Saving Her Destiny (5 page)

“For you, maybe. I'm twenty. That means I won't meet my love until I'm twenty-eight? That's forever from now.”

He held up her hand so she could see her palm. “Your palm doesn't lie. In eight years, you'll be with the man you're supposed to be with.” His finger ran over the rest of the line.

Cara held another shiver at bay and made herself focus on what Duncan was saying rather than the feel of his hands on hers.

And gah, please may that not be my palm sweating!

“Well, will we get an HEA?” Cara asked, not sure she believed him, but she couldn't help being curious.

He ran his thumb over her palm again. “I can't tell. The lines get muddled. But I just know, in eight years, he'll be with you. It's a really significant moment in your life too.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because all the lines come together at this one point.” He stroked her hand. “Everything will come together then.” He stared at her with that really intense look in his eyes again.

Cara didn't know whether to be happy about this or depressed. “Eight years. That's a long time, Duncan.”

He flashed a smile over his face, but she knew him well enough that he had to be trying to make her feel better, because it didn't reach his eyes.

“Maybe you need that long to become who you're supposed to be. Who knows? He could be a fairy that hasn't retired yet, and that's why. Or an unturned vampire. Or a merrow that you haven't met. There are an infinite number of reasons why you don't get together for eight more years.”

“You mean I could already know him? Like I went to school with him or something?”

He shrugged. “Sure. He could be that classmate you never talked to, and seven years from now, you all meet at a pub and wind up hitting it off. The possibilities are endless.” Duncan let go of her hand.

Cara nodded. “Still not sure I believe you.”

“You don't have to,” he said as he put his arm around her. “Just live your life. Don't worry about meeting the one. He'll be around soon enough.”

As she curled into him, all she could think was how she hoped, whoever he was, he could make her feel as good as Duncan did.

Chapter Four

Today

“You're pulling me off Ava's case for what?” Duncan asked. Or rather shouted, in the way a person would raise their voice without
actually
shouting.

Vander O'Leary, a thick barrel of a man, and the head of the Fairy In Distress unit, merely raised his eyebrow, and fluttered his wings in that condescending way.

And if someone would have told Duncan that a wing-flutter could be condescending, he would have thought they were crazy.

At least until he'd met O'Leary.

Duncan ground his teeth. “Sorry, sir.” This was crap—what he hated about the FID. Reassignments happened so often it made Duncan's head spin. He'd barely get an assignment tied up and he'd be reallocated to another problem. And sometimes, like today, he'd not even have the other job finished before being moved.

“You should be.” O'Leary flipped his wrist, and a small necklace appeared in his hand. Its gold medallion glittered in the light and was trimmed in a red woven string. “Here. You'll need this.”

Duncan cringed. The last thing he wanted to do was go for an extended swim. A quick dive and swim was one thing, but having to go deep for a case?
Ugh.
“And you need
me
to do this, why? I have a case—”

“It's Cara Wallace.”

Shock shot through Duncan. Panic. Worry. All those things and more he couldn't articulate.
Cara?
“Is she—”

“We don't know. She went missing while on duty.”

Duncan nodded. “I'll find her.” She was one of his closest friends, and probably the most important person to him in the world. She ranked right up there with family.

Yet it was a relationship very few knew about. Not even his brother Ewan knew about his banshee friend. If his brother knew, then his sister-in-law would know, and somehow she'd parlay that into a date for him, and that was not on Duncan's agenda.

Cara was still just a kid.

At least from his perspective, anyway. Twenty-eight seemed awfully young to someone who was almost three hundred years old.

O'Leary made a grunting affirmation. “You best find her fast. She had a cry in her.”

Of course she did. She wouldn't be on duty if there wasn't a cry brewing inside her. Banshees didn't just randomly get cries. Something bad was coming. And Cara's cries were tuned to the Merrow Kingdom, where the mermaids lived under the island of Avalon.

Damn…

Duncan gritted his teeth. “How long ago?”

“Approximately six hours.”

O'Leary held up, at first glance, what looked to be a thermometer. It wasn't.

It was Cara's meter warning. Every banshee had one—a signal monitor that showed exactly how long they had until their cry came out. It was one of the FID's backup TM—tech mixed with magic that helped the FID do their job. For every banshee, there was a meter. Most banshees released their screams as soon as they came on, and their meters hardly ever moved out of the green zone.

Cara's hovered in the greenish-yellow zone.

