“You have to give Wilson credit, he doesn’t harm the damn critters he brings home, he just wants to love on them,” Kane said.

“Yeah, well, having the two dogs is enough company for… me,” Gabe was saying before he realized that Magna was standing in the doorway.

A wave of uncertainty washed through her when both men turned to look at her. Of course, her stomach decided to rumble at that same moment. She drew in a deep, calming breath. A small moan of delight slipped from her lips when she breathed in the delicious scents filling the air.

She laid the palm of her right hand over her stomach and blushed. She nervously tugged at the hem of the oversized light blue shirt that she was wearing. It had been so long since she’d been around anyone, much less dined with them, that she was unsure of what she should do.

“I… It smells so good,” she murmured with a weak smile. “I can’t remember the last time I was actually hungry.”

Gabe’s eyes swept over her. Her skin tingled at the intense, assessing look. When his lips tightened, she turned her gaze away, looking to Kane. Her stomach flipped when Kane returned her gaze with a slightly reproving look that was mixed with concern as he stepped closer to her.

“I would have returned to help you. It took a little longer than I expected to rescue Wilson’s latest acquisition,” Kane quietly explained.

“What kind of acquisition?” she asked, curious.

“Rabbit this time,” Gabe answered with an exasperated glare at the Husky who raised his head and wagged his tail. He lifted a pot off the stove and nodded at her. “Let’s eat before the food gets cold. As Buck and Wilson will tell you, I’m the best cook in the house. Doc here can’t even cook a boiled egg,” he boasted.

Magna glanced over to where the two beasts were sleeping. “Are Buck and Wilson changelings?” she asked.

Both men stared at her in silence for a few seconds before they shook their heads. Unsure of what she had said wrong, she looked over at the stove.

“I’ve never boiled an egg before,” she replied, moving to sit down in the chair that Kane pulled out for her.

Kane cleared his throat. “Boiling eggs is not as easy as it sounds,” he said and nodded toward Gabe. “I’ll take sewing up a cut any day over cooking. Don’t ask him to suture a cut. He can’t stitch worth a damn.”

Gabe snorted. “Boiling eggs isn’t that difficult, and I can stitch just fine – as long as it is a net. Besides, stitching up someone is highly overrated. That is why super glue was invented. Pull the skin together, pour a little of it along the cut, and voila! No holes and no gaps,” Gabe defended, placing a plate of salmon, eggs, and toast in front of Magna.

Magna eagerly picked up her fork and began eating while the two men argued over the proper use of superglue. Her eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them. They were a beautiful contrast to each other: Gabe’s short black hair, dark, serious brown eyes, deeply tanned face, and muscular frame, and Kane’s light brown shaggy hair, dancing blue eyes, pale skin, and tall, lean build.

The conversation shifted when they finished their meal. She knew then that the men had kept up their running banter to keep her occupied while she ate. Magna swallowed and lowered her fork to the empty plate in front of her.

“So, tell us about yourself,” Kane said in a soothing tone. “Where are you from? How did you get here?”

“Why did Mike shoot you and where is he?” Gabe added before he grunted and shot a glare at Kane. “What? I want to know!”

Magna bent her head to look at her plate for a moment before she drew in a deep breath. She thought about their questions, her mind running through all of the ways she could avoid confessing all of the horrendous atrocities that she had committed. She finally decided she had nothing left to lose if she told Kane and Gabe what had happened to her. It would only be a matter of time before someone told them.

She looked up to stare out of the sliding glass doors. Through the tall trees, she could see the ocean. Rising up out of her seat, she walked over to the glass doors and laid her palm against the cool surface.

“Two centuries ago, my cousin Orion and I were sitting on the beach of the Isle of the Sea Serpent. It is the home of my father’s people. It was late, and the stars glowed brilliantly in the sky. We were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew older,” she quietly explained, the scene before her fading as she remembered that night.

A soft smile curved her lips. She wasn’t aware that both men could see every expression on her face in the reflection of the glass. In a way, she had forgotten they were even there as she became lost in her memories. She drew in a deep breath before she continued.

“Orion’s life was already laid out before him. He would one day become king of our people, but me… I wanted to explore the world. I had always been too adventurous. My parents often cautioned me that my curiosity would lead me astray, but I didn’t care. I had explored further and further away from the safety of the Isle of the Sea Serpent unbeknownst to them, and discovered many amazing new worlds. I went to the Isle of the Dragon and played with them in the surf. I loved the markets on the Isle of Magic where you could buy potions and spell books. I was planning to visit the Isle of Giants. I had learned an invisibility spell that I wanted to try, but everything changed after that night….” Her voice became heavy with sadness as it faded.

“What happened?” Kane asked in a quiet voice when she didn’t go on.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall. Crying would not change the course of history. Neither would it redeem her sins or wash away the pain she had inflicted on others.

“There was a meteor,” she whispered, lost in the memories of that night. “I made a wish on it. Orion and I watched as it flew through the night and splashed in the ocean not far from the beach where we sat. I called for my sea dragon, Raine. If I found the meteorite, my wish would have to come true. We raced out to sea, searching for it.”

Her fingers curled on the glass as she remembered the joy that had turned to terror. In a way, the young girl she had been had died that night. In her place a monster had risen – a monster known as the Sea Witch.

“Did you…? Find the meteorite, that is?” Gabe asked.

