The boat ride through the harbor was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I loved the way the wind felt in my hair and on my skin.

Nik had given me a blanket from his room to wrap around myself as we rode, since the wind out here was cold, but I didn’t even notice the temperature. I was too in awe of the view to care.

From out here on the water, it was like looking at the town for the first time all over again. I could even see the beautiful willow tree and the marshy channel that led from its roots toward the sea. And when I looked to my left, the vast expanse of the ocean made me feel so small and yet so connected to the world.

I had never felt this way in Vegas, where everything was man-made and built for the sole purpose of making money. Compared to Willow Harbor, the city I’d grown up in seemed so cold and heartless.

It made me realize just how much I’d missed out on in my life so far.

And it made it me even more determined to live my life to the fullest while I still had one.

We passed an old lighthouse made of stone and Nik slowed the boat to a crawl along the water. It was suddenly so quiet compared to the trip over here with the engine roaring and the waves lapping against the side of the boat.

I looked around, wondering where he was taking me that was supposed to be so incredible, when I spotted a small, private little cove just up ahead. I sat up straighter, trying to get a better look, but I knew this had to be the place. It was hard to describe, but I could feel the energy in the air shift as Nik maneuvered the boat toward the cove and then threw the anchor.

“Are we here?” I asked.

“This is it,” he said, standing. “Locals call this place The Hole, because there’s a section here with an underwater cave that goes down pretty deep.”

An underwater cave? While it sounded exotic, it also sounded a little bit terrifying.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked.

Nik smiled. “I wouldn’t bring you to a place that wasn’t safe,” he said. “You can swim, right?”

I nodded. I’d never been swimming in the ocean before, but I’d spent a lot of time at the hotel’s pool, swimming laps back and forth.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s go, then. We only have a few hours before it gets dark, and trust me when I say we don’t want to be out here after sunset.”

I shivered at the way he said that. “What happens after sunset?”

A dark look crossed his face. “Different creatures rule the ocean at night,” he said. “But don’t think about that now. You’ll be safe with me, I promise.”

I definitely didn’t like the sound of the word creatures, but I decided to trust him, which was a rare thing for me. I never trusted anyone.

He kicked off his shoes and lifted his t-shirt over his head. I knew I shouldn’t stare, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the way he looked half-naked, standing two feet away from me. His chest was tan and muscular, and I suddenly felt like I’d had the breath knocked out of me.

I forced my eyes away and stood up, ridiculously nervous about shedding my blanket and cover-up in front of him. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my body, but I was used to hiding it around men. The type of men who hung around Dominic in Vegas were not to be trusted, so I dressed modestly and tried to disappear as much as possible.

I hadn’t really thought about it when I bought the bikini Lucy suggested, but this would be the most naked I’d ever been in front of a man. Even in the pools in Vegas, I’d worn a modest swimsuit and covered myself the second I got out of the water. What was I thinking buying something this skimpy?

But she’d convinced me the baby blue color of the suit complimented my pale skin and auburn hair.

“You can’t swim in a blanket,” Nik said, grabbing something out of his bag that he quickly hid in the pocket of his suit. “I promise, it won’t be cold in the water here. It’s a very special place. The water’s warm.”

I took a deep breath and let go of the blanket, letting it fall to the bottom of the boat. I wished Nik would look away, but he kept his eyes on me as I lifted the white cover-up over my head and dropped it near the blanket.

I turned away to grab my swim fins, but risked a glance at him to see if he was still watching me. His eyes locked on mine, and a brief flash of desire pulsed through them before he quickly looked away.

Was it possible he was feeling just as attracted to me as I was to him?

It seemed like such a simple thing, but it was something I’d never been free to experience before. I’d been locked away by an evil demon when I was just eight years old, so I’d never even had the chance to fall for a guy. This was all new territory for me.

The idea made my stomach flutter, and I just wish he’d stop looking at me.

“Okay, so, uh, we should probably just jump right in,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair. “You go first.”

“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “You first.”

He smiled. “How about we do it together?”

He reached for my hand, and I took it, leaning into the solid warmth of him. We stood together, and on his count of three, we both jumped into the water.

I released his hand as I dipped under the surface and swam back up to the top. He was right. The water was really warm here. But how was that possible? It was October. It should have been freezing.

Nik came up beside me, breaking the surface of the water and beaming. “See?” he said. “I told you it was warm.”

“It’s incredible,” I said. “But why is it warm here? Does it have something to do with the current?”

“Something like that,” he said. His eyes gleamed. “Here, put on these swim fins and practice swimming around.”

I laughed as he helped me place the pink swim fins on my feet. It was incredibly awkward at first, but Nik was a patient teacher. We played around in the water for a good half an hour, just swimming around on the surface of the water and getting used to the feel of the fins.

“You’re a fast learner,” he said. “Come on, I want to show you the best part. Think you can hold your breath for a while?”

“I think so,” I said, my nerves bubbling up again.

“Put your goggles on. We’re going to swim down toward the cave, okay?” he asked. “If you start to panic or feel like you’re losing air, just float back up to the surface. No big deal.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly nervous. I wondered how deep this cave went.

“We’ll just go down a little ways so you can get an idea of where the entrance to the cave is,” he said. “Then we’ll come back up and see how you’re doing.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I was both nervous and excited. I had dreamed of adventures my whole life, and now I was really experiencing one.

I secured my goggles and gave him a nervous thumbs up.

“Here we go,” he said.

I took in a large breath and followed him beneath the surface. He took my hand and led me deeper into the water. His friend Adam had been right. The water here was so crystal clear, I could see all the way down to the bottom.

Nik pointed straight down, and my eyes widened at the sight of the cave. The entrance was larger than I expected it to be, and vibrant fish of different colors swam around it in schools.