So less than twenty hours left
. Duncan put the gold medallion around his neck. “Any idea of who would kidnap a banshee?” He clipped the meter onto one of the small hooks on his vest.

The boss shook his head. “Not a bright lad, anyway. If he be thinking he can control a banshee with a scream, he'd be a fool.”

“Or someone with a death wish,” Duncan said.

“Aye. That too.” O'Leary stood. “You'll be working with The Brothers.”

Duncan grimaced. Great. Cara was missing, and now he had to find her with a bunch of self-important merrow. Could this get any worse? After all, he was in the middle of taking care of Avalynn Fay and her horribly screwed-up Fairy Godmother case. The whole thing was such a mess. Between the Fairy Godmother's messed up file, Cupid—
don't get me started
—and Ava's improper attraction, he didn't know which way was up in the damn case.

And now this.

An image came to mind of Cara Wallace—black hair, deep, dark eyes, the reddest lips he'd ever seen. And a dimple.

A banshee who had a dimple.

He had to find her. There was no way around it. He had to get his friend back and make sure she was safe.

He had to do it before that scream came out of her in the bad way.

Because his banshee with a dimple had to be saved.

Dressed in a wetsuit, Duncan strapped knives along his arms and legs, ready for a quick grab. Then he put two spears on his shoulders. He didn't know what he was going to find under the water—it could be something simple, and Cara was just lost, or it could be something much worse.

Best to be prepared for the worst.

The gold medallion hung around his neck, and he clipped its red string onto the suit so it didn't float off. He had to have it. It was his gate key to the Merrow Kingdom. No one got in without it.

At least no one who wasn't a merrow.

He anchored her meter to the inside of his left wrist, where the greenish yellow cast had changed to a solid yellow.

She still hadn't released her scream
.

He opened his mind to try and find her.
“Come on, Cara. Talk to me
.
”

Unfortunately, wherever she was, she wasn't answering.

Duncan ran his hand over his head, slicking back his hair. He'd already searched topside for Cara to no avail. He checked her work, her little cottage, even some of her hangouts just to see if she was just out and about. Or maybe she had some magistrate-related deadline she was trying to finish before she had to release the scream.

As an administrative assistant for the governing body on the island, Cara always had lots of work that she had to get done.

Duncan had noticed over the years of their friendship that Cara never left anything unfinished. Her office was neat and tidy, as was her apartment. Not even a glass on the end table.

He'd hoped…

No luck, though he didn't expect to find her that easily.

So he moved on to the magic tracking spell. It worked—showed her footsteps over the last twelve hours—leading right off the edge of the cliff above the entrance to the Merrow Kingdom.

He stood on the edge of the cliff. Her footprints glowed on the ground in front of him.

Though when he looked over the cliff, there was no sign of her—the spell left no trail below, but her footsteps indicated she'd run and dived off.

Son of a Hell Hound.
He hated the deep water.

He stepped to the edge of the tall cliff on the coast. Winds blasted him from every direction, and the water below crashed and slammed into the rocks, making it foamy and white. The heavy aroma of the sea wafted around him, and he grimaced.

The timing of this was so horrid. He hated leaving Ava alone with her charge, but what choice did he have?

Get it together. You have a job to do.

And in his mind, he could see Cara smile and that little dimple again.

Damn.

“Come on, Cara. Talk to me.”
He projected his telepathic thoughts as far and wide as possible, hoping that she might hear him, answer him
.

Nothing.

Duncan took a deep breath, backed up several long strides and bounced on his feet. While he needed to get back to chaperoning Avalynn Fay, this took precedence.

Cara takes precedence.

Always
.

As much as he wanted to keep Ava from getting into trouble—she was a friend, after all—these were the kind of situations he'd joined the FID for in the first place. Desperate situations to rescue fairies who needed it. Not fairy godmothers who should know better.

And Cara, as a banshee, fell into that category, since she was technically a fairy of a sort.

He glanced at the meter on his arm.

Nineteen hours.

Not much time
. Duncan pulled out his last pieces of equipment—a small face mask that allowed him to breathe underwater, and a tiny bud for his left ear, to help him hear without air. He cleared his mind. What made him a step above the other FID officers in the field also made him the best man for an underwater job.

Duncan's telepathy and mind reading skills were some of the strongest in the Fairy Realm. So strong that, if he let himself, he'd be overrun in moments with hundreds of overlapping thoughts. Most of the time, he had to hold the ability back, though that was harder than dealing with the inundation of the thoughts. Today he had little choice.

