Saving Her Destiny (16 page)

“I truly do not know where your banshee is. But if you touch me again, I promise you this. You will not walk out of this desert.”

“Good thing we can fly,” Reese said.

Lorsan snapped his fingers, and a pair of turquoise fairy wings appeared, hovering in the air.

“I always keep trophies, and I love fairy wings,” Lorsan said.

Damning the warning, Duncan leaped forward and almost touched the djinn, but Reese held him back with a hand snaked around his wings.

Duncan pulled against his friend's hold as he yelled at the djinn, “Where's Cara? Where did you take her?”

“I promise you, I have not seen your banshee. Go home. She will return soon enough, I imagine.” The djinn turned away from him and proceeded to head back through his gate. The djinn waved his hand, and Duncan and Reese were back in the Fairy Realm in a blink.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Saturday afternoon

The beach ball bounced across the sand and landed at Duncan's feet.

He stared at the bright colored ball, but didn't move from his chair. Not even to kick it back to Ewan and Christy, who were in the middle of a game with several other fairies, most of whom was somehow related to either Ewan or Christy.

Duncan didn't care. He didn't want to be here.

Though whether it had more to do with him being dragged out of his self-imposed exile, or because where they'd met for this beach-barbecue was on Avalon, being here hurt. It wasn't that far from where Duncan and Cara used to hang out.

Where he read her palm all those years ago.

There'd been no sign of Cara for over two weeks. He'd confronted his boss, and O'Leary confirmed nothing, instead putting Duncan on suspension until he got his head back together. So instead all Duncan did was search.

And try not to get killed in the process. Djinn don't like nosy fairies.

He still hadn't gotten himself back together.

Why he'd come to this family barbecue, he didn't know. A part of him thought maybe he'd find a bit of joy in being around family but so far that hadn't worked out well.

He'd checked in with Cara's family when he arrived on Avalon, just to see if they'd heard anything. And they hadn't. Though Janelle professed that Cara had to be all right somewhere, because she still hadn't had any kind of cry manifest.

That was the only bright spot he could muster. Because otherwise, his nightmares showed Cara stuck in some djinn prison, and he couldn't get to her. He'd searched everywhere, looking into every settlement he could find.

Yet he found nothing. Not even a touch of Cara's mind. He'd dropped all his blocks while searching, hoping that something would come through—that he'd find her.

He hadn't shut up the barriers, just in case. Not that it worked.

Even here, his own family's thoughts were barraging him, but he didn't have the strength or the effort within him to block any of them out.

Besides, they only echoed his own sadness.

“Look at him, so depressed…”

“Why did he come?”

“Sad, really…”

He got up from the chair, kicked the beach ball back toward everyone, and started to walk away.

“Duncan, wait,” he heard his sister-in-law call.

“No,” he said. He was going home. Back to his tomb in the Fairy Realm. At least there he could do something productive, and see if he could find Cara—some stone he hadn't looked under.

A flash of blue and Christy materialized in front of him. “No, I'm not letting you go. You've been unreachable for the last two weeks. I understand why, but I can't let you continue to be like this. You have to snap out of it.”

“You don't understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

He glared at her, then pointed behind him, in the general direction where Ewan was. “You have him for the rest of your life. I had her for a moment. And I'll never have her again. She's gone.”

“You don't know that. She could be…be…shopping, for all you know.”

“For two weeks, she's shopping? Really, Christy? That's the best you got?” She didn't get it. She probably never would. She was in love and happy.

Something Duncan didn't think he'd ever feel again.

“You said yourself: if she was dead or going to die, her sister would have released a cry, right? And her sister hasn't. So she must be okay, wherever she is.”

“It means she's alive and not near death. Not that she's safe.” His thoughts darted back to the morose side. “I've been through that desert a thousand times. Searched every cave, every dune, every magically protected spot I could find.” He jerked his shirt up, revealing half a dozen deep lacerations on his chest. “I've got more on my back.”

“Oh my stars, Duncan! What happened?” Christy covered her mouth, her eyes wide with worry.

“Not all djinn like fairies,” he said, which was true enough. He'd fought several different kinds as he searched for Cara. Including the
palis
djinn, where rumor had it, one of them had spoken of sucking the energy out of a human who pulsed with it. The vampire-like djinn did not take kindly to Duncan snooping around and they were incredibly nasty fighters.

“Duncan, you have to stop this,” Christy whispered. “You're going to get yourself killed.”

