"No fair." She crossed her arms.

Then the front door opened, and in came a brunette-while the hair color wasn't the same, the woman was otherwise the spitting image of Cara. When she saw Duncan, she immediately charged across the house.

"What's wrong? Why are you here?"

Cara let out a sigh. "It's fine, Mom. I had a cry. He had to help me a little because Norton's an arse, and he led me right into a net, and I got stuck. This guy-"

"Duncan." He held out his hand to shake with Cara's mother, and made a mental note to go back home and check out who this Norton fellow was and why he'd let her get caught in a net.

Didn't exactly sound like a great friend.

"Duncan-yeah, whatever. Anyway, he helped me out of the net and brought me home. I took a bath and stuff."

"Wait, you had a cry and Norton stuck you in a net?" Her mother raised her hands, like she could will the girl to slow down a bit.

"That was after, gah. Don't you even listen to me?" Cara turned and stormed out of the kitchen to the rear of the house. In a moment, the door slammed.

"I apologize," Duncan said. "I gave her some Fairy Tea. I didn't think it would affect her so strongly. She was so cold I wanted to make sure she was all right. "

Her mother sighed. "Don't worry. She's always like that."

Duncan put his hand on her shoulder. "Maybe I should give you some extra tea?"

Her mother smirked. "Might not be a bad thing."

Chapter Three.

Five years later Surf slammed against the jutting rocks just off the shore. Birds squawked in the distance and the tide ebbed and flowed.

"Boys are stupid." Cara threw a rock into the gurgling water below her stone perch. It was her favorite spot on the island. Not as high as the place where she dove in to do her banshee thing, but high enough that only the slightest mist of water sprayed her as she watched the incoming tide.

Most of the time, the tide soothed her.

She blamed that tiny bit of merrow in her lineage for that.

Though today, it wasn't helping. She still wanted to strangle someone. Preferably a particular boy who was a total butthead.

Because all boys are buttheads...

"Yes. Yes, we are."

Cara spun around. "Duncan!" She jumped up and crossed the flat boulder in two steps. She practically stumbled into a hug with her favorite fairy, and Duncan laughed as he caught her before doing the friend-pat on her shoulders.

Ever since he'd saved her from the net, Duncan would pop in and see her. Sometimes it was just for a few minutes; sometimes they'd spend most of the day together-if she could sneak away from her mother, anyway.

It wasn't that her mom didn't like Duncan-she thought Duncan was great. He even helped her practice her telepathy. Since she didn't use the ability outside the water, she got rusty. Her mother always wanted her to practice it, because "you just never know when you'll need it." Her mother's favorite saying.

Yet really, who wanted to practice telepathy with their mother? She sure didn't want her mother poking around in her head.

Duncan was much better about respecting her privacy.

Or maybe it was because Duncan wasn't her mother...

Regardless, he was always good about making her practice for a few minutes whenever they got to spend time together. Her mom only worried that Cara was getting too attached to the guy. Which was so not true. Okay, it wasn't like Cara seriously crushed on Duncan.

Okay, not anymore, anyway.

She might have when she was a young teenager, but who wouldn't? He was cute, and he saved her.

But he'd become this friend that she trusted as much as she trusted her family. Well, her immediate family, anyway. There were those other members that she was quite fine without.

"Hey there, Cara. How are you doing?" He met her gaze with those pretty eyes of his.

She shrugged and looked away. And partly wondered if her mother had put Duncan up to talking to her. She hadn't been her usual self since the breakup.

"I'm doing, I guess." And who wanted to talk to their mother about their boyfriend issues?

Not her, anyway. Mothers never understood.

Duncan put his hand on her shoulder. "The breakup still troubling you?"

"Did Mom put you up to this?"

He smirked. "No." He followed her to the edge of the rock and took a seat. "You sure you're okay?"

She sighed. "Yes and no. I mean, I'm better off without Luke, I know that. And don't bother telling me how you knew he was trouble."

"Werewolves usually are."

"Like I haven't heard that a million times." She kicked her legs as they dangled over the edge.

Duncan stretched his wings. "And you kept track. Good for you."

She smirked. "Bite me."

"That's what he liked, being a werewolf. Real men don't bite."

Cara snorted. "If you know any, keep me in the loop, fairy."

"You wound me..."

She shook her head and neither said anything for a moment. Just long enough for her to sink back into her grumpy feelings. After all, she was twenty years old. Dating wasn't supposed to be this hard.

"You know, I should have realized. And I think that's the thing that makes me the maddest about him. I should have realized he wasn't all that."

