by Cora Carmack
“I believe in survival, which means my frame is flexible, ever changing. I believe what I must, do what I must.”
“Is that why you became a hunter?”
He asked, “Is it why you became a hunter?”
“You cannot answer a question with a question.”
“I believe I just did.”
Infuriating man. “You were young, when you met Duke. Weren’t you afraid?”
His legs moved in the corner of her vision, the heel of his boot scraping at the red sand. “By the time Duke found me, my choices were few. The number of us children on the streets had grown, and the crown saw us as a nuisance. Children began to disappear. Some likely snatched and conscripted into the military. Others were too young. There were guesses about what happened to them, most of them horrible. I would not put anything past the Lockes. By that point, I saw death as an inevitability, so if there was a way to do it outside that miserable city, that was enough for me. But, as it happens, being unafraid to die makes for a very good storm hunter.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, not turning completely but enough to see the way the moonlight reflected off the bridge of his nose and the sharp angles of his cheekbones. “How old were you?”
“Old enough.”
And he thought her frustrating.
“I am not the only one with trust issues. You were more honest with me when I was a stranger in the market than you are now when our lives depend upon one another.”
He sat up, dusting the sand off his hands and turning sideways to face her. He folded his legs to sit like her, but there was no making his tall, muscular frame any smaller. He loomed in the edge of her vision, impossible to ignore. “What do you want to know? Ask and I will tell you.”
This was dangerous territory. If she asked, he might expect her to reciprocate. And there were some things that she could not tell him, regardless of whether she wanted to or not.
“I don’t wish to take any secrets you don’t wish to tell.”
“Ask, Roar. I have nothing to hide.”
She could have asked him about his childhood, about growing up in Locke, but other words poured from her mouth before she could help herself.
“Do you still think I made a mistake? Coming here?”
“Do you?”
“No answering questions with a question. And this isn’t about me. I want to know what you think, if you regret saying yes to me.”
His hand touched her back, long fingers spread wide, pressing against her. She suddenly could concentrate on little but the shape of his hand and the pressure his fingers exerted. Finally, he said, “No, I don’t think you made a mistake.”
“Even after the twister? And the thunderstorm and all the others? How am I supposed to hunt storms when … when … I don’t even know what to call it! I cannot even trust myself, which means I cannot trust anyone.”
She had been so sure, so certain when she left Pavan. But now she could not depend upon herself. She was drawn to Locke when she shouldn’t be. She wanted to run back home when she should be brave. And when the storms came, she lost herself.
“You can trust me,” he said, his hand trailing down her spine and then up again in a movement that was probably meant to be comforting. But she felt it too intensely for it to cause anything but fear and frustration.
“No, Locke. I really can’t.”
* * *
It was a blow, to be sure. But like any wall, Roar’s would not fall without effort, and Locke was more determined than ever to see that happen.
“Why?” he asked. “Do you think I mean you harm?”
“No, I don’t—”
“Do you think I would judge you? I don’t care what your life was before, Roar.”
She scoffed. “You would. You all would.”
“There is not a person on this crew who does not have a past, myself included. You know I was an orphan. I have already told you that my only directive in life is survival. Can you not imagine that I have done things in my life I am not proud of? But I’m here. I am alive. That is more than could be said for many. Whatever it is that haunts you … you’re here now. That is what matters.”
He had lost control over his own hand, and it trailed up and down her back now, tracing the delicate line of her spine again and again. And with each pass, he claimed a little more of her, until his fingers swept up her neck into the fall of her dark wavy hair.
She shivered, and her voice was softer as she spoke. “If it were just the guilt, I would tell you. But it is more complicated than that.”
“When was the last time you tried letting someone else in? Have you ever?”
Her spine stiffened beneath his caress, and he knew he was losing her. There was heat enough to burn in her next words. “I did try. Not that long ago. I was afraid and worried, and I trusted that someone else could help me. That we could be partners. But he was a liar, and he only ever meant to break my will beneath his own.”
Locke couldn’t stop the fierce protectiveness that rose in him, and before he knew what he was doing, he had caught her face in his hands, turning it toward him. “Who was he? The man from the market?”
“Locke, please—”
“If a man needs to hurt a woman to feel good about himself, he is not much of a man.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how was it? Say the word, princess, and I will hunt him down. It’s what I do, and I am very good at it.”
She paled. “No, no, not that. It was only my pride and my heart that he hurt. Nothing more.”
It should not have made him jealous, to know someone broke her heart. He should only have been mad for her, sad too perhaps. But he could not help the part of him that envied the man she had allowed near her heart in the first place.
Two paths diverged before him in his mind. Since the kiss, he had been content to chase her without thinking of the consequences. But now he knew that he either had to be certain or he had to let her go. He looked at her—at the curve of her cheek and arch of her neck and the bow of her lips—and he knew he could not do the latter.
