On cue, the waitress arrived to take our order and true to my word from the other night, I ordered the steak.

"What can you do, Aimee?"

"Excuse me?"

Brandon leaned back, studying me while one arm clung to his glass of wine.

"I mean, what are your powers?"

I turned to Christian, confused.

"She's doesn't know." Christian explained.

"How is that possible, cousin?"

"She's never used her powers. Now can we get on with what we came here to do?"

Christian took a swig of his glass of wine.

"Well, you know I require payment up front."

I shot Christian a puzzled look.

"He means a secret. You have to tell him one of yours in order to get the information."

"I told you I don't have any secrets."

"No?" Brandon asked. "Everyone has skeletons in their closets. Think hard, Aimee."

I grabbed the glass of wine in front of me and chugged it.

With both of their eyes on me, I sifted through my mind.

What could I tell him that would satisfy his curiosity?

I'd never stolen anything, never had a need to.

I'd led a pretty normal life. Nothing out of the ordinary. My parents had been well off thanks to dad's career as a lawyer and my life had been blissfully sheltered up until dad had been murdered.

I'd never committed a crime except maybe smoking pot and sneaking into Cocktail but that hardly constituted as a secret.

The most excitement in my life had all happened in the span of meeting Christian and having my family abducted.

I supposed I could tell him about the ghosts.

No one else knew about that...but it seemed something so intimate, like saying it aloud would somehow make me appear, well, crazy.

I wrung my hands under the table.

"I'm going to need another drink."

Brandon called the waitress down, a smile on his face.

"Another glass of wine for the lady."

She brought another glass for me and I relaxed when I saw her leave the bottle in an ice tray at the edge of the table.

Once I'd downed that and began to feel the effects of the alcohol buzzing in my system, I gathered the courage to lean toward Brandon.

"You want to know my secret?"

He grinned a Cheshire cat grin, absolutely delighted. He motioned for me to go on, as if we were on the stage of a theater and I was the performer.

"I can see dead people. Ghosts. Sometimes they talk to me, other times they warn me about dangers."

Christian tensed up beside me.

I glanced side-ways at him and found that his arm had gone rigid as he gripped his wine glass.

The next moment, it snapped and shattered in his palm.

Wine splattered all over the white tablecloth, quickly staining it crimson.

Drops of bright red blood dripped down his palm and across his wrist.

"Christian." I breathed. "What the hell?"

He grimaced and wrapped the cloth napkin around his palm just as the waitress rushed over.

"It was an accident." Brandon explained with an elegant flick of his hand. "He's clumsy."

"Don't worry, we'll get this cleaned up."

After the table cloths and cutlery had been replaced, and after she'd left the table again, Brandon snapped his fingers like he'd just gotten a marvelous idea.

"Heal him." He said, gesturing toward Christian's bleeding hand.

"No." Christian growled and the same time that I asked, "What?"

"Heal Christian. Or do you not know how?"

"I don't even know what you mean by heal him. I'm not a doctor."

"Oh, Aimee, you're an infant when it comes to this world."

"What is he talking about?" I said, swinging to face Christian.

"As a hybrid, you have the ability to...heal. Not just yourself but others." Christian explained.

I let this sink in.

If that were true, had I healed the owl with the crushed body? Could I have healed dad's wound if I'd been closer, Ally's even?

"But you're not doing that today. She paid your price, Brandon, now it's time for you to uphold your end of the bargain."

"It wouldn't hurt for her to try."

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

Maybe I did have a thing or two I could learn from Brandon. And why the hell was Christian so against it?

Defiance rose within me. Now I'd heal him just because he'd said no. He didn't own me.

"How do I do it?"

Brandon's lips curled into a pleasant smile.

"I'm no hybrid," he began. "But I think all you need to do is channel your power into healing him. I've heard it described as focusing your magic on positive things."

"It's worth a shot. Give me your hand." I told Christian.

He hesitated before unwrapping the cloth napkin from his hand and placing it into mine. Some internal battle warred in the depth of his eyes, but whatever it was, I had no time or desire to figure it out.

If Christian wanted to act like a tortured soul one moment and an arrogant dipshit the next, that was on him.

I stared at the shallow cuts in his hands made by the spears of glass which were still seeping blood.

I glanced around the room.

Everyone was preoccupied with their mundane lives, none of them paying us any attention.

So I did as Brandon had advised.

I stared at Christian's hand with an intensity I was sure would burn a hole through his palm but nothing happened.

