Sam held the branch up to the light, examining it closely. After Aruum had disappeared inside, she’d taken a risk and slipped the healed wood into her backpack. Now, being able to look at it closer than ever before, she felt more excitement than ever. It was impossible for the dead branch to be growing new buds, but here it was, sprouting the little green teardrops left and right all over the surface. Some of them were even ready to bloom; others were sprouting little hair roots, looking for a hold. It was a miracle, pure and simple. But it answered no questions about the fungi itself, and only added more questions about what was in the seemingly magical water.

Sighing, she put the tree branch back down into its container and removed her latex gloves. For the last two days she had tried her best to throw herself into her studies. The sample bag of mold she took from the forest was gone, even though she knew she had placed it in her bag. It left her only with the miracle branch, which only gave her more questions and zero answers.

To make matters worse, she wasn’t finding her usual passion for her research. She had poured over textbooks about sex, botany, fungi, human behaviors; but none of them grabbed her attention enough to pull her away from the mysterious coven of dangerously handsome men she just so happened to stumble upon.

It became obvious to her that all of them were using fake names, including Trevor. And although they were not related, they all had a shocking amount of similarities when it came to their mannerisms. They were just so…different from anyone she had ever met in her life. She didn’t like to stereotype people, but she was still trying to wrap her mind around the idea that despite looking and acting like a playboy, Greg-or Aruum, she assumed, was a hardcore scientist with an insane amount of knowledge for his age. At most, she guessed, he could have been thirty. And then there was Trevor- was it Sulma? He had apparently built that armoire, but even in the great shape this one was in, it was easy to see that the piece of furniture was at least hundred years old. None of it made sense.

Think, she told herself, racking her brain. There has to be a real reason. A scientific explanation to all of this. Feeling irritated, she shook her head and pushed away from the desk.

“Ugh, enough,” she said aloud, tired of her thoughts. As she secured her sample and her notes, Sam decided that, although uninvited, she was going to pay another visit to the mansion. For research, she’d told herself, although she knew it wasn’t entirely true. It was more than just the strange fungi that was drawing her to the house, she just didn’t want to admit to herself just yet.

The mansion was only four or five blocks away from campus, on the edge of town where civilization met the woods. It was an easy walk in the day time, but even easier at night. With no one else crowding up the streets, Sam was able to make it there in no time. To her surprise, very few windows were lit at the mansion. It had barely been after eight when she left the lab, and it was a Saturday night. She was sure that if the house had belonged to any other college students, it would be lit up to full capacity with a line already forming around the block. Even during the summer, her school had a reputation for intense parties.

Wanting a closer look, she walked up to the bars of the wrought-iron fence. To her surprise, she was more than small enough to squeeze her body through the bars. Much like a cat, she slinked her way into the garden silently, heading in the direction where she hoped to find the mystical fountain and fungi samples.

Her heart raced when she found a stone wall that looked very much like the enclosure she was looking for. The only problem was that the only outside door leading into it was locked, and there were no footholds on the wall to climb over it. Looking around, she realized that if she crawled up into one of the trees by the fence, she would hopefully be able to walk across a branch and hop down into the opening.

Shedding her hoodie, Sam gripped the bottom branches of the tree and began to pull herself up. Her hiking boots helped her find traction, and before she knew it she was balancing her way across the branch to the roof. Her heart sank, however, when she realized that she had been mistaken about the roof. She had thought that only a loose layer of criss-crossed wood slats laid between her and the treasure, but instead it was an intricate ceiling of wood and glass that, unless she was willing to break it, would not allow her entrance.

“Damn it,” she whispered, feeling defeated. For a moment she simply sat there, trying to figure out what to do next. She knew that she should leave immediately. Hell, she hadn’t even been invited in the first place. It was private property after all and she could even be arrested if caught.

