Aster had been able to see Dem flying when she looked out the window. His blue-gray wings glimmered in the faint sunlight as he soared high above the waves, almost appearing to graze the clouds. Her heart ached with the memories from that last vision. If Phobetor had put her birth mother through this, and probably worse, then she completely understood why Chloe and Lycus decided to give in. The emotional roller coaster wasn’t just painful, it was draining.

Cin had been sitting with her for a long time. She listened to everything Aster had to say and talked her down from the edge of hysteria. When she heard Thad come back in, she went to check on him, leaving Aster staring out the window at Dem. He was such a mystery to her, hot and cold, not just with her, but with everyone. In some ways, they were the same. They both had a core of white-hot anger that had yet to be quenched by anything, but, at least for her, he helped calm the storm that raged inside.

Her sister came busting through the door moments later with Robin hot on her heels. The redhead clutched her laptop in her arms as she pushed her glasses a little higher up her nose. She was sweet, and a lifesaver, literally. If it hadn’t been for her, no one would have known Aster had gone missing when she did, and they wouldn’t have been able to find her. Plus, she’d saved Hal and Thad back at The Farm when Randall was about to beat them both to death. Robin might look fragile, but she had the same steel core Aster and Cin had. She was starting to suspect that it was something women needed if they were going to fall in love with a siren. Not that she was in love with a siren.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I had an idea. You can shoot it down and I will totally respect that, but I wanted you to hear me out first.”

Aster raised an eyebrow. Whatever her idea was, it set her sister on edge. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be cagey about it.

“Robin has all that data from The Farm. I was thinking she could look into it for us and see if we can figure out what happened to you while you were there?”

Her chest felt tight, and all the blood drained from her face. She knew because she felt lightheaded.

“We don’t have to, though!” Cin said, seeing her reaction.

“Just give me a minute. That was pretty much the last thing I expected you to say.”

“Fair enough.” Cin nodded, her newly purple hair dancing in the light of the setting sun.

She and Robin sat down on the couch opposite the chair that Aster had dragged over to the window to watch Dem fly. He looked so incredibly free up there that it made her a little jealous. If she ever wanted to be sure about what happened to her, this was the way to find out. Sure, she could stick her head in the sand, ignore it, and hope it went away, but it wouldn’t do that. She knew it and so did Cin, which was exactly why she’d pulled this stunt.

Her dreams were getting worse, playing on fears that she didn’t even realize she had until she saw what she could lose. This was a sure-fire way of squashing those fears. She just had to be brave, like she had been with the tattoo. The piece of art on her back would always remind her of what she’d been through. She’d walked through hell and come out on the other side, almost literally. It would also always remind her of her sister, who had died for her, unknowingly releasing her fury side, which was the only reason she was alive. If Cin could handle that, then Aster could handle finding out about something that had already happened. Julie had raised them to be tough and smart, and she wasn’t about to disappoint her mother.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Robin popped open her laptop, and the click of the keys became almost rhythmical as she searched for the information on Aster. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago that she had been at The Farm, but at the same time, it felt like yesterday. This would help her put it in perspective.

“So, from what I know already, you were found because of a source at a casino, and the handler for the source then proceeded to obtain you, bringing you to Eclipse HQ. From there, we met, and you went to The Farm. Am I missing anything in your memory?”

Aster shook her head and began chewing on her fingernails.

“Medically, it looks like when you arrived, they did a blood draw and then began giving you injections of hCGX every other day. Once you were transported to The Farm, you were cataloged, everything was measured and weighed, there was a second blood draw, and the injections continued. Still sound correct?”

“I don’t remember the blood draws, but other than that, yes.”

“The last entry notes that you have some abnormalities in your hormone levels that the hCGX would not be responsible for . . .” Robin paused, as though reading, but there was a tightness around her eyes that made Aster think she was panicking.

“What’s hCGX?” Cin asked, the curiosity evident on her face as she tried to read over Robin’s shoulder.

“The base of it is the hormone that is used to treat infertility in women. The Surgeon, sorry, Leonard, tweaked it to help force different beings to produce eggs that he could then harvest. The eggs were then fertilized and implanted in the surrogates, and sometimes back into the original donor, like they wanted to do with Aster.”

