he was much too close.

"What did Bardarian want?" he asked, glancing up at the ceiling. In the commotion of adventure, interacting with her was almost easy, almost right. But here, now, while her hawklike gaze analyzed his every word and movement, where they both had unspoken expectations, it wasn't easy nor right.

"More power," she replied. She leaned back on her hands, the tan skin over her collarbones smooth and flawless.

"What more could he want?" he asked. This conversation was a waste of time, a silly pre-show that no one would remember.

"You could put it together," she said. "If you thought about it."

"I can't say I particularly like thinking about you and him."

One side of her lips curled a little, but it came off mischievous and twisted rather than just amusing. "He's a powerful man," she said. "I like power; it's a hard thing for me to obtain."

He grinned, shaking his head. "You love to throw that around. You're a woman, and that's such a disadvantage."

"You don't think it's a disadvantage, Kingsley?" she asked, now just amused.

"Not at all," he replied. "I think it's an advantage."

She laughed like she found the insinuation to be hilarious. He'd heard her laugh before, but it had always been mocking or pointed. This was just pure, unrefined amusement.

She sighed as she sobered and stepped off the bed, rolling back her shoulders. The tendons in her neck flexed and relaxed, just flesh and bone, cells and neurons like any other person.

Archer was momentarily distracted by a sparkle on the nightstand, so he pushed off the door and walked over to it. She leaned against the wall opposite him, moving her angle to keep him in her sight.

He picked up the ring from the nightstand. It was the kind of thing a regular people couldn't afford, the kind of thing that came along with a question. He kept his eyes on it for a moment, then looked back at her.

She shook her head.

"You do your job much better as a woman," Archer said, putting the ring back.

She lifted her brows as though she was considering this. He knew she wasn't. "Tell me more," she said.

This time, it was him with the quick response, feeling shockingly level-headed. "Let's go over the things about you that make you important," he told her, counting off the reasons on his fingers. "Your power over the Captain of this ship. If you were a man, you'd have the power that Britter or Rusher has. But because you're a woman, he pays you more attention."

She smiled. "I do more for him than Rusher and Britter."

Archer didn't take the bait. "Your eyes," he continued, ticking off the second finger. "You act like you want the respect of a man, but then you use your looks to your advantage in every possible way."

She cut her gaze to him, not so nonchalant now. She pushed off the wall and made her way over. "I didn't start out like that, Kingsley," she said. "Men didn't listen to me, so I found a way to make them." She watched him so carefully, eyes calculated.

"Women are underestimated," he pointed out, taking a step back. "The woman is always the underdog, even if they have your skills." Was he playing devil's advocate? Perhaps, but there was a certain truth to it.

She rolled her eyes, which didn't match her character. "I'm not the underdog anymore, Kingsley. That advantage is long gone."

"And since then, how many men have you been able to convince—to bend to your will—all on the basis of your looks?"

"How many women do you think have bent to Darian's will because of the way he looks?" Her voice raised just a fraction, and Archer realized he really had gotten under her skin.

She came closer as she continued, "The Siren Queen, Kingsley? That deal he has? How do you think he got it? You think he bargained for it? Asked nicely?" She snapped, "He fucked her, Kingsley. That's how."

She ran her tongue over a canine, thinking, rebuilding her calm. "How many men do you think Bardarian has pulled into his aura because of his charm, his confidence? Charisma and seduction are not all that different, Kingsley. But you only notice it—you only think it's wrong—when a woman does it to a man. It's much easier to call me a skilled seductress than admit your own lack of control, right?"

She took another step, so he took another back, out of habit. He felt the wall touch his shoulder blades, and he cleared his throat. He didn't like how weak it looked.

"I'm going to ask you something simple, love. Can you answer it honestly? That first day, that first second, what did you think of me?"

Archer held her gaze. "I thought you were beautiful."

"And of Bardarian?"

