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“ S o many centuries have passed since last I saw my brother, I sometimes find it hard to remember I ever had a twin.”

Devlin sat on a small bench drawn back from the rustic fireplace, his head bowed. When he raised his head, Destiny could have sworn she saw tears glistening in his deep green eyes.

“I had hoped after all this time he would have made peace with himself and found a life of honor. Now I know the truth of it. He is lost to us. His soul will never rejoin those in the Fountain.” He shook his head as if to reject the feelings he battled. “I can offer you little other than my apologies for what pain my brother has caused you.”

“You’re not responsible for his actions, Devlin.”

Jesse’s arm tightened around Destiny’s shoulders as he spoke and she realized he must have recognized their host’s raw emotions, too.

Devlin had shared his food with them while they answered his questions about his brother and told him where they were headed and why.

The three of them sat together in front of an enormous fireplace that took up the better portion of one wall in this tiny shack. Devlin had explained it was an outpost shelter, one of many in Wyddecol. It served the Guardian Lords as a place to rest and take their meals while they patrolled.

The Fae stood abruptly, clearing his throat as if he’d shared more of himself than he cared to.

“With the knowledge that the Nuadians tread on the ancient grounds, I must be back to my rounds. They cannot be allowed entrance to the Realm. Rest well this night, my new friends. Though I have no power to help you on the other side, I will return in the morning to guide you to a door that will grant you exit in the Mortal world at a place called Achnatone. It is as close as possible to your destination of Fleenasmore.”

Jesse rose to his feet, and the men went through what looked to Destiny like some kind of testosterone-driven, arm-grabbing, backslapping farewell ritual.

Men. Faeries, Mortal, some things were the same no matter where you were.

Jesse returned to his spot on the floor next to her after Devlin left, leaning back on his elbows and stretching out his long legs.

“So, what do you think of him?” he asked, his gaze fixed intently on her.

“Devlin? He scared me half to death when I first saw him. But now that I’ve had a chance to talk to him, to get to know him, I can’t believe I ever could have confused him with his brother.”

“He seems like an okay guy,” Jesse agreed.

There was one thing that bothered her about their conversation with Devlin, though.

“What did he mean about not having the power to help us on the other side?” That had seemed such an odd comment.

“Exactly what he said. You saw what happened when I tried to attack Pol. In our world, the other side of that door, their magic is useless and they can’t fight in any way.”

“But they can fight here? In their world?”

“Oh yeah. They’re like regular flesh and blood here, the same as us. Well, except with magic.” Jesse stretched out on his back, his arms folded under his head, his expression turning so serious it tugged at her heart. “It’s hard to get your head around what it must have been like here when the Nuadians broke away and were kicked out. And because the Fae live so long, they’ve had centuries for that hurt to fester. It must suck to spend all that time worrying about what’s happened to your brother only to find out—” He cut off his words midsentence, his eyes widening as they darted to hers.

He knew. She could see it in his guilty look.

“You think that sounds like my brother, don’t you?” It only made sense that Jesse would have done a background check and learned about Chase. And in spite of that, even knowing about her brother’s having run away, he’d accepted her claims that Leah had been kidnapped. He’d believed her when none of the authorities would. That fact alone told her volumes about the man.

“I didn’t mean to open up old wounds. I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking when I spoke.” Jesse looked away, focusing his gaze back on the ceiling.

“It’s okay. I didn’t take it personally.”

In the silence that stretched out between them, Destiny hugged her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

Jesse’s research staff might have given him the bare facts, but they didn’t know her brother like she did. Of all the worries she might have had about Chase over the past six years, his going bad wasn’t one of them.

She’d meant what she said about not taking his comment personally. The realization came as a shock.

It struck her as ironic, sitting here in a place she never would have admitted existed, that for the first time ever she was able to look at her brother’s leaving in a whole new light.

Growing up, she’d coped with life by rationalizing everything. Denying those bits and pieces that didn’t fit into her neat little worldview. Her ability to see the future wasn’t a gift. It was nothing more than a coincidence when one of her visions came true. A curse more than anything. And Leah’s gift for healing? Again, nothing more than coincidence when someone actually got well after Leah touched them. Faeries? Simply a by-product of her mother’s drunken raving.

Her brother, on the other hand, dealt with it very differently from her. He had accepted it all. At eighteen, when their mother had died, he’d decided to go off on his own to find those missing Faeries.

