Nerom dragged me to the beach, his claws around my arm, and another clawed hand crushing my mouth so I couldn’t scream.

When Nathan had burst into the pavilion, my heart had stopped. Hope and relief and love flooded my chest. But that happy feeling didn’t last ten seconds. The moment the nagas entered the pavilion, I winced, terrorized by their monstrous appearance. I had never seen such creatures. Half snakes, half human, and something else. Their slick skin a grayish-green, and some of them had four claws instead of two.

I realized this had all been a trap. I didn’t know from which moment on, but I was certain drawing me here and drawing the hunters after me had all been a trap. With this many nagas closing in on the place, there was no way we would win.

Hope fled, leaving a heavy black scar on my chest.

Even so, I jerked against the ropes while Nathan and the other hunters fought the nagas. Until Nerom half transformed right in front of my eyes. His arms shifted from human to long, muscled claws, his eyes gained a dark red tint, his jaw and chin widened, his nose enlarged, and his teeth became razor sharp.

He cut the ropes with his claws, then grabbed me and hauled me out.

Nathan and the others had been too busy fighting to see anything.

Fear coiled in my stomach. I jerked and tried to bite his hand, but his skin was too thick and it didn’t seem to even tickle him.

He kept pulling me, Jennings coming along with us, toward the ocean.

Panic flared in my veins. He was going to drown me. He was going to take me into the water and drown me, and I couldn’t even scream for help.

Loud booms, like fireworks, came from the pavilion. Nerom stopped and watched.

“Guns,” he hissed. “The hunters brought guns to a sword fight.”

Another boom trembled the ground. Nerom’s grip tightened around my arm and tears of pain blurred my vision. I didn’t know what had made that sound, but that wasn’t a gun. Maybe a bomb? A grenade?

One of the pavilion’s walls fell and the fight surged outside. Hunters and nagas kicked and punched and sliced with bare claws and sharp daggers.

I could see the bodies of a few nagas on the ground, and a couple of hunters bleeding. My eyes scanned the fighting, desperate for any glimpse of him. Finally, I found him. Right in the thick of the fight, Nathan stood, brandishing a dagger toward a naga. He feigned to one side and the naga fell for it. Fast like a ninja, Nathan spun to the other side and brought the dagger down on the naga’s back. The creature howled before slumping into the sand.

Wide-eyed, Nathan looked around, searching for something, for someone. Then, he found it.

Me.

Without wasting a second, he ran toward Nerom and me.

Another figure appeared beside him. My father. Like Nerom, he had his arms transformed into his naga claws and green stained his gray skin.

“Stop right there,” Nerom called out. He moved his hand from my mouth to my neck, the tip of a claw pressed against my skin. I whimpered. “Or she dies.”

Nathan and Strom halted.

“You don’t want to do this, Nerom,” Strom said. “Think about it. She’s your niece. She’s family. You don’t want to hurt her.”

“You don’t know what I want!” Nerom screamed. “If you knew, you wouldn’t have human feelings toward her and that woman and boy of yours. If you knew, you would have focused on making our stand. On making our operation grow more than anyone could have imagined. We could be more than nagas who hide in this damn town. We could be kings of Willow Harbor. We could be kings of the ocean.”

Strom shook his head. “Kings of the ocean? Nerom, that’s crazy talk. You know there are many kingdoms and many kings underwater. We would never be able to control them all.”

“We? You were never in it with me, little brother.” Nerom’s tightened his grip around my neck. I gasped for air. Nathan moved forward. “Stay right there, hunter! I’m warning you!”

“Nerom, please let her go,” Strom begged.

Nerom scoffed. “I thought you knew me, brother.”

As if they had been waiting for their cue, nagas surged from underwater and advanced toward the sand. A lot more nagas.

I stared at Nathan. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for having brought him here. I was sorry for coming to Willow Harbor and messing up everything. I was sorry for not telling him how I really felt about him.

The twenty plus nagas surrounded the six hunters and my father.

Nerom let go of my neck. He ran his claws down my cheek, like a sick caress. I swallowed hard and stopped breathing so I wouldn’t flinch and anger him more. “Sing for us, Brooke.”

“W-what?”

“Sing,” he repeated, dragging me into the water. “There. Touching the ocean, where you’re stronger. And now you’ll sing.”

“Nerom, stop this,” Strom said.

Nerom nodded, and the naga beside my father punched him in the gut. Strom doubled over, coughing hard, and I winced.