“So he created it himself?”

Robin nodded. “Kind of. He expanded on what was already there. Leonard was recruited as one of the top medical students in the country, who happened to have some hobbies that weren’t legal. I was one of his first patients when my father signed me over to Randall.”

Glancing at each other, Aster and Cin were both quiet, unsure what to say to the unusual mention of her past. They didn’t need to say anything, though, since Robin had already refocused on the screen in front of her.

“It looks like the day you arrived at The Farm, after the cataloging, they harvested a couple eggs, but found that your body wasn’t responding as well to the injections as they had hoped. He was expecting your body to produce triple the amount of eggs, based on the data from previous patients. Also, the day you were rescued, you were scheduled for implantation. Talk about cutting it close.”

“Could he have implanted the egg and not had a chance to log it?” The question came out in a whisper.

Robin scanned the files on her laptop. There was a furious amount of typing and clicking, and all of it left Aster with a sinking suspicion that she was right.

The redhead sighed. “I can’t tell you. There’s nothing here indicating that he did, but I don’t know how quickly he would update records with something like that.”

“Could you be pregnant?” Cin’s voice was low and soft, as though she was trying not to startle her.

She began to count backward. “Yes.” The word slid from her mouth as her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. “I’m very, very late.”

“How late?” Cin’s brows were knotted together in worry.

“Months. I thought it was just stress at first. You know, the whole being kidnapped and beaten kinda throws a girl for a loop. But, now? Now, I don’t know.”

“Okay, everything’s okay. We can figure this out. You’ll be fine, no matter what. None of us would let anything happen to you.”

“Cin, you’re freaking out more than she is,” Robin whispered.

“Sorry,” she said to the redhead. “Sorry, Aster. Why don’t I go and get a pregnancy test?” Her sister’s hazel eyes were wide.

“I need to tell you something,” she breathed. Now was as good a time as any, and it might impact what they did next.

Her sister sat staring at her like she’d grown a second head. “What?”

“Dem and I met a while back, right before I was taken, like the weekend before. We, uh, kind of spent the weekend together.”

“Spent the weekend together?” Cin echoed Aster’s words hollowly.

“I think she means they had sex,” Robin added, trying to be helpful.

“Yeah, I got that. I was just trying not to think about it, but thanks.” She rubbed her forehead, seemingly forcing her eyebrows, which had been furrowed since Robin started to look up Aster’s history, to separate. “Did you know about all this before I did?” Cin asked, waving her hands around in the air, trying to indicate pretty much everything around them.

“No. We didn’t exactly share our life stories.”

“Damn it, Aster, you know better than to sleep around!”

“It’s not like I picked up a different guy every weekend, and even if I did, I’m a grown woman. I can do what I want, when I want, with whom I want!”

“No, you can’t. You’re—”

“Take a breath, Cin. I know she’s your little sister, but she is an adult. Her life is her own,” Robin said, patting Cin on the shoulder.

Her sister disappeared from the room. It was always unsettling to see from the outside. One minute she was there, the next she was gone, as if someone had just erased her out of existence.

“Do you want to talk about any of it?” Robin asked softly, pushing her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t even know where to begin. Right now, I just want to figure out what is going on inside my body.”

“Understandable. I’m going to stay here and look into these abnormal hormone results, if you don’t mind? Leonard just noted that something was abnormal but didn’t bother to explain what, so now I have to dig through the test results and hope the Internet can help me with what they mean.”

“Fine by me,” Aster mumbled as she went back to staring out the window, trying to wrap her brain around the possibility of a life growing inside her. It made the dream Phobetor had given her that much more terrifying.

Cin appeared a few moments later and shoved a box into her hands. “Go pee on that.”

Questions still swam in her head, all without answer. This small plastic stick would at least provide one answer for sure.

“She doesn’t need to,” Robin said quietly.

“If we want to know if she’s pregnant, she does.” Cin put her hands on her hips.

Aster knew that her sister was ready to throw down based on her body language, and she really didn’t want two of the four women on the island to start fighting.

“You don’t understand.” The redhead sighed and closed the laptop. She pulled her glasses off and briefly wiped the lenses with the edge of her T-shirt, before putting them back on. “I can tell you.”

