"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.