“So, tell me. Explain it to me. I’ll listen. But I promise, nothing you say could make me care for you any less.”
She stiffened. All she wanted to do was turn around and tell him that she cared about him too, far more than she had let herself realize until she’d seen him unconscious and near to death in the desert. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
His hand found her jaw, and he turned her head, tipping it backward so that she was forced to meet his eyes. “I have had days to sit by your side, praying you would wake. Days to think of everything I wish I had said and done. I know exactly what I’m saying.”
Her heart felt like it might burst from her chest, and before she could do something stupid, like tell him she loved him, she said, “I must have called the twister too. The one that killed those soldiers and destroyed all those homes. I—I have a twister Stormheart. It belonged to my brother. I keep it on a chain beneath my clothes most of the time, but on that day it was in my pocket. I cut my hand on that knife, and later I touched the Stormheart while I was thinking about those soldiers, about how a part of me wished I had hurt them. Or worse. The twister happened only a few moments later. It was me. I know it was. I took out an entire company of soldiers over the bad deeds of a few.”
His face remained stoic, and she never saw the disgust she expected to find. He said, “I would have killed those men if I thought I could do it and still keep you safe. The rest of those soldiers were in the wildlands, they knew the risk. It’s not as if you put a blade through each of their chests. You are not responsible for the actions of a storm, even if you called it.”
She jerked her head out of his grasp, turning away. “If Ransom had died, would you say the same thing? Or Jinx? Or Bait? Or Sly? You blame the military for your sister, even though they were just following orders. In a way, that twister was following mine.”
“Enough. I don’t care. I don’t care if you called that storm, if you called every storm there ever was. I would love you anyway.”
She stilled, and her breath caught in her throat as an ocean rolled over her eyes, blurring everything around her until all she could do was feel—feel his heat, feel her heart rage with joy and terror, feel the desperate grip of his hands on her thighs as he waited for her to speak. And for the briefest moment—she left behind everything she was and had ever been.
No more Aurora.
No more Roar.
For a few seconds, she was only the girl that Locke loved.
And maybe she was selfish, but she wanted to remain that girl as long as possible. She wanted to pretend that there was no kingdom waiting for her and no dangerous abilities she did not understand. So she turned and kissed him, and held on to that girl with everything she had.
*
Sweeter than wine and softer than silk—Roar’s kiss was the kind of kiss that could bring a man back to life. And in a way, that was exactly what it did. Locke had been running on instinct, on grit alone, for far longer than the few days he had waited for Roar to wake.
When Duke had offered him a way out, he had taken it to get out of Locke. But there had also been that blackened, broken part of him inside that thought surely his luck would run out in the wilds. But again, fate dealt him another hand. He was a good hunter. Very good. Again and again, he went after storms that no one else would touch. At sixteen, he’d thrown himself into a firestorm when men twice his age were running in the other direction. At eighteen, he ran away to face a hurricane on his own after Duke had declined to go after it with the whole crew.
He survived the flames and the waves and the winds.
Again and again and again, he survived.
But with each narrow brush with death, he felt a little less alive. Each scrape with devastation scraped off a little more of his soul.
Until this kiss. When she breathed hope through his lips, filling his lungs with joy and sowing dreams beneath his skin. Roar made him want to do more than survive. With each soft sweep of her mouth over his, she dismantled the frame of his world and built a new one.
Tentative hands crept up his arms, tracing into the dip of his elbows and curling around his shoulders. She twisted her body, bit by bit, trying to press flat against him, whimpering into his mouth when she could not make the position work. He took her by the hips, and as he lay back, he pulled until her smaller body rested on top of his. He’d had to remove all his weapons and magic when he visited the witch, so now he felt the full press of Roar’s body against his own with nothing in the way.
The light brushes of her mouth were as maddening as they were euphoric. He wanted her with a desperation he had never experienced. He tried to pace himself, tried to let her hold the reins. He focused on familiarizing himself with every part of her he could reach. He dragged his hands up from her hips, learning the softness of her waist and the valley of her spine. He traced his fingers along the paths between her ribs, pushing beneath his heavy leather jacket to touch the twin wings of her shoulder blades. He thought he could touch her for years on end and never know her as well as he wanted to.
When he smoothed his hands over her sides, venturing near the curve of her breasts, she inhaled sharply against his lips. He paused, unsure if he was crossing a line. He waited for her to say something, but she remained still above him, her eyes squeezed shut and mouth still open on a gasp. Then, ever so slowly, she arched her body, turning so that his right wrist grazed her chest and the heel of his hand continued over her curves. He took that as permission, learning the shape of her there too, and when she exhaled on a moan, he lost the battle with his desperation.
He rolled, pressing her back into soft soil, and crushed his mouth against hers. Her response was equally feverish and frantic. Her fingers pulled at his hair, and her knees surrounded his hips, nestling him deeper against her. She arched up into his hand again, and he plunged his tongue into her mouth as he gave her the contact she wanted. The contact they both wanted. His other hand trailed down to one of the thighs hooked around his hips, and when he touched her bare skin, her teeth caught his bottom lip.
He groaned, sinking his hand beneath the tunic she wore, his tunic, until the perfect curve of her bottom filled his hand. She surged up against him, hips mashing against hips in a way that made him break their kiss and drop his head to the hollow of her throat to catch his breath. Her hands left his head to run down his back and then up again, and he covered her pulse point with his mouth, feeling the wild, rapid reminder of her vitality against his lips and teeth and tongue.