The shimmer of shadow binding her body quivered—then shattered like smoke. Nerissa dropped soundlessly to the floor, landing with the slow grace of a predator freed from its cage. Her lips gleamed wet, her eyes burning with triumph as she stepped toward Peter.
He did not move when she climbed onto his lap, straddling him as though she had always belonged there. The scent of salt and blood clung to her, intoxicating, her thighs pressing against his hips until the boy's sharp grin faltered, breath hitching at her nearness.
Her fingers trailed the edge of his jaw, nails grazing his skin with deliberate teasing.
"If you wish to master the Scylla," she whispered against his mouth, her voice a dark purr, "then bind yourself to me. Let shadow and siren weave together. Let us devour this mortal here…" Her gaze slid toward Hook, fever-bright, wicked. "…and drink the sea of his strength."
Hook stiffened, sword half-drawn, but her hand was already reaching for him—smooth, unhurried. The touch skimmed his knuckles first, then slid up the line of his arm, silencing his breath. Her body leaned close, lips brushing his cheek, then his mouth. The kiss was soft at first, then deep, velvet-slick, stealing his will with every heartbeat.
The captain's grip slackened; the blade fell useless at his side. Nerissa's touch had swallowed him whole. His pulse thundered in his throat, but his eyes—those sharp, unyielding eyes—now stared blank, caught in her tide.
Peter's laughter stuttered, caught somewhere between amazement and hunger. His shadows rippled around them, restless, eager. Nerissa turned back to him, lips still wet from Hook's kiss, and smiled—a smile that promised ruin and ecstasy both.
"Choose, shadow-boy," she purred, shifting her hips against his lap, her breasts pressing to his chest as her fingers curled possessively in Hook's collar. "Be my ally… be my lover… and together, we will feast. Between your night and my tide, not even the gods will stand."
For the first time, Peter did not grin. He leaned in.
Nerissa's mouth still glistened with Hook's kiss when she turned back to Peter. Her smile was lazy, knowing, the smile of a queen who had already conquered. Her hips shifted over his lap, shadows tightening around her thighs as though even his magic obeyed her now.
Peter's grin faltered for the second time—then vanished entirely as she caught his chin and dragged him into her. The kiss was sharp at first, teeth grazing lips, then deepened, wet and urgent, his shadows shuddering like a living thing around them. Nerissa drank him in, her tongue coaxing, claiming, while Hook's breath still lingered hot at her throat.
When she pulled back, she did not break the circle. She turned her head, lips parting again to capture Hook, still pliant beneath her spell. The captain groaned into her mouth, low and broken, his hands trembling as they came up—not to strike—but to hold her waist.
Nerissa's laughter purred between their mouths as she drew them closer, one hand curled in Peter's hair, the other gripping Hook's collar until all three of them hovered in a knot of breath and heat. She pressed them against her, body arching, making herself the seam where darkness and mortal steel met.
"Good," she whispered, her lips brushing from one to the other, feeding them both in turn. "Now you see… now you feel. Your shadows, Peter… your hunger, Hook… they are mine. And together we are endless."
The lantern hissed low, shadows stretching long and liquid across the walls. The chest at her throat rattled violently, gorging on her blood and ecstasy, spilling rubies like wine across the floorboards.
And in the cabin's fevered darkness, Nerissa held both men against her body—the boy of night and the captain of blood—her throne made of their surrender, her crown the taste of their mouths.
Nerissa's body writhed between them, the tide and the night colliding through her flesh. Peter's shadows pressed deeper, thicker, thrusting into her with a hunger that stole her breath in ragged cries. Each movement of darkness made her arch harder against Hook, her thighs clamping around Peter's hips as if the boy himself were buried inside her.
Hook groaned into her mouth, his hands dragging her down onto him, grinding her against his hardness until her moans shook the lantern flame. She rode both at once—the phantom rhythm of Peter's shadows, the brutal grip of Hook's mortal strength—her body the seam where shadow and steel fused.
"More," she gasped, laughter shivering in the edges of her voice. "Feed me more—my night, my steel—tear me open and crown me."
Peter obeyed, shadows slamming harder, twisting inside her with the frenzy of a hundred phantom hands. Hook's hips surged up, claiming her in raw rhythm, his groan breaking into surrender against her throat. Their breath and hunger tangled into one storm, filling the cabin with the sounds of moans and gasps, the creak of wood, the clink of rubies spilling like wine across the floorboards.
