I blinked at the woman. Even seated on the other side of the blanket spread on the cold floor, she had her back straight as a board and her chin high. She wore an elegant red suit that seemed stitched to her curves. Beautiful, fancy, and probably rich. If someone had to be a siren, then I guess that was the right way.

She smacked her red lips. “What do you want to know?”

“Hm … everything? Anything? I don’t know.”

She turned her clear blue eyes to Nathan. “Are you wasting my time here?”

“As if you had something better to do,” he said, his tone hard, almost as hard as his posture. Ever since she arrived, Nathan had been tense, as if he expected her to attack or something. “Brooke found out she’s a siren last night. She’s new at this, so I think anything you tell her will help.”

Selena looked at me, clearly bored. “You have the power to enchant men. Once they are under your spell, you can order them to do anything, even die if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not helpful,” Nathan said with a growl.

“What do you want? For me to tell you the story behind sirens? Well, let’s see, mythology says we’re half human and half bird, but the truth is most sirens are half human and half naga. And—”

Nathan sighed. “Selena, try to be helpful.”

“I’ve been helpful,” she snapped, her voice tight. “For months now, you and your fellow hunters don’t stop bothering me about my past. And I always say the same thing: I already told you all I know.”

Nathan turned to me. “Selena here used to run a big operation smuggling forbidden potions to the kingdoms underwater.” My mind froze. Kingdoms underwater? I was sure I hadn’t hear him right. “With the help of a triton and his witch girlfriend, we were able to stop Selena and take down the operation. But only for a couple of weeks. Someone else picked up where Selena left off and is giving us a big headache.”

“And I’ve been helping you,” Selena added. “I’ve told you all I know, given you the names of everyone who worked for me.”

“The ones you know of,” Nathan said. “As far as we know, the operation is much bigger with a lot of others involved in it. Unless you’re lying.”

She fumed. “I’m not lying!”

Nathan clicked his tongue. “Okay, enough. We’re not gonna argue about this now. I’ve asked you to come here to help Brooke.”

Selena turned a fake grin to me. “Okay, here are the basics. Our powers are stronger when closer to the ocean.” Which I already knew. “Singing is also another way of increasing our powers. Certain races, like demons, won’t let us bat our pretty eyes and ensnare them just like that. There are certain kinds of songs we can sing for that.”

I gasped. “Songs … I was singing when I first spelled Robbie. And Jane’s father and brother.”

Selena went on, “Once you spell someone, they will easily be spelled again. It won’t take much effort.” That explained how Robbie was so easily charmed last night. I hadn’t been singing then, but he was under my spell anyway. “And there are certain supernaturals that are also easier to enchant, like gnomes and some shifters.”

I frowned. “How about humans?”

“Humans are the easiest to charm since they have no idea what’s going on and can’t really protect themselves.”

“Why didn’t I charm Officer Morris and the chief this morning? Not that I was trying to …”

“Officer? The chief?” Selena asked.

“Maybe …” Nathan started. “What about emotions? Do emotions play a part in how well a siren can charm someone?”

“Only in the beginning when our powers are still new and we can’t control them well. When we’re distressed or scared, it’ll be harder to enchant someone. The spell comes with a trick of seduction and lust. You wouldn’t be seductive while scared, would you?”

Nathan and I exchanged a glance.

“That explains it,” he said.

“Yes, I was definitely distressed and scared this morning.”

“Anyway,” Selena continued, “once you’re more mature and can control your powers, you can do anything. You can spell anyone even when distressed or scared. You can spell even females.”

“And how can I control it?”

“Practice.” An evil queen-like smile spread across her lips. “You just need to find someone willing to let you spell them over and over again.”

My eyes bugged. “You’re not serious.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly how I did it. I didn’t ask permission, but I guess you could do it that way. Though, remember, it won’t be easy and it’ll take time. But it’ll be worth it.”

“Tell her what else a siren can do,” Nathan demanded.

“There’s more?” Because enchanting people and robbing them of their free will wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” Selena said. “With time, you’ll be able to control objects with your mind, almost like telekinesis, and you can teleport.”

I blinked. “Teleport? You mean like I’m here, and the next second I’m there.”

Selena rolled her eyes. “Yes, like that.”

“Okay, now that is cool. I think.” I frowned. “Why couldn’t my powers have started with that?”

“Because the telekinesis and teleportation come later,” Selena said. “Much later. Oh, and there’s one more bit you should know.”

I was afraid to ask. “What?”

“We live for a long time, longer than humans.” She looked from me to Nathan.

My throat went dry. “How long?”

“Several hundred years.”

My mouth fell open. “You mean … I’ll live for …” I couldn’t even imagine it. I frowned. “How old are you?”

