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I tighten my arms around her. “That would never have happened, Andi. You are mine to protect.”

“How were you there so quickly?”

I pause, considering whether to tell her the truth. I am almost certain she will not be pleased that I was following her today. But I also find, for some strange reason, that I don’t like the idea of lying to the little siren. Damn my honor for making a reappearance at such an inopportune moment.

“I was following you today,” I admit. “During your excursions with Sebastian and the shows tonight.”

As I predicted, Andi stiffens in my arms, but doesn’t pull away. “You were stalking me?” she asks warily, some of that old suspicion and fear in her voice.

“If you want to put such an ugly label on it, then yes, I suppose. I like to think of it more like guarding without you seeing me.” I shrug.

“You can’t do that, Julian! You can’t just break our agreements like that. You said you would give me a day away from you.” Andi is getting riled up, pulling back from my arms so that she can look at my face, even though it’s too dark for her eyes to focus on anything.

“I did give you a day away from me. I was nowhere near you, as much as I wanted to be. But you don’t understand what being siren-bound is like, ma souris. It is like I am a plant and you are the sun. I can survive without you in small stretches, but I need you to live. And if I hadn’t been following you today, Colton would have you by now, since you left your guard behind. Sebastian wouldn’t have been there soon enough.”

I can tell that my words have an effect on Andi. She stops pulling away, relaxing again into my embrace. “I know that was stupid,” she whispers. “I just never thought that he would go that far. Jade . . . wait, Jade! Is she . . .”

“She is fine,” I assure her. “She has been healed magically. Within a day, it will be like she was never injured in the first place.”

“Oh,” breathes out Andi. “Good. I thought . . . I worried . . .” Her voice breaks and, to my horror, begins to cry.

“No tears, ma souris,” I try soothing, moving my right hand up and down her spine. I kiss the crown of her head. How does one get a woman to stop crying? “It will all be alright. I will take care of everything.”

“I’m just overwhelmed,” she sniffles, still crying, her tears running down my chest as they fall from her eyes. “I want to be mad at you. I am mad at you, but I’m also so, so grateful. You rescued me and saved Jade and are protecting my friend and me. . . but still, it’s not okay to stalk me, even for my own good. I need to be able to consent to things and control my own life. It’s important to me.”

“I cannot promise I won’t do it again,” I tell her honestly. “If you try to banish me again from your life, I will let you have your space, but I will never leave you to be in danger. Especially if you aren’t going to respect your other bodyguards and stay with them. It took centuries off of my life when you got into Jade’s car instead of the SUV. I almost killed Sebastian on the spot for allowing such foolishness.”

“No killing Sebastian,” she orders. “I’ll be extremely angry at you if you hurt him because of me.”

“I thought as much, so he is still in one piece,” I grouse. The idea of giving him at least a few broken bones has merit. I still partially blame him for this whole ordeal.

“They could have still tried to take me if I were in the SUV. You don’t know that they wouldn’t have attempted it,” she points out, annoyingly logical.

“They would have,” I admit. “But it would have been far more difficult. The SUV is armored. Even if they crashed into it, it would have been hard for them to dent it, let alone get inside. And Sebastian would have been there to fight them off.”

“They had guns,” she says. “I bet even vampires don’t like bullets. Sebastian could have been killed.”

“That is his job. He knows the risks. Everyone in the Fraternity knows the dangers of being part of my brotherhood. And regular bullets are more like annoying bee stings to a vampire. It takes a special kind of bullet to kill one of the children of the night.” Which their guns were loaded with, but I don’t tell her that.

“Be that as it may,” she says stubbornly, “I don’t want Sebastian to be hurt because of me, and I don’t want to be stalked. It turned out to be a good thing this time, but what if nothing had happened? Then you would have just been following me without my consent. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

“How about this?” I offer. “When there are no active threats against you, you will be allowed to go places without me, but while a threat is current, you will not ask me to leave your side. It is better for both our sakes that you do not.”

Andi stays quiet longer than I would expect after my, in my mind, very generous compromise. I almost would think that she fell back asleep when she finally sighs. “That sounds reasonable, except it’s not so simple, is it? Even after you . . . neutralize . . . Colton, that’s not the end of the threats, is it? Before we were hit, Jade was telling me that sirens were all hunted down and killed. That there may still be hunters alive that would want me dead, and that other magic users besides the Circle would want my blood. She called it a ‘potent ingredient.’ So, as long as there are people who think I am a siren, this threat isn’t the only active one.”

She sounds sad and resigned as she details out the bleakness of the future before her. I want to reassure her, but I can’t. She’s right. There will be threats against her from every quarter, which is why I want to keep her species a secret. She obviously told Jade, but I don’t see a threat from her. Jade is a loyal friend. She should be made to sign a magical NDA, anyway though, just in case she’s captured and tortured.

Aloud, I respond, “I will work to keep you safe, Andi. To give you as normal a life as possible. But I fear that you were never meant for a normal life. Sirens seem not to be able to escape getting embroiled in trouble.”

“Could you tell me about them?” she asks, a tone of pleading in her voice. “I know you said that you felt telling me about sirens would be like handing me a loaded gun, but if I truly have powers that can protect me, shouldn’t I know how to use them? What if you aren’t there next time someone tries to take me?”

Her logic is sound, as much as I don’t like it. And she’s already signed a contract with me that she can’t use her powers against me. What is the harm in her trying to figure out how to defend herself?

I sigh. “I don’t know as much as I would like. Sirens were always rare Others. Creatures of legend. Bogeymen to vampires and fey, the one creature that could bring us to our knees. And I tried to research your kind and came up empty, even with my private collection of ancient tomes. I don’t know how much of what I know is real or tall tale, but I will tell you what I know.”

That seems to please Andi, who snuggles into my embrace, as she settles down to hear my words.

I begin, “Like I told you before, the first great siren I know of is Helen of Troy. Troy was a bastion of the Other World in ancient times, a place where creatures of all kinds could live openly under the rule of good King Priam, who was Other himself. No one knows exactly what species he was, only that he was one of us. His second wife bore him two sons, Hector and Paris. Hector was known as the greatest warrior in Troy, and Paris the greatest scholar. It seemed that Troy was on the cusp of a golden age when a beauty unlike anything anyone had ever seen appeared at the city gates. Helen, who was supposed to be the wife of the Greek king Menelaus. No one knows how she got to King Priam, but they say that he and his family instantly fell under the thrall of her beauty and voice.”