The transport shuttle rattled and shook against the turbulence of tiny asteroids pelting its sides. Lilith sat in the pilot's seat, unbound and bent over the steering wheel in laser focus on the task ahead: maneuvering carefully through that small asteroid field and making it out the other side in one piece.

A particularly large, though not fatal space rock collided with the nose of the ship, and it rattled through the hull, up the controls, through Lilith's stiff hands and arms, and into her tightened chest.

But she stayed focused.

The ship wove and dove, Lilith guiding it as if with the finesse of a ballet dancer sliding through leaps and pirouettes in the midst of a gunfire assault.

Then they surfaced on the other side, with open black space spreading before them on an endless horizon. Lilith sighed in relief and slumped over the steering wheel. She wiped the back of her hand over her brow, sliding over the sweat that she didn't even know was there in the midst of her deep concentration.

Then Lilith shifted around in the pilot's seat and looked back to see Kim Namjoon lazily reclining in the back area, in one of the sterile white chairs. One of the three ancient texts was spread out across his lap and his dark almond eyes gazed down at it in steep concentration.

Lilith's own chocolate brown eyes narrowed. "I just saved us from death-by-asteroid belt. You're welcome."

Joon waved a hand dismissively in Lilith's direction, not looking up from his reading. "Yes yes. Well done."

Lilith looked like she wanted to slap him. Her fingers clawed into the arm of the pilot's seat where she sat. This absolute arrogant ass.

Through gritted teeth, she asked, "Read anything worth knowing yet?"

"Yes. I have."

He finally looked up at her, and Lilith was hit afresh with just how different Kim Namjoon looked now.

That white-grey hair was gone. Now, his black shaggy cut was side-parted and fell in jagged lines framing his face, with one side a touch longer than the other. And his almond eyes were both darker and lighter than she had remembered them: a rich chocolate brown, but with a faint amber glow that spread from the black pit of each. Even his lips looked a touch more cherry red than they used to.

Stranger than his sudden change in appearance was that whatever self-deprecating facade Joon had been wearing since the arena battles, and the revelation of his treachery against Lilith's people...it had utterly vanished. There was no humility or remorse in his manners or his gaze now. He was the Kim Namjoon of Lilith's scared memories: driven and thirsty.

Try as she might in the past 48 hours, Lilith hadn't been able to weasel much of an explanation from Joon about this strange change and all that it meant. Or where Jin and the others were and why the hell they had really been left behind.

Earlier that day, Joon had flown them into dangerous territory just before unbinding Lilith, and handing the piloting-for-their-lives over to her,

They were out of harm's way for now. Lilith shifted forward in her seat and stared at the blinking red light hovering over the open glass in front of her, green light lifting up around it in small lines to show the depth and expanse of the space nearest to their ship, and the forms that space contained.

"We're not flying back to Camp Cheonghae are we?" She thumbed across the surface of the glass and the map shifted to show a sideways view of the small solar system they had entered. It contained three major planets and many more moons and asteroids being pulled in orbit around a weak star.

"Correct. But don't you worry you're pretty little head, we're still working for the noble rebel cause."

"Say 'pretty little head' one more time to me and I'll gut you and string you and your entrails up from the nose of this shuttle like a banner. Petrified in place by space chill. Slowly getting cracked and shattered by passing space rock..."

"You've really thought this out, haven't you? I should be careful." Joon chuckled darkly, still looking at Lilith with his brown-amber eyes while his fingers carefully peeled back the next page of that ancient text held in his lap.

"Yes. You should. So it's finally time to open your trap, Joon, and tell me what the hell you are up to before I come over there and make you."

His smile widened, revealing his gleaming white teeth. "I'd much rather you come over here and make me."

Lilith jumped to her feet, hands turned to fists. She was across the shuttle in a blink, and in a matter of moments, one of her hands were clasped around Kim Namjoon's neck while the other was bracing a small dagger at the perfect angle to drive up in his abdomen and pierce his left lung wide open if she so chose.

She snapped, "I'm not playing games with you."

"But games are such fun."

Her grip on his neck tightened, her thumb pressing deeper just above his Adam's apple. Joon made a choking noise... but his face didn't betray any fear.

"What the hell is going on?!"

He swallowed, and his neck muscles contracted delicately in her hand. It made something in her gut swell, dark and satisfied. She felt powerful, leaning over him, his treacherous life in her small hands.

Joon spoke through a small gasp, "I will tell you."

Lilith tightened her grip on his throat roughly, just before letting go of him. But she lifted the small blade aimed at his abdomen and held it between his eyes. "No tricks. Just truth."

"On my honor," he gasped.

"Pft." She stepped back from him, her small frame feeling tall and mighty for once as Joon's lanky one was scrunched down in the seat in front of her. "What honor?"

He chuckled at her jab. "The truth is... that Chimin set a trap for us back in the Library of Mirth. He wanted me dead. And in a manner of speaking, he got his wish..."

Lilith's cheeks burned at the confession. Her mind flickered with memories of Park Chimin's threats to her on their journey towards the library. A long long time ago, Chimin had confided in her this dark and twisted legend of how to make a deal with the Devil, but back then Chimin was still innocent and stories were just stories.

Now, Lilith's skin crawled as her eyes swept over Kim Namjoon and she took in fully just what she was seeing: a dead man walking.