I cleared my throat and tried a different tactic, that of envisioning positive thoughts, as Brandon had suggested, but what positive thoughts could I possibly have at the moment?

Everything around me was, to put it mildly, going up in flames.

So I thought of my past life instead.

My peals of laughter as dad spun me around in the back yard.

Pharoah when he'd been a cute and impressionable puppy.

Taylor, her chubby baby hands smearing her body with peanut butter she'd found uncapped in the pantry.

A flash of gold raced through Christian's wounds, so quickly it was gone before I'd blinked.

I gasped and yanked my hand away.

Brandon let out a surprised whoop and Christian's eyes landed on my face, awestruck.

"That was incredible." Brandon enthused. "Unbelievably incredible. Don't you agree, Christian?"

Christian glanced down at his freshly healed palm.

My heart raced in my throat, and I too looked down at my hand, unable to believe what had just happened.

Christian's gaze burned as he stared at me in awe.

I found myself wishing he would look away.

I took another swig of my third glass of wine, wishing it was stronger.

This was a whole lot more than I'd bargained for.

This was insanity.

"S'got you under her faerie spell, huh, cousin?" Brandon whistled as he watched us both.

"Not your type." Christian grunted, finally peeling his eyes away from me.

Brandon chuckled, taking another sip of his drink.

"No, you're right, she's yours."

"I'm not his." I protested. "And stop talking about me like I'm not here."

"His type, I mean."

"Well, that's great, but I don't care. I've paid your price and humored you with this little magic show. I want the information now."

"Sassy." Brandon reproached. "But fine. A deal is a deal."

He leaned toward us on his elbows.

"I was down at a bar that our kind frequent and bought a secret from one of the Verlac guards who was on vacation. He said the Verlac's have been experimenting ways to heal Carlos's dying wife. He mentioned they'd recently kidnapped a mother and daughter for said purposes."

I leaned forward, eager to hear more.

If this was about mom and Taylor, I didn't want to miss a single word.

"When you brought up that Aimee's family, a mother and daughter, had been abducted, I immediately thought of the Verlacs."

"Who the hell are the Verlacs? And why would they want mom and Taylor?"

"The Verlacs, huh? Did he tell you anything else?"

"Nah. It's all he knew. He's a lower guard, too unimportant to know much about the Verlac's dirty little secrets. Probably guards the dogs or something."

I was growing annoyed that they kept ignoring me like I wasn't sitting right here.

Using my fork, I speared a cherry tomato on my plate.

"The Verlac's." Christian said turning to me. "Are a royal family who'd once been in power but when the former Queen became ill, Carlos Verlac had to step down and give up his crown."

Effortlessly, he plucked the fork from my hand. "Now relax before you break the plate. I'm not ignoring you."

Not ignoring me.

Just pretending I'm not here.

Christian was bipolar, at times nice, at times a complete asshole. Wasn't really expecting much respect from him there but I'd given this Brandon idiot a secret and he didn't even have the decency to address me directly.

"Now, that's not true, Aimee. You have my undivided attention. Truly, I'd love nothing more than to pick your brain, find out what else you're capable of."

My eyes flung to Brandon's face.

His eyes glittered with amusement, his almond-shaped eyes not blinking, not even once as his eyes bore into me.

Had he really just responded to a thought I had?

I knew I hadn't said it out loud.

In fact, I'd been biting my tongue not to rip these two a new one.

So then how would he know what I was...?

"You can read my mind?" I asked, my mouth falling open and nearly hitting China.

"Precisely. Gotta give you credit, it usually takes humans forever to figure that one out."

I spun on Christian.

"Can you read minds too?"

"Uh-oh," Brandon whistled.

"Well?" I snapped.

Christian looked at me with an apology in his eyes.

"So that little macho stunt you pulled back in the hotel room. It was because you heard my thoughts?" I seethed.

I couldn't imagine a bigger violation of one's privacy.

So he'd known all along.

He'd known what kind of a freak I was, he'd known about my visits with my dead father.

How dare he?

How dare he steal my thoughts and make them his own?

All the thoughts I'd had of him. When he'd been shirtless—the thoughts going through my mind going down the elevator. If I could just disappear right now.

"Aimee, let me explain."

"I need to use the bathroom. Will you?" I asked, gesturing for him to move out of the way.

My lungs felt constricted and I could feel a hot, red anger climbing up my throat and to my ears.

I'd bet all the money in my wallet my face was as red as a tomato right now.

Mercifully, Christian did as I asked and I stood, brushing past him as I went.