“No, you—”

“It’s part of my powers as a banshee.”

“I thought you only sensed impending death?” Aster butted in, needing to hear what her friend had to say, but terrified of it at the same time.

Robin nodded. “I do. My banshee scream is for the coming loss of life, but now that I’ve found my mate, my powers have expanded. If I sing, then it’s for the coming of new life.”

“Okay, but you’re not singing.”

“I did. Remember when we all had brunch a while back and my family was there? I walked in and started singing. What no one seemed to realize was that it was uncontrollable. My mom explained it to me and Hal. If I sing, then it’s because someone around me is either already pregnant or will become pregnant fairly soon.”

“How do you know it was me?” Aster said, standing and beginning to pace. “I mean, it’s not like I’m the only one having sex on this island.” She flushed as the statement came out.

“I know it’s you because I get a flash of images showing who it is. I saw you with your baby.” Her voice was soft as she spoke of Aster, before turning clinical. “The same thing happens when I scream. I can see who is about to die, and usually how, provided there is enough time.”

Aster stopped pacing. She stood, staring at Thad’s office wall. There were some beautiful photos that had been framed and hung to create a gallery of images. While she suspected they were meant to be calming, right now the images of the waves just reminded her of the churning in her head.

Suddenly it wasn’t just in her head.

“I’m going to puke,” she said, spinning around and running for the bathroom.

A while later, she came back out, having wiped the sweat from her forehead and made ample use of the mouthwash in the bathroom. This was not how she thought her life was going to go. She’d been on birth control up until she was taken, but she’d never restarted it when she came to the island. Could it be Dem’s baby? Her hand hovered over her stomach, remembering the vision Phobetor had sent her. Pain pierced her heart. She would never trap him with it if it was. When she came back into the room, Robin looked up from her laptop.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not my place. I’ve tried warning people before, but it never works. You’re my first pregnancy, so I thought I should treat it like I did with the deaths. Sorry if I screwed up.”

“Can you tell me what you saw?”

“You were lying in bed, holding a baby all wrapped up in a big fluffy blanket.”

“Boy or girl?” The little girl from her vision danced inside her mind.

“Couldn’t tell. Sorry.” Robin’s eyes were shuttered, as though she was afraid of the repercussions of not telling Aster or knowing the answer to her questions.

Cin came back into the room, carrying a tray of crackers, juice, ginger ale, and water.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I brought a selection,” she said, gently kicking the door closed behind her.

Aster took the can of ginger ale and cracked it open, the hiss and click a familiar sound that calmed her. Sipping the fizzy liquid, she let the bubbles pop in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. Hopefully the ginger would ease her stomach so she could eat something.

“How are you feeling?”

“I have no idea. My head is swimming, and my body seems to be rebelling against me.” She sighed as she answered her sister’s question.

“That’s understandable.” Cin bit her lower lip, and Aster knew she wouldn’t like whatever her sister was about to say. “What if it’s Dem’s kid?”

“I was on birth control that weekend. It has to be something that Leonard implanted me with, right? Which also means I have no idea who the father is. Oh God! What if it’s Leonard’s? Or Randall’s?” Aster was shrieking by the end. She knew she should try and calm down, but she didn’t want to have a kid by either of those two, let alone if they used someone else’s sperm to fertilize the egg. Nausea rolled in her stomach, and she felt dizzy as her breath came in shallow gasps.

“Aster, you need to relax or you’re going to hyperventilate.”

Cin squatted in front of her. “Look at me. Breathe with me,” she said, taking slow deep breaths. Aster tried to mimic her, but just ended up feeling like she was suffocating.

Her breathing turned into audible gasping as she sucked in air at a fast pace.

Her sister turned. “Robin, can you get Hal?”

Moments later, as the tingling in her hands and feet became more noticeable and she was about to lose consciousness, Hal appeared.

He came over, and she looked at him with what she knew were probably wild eyes.

“Can you calm her down?” her sister asked in a clipped tone.

Hal nodded and took Cin’s place in front of her, taking her hands in his own. He was almost as tall as Dem, but where Dem was lean and muscular, Hal was broad. His wide shoulders filled her vision, and her hands disappeared in his own. A pulse of calming energy washed over her as she tried to focus on him. Her eyes felt like they were rolling around in her head, unable to stay fixed on anything.

