“Not at all. I think it fits, all things considered.”
Some of the new sticks must have been highly resinous or else damp fromthe patches of snow outside. The campfire popped and hissed before he answered. “At first, everyone kept asking you to make it rain.Rain. Rain.They said it over and over, like a chant. Or a supplication.” He lowered his gaze and stirred the fire. “It began to sound like a name to me, and you didn’t really have one.”
“I was Spring,” she said.
“That’s not truly a name, either.”
Rain thoughtabout it. No, it was athing. She’d been an entity, not a person. “I prefer Rain, anyway. It’s far prettier.”
Daric smiled, but his eyes remained on the fire. Stir. Poke. Why wouldn’t he look at her?
“How’s your shoulder?” he asked after a while.
“It’s not bothering me. You must be a good healer.”
“It’s all in the inventive use of strong spirits,” he said, although his joke sounded halfhearted.
“Better than drinking it,” Rain answered. “We might lose our inhibitions.”
He finally looked up, his eyes a scorching mix of smoke and fire. Hotter than the blaze between them. “Are you shy around me, Rain?”
A honey-like warmth spread through her. “I find I am more so now than I was only a handful of days ago.”
Daric’s lips parted. His eyes glittered, and he looked ready to leap across thefire and devour her.
Rain’s insides swooped and fluttered. “What’s our next move?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject. The direction the conversation was taking wouldn’t help either of them. “Mockweed? The Barrow Witch?”
Daric studied her a moment longer, utterly still and concentrated, then he tossed the stick he’d been holding into the fire. “Mockweed grows in the Wood of Layton—in summertime,anyway. Any barrows we have in Leathen are also there, not far from Braylian’s Cauldron.”
“Then we should go west to Layton,” Rain said.
Daric nodded. “And hope we find the Barrow Witch—and that she doesn’t curse us.” The hot, possessive spark still in his eyes made her belly twist with something raw and carnal and overshadowed his attempt at dry humor.
“What will you do?” Her voice grew husky,some inner beast roaring at her to move the ground and sky to keep Daric. “If we succeed in breaking the curse on Leathen?”
“What will I do?” He smiled a little, just the edges of his mouth curling up as his blue gaze brushed over her, soft but heavy like velvet. Then need sharpened his features, and Rain shivered before he even answered. “If you’re willing, I’ll kiss you until you can’t breathe,learn you inside and out, and make you mine forever.”