Duncan nodded. "Rose-colored glasses."

"I mean, every time I thought we were really moving forward, that we were totally moving into that whole ayou're my number one, I can tell you everything' direction, I would try to talk to him about the family, you know? Explain about the banshee thing, and how I can't leave the island."

"You didn't, did you?" Duncan asked.

"No! Every time-and I mean every time-he would change the subject before I could get anything out. It was like he knew I was stuck here or something, and didn't want to hear about it. All he wanted to talk about was how he was going to get off this island, go to America or England, and get with a stronger pack, and all that." While Avalon was home to many mythical beings, many dreamed of getting off the island.

Cara was no different.

"I doubt he was psychic," Duncan said. "If he was, he'd know how awesome of a gal you are."

She snorted. "I'm so awesome I'm sitting on a rock, at the beach, talking to a fairy."

He laughed. "And you're probably in the only place in the world, except the Fairy Realm, where you can say that and it's believable."

She looked at the sky, trying to make out the shielding around the island. Sometimes, if she looked really hard, she could see a glint of the magic. It reminded her that she really did live in a special place.

Not that she had anything to compare it to, though.

She'd never been anywhere else.

"Do they really not believe in magic out there? Are the humans that dense?"

He sighed. "Whatever part of them that believed in magic has all but gone. Children, of course, still believe, but overall? Humans don't have any idea who walks the world with them."

"Makes your job harder, I bet," she said.

"Yes and no." Duncan stretched. "Sometimes, when I have to change something to protect a fairy, it's easier to make humans believe in something"-he made air quotes-"aplausible' rather than in magic."

"You'd think, after all this time, that humans would get a clue."

"What are you going to do? Reveal the mythical world?"

"I don't know. Maybe if they knew-"

"Humans will lose their minds. They'll want to test and poke and prod and there'd be all these mobs and hangings. Trust me, kiddo, there's plenty of reasons to keep this side of existence secret."

"Well, aren't you just a bundle of optimism today?"

"Just stating the facts. Humans are better off not knowing. Those of us who protect you work very hard at it." He shifted and sighed. "Didn't I read that the Magistrates are talking to the Templar Knights again?"

"I heard something about that," Cara replied. "But according to Mom, it comes up every fifty or sixty years anyway, and nothing ever happens. The Templars want to move their base here, and it gets debated, then the Magistrates shoot them down." She tossed a pebble into the water. "I don't want them here."

The Templar Knights, immortal humans, policed mythical activity on Earth. They had bases all over the world to keep an eye on misbehaving mythical creatures-read, corporeal. However, anything that fell under the "fairy" or the "magic" heading was out of their jurisdiction. The Fairy Realm controlled that.

At least in theory.

"They're not that bad," Duncan said. "The Templars."

"You've had to work with them?"

"Once. They're all right."

"When did you work with them?" Cara asked.

"Remember when all those fairies were dying seven or eight years ago?" He looked down. "Probably not, you were pretty young then."

"I sort of remember. Wasn't there a vampire who'd gone nutty over them or something?"

"Yeah. Watching too much TV, thought fairies were extra special. It was a mess."

"Fun life you got." She crossed her arms. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be saving some fairy in distress somewhere? I'm sure someone needs your help."

"Got a day off," he said, shrugging.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "You're skipping out on a date, aren't you?" She knew this guy-he didn't care for blind dates. Yet he seemed to go on more than Cara could count.

"Maybe."

She laughed. "What's wrong with this one?"

"It has more to do with my sister-in-law Christy than anything."

"Why?"

"She always tries to set me up with someone. She says she can't have me being the asingle, roaming bachelor' in the family." He tossed his dark hair as he spoke, fluffing the longer pieces around his face, and he flapped his green-tinted wings. He was going for dashing, but wound up failing miserably.

"You're a goob," Cara said with a laugh and punched him in the shoulder. "And you need a haircut."

"What? You don't like this long, roguish look?" He fluttered again, tossing his head as he did. This time, he waved his wings harder and the current of air gave her a shiver.

"Stop that."

"Make me." Duncan grinned and flapped his wings harder.

She reached for the wings, trying to stop them from moving. However, the huge wings, at least as wide as he was tall, were far too strong for her to control.

And he wasn't going to let her, either. He grabbed her waist as she tried to hold on and pulled her toward him.

"No no," he said. "Don't mess with the wings."

"Stop fluttering them at me," she said, staring into his eyes. She put her hands on his chest to push away, but he kept her right there and leaned back. She fell forward and realized she was lying on him.

Literally.