“I won't stop. I have to find her. I can't live like this, not knowing…”

“Find who?” came a female voice.

Duncan spun around.

Cara
.

Walking toward him and smiling. Her dark hair fluttered around her face, her bright eyes sparkled, and her lips were red, like she'd just eaten a bushel of strawberries. Her cheeks had a warm, sun-kissed glow, as did the rest of her, revealed by the thin maxi dress she wore.

“Cara,” he whispered, unable to move.
Was this real? Was she really standing there?

Christy spun around. “Oh, that's Cara,” she said, sighing. “She's beautiful…”

He shook his head. “Is this…is she…” He couldn't move as Cara came toward him; she looked so perfect, he wondered if he hallucinated.

“Is this real… Are you there?”

“Yes. I'm right here, Duncan,”
she answered him.

“I can't…” He took a step toward her, though more from Christy shoving him forward than anything.

A huge tsunami of emotion flooded him—all the anger, frustration, hurt, fear, worry, pain, and half-dozen others he couldn't articulate. All of it brewing and spewing out of him when he spoke. “Son of a Krakon, where in the Stars have you been?” Duncan demanded, his hands on his hips.

Cara's eyebrows went up, and her whole body pulled back, like he'd yelled.

Well, he probably had.

“What kind of a greeting is that?” Cara demanded.

“You've been gone for two weeks. No clue, no answer, and you just show up here, like everything's fine? Have you even seen your parents?”

“Of course I have! How else would I know you were here, Duncan?” She put her hands on her hips, mimicking his pose.

“So you just showed up, thinking you can walk over here, like nothing happened?”

“I would have thought you wanted to see me!” Cara squared her shoulders, like she was about to walk away. “But I suppose this greeting answers all my questions.”

Christy stepped between them, grabbing both their arms, preventing Duncan from walking away—or Cara for that matter. “Wait. Stop it, before this becomes something it doesn't need to be.” She glanced at Cara. “Listen, Cara, is it? Duncan's been frantically looking for you for weeks, not to mention worried sick. Where have you been?”

“Seeing the world!” Cara snapped.

“Oh that's just lovely, you're out gallivanting all over the world, and I'm here, scared to death you're in some djinn prison, fighting with every djinn I can find, until I can barely walk, and you're just off, being a tourist?” Fury pulsed through his veins. So happy to see her, he wanted to hug her, but he also wanted to know why hadn't he heard anything.

How could she just disappear like that?

Didn't she care about him?

“How dare you! You didn't even look for me! You left me for dead! I was on my own, and I had to figure out what to do by myself!”

“I searched everywhere, Cara!”

“Not very damn hard!” She stepped closer, but Christy remained in between them, stopping her from getting in his face. “A djinn took pity on me and saved me. It's not like he hid me or anything! I asked every chance I could if anyone had come. And you never did!”

“The last I saw you, you were flying through the air in a sandstorm! I circled the desert for weeks looking for you. I never stopped. I tried every spell known to exist to find you and nothing worked. Nothing—” He froze. “You were with a djinn?”

Djinn magic was different, and as Duncan had learned over the last two weeks, they were very protective of their homes.

Stars, could she have been right under his nose the whole time?

He felt sick.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I landed in the desert, some creepy djinn vampire thingy tried to eat me, feet first, which is super gross, and another djinn saved me. I was at his place for over a week recuperating from the cry. Then he took me to see the world.”

Duncan's heart snapped. She went gallivanting around the world with a djinn. The thing
he
should have done with her.

She should be seeing the world with him.

Unless…

He studied her face. Was she in love with the djinn? Had she forgotten him already?

“What was his name?” Duncan asked.

“Malik,” she said.

He wracked his brain, the name pinging in the back of his mind… Then he remembered. He was the one djinn he could never find, evidently, because he was off showing Cara all the things she'd ever wanted to see.

Duncan immediately hated the guy. “And you couldn't contact your family? Me? Let someone know you're all right?”

She sighed. “I couldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was busy! Besides, you're the one who left me there. Why should I take the time?”

“Of all the selfish, arrogant, stupid—I nearly killed myself looking for you!”

“Sure you did! I couldn't have been all that hard to find! I was just in a goddamn cave—” Cara shouted over Duncan's barrage.

“Do you know how many damn caves there are in the desert?”

