“Can you just leave me alone?”
His hand seized her elbow, and he spun her around forcefully. He growled, “No. I can’t.”
And then his mouth collided with hers.
For a moment, Roar did not understand what was happening. She knew his lips were on hers, pushing hard enough to be punishment, and his fingers threaded through her hair, and an arm wrapped tight around her waist. But even knowing those things, she could not quite comprehend that Locke was kissing her.
She froze, unsure whether she wanted to allow it or shove him away. She had been so angry, but now that blazing heat had melted into something different, like molten glass being shaped into something new. He tilted her head back, his hand gripping tighter in her hair, and when he opened his mouth against hers, she followed. He kissed his own fury into her, melting and reshaping her again and again with each stroke of his tongue over hers.
When he broke the kiss, his mouth stayed close, his breath like fire on her tender lips. She opened her eyes and found him staring, brows furrowed halfway between confusion and anger. Slowly, the world came back into focus—the lingering scent of smoke, the wet cling of her clothes, the sound of voices not too far away.
She planted her hands on his chest and shoved, but he caught her wrists.
“You still did not ask,” she hissed.
The indent in his brow deepened. “Ask what?”
She struggled against his hold, panic welling in her throat. “You can’t just grab me and … and do that. You cannot manipulate me into letting go of my anger.”
This time when she pulled, her wrists came free, and she stumbled backward. He held out a hand as if to catch her, but hesitated, letting her find her own footing.
“I should not have yelled at you. I was worried, and I overreacted. You—you did well. With the embers.”
She wanted to yell some more, to push and shove and protect herself because fighting was not nearly as frightening as … as whatever this was. She was supposed to be learning how to trust herself, how to be confident in her strength. She could not risk that, not even for a kiss so intense that she was still shaking.
The raised voices of the other hunters intruded again, and she glanced behind him. Thankfully, the others were still out of sight on the other side of the Rock. Her face was flushed, and she did not know what she would have done if they had seen. Locke’s voice was rough and low when he spoke again. “I need to find out what happened. Then we’ll take care of your burns.”
He didn’t wait before turning and heading toward the Rock, the back of which was scorched and mangled, and not dissimilar from how she felt inside.
“Is everyone unhurt?” Locke called as he joined the rest of the group. Each member of the team checked in one by one, none seriously injured. Last to call out was Bait. The redhead stood next to the damaged carriage, his face streaked with soot and rain, his shoulders bowed as Locke stalked toward him.
“Bait,” Locke growled, and Roar flinched, glad it was not her on the receiving end of his frustrations. “What in the bleeding skies happened?”
“I, uh, got distracted. And missed the time when I was supposed to add more magic to the chamber. I had to get something in fast or we were going to lose control, but I couldn’t find another jar of hurricane. So I put in—”
“Firestorm. Damn it, Bait. The metal can’t withstand that fast a temperature change. We’re lucky the whole thing didn’t rip apart.”
It sure looked to Roar like the whole thing had ripped apart. The back end of the coach appeared to have burst at the seams. Blackened metal peeled backward in multiple directions, gaping open to reveal the inside of the contraption that used magic to power the entire machine.
“Can you repair it?” Duke asked, ripping away one sleeve of his shirt to reveal scalded skin on his forearm, more scars to join the rest.
“Maybe. With Ransom’s help. But we’ll need to find a village with a blacksmith. We’ll have to change our travel plans again.”
All eyes turned toward Roar then, some wary, some curious, some just weary from the day. She held still, worried that if she moved wrong, they would all be able to tell that Locke had just kissed the life out of her only moments ago.
“Did you feel anything?” Duke asked.
Heat bloomed over her skin, and her mouth went dry. Her wide eyes flicked to Locke and he said, “When the storm surfaced?” He frowned. “Any anger? Or other emotions that didn’t feel like your own?”
She tried to think back to the firestorm, to before her world had been flipped upside down. She could not remember feeling much of anything after she’d been thrown from her horse, she had simply reacted on instinct. Finally, she shook her head.
“What does that mean?”
Duke and Locke exchanged a glance.
“It rules out sensitivity,” Duke said. “If that were it, you would react to any kind of storm magic, even that which comes from a jar rather than nature.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Locke said. “It could be only natural storms that she reacts to. I’ve never heard of that kind of thing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. People are so bleeding scared to talk about magic that there’s probably a lot we haven’t heard of.”
Duke sighed. “Well, at least we’ll have plenty of time to find out while you and Ransom work on the Rock.”
Duke spent some time looking everyone over, assessing burns and other injuries. Poor Ransom had lost half his impressive beard to an ember before he’d managed to douse it. Roar could tell Bait wanted to laugh but still felt too guilty to do anything more than try to be helpful. To even it up, Ran had to clip his beard until only thick stubble remained.
Locke put Bait in charge of readying the Rock by hooking up two of the horses so that it drove like a traditional carriage. Honey ended up being one of those horses because the others had burns. Roar watched as Bait harnessed Honey, and she ran a hand down the horse’s muzzle to reassure her.
Each horse in the royal stables had been trained for every circumstance imaginable, so this was by no means outside the mare’s ability. It was herself that Roar feared for. Her one constant right now was that she spent her days on the back of that horse, who was at once a comfort and a reminder of the freedom Roar had craved for so long. And she needed that reminder now more than ever.
“She’ll be fine,” Locke said, misreading her apprehension. He held up a bag of supplies and said, “Let me take a look at your legs.”