Selena huffed, a murderous gleam in her blue eyes. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask for a lady’s age?”

---

After Selena left, Nathan and I spread our lunch between us. Gourmet turkey sandwiches and fries, now cold and mushy, but still tasting pretty good.

I picked a french fry and popped into my mouth.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

My brows creased. “To be honest, I don’t know. Can we talk about something other than sirens and powers and murder?” I flinched at the casual tone I had used.

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Tell me about you. About being a hunter.”

His lips curled up. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about magic.”

I shrugged. “Not about magic that involves me. But if it involves you, sure. I want to.”

His chest shook with a silent chuckle. “All right, what do you want to know?”

“Like … I don’t know. What do you do in your free time? Any hobbies?”

He let out a low chuckle. “Hunters don’t get free time. No hobbies other than sparring, training, and learning to use all kinds of weapons.”

I scrunched my nose. “Not sure that sounds fun.”

“I guess for a teenage boy without any other purpose in life, it was fun.”

That stirred some curiosity in me. “What’s your backstory? Where are your parents? How did you start down this path?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Curious much?”

“Just a little bit,” I confessed, popping another french fry in my mouth.

His brows knotted. “I haven’t told a lot of people my story.”

My shoulders sank. That meant he wouldn’t tell me. “It’s okay. We can talk about …” I glanced around the small room, searching for a subject, but other than cold walls, cold floors, cold weather, and yummy food, there was nothing here.

“It’s okay,” he said. “But to be honest, that story doesn’t involve magic.” He paused and rolled his shoulders and neck, as if he had to get ready to tell me his story. “My parents were humans, or so I thought when I was a little. We lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and I remember being happy. We weren’t rich, but we always had food on the table and clothes to wear. Until one day my father simply upped and left.” I wanted to ask him why but kept my mouth shut. He would keep going if he wanted to.

To my relief, he went on. “I was six years old, but I remember when he left and destroyed my mother’s life. My life. If he ever called or tried to contact us again, I don’t know about it. My mother never said a thing. But after he left things changed. My mother changed. She became bitter and rude. She started working two or three jobs so she could afford the mortgage and everything else. But it was too much for her. She couldn’t keep up. So we moved to a small apartment in another neighborhood. I don’t remember when, but soon she started drinking and smoking. In the evenings, she was drunk, and during the day she had a nasty hangover. Every single day and night. I hated seeing her like that. I hated what my father had done to her. To us. But I confess that some nights, late at night when things seemed too bad and without an end, I wished he wouldn’t have left. I wished he would come back with a plausible explanation of why he left and never looked back. I wished he would save us from the hell we were living. But of course, he never did.”

His jaw and neck were tense, and I was starting to regret asking him about it.

“Nathan, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

He fixed those dark, depthless eyes on mine. “I want to.”

Something like pride bloomed in my chest. Sharing a piece of your painful past wasn’t easy to do, and he wanted to share this with me. I scooted closer and placed my hand on his knee. “I’m here.”

For a moment, all he did was stared at me, as if searching for the answers to all problems in my face.

He shook his head once and continued. “It got bad. My mother drank and smoke like there was no tomorrow. Which didn’t help with her jobs either. She tried everything and was fired every other week. That was when she started drugs. It didn’t take long and she died of an overdose.”

“Oh my …” I squeezed his knee. “How old were you then?”

“Thirteen. I was put into the foster care system, but it wasn’t great. I guess after losing my father and my mother, something broke in me. I was passed from one foster family to another until I landed in a pretty bad one. Each person in that family was as broken and careless as I was, and nobody tried to tell me what to do. It was like I was on my own, but I knew I had a place to crash every night. By fifteen, I was smoking and drinking almost as much as my mom had. By sixteen, I started trying drugs.” The shine in his dark eyes changed. “Then one night I sneaked out of the house to go buy more drugs and stumbled on three men and a woman. They were dressed in all black, wearing leather jackets and combat boots, and holding long daggers and guns. They looked so badass. I was enthralled. They invaded an abandoned house at the end of my street, and I couldn’t help but spy on them. I saw as they took on several vampires. Black souls.”

“Black souls?”

“Yeah, that’s what we call vampires that are lost to blood lust. They can’t stop killing and drinking blood.” My stomach revolted at the image he painted, and I scrunched my nose. He continued, “Yeah, it was a pretty nasty sight, but I wasn’t paying attention to the vampires and the blood. I was dazed by the way those three men and that woman fought. It was like they had super powers.”

“They were hunters?”

“Yes. Hendrick, Douglas, Isaac, and Helen. Isaac died last year, but Hendrick is Amber’s father. She was the girl watching out for you this morning before I got there. Douglas is like our leader now that Isaac is gone, and Helen is always on the hunt. She barely shows up here anymore.”