Now, at last, she understood that he hadn’t deserted her. His decision to leave had nothing to do with her at all. It was all about him and how he viewed life.

But this was the first time she’d ever been able to see it that way.

She owed that revelation to the time she’d spent with Jesse. Being with him had opened her eyes and directed them outward to the world.

“So, what do you think of this place?”

Jesse’s question shattered the silence, jolting her from her thoughts.

The only things in the room other than the fireplace were two wooden benches and a couple of folded blankets.

“A little spare on decoration.” She was being kind with that description.

“Trust you to be so literal.” His eyes lit with his grin. “I was asking about Wyddecol, not this hole in the wall.”

“Oh.” What did she think of this Faerie world? Beautiful, but strange. “It’s just like on our side, but not, you know? The forest, the colors, the sky—they’re all the same, but more vivid somehow. More intense.”

Jesse nodded slowly, his grin fading as he focused his gaze back on the ceiling. “I was just thinking, babe. Maybe tomorrow, when Devlin comes back, you should stay here while I go on to Fleenasmore.”

No wonder he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She’d wondered what had been on his mind. “Oh yeah? Well, babe,” she emphasized his little endearment as she turned it back on him. “I think you better think again. I haven’t come this far to find my sister only to stay behind now.”

“It’s too dangerous, Destiny. You know they’re just itching to get their hands on you, too. If you hadn’t gotten away yesterday…” He stopped, as if he didn’t want to finish the thought. “You’ll be safe here.”

“If I hadn’t gotten away yesterday, you’d be wandering around some airport waiting to catch a plane to get to Scotland instead of already being here.” Sort of here. At least when they walked through that door tomorrow they’d be in Scotland.

He was shaking his head as he stared at the ceiling, his mouth drawn in that stubborn line she recognized. “I’m not taking you anywhere near those Nuadians who have your sister. When I go tomorrow, you’re staying here. End of discussion. As soon as I have Leah, I’ll come back for you.”

Oh yeah, right. Like she was going to settle for that.

“Nope. That plan’s not working for me. We tried it that way once before, remember? This time I’m coming, too.”

“You can’t.” His eyes cut to her and then away. “I’ll make sure Devlin doesn’t show you the doorway. You won’t know how to get there.”

He was deluding himself if he thought that threat would work. He and Devlin had explained earlier tonight how Faerie women could always see the openings between the two worlds. It’s how she’d stumbled in here without him being able to find her in the first place.

“Fine. Do what you want. But once you leave, I’ll go through every doorway I can find until I get the right one. You can’t keep me here. I won’t stay.”

He lay very still, his only movement the now familiar tightening of his jaw muscle that broadcast his irritation louder than words ever could.

She’d won this round and they both knew it. Still, it was hard to feel good about “winning” if it meant making him angry. And he was angry.

Maybe she could change that.

She lay down on her side next to him, one arm propping up her head so she could look down at him.

“Do you know many real Faeries?”

He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his words were clipped. “A few. Why?”

“No special reason.” She waited a heartbeat before tossing out the next one. “I just wondered if they were all as gorgeous as Devlin.”

That got his attention, just as she’d thought it might.

Eyes narrowed, he turned his head to stare at her. “You think he’s attractive?”

Jealousy? She hadn’t actually dared to hope for that much. The knowledge sent a thrill through her.

“Very,” she responded, watching him closely.

The jaw muscle worked furiously as he fixed his glower back on the ceiling.

“But not half as attractive as I think you are,” she murmured, tracing the tip of her finger over the lower portion of the tattoo exposed by his lifted sleeve.

The muscle flexed under her touch and he shifted his head to meet her gaze, reaching to trap her fingers between his arm and his opposite hand. A myriad of emotions seemed to dance through his eyes as she held them with her own: uncertainty, distrust, fear. Desire.

Emotions she recognized because they were the same ones she felt herself.

Jesse rolled to his side, lifting his hand to cup her cheek in his palm. “I don’t want to screw this up by saying it wrong and making you angry, but I feel like it’s too important not to say. If I let you go through that doorway with me tomorrow and something goes wrong, I honestly don’t know how I’d deal with it.”

She understood then, and the knowledge rolled over her like a hurricane, disorienting her and laying her bare.

He cared for her. Not just liked her, but seriously cared for her, as in long-term-relationship kind of caring.