I tried to take it all in and hold my breath as long as I could, but the deeper we got, the more I started to panic. There was no way I could make it all the way down to the cave. It was too far.

I wrenched my hand free of Nik’s and aimed toward the surface, kicking my legs as hard as I could. When I broke free, I gulped in the air and my heart raced.

Nik joined me a few moments later, and I apologized.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It takes a little while to get comfortable going so deep and holding your breath for so long.”

“It’s truly beautiful down there,” I said. “I really wish I didn’t need to breathe at all. Could you imagine being able to stay down there as long as you wanted and swim all around, just looking at the fish? I mean, I guess that’s what people do when they scuba dive, but the idea of wearing all the equipment kind of freaks me out.”

A brief look of sadness crossed his features, but he seemed to swallow it down quickly.

“This is just a tiny preview of what the ocean has to offer,” he said. He glanced out toward the horizon. “You wouldn’t believe how beautiful it can be down there.”

“Do you scuba dive?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head as if shaking away a memory. “But if you’re willing to open your mind to other possibilities, there are other ways to swim longer and farther without scuba gear.”

I narrowed my gaze at him. He sounded nervous and mysterious, and I wondered what else he might have up his sleeve.

“Like what?” I asked.

“That depends on how open minded you are,” he said.

It felt like he was challenging me, but I didn’t understand what he meant by that. How could being open minded help me hold my breath longer underwater?

“You’re dancing around something,” I said, slightly out of breath from treading water for so long. “Just tell me.”

“Let me show you something, and if you believe me, we’ll go from there,” he said.

Confused, I followed him back to the anchored boat. He pulled me up on the back steps, and I watched as he dug into the pocket of his swimsuit and retrieved two vials of bright blue-green liquid.

“You trusted me before. Do you think you can trust me again?” he asked.

I swallowed nervously and stared at the vials. I could feel the magical energy radiating from them, but how was that possible?

I shivered and wrapped my arms around my body. The water was warm, but the air outside the water was still really cold.

“What is that?” I asked. “Just so you know, I don’t do drugs. Ever.”

“It’s not a drug,” he said. “Not exactly. I’m taking a chance even showing these to you, but I have a feeling there’s more to you than meets the eye. And if I’m right, you’ve probably spent a good deal of your life hiding the truth of what you are from other people.”

I nearly stopped breathing and looked up into his eyes. Was he saying what I think he was saying? But how could he know?

“Nik—”

“Wait, just give me a chance to explain something first,” he said. “Then you can make your judgment or decide if you want to tell me the truth.”

I considered what he said and then nodded, but my entire body was shivering. No one had ever called me out on my magic before. Not like this. How could he have possibly figured it out? Most humans had no idea magic even existed.

Was it really possible I had met one of the few who did?

“Out there in the regular world, almost everyone is human, just going about their day, never imagining that there is something more to the world than they could ever dream,” he said. “But there are those of us who know the truth. We know that there’s so much more. There’s magic that lives inside of us. There are demons and witches, vampires, werewolves, all those things humans make up stories about are real, and I have a feeling you already know that, don’t you?”

My body erupted in goosebumps, and it wasn’t from the cool air. This day had just taken a sharp left-turn, and I had no idea whether I wanted to run away or cry from relief.

Considering the fact that I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I had no choice but to just stand there, totally dumbstruck.

“I don’t know your past, and I’m not going to push you to tell me, but I don’t think it was an accident that you found this place. This town,” he said. “It’s hard to explain, but this town has a way of drawing people in when they’re meant to find it. And most of the people who live here are connected to the supernatural world in some way.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I suddenly felt very disoriented. Like I’d landed in an alternate universe.

“You’re telling me Willow Harbor is a town full of supernaturals?” I asked.

Nik nodded.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he said. “And I think you’re one, too, though I’m not sure what kind. I’m guessing you’re a witch.”

My heart beat hard against my ribs. How could he tell that just from being around me a couple days? I’d been so careful not to cast in front of him, so how did he know?

And what would he want from me now that he did? Everyone who found out about my abilities ended up wanting to use them for their own purposes, and I was done being a slave to those kinds of men.

Still, part of me hoped Nik wasn’t like that.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But if I’m right, you might believe me when I tell you a friend of mine made these for me so that I could breathe under water.”

He held one of the blue potions out to me, and I took it. The moment my fingers closed around it, I could feel the power pulsing inside. Holy crap, he was telling the truth.

I had read about witches who were talented in potion creation and elixirs, but I had never actually seen one of these types of potions. Until now.

“How does it work?” I asked.

“You just drink it,” he said. “A few seconds later, you can breath under water.”

“Like a mermaid,” I said, smiling.

His eyes gleamed, but the same sad smile from earlier crossed his lips. “Yes, exactly like a mermaid. Or a triton,” he said.

“A triton?” That wasn’t a term I was familiar with.

“Mermaids are all women,” he said. “The men are called tritons.”

“Oh,” I said. “And you’ve done this before? Taken one of these potions?”

“Occasionally,” he said. “The ingredients for this particular potion are kind of rare, so my friend can only make a few at a time. I try to use them sparingly, when I’m really longing for a day in the ocean to get away from it all.”

“How long does it last?” I asked. I glanced up at the sun that was already getting too low in the sky to give us much time.

“Several hours, usually,” he said. “We should have plenty of time to explore the cave before it runs out.”

I laughed, hardly believing this was real.

I had escaped the demon who had held me captive for thirteen years and miraculously ended up in a safe haven for people like me. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

But if I was, I wanted the dream to last a little while longer.

“Well, I said I wanted an adventure.” I removed the cork from the small bottle and drank it down. “Let’s go explore that cave.”