Her climax tore through her like lightning, every nerve burning, every cry echoing with ecstasy. She kissed them both in turn—Peter's mouth sharp with shadow, Hook's raw with salt and sweat—while her body broke and remade itself on their hunger. Shadows burst outward, the lantern flared and died, and Nerissa laughed, triumphant, crowned by their surrender.
She trembled between them, moaning and giggling, drunk on her imagined throne—never seeing the truth. For though she believed herself their queen, though she felt shadow and steel worship at her body's altar…
…she was still caught in Peter's illusion.
And nothing she touched was real
Nerissa was still caught into Peter's illusions, floating in Peter's web, body slack, blood siphoned drip by drip into the chest that glowed beneath her.
Yet her mind—oh, her mind was not fully bound.
Every illusion he forced upon her bled both ways. She felt his hunger, his cruelty, the gleam of strategies buried like knives beneath his tongue. Even weakened, she glimpsed flashes: a shell coiled in darkness, a Scylla waiting to be bound, a queen with lips redder than her own.
She wanted to laugh, but no sound left her throat. Her blood was too busy pouring into rubies.
Peter's voice cut the chamber, sharp and final:
"Captain. Summon your men."
Hook's jaw ticked, but he nodded. A snap of fingers, a bark of orders, and soon the Jolly Roger's crew crowded the boy's cabin. Their eyes darted between the chest, the drained siren, and their captain's unreadable face.
Peter rose from his chair, shadows curling around his shoulders like a cloak. He regarded the crew with a slow smile—one that carried no warmth.
"Tonight, I summon her kin. They will take her beneath the waters. She will recover there… slowly."
The men muttered, uneasy. One dared whisper: "And if they turn on us?"
Peter's eyes flared. The shadows along the walls twisted like serpents, coiling close to the nearest sailor's boots. His grin sharpened.
"Then I'll pull their souls from their bodies," he said softly, "and hang them on my mast like lanterns. Do not mistake me. Her kin will obey."
A hush fell. Even Hook's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.
Peter looked at the chest, then back at the sea-dark window. "When they come, none of you will step outside this cabin. Not a breath. Not a glance. Do so, and you belong to them."
The crew lowered their heads.
Only Hook held Peter's gaze.
The sea stirred as Peter raised his hand. From the dark water, Nerissa's kin surfaced one by one, their faces tight with worry as they caught sight of her limp form in his grasp.
"Nerissa!" one cried, her voice sharp with panic.
"She's so pale," another whispered, eyes narrowing at Peter. "What have you done to her, Demon Lord?" A hiss followed, low and furious, like a knife dragged across glass.
Others hovered closer, not with anger but with fear, their voices trembling. "What happened to her?"
Peter's gaze slid across them, unreadable, almost bored. When he spoke, his tone was quiet—yet heavy enough to still the waves.
"I took only what wasn't hers," he said. "The blood she devoured—the lives of mortals stolen by her song. That was never hers to keep. I've merely taken it back."
A hush fell. Even the most furious among them stilled, caught between anger and unease.
Peter lowered Nerissa toward them, her hair spilling like seaweed across his arm. He handed her over with an almost careless grace.
"Take her beneath the waters," he said. "See that she is cared for. She has, however unwillingly, aided me." His gaze sharpened, a flicker of command burning behind it. "But do not follow. You know the bounds. Morina Bay lies ahead, and it is forbidden to your kind. Cross it, and you will answer me."
The sirens wavered, their eyes darting from Peter to their unconscious sister. At last, they drew Nerissa into their arms and sank back into the dark water without another word. The sea swallowed them whole, leaving behind only silence—and the faint taste of iron in the air.
That night was calm—too calm. A hush lay over the waves, broken only by the steady creak of the Jolly Roger's timbers.
Morina Bay loomed ahead. As the ship slid into the mist, the world narrowed to the length of her own deck. The haze clung to the sails, dripped from the ropes, and muffled every sound until the men began to glance about, uncertain if their ship still floated on sea or had drifted into some graveyard of clouds.
A strange cold breath moved across the deck. It smelled not of salt but of iron—coppery, sharp, like fresh-spilled blood.
The crew stiffened. Some drew knives; others clutched at charms dangling from their necks. Hook said nothing, though his hook tapped against the rail in a slow, tense rhythm.
Then the mist stirred—alive. Figures began to peel from it, pale as bone, eyes glinting like shards of red glass. They moved with the silence of drowning men, stepping onto the water as though it were solid ground before climbing aboard.
The vampires had come to Morina Bay.
And still, at the prow, the boy did not flinch. He only watched, calm as a prince among monsters, as though he had expected them all along.