By Lena Hart

Simon jerked back and studied the beautiful raven-haired siren. It wasn’t necessarily what she said but how she said it.

Why would they need to get along?

He slowly began to pull away from the woman, but something in her sea-green eyes stopped him. There was something about her that was hypnotic, making him forget his Ana and the memories that were still very much a part of him.

“It’ll be okay, Simon. This was all meant to happen.”

That odd declaration confused him more then ever.

“Tonight,” she explained. “Tonight was always meant to happen, Simon.”

So now she could read my mind too?

“Who the hell are you?”

“I told you. My name is Narissa. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not.”

She smiled in a way that told them both she knew he was lying. She took his cool hands into hers again, and the same warmth that had coursed through his body when she had kissed him spread through him. That tantalizing sensation made him forget who he was and what he’d done.

She made him forget a lot of things.

“I can feel your pain, Simon. It’s not your fault what happened to her. None of it was.”

“How can you say that,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was the experienced one. I should have known it was too dangerous to go out in the water. I should have tried harder to look for her.”

“You did everything you could that night.”

But he could have done more.

That single thought had plagued him for the last two years. His life had been a constant loop of wondering and second-guessing. It didn’t matter how many times his family and friends tried to reassure him, or how many cruises or trips they took to these private islands. Nothing could erase his mind of the doubt and what-ifs.

And nothing could erase the memory of the accusatory glares from Ana’s parents. He had no words to justify why he had taken their only daughter out on his boat during a tropical storm warning. Ana had fallen off of his boat and her life had been cut short because of him.

“Look at me, Simon.”

He stared down at her, this disheveled woman wearing only his sweatshirt. She was a stranger to him, and yet, he felt as if he’d known her forever.

“Do you trust me?”

For the life of him, he didn’t know why he agreed, but he couldn’t stop his head from bobbing up and down like an idiot. But with that slow awareness came a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Good, because I would never hurt you, Simon. You are my alteruid.”

“Your what?”

“My other…my mate.”

Her grip tightened around his hand as she slowly led him toward the boulder. The waves rolled and crashed against the dark rock, leaving a spray of white foam to cascade back into the black ocean bed. The stars above glowed brightly. The same brightness that had convinced him to take the woman he loved into his boat so he could propose to her. She should have been his partner…his mate.

Now she was gone.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To a new life. A happier one…”

Simon knew he had two choices. He could get as far away from this crazy temptress and back to his family…and his heartache.

Or he could succumb to his desire and follow this mysterious siren to the unknown—into the watery abyss that stretched before them…