She turned her head slightly to the side and nodded, before looking back at the ocean again. “Yes, or rather I should say it found me,” she replied after several long seconds. “Orion called for me to stop. He said the water did not feel right. I laughed at him. I thought he was just trying to distract me so he could find the meteorite first. We often teased each other, so I thought this was just another way for him to get ahead of me. He was right, though. I should have listened to him,” she said, turning to look at Kane and Gabe and wrapping her arms around her waist. “We were about to leave when it came up out of the depths beneath us. Orion did not see it, but I did. I tried to warn him, but in my haste, I scared his mount. He was thrown from his sea dragon and struck his head on the side of the cliff. I was able to grab him before the creature could and I pulled him across Raine’s back. I urged Raine to flee, but she was too young and small to handle the combined weight of both Orion and myself. I knew that Orion had to live. He was our future king. It was my responsibility to protect him when he could not protect himself.”

She swallowed and absently wiped at the dampness on her cheek. She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry, yet the tears came anyway. She angrily brushed them away.

“I tried to escape, but the creature had wrapped its tentacles around my legs and was pulling me down into the abyss. As it did… I could see what it wanted, what it would do to our world,” she said in a tight, desperate voice. She waved her hand in the air as she remembered the horror she had witnessed. “There was nothing I could do. I struggled, but more of its limbs wrapped around me until I could barely breathe. The only thing I could do was try to protect a small part of myself. I hid deep inside my own mind, watching helplessly as the alien creature tried to destroy my world. I hoped that one day I would be able to find a way to kill it. The creature had unwittingly shown me what had happened to the others of its kind, but I was not sure how I could use that knowledge to defeat it.”

A soft sob escaped her, and she shook her head as she tried to push the suffocating fear away. The memories were still so vivid, even after all this time. Locked in the memory of that darkness, she struggled to break free.

Both Kane and Gabe rose from their seats. The two dogs, sensing her distress, whined and padded over to her. Magna looked down at the light blue eyes of the Huskies. She reached down and curled her fingers in the thick hair at Buck’s nape.

“What was it?” Kane asked in a somber tone.

She looked up at him, unaware of the tortured expression in her eyes. “Something that came from the stars,” she replied. “Its own planet had been destroyed by a comet. In desperation, it and others of its kind melded with the debris that was thrown back into space. It stayed locked inside the metal, waiting until the time it could break free. It is a parasitic species. They take over the host.”

“Couldn’t this Orion or someone help you?” Gabe asked, running his hand over his nape. “I mean, you saved this guy’s life, surely he could have figured out a way to kill the thing.”

Magna shook her head and released a sigh. She turned to stare back out at the ocean. She could feel the tug of it on her body. She needed to go for a swim.

“I realized what the creature’s plans were and I feared for my people. In desperation, I cast a binding spell, locking it to my body. As long as I lived, it did, but if I should die, it would as well. I would not give it a chance to overtake another. Later, I woke on the beach next to Orion,” she said. “At first, I thought I had dreamed the entire episode until I saw the deep gash on Orion’s head. I struggled up to the palace and notified the guards. Everything seemed strange and disorientated. I was hearing a voice in my head and the pressure… The pressure in my body made me feel as if I would explode. I returned to the water and disappeared beneath the waves, hoping that the soothing minerals in it would heal my body. Instead, I was pulled back down into the abyss. Over time, the creature became hungry to be set free. It grew stronger inside me until I could no longer separate it from myself. No one knew what had happened to me, including my parents, until I was forced to return as the creature tried to take over the Kingdoms.”

“Shit! Didn’t anyone suspect that something had happened to change you?” Gabe demanded.

“No,” she replied with a shiver. She wrapped her hands around her waist again, ignoring the protest of her shoulder. “I spent years hiding and trying to figure out how to kill the thing inside me. I studied its memories. I even tried…” Her voice growing quiet at the dark despair.

“What did you try?” Kane urged.

Magna shook her head again. “I tried to kill myself,” she said in an emotionless voice. “Several times, but the creature always stopped me before I could. That’s when I knew I had to force my cousin to end my life. It took me years before I could finally combine several spells into one that I knew would be powerful enough to kill it, but I also knew I would need help to weaken the creature, to distract it, so that it could not stop me. That day came when Mike used his weapon against me. The timing had to be just right. I knew the spell would destroy any who remained, including myself.”

“Damn. I heard that before Mike Hallbrook disappeared, he contacted his sister and said he was leaving, but it was all real strange,” Gabe muttered behind her. “That answers my questions, but what about Kane’s? Where did you come from and how did you get here?”

Magna turned around again and tilted her head as she studied the two men. A small, sad smile curved her lips. With a slight shrug, she gave them the answer to one and what she suspected for the other.

“My home is – was – part of the Seven Kingdoms. I lived on the Isle of the Sea Serpent, where our homes extend both above and below the waters surrounding our kingdom. I have never seen your kingdom before. As to how I came here, I suspect that when I cast the spell, I used a portion of it to take me away. I wanted to feel soothing waters once more before I died. I remember nothing else until you pulled me onto your vessel.”

“Double damn,” both men whispered at the same time, staring at her in stunned silence.

She returned their look with a steady gaze of her own. She wasn’t sure what they had been expecting, but it clearly wasn’t the explanation she had given them. She swallowed, her stomach knotting. She waited to see what they would say. Afraid to see their expressions turn to fear and disgust as they realized just how tainted and depraved she had been, she turned to gaze back out over the trees at the distant sea.

If I can make it to the water, she thought with a weary sigh. I could disappear beneath the waves, even on this world.