Destiny Calls Read Free Page B

laced with spicy ethnic scents tickled her face. Yes, that was where she would go.
    Destiny awoke to the sound of movement. It was dark, and she wasn’t sure where she was, but she was freezing. She trembled and pulled her body into a ball, but the cold penetrated every layer of clothing and was freezing even her bones.
    She whimpered as her belly swooped with nausea and she felt as though she were flying again but in a way that was out of control. Her muscles drew tight. The cold began to burn her flesh. Heat began to mix with bitter cold, and she couldn’t differentiate the two. Was there a fire? She was too weak to open her eyes. More movement, but she couldn’t find the strength to hide. She could barely hold a thought, and soon she was drifting back to unconsciousness.
    Just as she was about to tip off the cliff of unconscious bliss, something sharp cut into her. Pain seared up her arm, and she felt as though she was a pool of water, a tub being unplugged. Images of herself as pure and clean disappearing down a drain to the ocean floor. Her muscles grew heavy, and her body became weightless. Pulling, pulling until she was nothing more. And then the warmth came.
    She had slept. Her body was no longer cold, and all the snow was gone. Where was she?
    Destiny turned and winced at the soreness of her body. Had she been in an accident? She heard a crackling sound to her right and slowly opened her eyes. She faced a dark wall. Flashes of amber danced over the jagged surface, and she couldn’t for the life of her identify where she was. Her back was tight as if she were in some sort of a brace. The sound of wind and the call from a large bird of prey had her shifting her weight to better view her surroundings.
    Angling her neck, she gasped. She was at the top of a mountain. In a mountain! She shifted onto her elbows and forearms, and her jaw slackened. Black and green peaks were stacked across the line of the gray horizon like humps along a camel’s back.
    How had she gotten here? She gasped as she recalled what happened in the wood just after she hung up with her brother. An uneasy feeling jolted her senses, and she quickly turned. The movement sent a starburst of sharp pain along her shoulders and back.
    “Easy. You’re still in bad shape.”
    Just beyond a small, low-burning fire was a man. His face remained in the shadows, but his tanned chest, heavily muscled and bare, moved slowly with each breath. He sat with his bare back against the cave wall, arms akimbo. Strong legs dressed in fatigues were spread and bent at the knees. Large booted feet pressed into the pebbled gravel. Wow. She may be hurt, but she wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was. How often did someone get attacked in the woods and have someone this good-looking come to their rescue? She tried to sit up.
    Her hand went to her hair, and she flinched as her fingers pressed into the matted, nappy mix of leftover straight locks now mingled with her natural tight curls. She probably looked like a freaking nightmare. Her shirt hung awkwardly down her front and the collar gaped, exposing a good amount of cleavage. Maybe that would distract him from looking at her hair.
    Her mouth tasted like the bottom of a bird cage. Her lips were chapped, and she was parched. She cleared her throat. “My name’s Destiny.” Her voice sounded hoarse.
    “I know your name.” She tried not to let his clipped reply affect her, but maybe her hero wasn’t pleased with her after all.
    She remembered the man in the woods. She had killed a man. She remembered the way he looked at her just before her finger pulled the trigger on the crossbow, but now she wondered if she perhaps overreacted and killed an innocent man.
    She had been distraught. A rabid animal had attacked her. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Mãe sagrada de deus. I killed a man!
    She was going to vomit.
    She began to hyperventilate, then a sudden sense of calm washed over her. She couldn’t understand where it came from,