Joon went on, "But then guess who gutted Chim right before my eyes and dropped him like a tree?"

Oh god. Jin. Lilith swallowed, her eyes tracing carefully over Joon's calm tan face.

"It's the first time that Jin has ever killed a man with his own hands. Did you know that he was a virgin at the trade?" When Lilith's face betrayed just the right hint of anguish, Joon went on, "Of course you did, he's terrible at hiding things. Well, he was rather efficient for a novice. Chimin died quickly."

Wetness swelled in Lilith's eyes but she blinked it back. She didn't want to give this sick soulless man in front of her the satisfaction of her tears. God, Kim Namjoon, I should have just strangled you.

"And Jin almost died too. The spirits of Mirth wanted to take advantage of his fool's heart--but because of me, your precious Jin is safe and sound. So you really should be thanking me with those beautiful eyes of yours instead of insulting me with them."

"What do you mean they wanted to take advantage of him?"

Joon smiled. "I mean, someone back there had to make a deal with the devil. So I took up the mantle so that Jin didn't have to." He got to his feet and folded the large book in his hands shut. Then he set it down carefully on the low white table in front of him and stepped around it, towards where Lilith was standing with one hand still clenched around a small blade. Her hands hung at her sides but her body was tense as Joon came slowly closer and closer to her.

"You just love talking yourself up, don't you?" Lilith grumbled low, but Joon ignored her comment.

"They were thirsty for a sacrifice. After all... someone had taken three sacred texts from their halls." His eyes flashed up and down Lilith's frame, which in a few steps he was towering over. "And three sacrifices were in order to make an equal exchange. Thanks to us, they were made."

Lilith backed up slowly as Joon kept stepping closer to her. "What are you talking about? I asked her for the books. Quin gave them to me. Simple as that."

"You're so ignorant, it's adorable." Joon was right in front of her now, and there was nothing but smooth cabinet behind Lilith's back to meet her as she backed into it. "Three gifts, three sacrifices. The spirits of the trickster house of Mirth are not as generous as you thought. Trust me, I would know."

Trust you? Like hell. Lilith felt clammy. Sweat was returning to her brow as Joon loomed closer and closer.

"Chimin gave his strong, bloody body. One. Jin made his first kill and gave his moral mind. That's two. And me?" Joon reached a hand out, and his fingertips slid gently down Lilith's cheek. She gasped quietly. His smile was oh-so-close to her lips.

"What did you give?" she asked breathlessly.

"I gave my righteous spirit." His free hand slid around the wrist of Lilith's hand that gripped the blade. His fingers spread over hers, just as his lips leaned in around her and warm breath trickled into her ear.

He pulled the blade from her hand, and she let him.

"In these books, we have all that we need to harvest Satoor Ai energy... kill any magical beings who stand in our way... and ensure the success of the Rebel Alliance." Joon gave the blade in his hand a toss and it rattled loudly against the floor, and against the rising tension between the only two people on board the ship. "So, really, you shouldn't be lecturing me, lovely Lilith. You should be rewarding me for my sacrifice."

Lilith raged with so much thought and emotion that she felt like she stood in the eye of a hurricane, in the tense suspension between unavoidable chaos. Waves of opposing ideas crashed around her, about what she should do concerning the man in front of her, the words coming out of his mouth, and the circumstances she now found herself in.

This dark Joon, she could feel the rise of his chest, the prick of his pulse as he hovered over her. He smiled into her ear and his lips traced along the line of her cheekbone, his nose nuzzling into soft skin and his eyes closing as he savored the sensation of touch.

If Joon has lost his spirit, then... who the hell is standing in front of me now? And... why does he still feel like Kim Namjoon somehow? Like all the things I hate about Joon the most, but unburied and plain to see?

Small, raging Lilith didn't push him away. She asked in a low whisper, "How much of the books... do you have left to read... to know enough?"

He inhaled against her cheek. "I already know everything that I need to. The rest is just for leisure. But all this knowledge, this fullness... has made me thirsty."

Joon's lips whispered these last few words as they brushed and hovered against Lilith's own.

Lilith's mind and pulse raced. So close, she could smell the dark musk of Kim Namjoon, and it wasn't bitter and sour like brimstone and hellfire.

It was savory.

All of Lilith's wrath for Kim Namjoon rose to the surface, but in a form most surprising to her--for one of her hands gripped violently around his thick neck as the other peeled at the neck of his shirt. Instead of pulling his lips into hers, her teeth trailed along his neck and then braced angrily into his tan skin where his neck and shoulder met, making Joon gasp in pain and satisfaction.

He said in a hoarse, restrained voice, "So that's how you want to play?"

His own fingers clawed their way beneath her shirt and dug like hooks into the grooves of her ribcage as he pulled her roughly into him.

When she pulled away from his neck, their breaths and pulses both spiked now, her lips and cheeks were more rouge than usual. She'd left an inflamed mark in his skin that he could feel but not see.

Joon was all smiles. He leaned in and let his own teeth play against the skin of her cheek, her neck, searching for a place to land. Then his teeth sank deep as he pushed her hard against the cabinets.

Lilith groaned, "God, I hate you," making him chuckle into her skin.

"If this is hate, then spare me your sentiment. I don't fucking want it."

"Then what do you want?" Lilith hated herself as soon as the words came out of her mouth.

"At the moment," his delighted eyes swept over her, "that answer is easy enough."