Yep, it’s time to go home, she thought. Looking behind her, she had begun to figure out her safest way of decent until a loud mixture of voices exploded from the window closest to her. A second later, a light in the room flicked on, and Sam had a clear view of all four guys. Aruum, Sulma, Zane, and Amaa all looked angry as they argued amongst each other, each looking more intimidating than the other. Even from where she was, she could see the static tension in the room. Whatever was happening, they didn’t appear to be happy about it.

For a moment Sam considered leaving, but was worried that the movement might draw their attention. Being arrested was not on her ‘list of things to do before I die’ so instead, she settled lower to the branch, hiding behind a particularly leafy smaller branch close to the window. As she scooted towards her cover, their voices became all too clear.

“I warned you, Aruum,” Sulma growled. “I told you to stop hooking up with the humans on the campus. Ra’s staff, brother, do you want us to be ran out of town? It’s bad enough that we have to investigate these disappearances; but now you want to end up as a suspect?”

“Everything was fine and you know it,” Aruum shot back, clearly tired of being lectured. “You and I both know that I haven’t killed anyone accidentally in centuries. And by the way, that human girl had no idea I fed off her, so give it a rest. I mean come on, she was still begging for me after you dragged me away! You really think she would do that if I had terrified or injured her?”

“And what about the other one?” Sulma asked, not skipping a beat. “Sam? She’s even worse!”

For a moment, Sam felt her heart sink. She knew she wasn’t everybody’s type, and being buried in books most of her time kept anyone from actually getting to know her, but still. For some reason, she had thought that Sulma may have liked her…maybe even more than liked her, but she was obviously wrong.

“You know Sam is different,” she heard Aruum say as he shook his head. “You felt it as much as I did. You know what she is.” He paused, looking pointedly at each of the others. “I mean, she has to be, right? This is what finding one is supposed to feel like.”

A silence stretched among the men, and the tension seemed to lessen a little.

They know what I am? Sam thought, feeling completely lost in the conversation. What am I?

“A couple centuries ago, I was in an enclave with a beloved,” Amaa told them, breaking the silence. He shook his head, almost sadly. He was clearly recalling a tender moment, and for some reason, Sam felt her heart go out to him. She immediately wanted to make herself known, just so that she could comfort him. Even if she had absolutely no idea how to do that.

“She was beautiful,” Amaa continued, a soft smile on his face. “She could heal anything. From a broken bone to a broken heart.” The smile slipped from his face, and he looked up at the rest of the group.

“But it got out of hand. Jealousy started taking over some of the older males. They began to fight over her, and in a fit of rage, even took her life.” He shook his head.

“If it was just the four of us, I wouldn’t be worried. But we have to let the rest of the House know, and it’s only going to recreate another catastrophe. I don’t want to be a part of that again,” he told them, his tone firm.

“Amaa,” Aruum said, closing the space between them to put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“We are loyal to House Rinna, yes. But we are the only four that reside in the mansion. The others…they don’t have to know.” He paused, then added.

“I know we should have discussed it as a group before I brought her here. But really, I only brought her here to show her my research. She’s a brain, like me, you know? Fascinated by science and stuff. I brought her because I knew she’d actually appreciate my research.”

It’s true, she thought.

But Amaa shook his head. “That’s not true and you know it,” he said, his voice still low, almost pained. “You know it, I know it, hell we all know it, because we all know what she actually is, Aruum. She’s a beloved. You all know what I went through the last time I had one. The coven—Belal—it all went to hell.”

“On top of that, she wears the hunter’s pendant,” Sulma added, his tone laced with irritation. “How can she be both a beloved and a hunter? It makes no sense.”

The four of them began to argue some more, and for a while she couldn’t keep up. There words flew out fast, and she only caught a few such as beloved, hunter, pendant, and coven.

“Okay, enough,” Taas conceded, holding up his hands to cease the argument. “We have to figure out what to do. If she is a beloved and we can sense that, that means that others in the area can sense it too. We need to talk to her, even if it’s just to give her protection from the others.” He turned to Sulma.

“We all know full well that those disappearances have something to do with House Gormeth. If she’s not a beloved, then maybe she is a hunter, and we could convince her to join us in protecting the campus. Reason with her in some way to let her know we’re not like the others.

