She wanted both of them. She wanted safety and adventure and excitement and comfort. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I feel like doing something wild.”
One moment she was lying there in the sand, staring up at the sky, her fingers fidgeting against her thighs, and the next he’d pulled her so that she lay half on top of him, one leg strewn over his and their chests pressed together.
His voice was a low rumble as he said, “I can think of a few wild things.”
She felt her heartbeat everywhere—at the bottom of her throat and the base of her spine and the hollow of her knees. One of his hands ran up her side, mapping out the curve of her waist. He brought her close, so close she could feel his breath against her mouth. She shut her eyes, hovering there so near his warmth but still separate. The anticipation made her hand tremble against his chest, and all her limbs felt hollow. She wanted him to close the distance, wanted to do it herself. But something held her back. Her distracted mind had not stopped, only now it flickered between the curve of his lips and the wall of his chest and the sand blowing over their legs and the bird that was chirping somewhere in the distance and the lone insect who was fighting valiantly to fill the whole night with sound.
A hot flush of irritation swept over the back of her neck. She rolled away from Locke, feeling frustrated and petulant, which made zero sense. He was here, and if he stared at her any harder, her skin would catch fire. When his fingers touched low on her back, she shuddered from pleasure at the same time that her fists clenched in her lap.
That was when she noticed her bandages had come undone and she had reopened the cuts on her fingers. Locke had warned her that they would not heal easily. She hadn’t realized how often she used her hands until each strong flex of her fingers broke open the wounds again.
“Roar?”
Irritation seized her, and when the blood from her hands dripped onto the sand a moment later, that irritation bloomed into wild delight. The hair on her arms stood up on end, and blinding white skyfire split the sky in two. Sound exploded in her ears; the whole world seemed to shake when the blazing light pierced the earth so close that she felt a stinging shock push through her, locking up each and every muscle in her body.
It was gone faster than it came, and a few moments later, it struck again, splintering a brush tree and leaving fire in its place.
She swore. The land was flat, not a single large tree within sight, which meant she and Locke were the biggest targets out here. She heard another jarring crack, like the snap of a whip, and light flared in her peripheral vision. Glee welled up inside her—eager and excited, and so at odds with her own terror. She moved on instinct, pulling her legs in so that she sat in a ball. She curled her hands over her head and looked beneath her arm for Locke. She expected to find him fighting the storm or readying himself to do so. But instead, he sat still, his legs sprawled out and his upper body supported by his elbows, likely the same position he had been in when she rolled off him without warning. His handsome face had gone slack, his eyes big and blank.
Mesmerized.
She swore again, louder and with trembling panic. He had one of the strongest minds she had ever known. She did not think he had ever been mesmerized by a storm, at least not that he had told her, and he loved to tell all his most frightening stories to convince her of the danger. This was her fault. She had distracted him and weakened his control. Skyfire hit the earth again. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, like the knowledge that a blade swung and came far too close.
She didn’t know what to do; she wanted desperately to go to him, but that might make them more likely to get struck. Before she could make a decision, skyfire streaked down again, and it landed only steps away from Locke. It didn’t hit him, but his body jerked, spasming for a moment as his elbows gave and his body collapsed back on the sand. She knew the shock from skyfire could travel through the ground and affect people who were not directly hit. And sure enough, when she scrambled to his side, she found him unconscious.
“No.” The word choked in her throat, broken and gasping.
Another flash, lighting up Locke’s lifeless face in the night. She spread her hands over his chest, sliding up to cup his neck and check for a pulse. She thought she felt it, but it seemed weaker than it should be. Every other time she had touched his chest or neck, she could feel his heartbeat strong and wild and forceful, just like the man himself.
Another crack, and she screamed, senseless words scraping her throat raw, “Stop! Please, stop!”
Her eyes were flooded with tears, cascading over her cheeks, dripping down onto her shaking hands. And when the next bolt flashed, it did not touch the ground. It flitted from cloud to cloud several times in quick succession. Her confusion was too strong, too consuming to be only her own. Panting and at a loss for what to do next, she focused on the foreign feelings flooding her mind.
It was a mess of jumbled emotions—mirth and impatience and a playful restlessness that she now realized had been influencing her for far longer than just the length of the storm. Again the skyfire storm flashed overhead, deafening and terrible, but calmer. And inside she felt a corresponding rush of feelings. It was too fast to make sense of them separately, but together, they reminded her of a child who had been told no, gearing up to throw a tantrum, a building whine of disappointment.
That restless feeling built and built until the air grew thick with electricity, and she felt the intention of the storm a moment before a bolt of skyfire raged toward the ground. It was too bright to tell where it would land, but she threw up her arms and yelled “NO!”
She waited for the crack, for the pulse of power that radiated out every time the lightning met the land, but it never came. And when she uncovered her eyes, the storm rolled and flickered above her, but did nothing more. It … waited.
She stared, incredulous and shaking as the storm’s emotions washed over her. Feeling crazy (and desperate and afraid and every emotion there was tangled and mixed together in an overwhelming chorus), she began to think that the storm listened to her.
This … connection … she felt, did it work both ways? Could it understand her?
Two bolts of skyfire speared the sand simultaneously, but far enough away that she didn’t feel any overflow of energy. And somehow, she knew that answer was an unequivocal yes.
“Scorch me,” she breathed, and then immediately threw up her hands in a panic. “No, don’t! Don’t scorch me! I didn’t mean it!”
Thin, quick streaks danced overhead, and she somehow felt laughter, rather than heard it. It bubbled up in her chest, and she experienced the urge as if it were her own.
Breathing heavily, she stared up at the sky in wonder. And feeling like she had lost her wits, she whispered, “You don’t want to hurt me?”