Telepathy was the easiest way to communicate with the merrow while underwater.

At least for fairies.

Focus.

Gotta find Cara
.

He rocked his head back and forth, took several deep sniffs with the nose filter, making sure it was in place.

Time to go
.

The Brothers should be waiting for him by now. O'Leary had sent a communication to be expecting Duncan.

They had to find Cara so she could release her banshee cry. If she didn't, she would die. In a messy explosion.

The very thought made his stomach tie in knots.

I'm coming, Cara.
He took off, full sprint, toward the edge of the cliff. He flew out and away, wind slapping against his trajectory as he twisted into a dive.

He pierced the water like a pin into a pillow and disappeared under the wild currents without leaving much of a splash. Water enveloped him as he dove deeper, and he pushed back the burning need to shoot for the surface and get more air.

It's okay. It'll be okay.

He twisted around and took a position more upright. With the first deep breath, he forced back that initial panic. While the filter allowed breathing underwater, the first few breaths were always smaller, and panic usually kicked in and sent a fairy topside before work was done.

Unfortunately, he'd done this before and would do it again during his tenor as an FID agent. Cara had been the last banshee he'd dove for. Of course, she's been a kid then, barely fifteen.

Didn't mean he liked it. Especially since it was for Cara.

Again.

He shook off the thoughts. The soft hum of undersea life milled about. Fish emerged from their hiding spots like timid kittens, but kept their distance. Their bright colors broke up the otherwise mucky gloom of the greenish water.

Duncan scanned around, slowly breathing so he could adapt to the pressure. The air, slower and heavier with the breathing apparatus, took a few moments to get used to.

In.

Out.

In.

Out
.

He oriented to the breathing, and as he did, began wondering where his escorts were. The merrow were particular about who they let in their realm.

The merrow were all about protecting their territory and their people.

Though he didn't blame them—if a human found a merrow in the water, it would be all over. Humans would start diving for them. Then
when
they found one—because humans were incredibly tenacious and they
would
if they knew something was down there—the merrow would be studied/tested/dissected for who knew how long.

A torture Duncan wouldn't wish on his worst enemy.

The island of Avalon was magically shielded, and the merrow took precautions to protect their territory underneath, but magical charms could only protect the merrow for so long. Their military body kept their realm secure from any visitors—humans or mythicals they didn't want invited in.

To say the Merrow were a little xenophobic was a bit of an understatement.

Okay, where are they?

No sign of any of The Brothers. The Brothers was the merrow military. The men weren't actually brothers—as in born of the same mother or father, but brothers at arms. Though so many of them looked alike, one tended to forget they weren't related.

A thumping through the water—pushed by something large swinging its tale echoed. Made little fish scatter.

Duncan turned.

“About time, fairy.” A merrow named Keefe came forward, his muddy light hair flowing around him like another fin.

Duncan tried not to roll his eyes.

Another merrow came from the other side. This one had his head shaved, except for a patch at the base of his neck and the sprout of red—the
cohuleen druith—
on top of his head. He swam around Duncan. “Oh look, he brought spears!”

“Do you want me to test them?”
Duncan thought and glared at the half-man, half-fish.

Keefe burst out laughing. “Kealan, behave, he's our guest.”

Duncan knew he'd be dealing with some of The Brothers, but he didn't actually think he'd have to deal with the friggin' royal princes, who were also members of The Brothers. Real brothers who were Brothers.

The merrow needed a bigger vocabulary.

“Listen, I have less than nineteen hours to find my banshee. Cut the bullshit.”

Kealan shook his head. “Bull-shit? You Fairies have strange words.”

Keefe glided over and touched Kealan's shoulder. “It's like shark poop. Just doesn't float.”

“Yuck,” Kealan muttered.

“Come on, I need to know what's been going on down here.”

“Everything's been fine,” Keefe said as he swam around Duncan. “Don't know why a banshee would be doing coming down here anyway. Everyone's healthy.”

“The same reason a banshee goes anywhere. Cara's got a cry to release.”

The two merrow looked at one another, their expressions sobering up.

“Come on,” Keefe said.

“If you can keep up, fairy,” Kealan said.

“I'm sure I can keep up with some mermaids
.
”

“Hey!” Kealan snapped. “We are not ‘maids.'”