“I will make you a promise,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me anything unless you want to. I will do my best to stop pushing you. But know that you have my trust.”
“But—”
“You have it. You were strong enough during that twister to know that something wasn’t right. And we will work until you’re stronger still. Until we find out how to get past this. You asked me if I thought you had made a mistake by coming with us, and my answer is no. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. And I am here with you. If you have questions, ask them. If you have fears, shed them. If you have doubts, give them to me and I will crush them beneath my heel. If you need help, I will provide it. Even if you only need someone to yell at, I can be that too. And when the time comes that you need someone to trust, I will be that person. I promise.”
The words had rushed out of him, like a current he could not fight, and he had been so concentrated on the words, on saying exactly what he meant, that he did not notice her tears until he was silent. Wet droplets brimmed along her lashes, and with each blink, more tears streaked across her cheeks like shooting stars. He had seen her upset, seen her furious, but never had he seen her look so sad, so broken.
“Ah, princess. Don’t cry.”
She shook her head, her lips trembling, and he touched her again, unable to resist. He wiped away the moisture on her cheeks, cupping her face in his hands.
“I—I can’t—” She choked on the words and clutched a hand to her chest like her heart physically hurt in her chest.
He acted on instinct alone, pulling until she sat in his lap, her side pressed against his stomach and her shuddering body cradled against him. He kissed away a tear at the corner of her eye, and she inhaled sharply before choking out another cry. The wind blustered around them, and he pulled her closer, knowing the shawl she wore provided little warmth. His lips moved over her cheek, less
of a kiss and more of a caress.
“What can I do?” he asked, desperate. “Tell me how to help. Tell me.”
She didn’t speak, but she did pull him closer, her willowy arms winding about his neck, until her chest pressed against his own and their foreheads met. He could feel her gasping breaths on his mouth, and he felt the ghost of that touch all the way down his spine. His hands roamed over her back, partly in an attempt to keep her warm and partly out of loss for what else to do. He wanted to understand her, wanted to help, but he had just finished telling her he would not push.
So he rocked her and said whatever words he thought might soothe her. And when he could not help himself, he pressed his lips to her cheek, her temple, her jaw. And with each one, her grip on him tightened until her fingers slid up his neck and tangled in his hair.
She let out a low, keening sound that threated to shred his heart and he begged again, “Tell me how to help. Tell me what to do.”
He did not understand what it was that caused her so much pain. Her past must have been even more complicated than he thought, because it was agony written on her face now, undiluted and overwhelming.
She pressed her lips together and tears darted over them, falling in quick succession. With her hands in his hair, she pulled him closer until his mouth rested against the crest of her cheekbone. “This helps,” she whispered, the words broken.
She turned, and when her mouth met his, the sky broke open and it began to rain.
* * *
The falling rain was a shock to their senses, and Locke tried to pull away, but Roar held him fast and pushed her lips harder against his. Grief drenched her, filled up her lungs, until she was drowning with every breath. It pressed at her, from outside and within, until she felt like she might be crushed or torn apart at any moment. She could barely breathe, let alone speak.
She knew it wasn’t her sorrow. She had known sadness, but nothing like this, nothing so oppressive that she felt shattered. Irreparable. It was coming from the storm, that much she knew, but she did not understand why. All the other times had been anger, fury, and now this? She was baffled, but in this at least, she posed no danger to anyone else. If she were ever going to find a way to break through the storm’s hold, this was it.
The one thing that helped was the man whose arms were wrapped around her now. The pain didn’t go away, but the closer he was and the more he captivated her thoughts, the more she felt like herself. When his lips met hers, the grief faded to a dull roar in the back of her mind. When his tongue traced at the seam of her lips, begging for entrance, she gave it without another thought.
Even in the soaking rain, heat licked over her skin at the first slide of his tongue against hers. It was different from their last kiss. That had been hard, furious. Now she did not feel so much burned by his touch as that they were burning together. The kiss began slow, seeking, but built as they reacted to each other. He groaned when she buried her fingers deeper in his hair, so she gripped the strands a little tighter. His teeth scraped over her bottom lip, and her whole body shuddered; so he did it again, soothing the sting with his tongue.
Something between desperation and hunger ignited in her, and it made her press back harder, move faster, push closer. His hair was wet in her hands, and the skin of his neck was slick against her forearms. She sat sideways in his lap with her upper body turned to him, and he had been holding her in carefully innocuous places as she cried. But now one hand was dragging from her knee up her thigh, and she ached for him to keep going, to hurry. Toward what, she wasn’t exactly sure.
When he reached the top of her thigh, his hand skated innocently over her hip and fisted the wet fabric of her tunic at the small of her back. He held it there, pressing in against her spine, as if he were trying to imprison his hand so it could not wander.