He wouldn’t admit it, though. She knew that in her heart because she knew she wouldn’t be able to admit those feelings either.

Not yet.

Lifting her hand, she caressed the stress-tightened tendons of his neck, tangling her fingers up into his hair. Then, with the lightest touch, she pulled his head forward until their lips met.

Soft, warm, tender. The physical sensations of touching him sparked through her body, filling her with need.

The potential for them to have any life together after all this was over hung by a thread. A thin thread of trust. Though she had no idea what in his past was responsible for it, she understood now that his inability to trust anyone with his heart was as great as hers.

In a strange way, they were more alike than she could have imagined, as if they were two halves of the same whole.

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tightly up against him as he rolled, gently covering her body with his own. His lips set fire to her neck as he traced his mouth from collarbone to ear.

“Please, Des, don’t put me through agony again,” he whispered, pleading his case. “I can’t handle the thought of those bastards getting their hands on you.”

Her insistence on accompanying him caused him pain. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. It was in her power to remove that pain. All she had to do was agree to stay behind.

His hands were under her shirt and he shifted his weight off her body long enough for his fingers to make quick work of the hooks on her bra.

But how could she stay behind? She was supposed to be there to save her sister. Though she’d had no vision to confirm it, she was as sure of that fact as she’d ever been about any prediction she’d ever made.

She had to be there.

Her hands fisted in the soft cloth of his T-shirt as he palmed her breasts, running the rough pad of his thumbs back and forth across her nipples.

He made her feel so good, how could she do less for him?

A thought, the whisper of a plan, sprang into her mind. A way she could eliminate Jesse’s pain.

But at what price?

He lifted her shirt and bra up and over her head, tossing them away as he rose to his knees over her, staring down at her like a pilgrim worshipping at a temple.

“So goddamned beautiful,” he murmured before pulling his own shirt up and off.

Firelight glistened over the muscled contours of his chest and she reached up to skim her hands down the steely ripples, ending at the waistband of his jeans. It took no effort at all to slip the button through its little opening.

The zipper, with his erection already straining against it, took more care.

Wordlessly, infinitely still, he did nothing more than watch, his eyes dark with his own need, as she shaped her fingers around his shaft.

When she moved her hand, gliding slowly up and then down again, his eyes closed and his head fell back, the cords in his neck standing out in shadowed relief.

She loved the feel of his body, soft skin covering the raw power of the man.

Up and down. She tightened her hold and studied the effect, his body straining as his need built. Up and down. Up and down.

He grabbed her hand, his breathing heavy.

“Gotta stop, Des. Christ,” he panted, holding her hands to his chest. “What is it with you? I can’t ever seem to wait. My control is for shit.”

“Then why are you waiting?”

She pulled out of his hold and began to unfasten her jeans, but he brushed her hands away. Finishing it himself, he pulled the pants down over her hips and she pushed them away with her feet.

One tug and she was kicking out of her panties.

And then he was on top of her, his skin burning wonderfully against her own as he fit himself between her legs and entered her.

The shock of it tingled through her body, joyfully igniting every nerve ending as he filled her.

“Yes,” she rasped, almost against her own will, as he withdrew and filled her again, slowly, purposefully.

His eyes, still laced with his pain, blazed possessively, holding her captive, and she felt for that instant as if she could see into the depths of his soul. As if there was a place in there saved just for her.

Was that what her mother had meant about recognizing yourself in the eyes of your Soulmate? She wished she’d paid more attention to the things her mother had tried to tell her.

The thought shattered when her body exploded, the intensity of her orgasm equaling the need she’d felt for this man.

She gasped for breath like a marathon runner while he tensed above her, his head thrown back as he found his own release before collapsing on top of her.

If Soulmates did exist, as her mother had always claimed, Destiny knew she’d found hers. The one man she could see herself spending the rest of her life loving.

And here she was getting ready to risk losing everything.

“I’ll stay here tomorrow when you go with Devlin,” she whispered into his ear.

Not a lie, she rationalized to herself, even though she knew it might be no more than a half-truth at best.

The tension melted from his body in response to her words even as she fought back the tears that threatened.

If she followed him tomorrow, she risked losing this, losing him, by destroying that delicate thread of trust that was only beginning to form between them.

She knew now what she could do.

She simply wasn’t sure what she would do.