“Stop it right there,” Christy said. She put her hand on Duncan's chest, and surprisingly, her touch tempered his anger. A little bit. “You're upset, it makes sense. Go. Get in the water. Get away, cool off for a bit.”

Duncan growled at Christy, but his sister-in-law wasn't intimidated. “Go, Duncan, now!”

Duncan walked away, and ran into the water, hoping the cold sea would soothe his steamed soul.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I don't know what his—” Cara said.

“And you.” The little blonde snapped, piercing her with her angry glare—Cara assumed she had to be Duncan's sister-in-law, Christy. “You have a lot of nerve, not even letting anyone know that you're okay. He's been worried sick over you, sure you were lying dead or dying somewhere! And you're running around touring the world with some new djinn
friend
? You don't even have the decency to tell him that you don't love him—”

“Who said I didn't love him?” Cara snapped, the last of her barrage hitting her the hardest.

“Your actions are not those of someone who's in love. You should have been dying to get back to him if you were in love with him!” Christy said.

“What makes you think I wasn't? My sister told me he was here, and I came down here right away. I haven't even unpacked anything. It's all a mess in my parent's living room.”

“So you just got back,” Christy asked.

Cara nodded. “Trust me, sightseeing with a djinn may sound like fun, but it's much more involved than I thought. And he sings too.” She shook her head. “I thought it would be a day, maybe a day and a half. He trekked me all over the damn planet. I don't want to go anywhere ever again.” She dropped to the ground, feeling the sand and the bits of grass, pulling on the little green slivers, a few blades in her fingers. “This is my home, Avalon. I've missed it.”

“Yet you didn't come back as soon as you had the chance.”

“Sometimes you have to leave to appreciate your home,” Cara said, stroking the ground where more new grass grew to replace the few blades she'd just pulled out.

“And what about Duncan?”

She glanced back at Christy. “He's been on my mind since we, uh, separated.”

Christy lowered herself to the ground next to her. “How so?”

“It's confusing.” Because it was. The whole time she was gone, all she could think about was Duncan. At first, she couldn't understand why he left her in the desert like that. Why he hadn't been looking for her. But maybe, if he just didn't care as much as she'd thought he did…well, maybe that was why he hadn't looked for her.

She just didn't get why he couldn't find her.

She was right there. In the desert.

Malik would have told her if anyone had come looking for her.

Wouldn't he?

Now she wondered. If Duncan really had been looking… She felt sick to her stomach. Even worse than when she'd woken from the sandstorm.

It was part of the reason she left—if no one was looking for her, then she could go anywhere.

Yet no matter where she went, she wanted to come home.

See him again.

Yet he left.

Maybe he didn't want to see her again.

And now, when she saw him, the first thing he did was yell at her?

Maybe she shouldn't have come running, looking for him.

No matter what her heart wanted—because she loved him. She did. That was why it hurt so much when he hadn't chased after her. Because their time together must not have meant to him what it meant to her.

“If you love him, it shouldn't be.”

That was the point
, Cara mused. It shouldn't be confusing, but it was. In more ways than she could articulate. After all, Duncan was her best friend. The closest person to her who wasn't a relation—she didn't want to lose that.

Regardless of the crush she'd had on him for most of her life. After all, crushes really weren't anything. They were just that—crushes.

After those precious moments in the sand with him—truly with him, she'd been lost—unable to understand or articulate the emotions coursing through her. She'd wanted him, hell, she'd probably never gotten that scream out if he hadn't made love to her. But it wasn't just that. It was more than that.

It was bigger than that.

Beyond the fact that she tried to deal with him leaving her there in the desert and the pain of realizing that he'd broken his promise.

A promise, she'd realized as she traveled with Malik, that had made all the difference. He'd promised not to leave.

Yet he had.

And the other things, they piled higher and higher in her mind—she hardly appreciated the monuments she saw, because all she could think about was, what if she'd been wrong?

What if he was looking for her?

And she'd run away? Because that's what she'd done, in essence. It took being gone on her trip around the world to realize—to fully comprehend—that she'd run away from him.

From her feelings.

Which was why she had to come back. Whether he wanted to be with her or not, she had to come back, because she didn't know the truth.

She could walk around the ideas, the possibilities in her head a thousand times—and had—but without all the facts, she couldn't go on.

And it looked now like her life would go on. Without Duncan.

Even if he wanted to be with her—which it looked more and more like he didn't—there were so many variables. After all, he was a fairy. She was a banshee. Immortal verses mortal. She couldn't expect him to give up everything for her. And what could she offer him, especially now?