Nerom’s foul breath washed over my cheek. “You will sing and you’ll entrance the hunters. All of them. Then they will drown in the ocean and Willow Harbor will be all mine.”

Tears burned the back of my eyes and I shook my head. “Do it or he’ll die.”

The two nagas holding Nathan pushed him down until he was on his knees, then a third stood behind him. He grabbed Nathan’s hair and pulled his head back, stretching his neck. The naga rested his claws on Nathan’s jugular.

I gasped, trying to swallow the terror assaulting my senses, and failing.

“Do it!” Nerom screamed.

Nathan struggled against the nagas’ grip. “Don’t do it,” he croaked. “He’ll kill us anyway.”

Nerom squeezed my arm tighter. “Sing!”

I didn’t know what to do. If I didn’t sing, Nathan and the hunters would be ripped to pieces. If I sang, they would walk to their deaths.

There wasn’t a great solution here.

Nerom groaned, then stared at Nathan. “Kill him.”

“No!” I shouted. “No, don’t. I’ll sing,” I muttered, sobs breaking my voice. “I’ll sing.”

While I took a deep breath to calm my nerves enough so I could sing, Nathan and Strom told me again not to sing. That earned them another painful punch.

I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and sang.

A slow, melodic song with lyrics that told about love lost and found, about a new hope that wouldn’t come, about a new lost chance.

First, I heard the shuffling of sand, then I heard their voices.

“So pretty.”

“It’s perfect.”

“Stunning.”

“I think I’m in love.”

When Nathan said, “I love you,” I couldn’t pretend nothing was happening. I snapped my eyes open and gasped at the scene. Like zombies, with their hands extended in front of them and shifting their weight, the hunters dragged their feet toward the ocean. They were all looking at me, their eyes dazed and a soft smile on their lips, but they were headed toward the ocean.

My voice broke and Nerom snarled in my ear. I kept singing as the hunters walked past me deeper into the ocean.

I had to do something. I had no idea how to get rid of Nerom. I knew nagas were immune to my powers, but there had to be something I could do.

An idea came to mind.

I started singing another song, an upbeat melody about defeating the odds and winning despite everything going wrong. Meanwhile, I focused on my magic. I had no idea how it worked and how to control it, but I turned my focus inward and thought about the hunters, about controlling them, about having them do my bidding.

I felt it. I felt the magic tingling inside me, filling my veins and soul, warming my core. That moment, I felt powerful and invincible.

I sang louder through the chorus, but when it was done, I shouted, “Now!”

Whirling around, the hunters pulled out their guns and aimed at the nagas.

“What is going on?” Nerom asked, his tone loud and almost hysterical. He shook me hard, but I kept singing. “Stop this!”

The hunters shot.

Six nagas went down, but more came forward.

Drowning in magic, I flung my hands toward the beach. Sand flew up, right in the nagas’ faces, blinding them for a moment.

The hunters aimed again.

“No!” Strom screamed. Free from the naga who had been holding him, Strom ran forward and bumped into me, making me stop singing. Standing waist deep in the water, the hunters blinked, then took in the scene around them.

They got ready as the remaining nagas advanced on them.

“You!” Nerom grabbed a dagger from the sand, and aiming at my chest, lunged at me. I took a step back, but with his power and speed, that wouldn’t be enough.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.

But then my father was in front of me, his arms open wide. Nerom pierced the dagger into his chest. I gasped as, growling, Strom pulled the dagger out and turned it around.

“This is over, brother,” he spat before going for Nerom and stabbing the dagger into his chest.

Nerom embraced Strom, and they both went down.

The fighting continued around us, but I had eyes only for the man who had thrown himself in the way of a dagger to save me. Strom and Nerom didn’t move, and I couldn’t either. My mind told me to go check on him, but my legs and arms wouldn’t obey me. Even my shallow breathing and my racing heart didn’t obey me.

Arms wrapped around me.

His scent hit me before I knew what was happening, and I instantly embraced him back. I balled my fists into his jacket and buried my face in his hard chest, relishing the safe haven he had become.

“It’s over now,” Nathan whispered in my ear. He ran his hands up and down my back in soothing strokes. It was then I realized all the sound—all the clank of steel, the hissing and the growling, the steps in the sand, the tearing of flesh—was gone. I turned my head enough so I could see. The fight was over, and I had no idea who had won. I turned my nose back to Nathan’s chest. He kissed the top of my head. “You’ll be all right now.”