He pursed his lips. He shouldn't have fallen into that trap so easily. He tilted his chin down to meet her gaze. He wasn't that much taller than her, but she was close enough to bring out the difference.

"What was the first thing you felt when you saw Bardarian?" she prompted.

"Fear," he said.

"And knowing what you do now, who should you have feared more in that instant?"

"You."

She lifted her chin slowly. "You're a good man, Kingsley, so you can imagine what goes through a lesser one's head. You can't help the way your mind has been wired any more than I can control how I look. That's the disadvantage I have."

He may have been able to hold a better argument if she took a step back. "You worked with the cards you were dealt. I respect that," he told her. "But if you were dealt worse cards, you wouldn't be here."

"You're not so different, Kingsley," she replied. "Without your skills, you wouldn't have your surety, your looks—and without either of those, you wouldn't have fit in with the crew, you wouldn't have made it this far, and you wouldn't be the center of my attention in this moment."

She raised her hands to his collar, folding down the material like she was trying to make him presentable. She brushed her fingers over it, sighing when it wouldn't go straight.

"Wholes, Kingsley, perception, it's all incredibly dependent on looks, but looks are less dependent on features and more dependent on what you believe about yourself than anything. If you believe it, they'll believe it. Why not work with what you have? Learn a little medicine from Miller, gather some information from Tailsley." She paused, sliding her fingers over his collar. She briefly brushed his skin, and the tendons in his neck tightened.

She glanced up at him, her fingers stilling. "Look at you, love. You can barely think. You fight so hard in the mind game, but when I pull out this card, you bail immediately."

He lifted his chin, his heartbeat tripping over itself. He took a step away from the wall, and she took a smaller step back. "I'm not interested in playing your pawn," he said, wrestling with his mind to find the right words.

She kept her hands on his collar. "Yes you are," she whispered. "If you didn't want to, you'd take a step back."

Her gaze was too captivating to break. "Not everything should be a damn game, Novari," he told her. "But with you, it always is, isn't it?" For once, her name came out exactly as he intended, just aggressive enough.

"I like my games, Kingsley," she said softly. Her fingers curled behind his neck as she lifted her chin. "And I think I like you."

His head spun as he lifted his arm to her wrist in some pitiful attempt to control her hands. "I don't think you do. I think you're manipulating me."

She shrugged, some ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Her canines became visible again, so her forced himself to look at her eyes, which didn't really help.

He shook his head to clear it. "Tell me what you get from this," he said quietly. "Tell me what you have to gain here." The room was glass, and if he spoke above a certain volume, he was so sure it would shatter at his fingertips.

"Don't take away my fun, Kingsley," she replied, sliding a finger under his Orphano chain and tugging it up over his shirt. "You're in too deep to consider consequences, aren't you?"

It wasn't what he wanted to hear. He wanted her to tell him there was no game here, that it was just what she wanted—but he thought she might be right to say it wouldn't make a difference. He'd let it go too far; his willpower hardly seemed to exist at this point.

"Tell me to walk away, Novari," he breathed. "Tell me it's futile. I'm begging you."

She curled her fingers even more. "I hate begging," she whispered. "Unless it's for me."

So it was out of his hands, then. He leaned forward and kissed her before he lost the nerve, before some other thing got in the way, like his own self-preservation.

She stilled immediately, reactionless with nothing to give back. After a beat, she stumbled back, taking him with her. She drew back, chin up to look him in the eye.

He shook his head in disbelief, raising his hands away from her. Had she not seen it coming? There was no way.

His voice came out accompanied by some twisted edge of humour, "What the hell was that?"

She searched his gaze for another moment, opened her mouth, then closed it, mind turning furiously. Finally, "I wasn't ready. Do it again."

It couldn't be the truth. She predicted everything, and she'd been baiting this particular incident in the first place. There was quite obviously something else going on, but he just didn't care. Not like he should've.

"You want me to—"

"Do it again," she repeated, lifting her chin.