“I don’t even think she has even begun to understand what she possibly is,” Aruum countered. “But I don’t think she’s a hunter. She would have been trained like any of the others we’ve met. She doesn’t even know what the pendant means.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Amaa shot back.

Sam watched, transfixed, as the argument deepened. Sulma brought up something about the other female being a fake beloved; saying she was a witch who used her powers to alter herself to appear as a beloved. At that point Amaa’s face flushed a surprisingly deep red, and he pushed Sulma away from him. She gasped when she saw his back collide hard with the wall over twenty feet away, rattling the pictures hung there.

“Enough!” Taas bellowed, moving between the two men with lightning speed. “We’re not arguing about the past, we’re arguing about the present.” His fierce gaze travelled around the circle, letting them all know he was taking control of the conversation.

“This woman. Sam. She’s obviously a draw to all of us. But we need to know for sure. Is she a beloved? A hunter? Could she even be a witch? The point is, we won’t know until we all spend some time with her.” He took a breath and ran a hand through his dark brown hair.

“I think we should invite her back,” he admitted, his tone much softer than before.

Aruum rolled his eyes. “Well gee, Taas. That would have been much easier to do if you hadn’t told her to leave the mansion and never come back!” He yelled, his voice escalating with every word.

“If you would have been thinking with the head on your shoulders and not the one between your legs, Aruum, you wouldn’t have brought her here so soon and we wouldn’t be having this argument! Ra’s staff, brother, you were the closest any of us got to her pendant. How could you not even think that she could be dangerous?”

“What?” Sam whispered, confused. Looking down, she grabbed the silver pendant hanging from her neck, holding it up to her eyes. To her, it was just a necklace. A trinket given to her by her maternal great grandmother long ago. It was just a bit of silver shaped into the northern star. She was sure it had little monetary value…so what else could they want it for? Beneath her, she felt the branch begin to tremble. She was sure it was going to break, or at least bow soon, but she wanted…needed to know more. So instead of getting down, she slowly inched forward, hoping the branch could withstand her weight.

Trevor, or she supposed, Sulma, was his ‘real’ name, stepped into the argument once more, this time much calmer than before. His dark eyes seemed to shine like polished obsidian, and in them she saw sorrow. Focusing on not just his face but all of them, she realized that they all looked incredibly sad. Whatever they were arguing about was very real to them. Maybe, she thought, even threatening to them.

“Gentlemen,” he sighed, holding his hands up for peace. “We have to stop this. Aruum, I think you’re right. I think she is innocent. After being around her, it is quite likely that the pendant was given to her as a protection charm, nothing more. Every hunter I’ve ever met has known exactly what they were meant for. But she clearly had no idea what it was when I asked her about it.”

“Thank you,” Aruum said, sarcastically. “See, guys?”

But Sulma only shook his head. “That being said. We have more important things to worry about. Now is not the time for ancient pleasures or talk of beloveds. Something dark is happening. We’ve all felt it.”

“But Sulma,” Aruum countered, his blue eyes pleading. “It’s been centuries since any of us have even seen one, let alone had one. Don’t you see what’s happening to us? What we’re descending into? That’s what beloveds are for, Sulma. To make sure we don’t lose our way.”

Zane began to interject with something, but Sam couldn’t hear him over the loud cracking sound of the branch beneath her.

“Oh no,” she whispered, quickly maneuvering her body backwards. The branch began to shiver as she moved, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Taking a leap of faith, she jumped from the branch onto the roof of the veranda. It held her weight, but only for a second. The damage to the branch had already been done, and then it fell into the ceiling, spiderwebbing the glass and sending the whole ceiling shattering down.

Panic filled Sam as the ceiling disappeared from under her and she felt herself falling. For a moment, she thought perhaps it was all a dream. That she was falling in her sleep, and that when she woke up she’d be safe in bed. But when the stone table below rose up to meet her, it was not pillow soft. It was hard, unforgiving marble, and it cracked her skull like a hammer cracked a walnut.