She moaned, and the sound burrowed beneath his skin, burning him up with want. Their hips began to rock—slow and subtle at first. But as he covered her neck with kisses and teasing nips of his teeth, she began to pull his hips down with her legs at the same time that she lifted her own hips up. It was torture and bliss all at the same time.
From beneath the thin fabric of the tunic, a blue-white light flickered with increasing intensity. He pulled back, watching that pulse of light with both wonder and trepidation. He slid his hand up from her chest to the neat row of buttons at the top of the tunic. Giving her plenty of time to protest, he undid the buttons gradually until the top of the tunic was loose enough that he could ease it down to reveal the light branching out over her chest. It streaked up to her collarbone and across to her sternum and over the slope of her left breast. The tempo of the flashes increased as he stared at her, and he could not help but lower his mouth to experience the marvel with more senses than just sight. He closed his eyes, and the beat of her heart lit up the black behind his eyelids.
Again and again, he followed different bolts of light with his lips, racing in an attempt to keep up. Sometimes, the action made her laugh, shivering as if the quick glide of his lips tickled. Other times she clutched his shoulders and held her breath, especially when he traversed the slope over her breast and the valley in the middle. He forgot about racing the light in those places and took his time, letting the light come to him again and again. Soon, she pulled his head up from her chest, and he went with a growl that she soothed with the softest, sweetest kiss he had ever received. Against his mouth, she whispered, “I’ve never—You … you are the first.”
He loosened his hold on her body and tried not to jump to conclusions. Lifting himself up a little, he braced his weight on his elbows and asked, “First what, princess?”
Her eyes were wide, worried almost, as she answered, “First everything?”
He thought back to the first time he’d kissed her—hard and angry and demanding. He felt the sudden urge to worship her lips, to worship all of her to make up for his mistakes.
He covered her cheek with his hand and trailed a thumb down to her mouth, over the reddened curve of her bottom lip. He felt far too much satisfaction that these lips had never known another pair but his.
He leaned down to nip at her swollen bottom lip. “I’m the first to touch this mouth? To taste it?” Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her blue eyes flashed with heat. She nodded, her tongue darting out to soothe the skin he had tugged between his teeth. “That means it’s mine. My territory. And I’m prepared to protect it, every hour of the day if I must.”
Those lips that were now his tipped up in a smile. “That’s very dedicated of you.”
There was still so much he wanted to know about her. But he didn’t want to assume that because she kissed him, she trusted him. He finally had her in his arms. The last thing he wanted to do was push her away.
Her long fingers rubbed at the corner of his jaw, down the side of his neck, and slipped along the collar of his shirt.
“I want you to show me,” she murmured.
“Show you what?”
She smiled again. “Everything? Show me what you said before.”
“You mean that I love you?”
She nodded, her grin widening. “Yes. Show me that.”
He groaned and leaned down for another quick taste of her lips. He wanted to give her what she asked. He would love nothing more than to spend the next few hours explaining in explicit detail with his mouth and hands just how beautiful he found her.
But it wasn’t long ago that she had fallen in that river, too weak to even stand. And now that he knew he had her firsts, he was determined to make each one as special as she deserved. Which meant the bank of a river, while she suffered from the cold breeze with wet hair, was definitely not the right time.
“I will show you,” he promised her, “as frequently and thoroughly as you like. But not now. Not here. Let me get you back to camp where it’s warm. We’ve got all the time in the world, princess.”
A soul is a curious thing. It is all the forms of one’s self—what one was, what one is, and what one could be. And the trajectory of both life and death are ruled by the self each of us clings to the most.
—personal journal of spirit witch Avira Croixell
23
“I’m telling you, she’s too much of a risk. It’s only a matter of time before the news about this Stormlord and Locke spreads. Then she’ll put us in danger in every city we visit. One look at her chest, and they’ll put us in the stocks at best, the noose at worst.”
Roar’s stomach sank as she and Locke approached camp and overheard the discussion happening there.
“What would you have us do, Sly?” The question came from Jinx. “Abandon her in the desert? Leave her in Taraanar? Besides, if she can call storms, maybe it will be useful. We would no longer have to use our own raw magic supplies while we hunt. We could save it all for the markets. Maybe she could even call a specific storm when we’re running low. We could collect the magic without the risk and time it takes to search out a storm.”
“People are not meant to have dominion over storms,” Sly said. “It’s unnatural. She’s unnatural.”
Locke wrapped his arms around Roar, spinning her behind him as if the words were arrows, and he could take the hit for her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to him.
“It’s not,” he growled. “I should have ended her complaints about you weeks ago.”
She lifted a hand to his face, the bristles along his jaw tickling her palms. “She’s not wrong.”
“Of course she is. Did you do anything to gain these powers? Before you felt the emotions of that first storm—were you under some enchantment? Did you utilize some magic without telling us?”
“No, but—”
“Then whatever this gift is, you were born with it. Which means while it might be rare, it is natural.”
“Locke…” She should tell him about the souls she could sense around them. Maybe then he would understand that this gift, as he called it, was too dangerous. Too much. Born with it or not, it did not feel natural to be able to manipulate spirits in such a way.
Before she could find the words, Sly continued her complaints. “I’m not saying she is evil. But you have to admit we know very little about her. Between us, we have decades of experience with storms. We come from all over Caelira—cities and wilds alike. In all that time, there have only ever been two people with these abilities. Roar. And a man who single-handedly destroyed an entire kingdom. We would be fools to trust her blindly.”
Roar pushed out of the trees and past Locke, saying, “What did you say?”
Sly spun around, her mouth open with shock, and for a moment fear flickered in her eyes. Roar recoiled, and Locke was there behind her, hands at her waist.
“I—I only meant—”
“There’s someone else like me?”
It was Locke who answered, his voice low and soothing. “It’s only rumors. We know nothing for certain.”