Now that Malik had his hooks in her, she was damaged goods.

A fool that deserved being rejected by the one guy she ever really loved.

He deserved better than an idiot like her.

“He deserves better than me,” Cara finally said.

“And what makes you the judge?” came Duncan's voice.

She glanced at him. He stood over her, wings out, wet with rivulets of the seawater pouring off him, and bringing the smell of the ocean.

Of home.

Her heart ached over the smell—and how much she missed it here. And him.

How much she'd missed him.

Even when the truth was right in front of her—his wings. His fairy wings. Once, she'd thought they were safe. Now they looked like a barrier to keep the two of them apart.

“I'm a realist, Duncan,” she said. “I don't deserve you. Not now. Not with everything that's happened.”

Duncan knelt down next to her. “Cara…”

“And I'm out,” Christy said, slipping away from the two of them.

He smiled she walked away, then his gaze returned to Cara. “Now, will you tell me what's really going on? Why you ran away?”

She blinked at him. “What makes you think I ran away?” And hated that he knew her so well, he could see through her bravado.

“Water's refreshing. It can soothe a steamed head in moments. And while I was swimming around, a thought came to me. You left. And you didn't come back. You could have come right back here, to Avalon. Why didn't you?”

“Because I was scared,” Cara whispered. And it was true. Oh, how it was true. In more ways than she wanted to admit, even to herself.

“Scared of what? Surely not your cousin…”

She shook her head. “Of you,” she whispered, though she was surprised the words came out so readily.

“Why?”

“Because, Duncan, because…” The words wouldn't work. She couldn't make it make sense—it made sense in her head, but not when she looked into his eyes.

“Because if I came back, right away, then I'd have to admit that I felt more for you than I wanted to say. I didn't want to lose you because of a moment of passion in the desert. I felt so much more than that.

“And then you left. You didn't find me.

“I thought… I didn't think you wanted me anymore. You said you'd be there. You'd stay with me, and instead, you…

“You left.

“I didn't want to know that I was right. That you never meant what you said…” Cara whispered. “If it didn't mean to you what it meant to me…”

“It did.”

She broke her gaze into his eyes and stared at the ground. “If I was wrong, and you were only with me to help save me, and it didn't mean to you what it meant to me—”

“It did. More than you know. More than you can imagine.” And in a flash, Cara was washed in emotions—hard, strong, powerful sensations from Duncan. Serious overload that had Cara's hands shaking as she saw the world through his eyes. Felt his emotions.

More intense, more potent than she'd hoped for.

Both scary and heartwarming.

“You love me,” Cara whispered. He completely loved her, and had for quite a while. She could see it, feel it—his memories, washed in emotions he'd never showed her. It struck her so hard she felt woozy and had to take a few deep breaths.

“With all my being. I have for years. I searched for you, Cara. I could never let you go. I never stopped looking, because I couldn't let you go.”

She sat there staring at the ground, trying to process all of this.

How wrong she'd been.

How utterly foolish she'd been.

Yet seeing it all from his eyes, from his emotions his feelings, she realized how much he held back, and refused to say…

Why?

Why would he do that?

Finally she met his gaze. “Why didn't you say something?”

“You were so young,” Duncan said. “It was wrong of me to profess something so serious to someone just beginning their life. I would have hated seeing you change your choices because of me.”

She snorted. “I don't have any choices. Not anymore.”

He took her hand. “You have a lot of choices. You don't have to stay here, on the island. We can go anywhere you want. See anything. Do anything.”

“I can't, Duncan.”

“Yes, you can. You can do anything.”

Guilt weighed heavily on her. She couldn't begin to articulate what a mess she was in now.

“I'll do anything you want, Cara. Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you to be happy, Duncan,” she said. “That's all I want.” And it was. She wanted him to be happy, to have that love that she saw in his brother and sister-in-law, who were not so subtly watching them.

“You bring me that. You always have. When I was down, or stressed, or anything, you always made me feel better. You're the first person I think of when I wake, and you're the last person I think of when I go to sleep.”

“You deserve so much better than me.”

“Oh, Cara.” He stroked her face. “There's nothing in the world better than you.” He pulled her into his arms and held her. The scent of him, mixed with the ocean swirled around her.

For the first time in a very long time, if ever, Cara felt home.

Home with Duncan.