For reasons she couldn’t explain, the idea of it made her incredibly sad, because it seemed impossible on so many levels. She was a warrior now and Duncan had this viper in his gut. She had no confidence at all their current warm relationship would last.
“You can put me down now. I’m not dizzy anymore.”
“Rachel, what the hell happened?” He set her on her feet, and she felt normal again.
“As I said, I think it might have been sort of a vision, yet not.”
“What was it about? Yolanthe? The prisoners?”
She put a hand to her chest. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then what? Tell me. I can feel how upset you are.”
She stared at Duncan, her lips parted. “Would it be okay if I held onto this for a little while? The vision wasn’t bad and it wasn’t about the war on Third. But it’s thrown me and I need some time to process, if that’s okay.”
She rubbed her hand over the top of his battle harness. “And I’m not pulling away from you, I promise.”
He searched her eyes for a long moment. “Whatever you need to do is okay by me, so long as you’re not in danger.”
She shook her head. “No. Not at all.”
Though her heart was, maybe. When she’d first been with Duncan ages ago, she’d wanted a family with him. But that was a long time past, so many fights in-between, so much impossible baggage to overcome.
“Now, how about you show me your bathing pool.”
“You still want to go?”
And just like that, she shed the effects of the vision and the conversation about Carlyon. “I’m right here with you, and the only thing I want is a swim without a stitch of clothes on and everything else that follows.”
His shoulders released their ready-to-attack mode and a half-smile curved his lips. “Then let’s go.”
With his arm around her, she felt herself glide back into nether-space as Duncan folded her to a nearby forest stream.
The pool was quite large and flowed from a shallow waterfall at one end to a manmade dam at the other. Nothing looked more inviting than diving into the dark water with dawn just lighting the sky in the east.
~
Duncan had no idea what Rachel had seen before she fell unconscious, or why she’d fainted after having the vision.
But he was worried about her. Maybe the battling and all their new Third Earth powers had taken a toll more than either of them realized.
She seemed to have recovered her balance both physically and emotionally. But between her nausea, her complete rejection of alcohol, and now a vision, his concern had ramped up. Rachel was an important person in his life. She had been from the time he’d first hooked up with her. And recent events had brought them even closer. The thought something could be physically wrong drove deep into his heart and set the serpent moving swiftly through his gut once more.
Don’t leave me. The words left his mind too fast for him to call them back.
Rachel had just folded off her battle suit when she turned to him, her milky skin glowing in the soft moonlight. “Duncan, I’m not going to leave you. Is that what has your brow fixed in a tight line? I would never leave you.”
She looked almost appalled that he’d think such a thing.
“I didn’t mean to say that. I’m not even sure why I did. But I want you to be safe. And whatever it was you saw—”
She went to him and grabbed his arms with both hands. “The vision had nothing to do with the war, I promise you. It was something personal, something I’ve had on my mind for a long time. In some ways, it was very sweet, the images I mean.”
“Nothing about doing battle? Or about training?”
“Not even a little bit. Now let it go, please, because I’m going to swim.”
She turned away and stepped quickly into the water. As soon as she was waist deep she dove under and came up smiling. “This is exactly what I needed.”