“What happened then?”

“They saw me and gave me a lecture about forgetting vampires and hunters existed. Then they left.” He paused, his brows furrowing again. “I don’t know what overcame me, but I followed. They were at an inn outside my neighborhood, and when they were getting ready to leave, I jumped into the bed of their truck, hid myself behind some bags, pulled a blanked over myself, and stayed there for the next eight hours we were on the road.”

“What?” That sounded absurd.

He let out a hollow chuckle. “Yeah, pretty stupid. But … I’m not sure you already heard the saying that the town, the tree, brings people who are supposed to be here?”

“Yes. I remembered that from before, though it didn’t make sense to me, and Loran said that to me yesterday.”

He dipped his chin. “We believe in that, and when I was found in the back of the truck, we were already in town. At the hunters’ manor, actually. At first an argument started, and I heard everything from sending me to the police, to calling social services, to the fact that the tree had brought me here.”

“I’m guessing the last one won.”

“At first, but then something else happened.” A knot settled between his brows. “I met one of the other hunters, Ash.”

“And?”

“We quickly found out Ash was my cousin.”

My mouth fell open. “What? How?”

“It turned out my father was a hunter. He wasn’t part of the Sanctum of the Seven, but—”

“Sanctum of what?”

“That’s what our group is called. Sanctum of the Seven. It was created over a hundred years ago by seven hunters.” He pulled the sleeve of his jacket up and showed me a little tattoo on his wrist—a stylized number seven. “It’s our symbol.”

I ran my hand over the tattoo. “It’s beautiful.”

Nathan pulled his sleeve down. “Anyway, my father wasn’t with the Sanctum, but his younger brother, Ash’s father, was. My uncle raised Ash with the hunters, knowing the truth since he was little.” He let out a long breath. “My father preferred to work alone, roaming from town to town in search of cases. And that’s one of the reasons he left my mother and me.”

“Because he preferred to travel around? That doesn’t make sense.”

He went on. “The main reason was because hunting is dangerous. Hunters make too many enemies, and they can come after the hunter’s family. It has happened many times. Even here, with the Sanctum of the Seven. Almost every hunter in our group has lost at least one family member to a demon or some other monster.”

“In the end, your father was protecting you and your mother.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Where’s he now?”

He sighed. “Dead.”

I gasped. “No.”

“They told me that two months before I showed up at the manor, Ash’s father had gone to help my father with a big case on the other side of the country. They were able to stop the demons, but both of them died in the process.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, putting my hand on his knee again. Nathan had been through so much, lived through so much pain. Yet, the tree had brought him here to the hunters, where he was able to heal and find a purpose. He had even found a cousin. And now he was helping me find my father, because having lost his father and later his mother, he knew how important it was to me. “Wow, I’m here, wallowing, when you’ve been through so much worse. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been with the Sanctum of Seven for eight years now, and I’m doing better than ever. Though you would think finding out I had a cousin who is almost my age would be great, right?” He snorted. “I wish. Ash and I don’t get along well.” He placed his hand on mine. “Anyway, the things that happened to you … they are recent and one on top of the other. You don’t need to belittle them for me. I want you to know I’m here to help you in any way I can.”

The warmth of his touch, the intensity of his gaze … it was too much.

“Thank you.” I pulled my hand back and averted my eyes. Then, I grabbed a turkey sandwich, and even though most of my appetite was gone, I pretended I was famished. I took a big bite and moaned. “Holy crap, this is great.” It seemed I would eat it all, hungry or not.

A lopsided grin graced Nathan’s lip. “Yeah, the food in town is great. Except for Drifter’s. I don’t know what he does, but his food is almost tasteless.”

I glanced at the sandwich in my hand. So far, everything else I had eaten or drank in town had been amazing. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m serious.”

I shook my head. “In this town, that seems impossible.”

“I guess I’m gonna have to take you there another time to prove it.”

I stilled. Did he realized what he said? Had he just asked me in a date? No, no, of course not. He was stuck with me for a couple of days until this mess with my father was solved, and I guess we would have to eat in the meantime. I was reading too much into it.

An awkward silence filled the air around us while we ate. Then, still in silence, we picked up our trash, folded the blankets, and started down the spiral stairs.

The moment I stepped on the first iron step, the lights from above came on, making me momentarily blind.

“What the hell?” I squealed, my hand over my heart. That had been unexpected.

“It’s just the ghost.”

Rigid, I turned to Nathan and saw he was serious. “You really mean it? The ghost?”

He shrugged. “Yes.”

I gulped and raced out of the lighthouse.