“This is our family’s coat of arms? Sick,” I said, handing the drawing back to Jared. “No wonder Jack changed it. He couldn’t hang something that monstrous on the wall.”

“This is very similar to the creature in Revelations,” Jared said, staring at the twisted black lines on the paper. The heads, the horns, the crowns….”

“What creature?” I said, wary.

Jared made a face, and then pored over the other files in the drawer. He stopped for a moment, and then leaned in closer to the document he had paused on. His shoulders slumped. “Agh…no,” he whispered, his head falling forward.

“What is it?” I said, afraid of what he might say.

He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, pulling the paper from the drawer. He looked once more, and then shut his eyes tight.

I fidgeted. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

His eyes slowly opened, and the twin storms of his irises sent panic throughout my body. He glanced at the coat of arms on the wall. “I promise you, Nina. You don’t want to know.”

“I think I have to know at this point,” I said, pulling the paper from his hand.

Jared shook his head. “I can still figure out how to save you without you knowing everything. We’ve talked about that before. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to know this.”

I lowered my eyes to the paper. It was a list of names, similar to a family tree, but it only followed one line. My name was at the bottom. Higher on the list, names like Dagobert the third, and Clovis the first. The name at the top, Merovius, had two fathers: King Clodian; the other name caused my legs to disappear, and I dropped the paper to the floor.

Jared supported my weight. “Sweetheart?” he said, pulling my chin up so that he could see into my eyes. He lifted me into his arms and carried me to Jack’s desk chair, kneeling before me.

“What…what does that mean? What the hell is a Beast of the Sea?” I wailed.

Jared shook his head. “It’s just a story, Nina, nothing more.”

“Tell me,” I whispered.

Jared’s jaws fluttered. “I don’t want to.”

“What am I?”

A small smile touched Jared’s mouth. “You’re human. You just have some pretty potent blood running through your veins.”

“I need to know,” I said, touching his cheek with my fingertips.

Jared seemed just as horrified as I was. In the beginning, he had tortured himself over bringing me into his world, stealing away my mundane life forever. Now it was I that regretted involving him in my life—we were both spiraling into a nightmare that didn't seem to end.

Jared sighed. “Merovingians. You’re a Merovingian, Nina. A very long time ago, your family ruled with divine power, under the belief that they are direct descendants of Jesus Christ.”