"And you love being the mysterious oracle of the mountains a little too much." She scooped a handful of water and splashed him.
Verd backpedaled, looking shocked. For an instant she thought she'd overstepped, perhaps torpedoed any chance David might have here, but then, shockingly, unexpectedly, Verd laughed.
It was hoarse and rusty, and he stopped almost immediately, as if he'd shocked himself too.
"What do you know," she said. "There's a heart in you somewhere."
Her feet just touched bottom here, enough to anchor her. Naked, she half-stood, half-floated, as Verd stroked slowly toward her and then kicked himself upright. Water rolled off his shoulders.
They were close enough to touch. She wanted to; she suspected David wouldn't mind, would probably love to watch her do it. The smooth planes of Verd's chest, the width of his shoulders ... she ached to explore them. And his eyes, dark and smoky and swirling with emotion beneath the surface calm, drank her in. She was all too aware of the water enveloping her, touching her everywhere; it was like being held gently in warm hands.
But she could feel something else too ... a tickle of something, a sense that something was being done to her, that her oreiad nature resisted.
"What's all this about, anyway?" she asked. "It's not just an excuse to get me naked, and it isn't just about making me swim in your pond. What are you really doing?"
"No," he said quietly, "you're right. Tess, I don't have the ability to heal David. But I think between the two of us, we might. And now I'm even more sure of it."
Her heart stuttered in her chest—hope and anger, rolled into one. "If I could, don't you think I would have?"
"Not by yourself. But it is said that dryad groves can heal. That's why you went to your people in the mountains, isn't it?"
"For all the help they were," she spat. "Anyway, oreiads can't heal."
"Perhaps not. But between your connection to the rocks, and mine to the waters, and the innate abilities that some of your people have, I think we might. There's a catch, though. For both of us."
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for David," she declared.
"Nor I." The words came out on a sigh, and she realized he might not have admitted it even to himself before he said it out loud to her. "We both have to open up to make this work. Nothing held back."
"What do you mean?"
"Your nature resists mine. Mine resists yours. How much are you willing to give up to save him?"
She looked up at him, at the dark, tormented eyes, and thought the question might be directed at himself as much as her. He had even more to lose than she did, with millennia of ancestral memories in his mind, shaping him, while he gathered memories that would help shape his descendants. She had only her own life to worry about, attached though she was to it. Verd was faced with the possibility of changing all of dragonkind to come.
For David.
And ... for us too. Perhaps.
She reached out cautiously and touched Verd's face, stroked her fingertips down his wet cheek and planted her hand firmly on his shoulder to give herself an anchor. Then she kicked off from the bottom, lifting herself high enough in the water to kiss him.
It was brief, a brush of lips wet wi
th the hot springs' sulfurous water. It was chaste, almost; she needed David's blessing for more. But Verd didn't pull away; instead his hands moved under the water, took her waist in his hands and held her, floating, as she held herself by her grip on his shoulder. He was looking at her now with something like wonder.
"Let's go get David," she said.
David was drowsing, drifting in and out, when the door opened. He was dimly aware of it, and then Tess's face swam into focus above him, smiling at him. Her hair was wet, a riot of plastered-down curls; her shirt gaped open at the neck, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of collarbone and freckled chest.
... and she was talking to him; he'd zoned out for a minute. "Can you get up?"
She put an arm under him, helping him sit. Dizziness swamped him, and it wasn't until it receded that he realized Tess wasn't the only person holding him up. Verd was on his other side; it was Verd's hands holding him, as well as Tess's, Verd's arm wrapped around his back.
"You came back," he mumbled. The words sounded foolish to him, but Verd smiled.
"Can you stand?' Verd asked quietly.
"Yeah. I think so." He swayed even with both of them holding him. "Where are we going?"