He reached for her again, and there, when she met his lips that time, was the kind of perfection he imagined from her. She tilted back her head, slid her hands over his shoulders. All the sharp edges to her, all the violence and the malice—it all dissolved the moment she wanted it to. There was a hint of it hidden in the edges of her nails and the sharpness of her teeth, but it felt so manageable now. It was borderline poetic to think about the damage she could cause and how gentle she was with him now. The radical difference from the beach to this, the taste of blood in his mouth to the taste of her.

She leaned back, pulling him closer. Her thumb ran over his jawline, calloused as much as it was smooth. "Oh, love, I don't get you," she breathed, her voice barely a mumble. He briefly wondered if that was the reason any of this was happening—because she couldn't quite figure him out.

He stepped forward, wanting more of her, wanting to be closer to her. Closer and closer, until she hit the wall behind her. He lifted a hand to the back of her head, as if to stop it from happening again, as if her head hitting the wall was some crime he shouldn't have allowed to happen. This wasn't love, but it wasn't just lust, either.

He could feel the muscles in her shoulders, down the curve of her back. Every single part of her was so skilled, so refined, some part of a bigger story.

He ran his fingers down her throat, down those bruises he'd caused. "Sorry for these," he muttered, pressing his lips to each one.

"Forgiven." It wasn't so smooth, wasn't so perfectly enunciated. It was slurred, almost, like she was breathless. Maybe this wasn't her trying to control him after all. Maybe it wasn't her trying to obtain something, maybe it was just what she wanted.

She pushed the crisp jacket off his shoulders, hands nimble and sure. He heard the jacket hit the ground, and then she found the hem of his shirt, fingers brushing his skin. His heart fluttered away into the clouds with the birds and the sky.

She left her fingers there for a moment, gauging his reaction without breaking away. He didn't stop her. She could do whatever she wanted and he wouldn't stop her.

The moment she took it off, though—the moment the air shocked him back to reality—he drew away, like whatever Siren spell she had on him weakened for a second.

He took a step back, shaking his head as he turned around. He couldn't look at her, or he'd never stop this death sentence of a night. "You're so hard to say no to," he breathed, still shaking his head.

He felt her hands on his shoulders, her arms over his neck. Then her voice was in his ear, "I get that a lot."

"He'll kill me if I do this," Archer said, lifting a hand to her arm. He felt her jaw resting in the curve of his neck, knowing it was quite obvious who he was.

"It's already done," she whispered. "And he'd kill you for a lot of things." She pressed her lips to his jaw and murmured, "What's one more?"

He shook his head, trying to clear it. "This isn't real. This is some Siren trick."

There was a moment of silence. She didn't laugh or mock him—as if it was a reasonable thing to question. Then finally, she spoke, "I'm not a Siren, Kingsley. This is just me."

He really did believe her—not because he was under her spell or because he wanted it to be the truth, but because he could feel it there deep in his soul, in her fingertips. Silta was a manipulator through and through, but she was not magic.

"I'm a good person," he said, lifting his chin to the sky like he was convincing himself of something he wasn't so sure he believed anymore. "I was good to people. I don't understand how you turned me into this."

"Love," she told him softly, "you really don't know half of what I can do."

He closed his eyes for one more second, not to think, just to breathe. Then he turned around to find her again, and she made no complaints. Her fingers were back on the bare skin of his shoulders, down his arms, skimming low on his waist.

She was escalating. She'd said those words, and now she was taking it further. It was her fault. All her fault. It was easier to call her the seductress than admit his own lack of control. He drew one of her legs up around him, laying her down over those smooth white sheets. He didn't do this kind of thing so fast, but this was Silta, with her stunning eyes and her beautiful touch. How could he not? It was her fault, anyway.

And he knew it was a bad idea; he knew it changed everything. He knew there were countless reasons he shouldn't do this, but with her lips pressed to that soft spot under his neck, he couldn't remember any of them. This was what she wanted.

And she got what she wanted.