Another big pulse of calming energy and this time, the world dimmed.

“She’s going to fall asleep. What the hell happened?”

Aster heard Hal say the words, but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t feel her hands in his anymore. She was weightless, and darkness claimed her, but this time, it was wonderfully empty.

* * *

Dem wandered around, waiting for his brother to come back. He’d showered after his flight and texted Thad that he could come over so they could talk about Phobetor. Thad had responded immediately that Dem should stay put and he’d be over soon. That was over an hour ago.

What the hell was going on over there? He desperately wanted to go over and demand answers, but he also knew that doing something like that could drive a wedge between him and Aster, which was not something he wanted, especially now that he understood how he felt about her. But was it a risk he was willing to take to make sure she was okay?

Indecision warred inside him. He knew at some point the desire to find out what had happened would outweigh the potential of Aster and Cin being mad at him, so he gave in early. Jumping into Thad’s living room, he was surprised to find his brother sitting on the couch, a worried expression on his face. Hal’s voice was muffled behind a closed door.

“I told you to stay put.” Thad glanced up at him.

“Yeah, well, you should have given me a little more to go on, then.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, so how can I tell you?”

“Where’s Aster?” The question burned inside his chest, like he needed to physically see her to make sure she was okay.

“Still in my office with Cin, Robin, and Hal.”

“What the hell?”

“I wish I knew, Brother. Cin’s lips are sealed, and I haven’t seen Robin or Hal come out since they disappeared inside.” He shrugged.

“Then why don’t we figure out how to trap the god of nightmares? They obviously don’t want anything to do with us. At least, not yet.”

Thad nodded.

Dem ran a hand through his hair as he acknowledged something he hadn’t wanted to say aloud. “I just need to see her first. I need to be sure she’s okay.”

“You can try, but I doubt they’ll let you in.”

He stalked over to the closed door, knocking lightly. It cracked open, and Cin’s purple hair appeared before him. She turned and faced him, surprise showing on her face, and the door inched closed a little more.

“What do you want, big brother?” she asked as she held the door firmly closed.

“She okay? I need to see her,” he growled, trying to mask the desperation he felt.

“Now’s not a good time.”

“Cin, please.” He wanted to explain, but he didn’t want to betray Aster’s trust.

Her bright hazel eyes studied him. There was something that was worrying her; he could see it in her stare. She sighed. “She’s unconscious, so you can see her. Don’t wake her up. She needs the rest.”

He nodded, and she opened the door wide enough for him to come through. Robin and Hal looked up as he entered, their eyes watching him carefully. He didn’t pay any attention to them, though. He only had eyes for his beautiful woman.

Aster was lying on the couch, her body limp and her eyes closed. He watched her chest move, counting her breaths, relieved when he saw they were slow and steady. Her blonde hair was a halo around her head, and her lips were parted slightly. She was pale, and he noticed the tray of crackers and drinks on the table next to her.

“Is she okay?” he whispered to his brother, emotion making his voice raw.

“As far as I can tell, yeah. She’s just catching up on some rest.”

He knelt beside her and ran a knuckle down her cheek, his chest tight when she didn’t move at all.

“I put her in a deep sleep. She’ll be out of it for a few hours, at least, maybe more, depending on what her body needs.”

There were a few golden strands covering her face, and he brushed them away. He knew they were all watching him, but he didn’t give a damn. They could judge all they wanted. He loved Aster and wasn’t going to shy away from that now.

He bent slowly and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before standing and walking out.

Thad was waiting for him in the hallway with one raised eyebrow.

“How is she?”

“Asleep. Apparently, she needs rest.”

Thad nodded and pierced Dem with his ice-blue eyes. “You’re finally owning up to those feelings, huh?”

Dem shrugged. “Won’t matter if we can’t get Phobetor to leave her alone.”

They walked out onto the patio. The air that greeted them was cool, the promise of autumn brushing against his skin.

“So what’s the plan?” Dem grunted, feeling a tug in his gut like he needed to go back to Aster.

Thad looked at him and smiled, but there was no warmth to it, sending the familiar shiver of impending battle down his spine.