“What did you do?” Darcke pulled at my jacket until my back lifted off the ground, and I finally gulped down some air when his face hovered only an inch from mine.
“I didn’t do anything,” I replied. “I don’t even know where we are.”
He twisted the fabric, turning my head toward the forest, where birdsong whispered through the trees. “That mountain there? That’s my home. That was my village. How did you know? No one fucking knows.”
I blinked a few times. “There… there is no mountain there. Only forest.”
“Stop lying to me!” Darcke slammed his other hand into the sand. “How did you know? Tell me!”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” I screamed as the fabric dug into my neck, making it hard to breathe again. “We’re on a beach, not by a mountain.”
Darcke stared at me for a moment. “You actually think we’re on a beach?”
I filled my hand with sand and threw it at his face. “Feel that?”
His laugh was abrupt. “Yes. That’s snow.”
“What?” I threw more sand at him. “It’s sand!”
“That’s enough.” He gripped my wrist. “It’s fucking cold.”
“Are you serious?”
“Areyou?” he challenged.
I was so confused. It didn’t look like he was lying. I’d never seen this cold warrior so ruffled. And why would he lie about seeing his home?
“This isn’t real,” Darcke said. “This is… a dream?”
“A nightmare, really,” I mumbled.
“What did you say?” Darcke stilled above me, his hands pressing my wrists down in the sand.
“Nothing.” One of his brows arched, and I rolled my eyes. “My dreams don’t usually contain an angry man straddling me while trying to convince me the beautiful beach I’m on is a cold mountain.”
Darcke’s gaze broke from mine as he swept it across the area around us.
“Then what do your dreams contain?” he asked distractedly, and there was a note of vulnerability in his tone that made me swallow the sharp retort on my tongue.
He felt my pause because he snapped his head back my way, and when our eyes collided, he stilled for a second before finally releasing me.
“What is the last thing you remember?” Darcke asked, his voice regaining its usual edged depth.
“The shaman. You glaring at me.”
“I don’t glare,” Darcke replied with the exact glower I’d alluded to.
“I don’t think you have another look,” I said, earning an even more lethal stare.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“So fucking weird,” Darcke muttered as he rose. “Do you plan on staying there?”
“Yes,” I quipped. “Lying here while you block the sun sounds like the best option right now.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised there was another layer to his scowl.
“Do you ever laugh?” I asked as I also got to my feet, brushing sand off my leathers.