She wanted to tell him it was unnecessary, but she was afraid that as soon as they separated, the grief would overwhelm her again. So instead she let her own hands wander. She explored his shoulder, but her fingers only slipped over soaked leather that was probably being ruined the longer they sat here. She tugged at the straps on his chest, wishing he were closer, wishing she could feel his skin. She reached for his cheek, the only place she knew she could really touch him, and the stubble along his jaw tickled her palm. He loosed one hand from behind her back to mirror her touch, only his hand was so big that it touched her cheek and her neck, and his fingertips nestled into her wet hair.
She shifted her hips, twisting until her knees touched his side and she could lean her chest completely against his. He groaned, breaking their kiss, and her whole body tensed, waiting for the onslaught to come. His mouth slid to her jaw, tasting the rain against her skin, and though she could still feel the foreign emotion, and tears still mixed with rain on her cheeks, it remained muted.
His ragged breaths crashed against the sensitive skin of her neck between kisses, and she shivered as an intense shock zipped down her spine. She leaned back, tilting her head, and finally the hand at her back loosened its hold on her shirt and slid beneath the wet fabric to curve around her ribs. The tips of his fingers were burning embers against her bare skin, and she pushed up against his touch, encouraging him the only way she could. Her hands tangled again in his hair, and she was shaking under the barrage of sensations.
“Roar,” he murmured, his lips grazing over her pulse point.
Oh skies, that was good. Such a little touch, but she felt it everywhere.
“We should go inside.”
She only tightened her hold, and arched her body into his touch, wanting more. She could lose herself in this man. She could shed more than just the sorrow that tried to smother her. In his arms, she could let go of everything. He even outdid the pull she felt to her home and the responsibilities that waited for her there. For this man … she could let go of Aurora and be only Roar.
“You’ll catch your death of cold out here,” he said, resisting her pull and leaning back to look at her face. “Roar?” His brows furrowed, and those perfect, tempting lips dipped down in a frown.
She sat up, trying to drag him back, trying to reclaim that intensity that had pushed everything out of her mind. But his hands found her cheeks, and she knew the moment he saw the tears still gathering. His jaw went slack, and he reared back in horror.
“P-please,” she stuttered, trying not to choke on the false emotion that was flooding back in. She was shaking still, but now it was tremors of agony. “Hurts,” she whimpered.
He cursed, a long string of insults for both himself and the storm. Gently, he eased her off his lap and onto the wet sand. She hurt too badly to do anything more than lie back and struggle to breathe. The rain bombarded her face, so she rolled to her side and squeezed her eyes shut. She heard Locke yell, a savage sound that was much more like her nickname than anything she had ever done.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, shaking and soaked to the bone. But she could hear Locke panting just outside the reach of her vision. His labored breaths and grunts told her that he was fighting to take the storm down.
And after a while, she heard no more thunder. Skyfire did not light up the dark behind her eyelids. And the pound of rain on her body had ceased.
She opened her eyes, and though the skies were still black, she knew the storm was gone. Locke stood a few paces away, his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breaths, his back curved ever so slightly. She could not see his face, only the wilted shape of his normally strong form.
The grief had drained away, but every part of her body ached as if something really had been crushing her. She felt hollowed out, like the sorrow of an entire lifetime had passed through her in moments. She stayed there, curled up in a ball, shaking from the cold. The longer Locke kept his back to her, the more doubt crept in.
When he did approach, he didn’t say anything. He just scooped her up into his arms, and began carrying her back toward the town. She swallowed down the instinct to snap that she could walk on h
er own, because she wasn’t sure she actually could. She leaned her head against his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to curl her hands around his neck, but she didn’t have the courage, didn’t even know if she should want that.
This wasn’t her life. Not really. It was only a detour before she went back to her world, no matter what she had thought in the throes of his kiss. Even if she could trust him, he couldn’t trust her. And that gutted her.
Bitterness lined her tongue because she saw plainly now that she had done to him what Cassius had done to her. She’d manipulated and lied and used him to get what she needed. She curled her head into her hands and pushed her palms against her forehead, trying to block that line of thought. At least until she was alone.
“Almost there,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. He was taking care of her, even after what she had just done.
“I can walk.” Her own voice rasped, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t. Just … please don’t, Roar.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant don’t walk or don’t talk or don’t look up at the hard set of his jaw and the grim line of his mouth. So she assumed it was all of them and returned her head to his shoulder and shut her eyes against the world.
The first people of Caelira lived where the desert met the sea. They were proud like their makers and thrived in a savage land where there were far more ways to die than to live. But over time, they began to believe they needed no masters. And they took what they wanted and behaved in whatever way they wished.
—The Origin Myths of Caelira
18
He would never forgive himself. She was soaked to the bone, her skin too pale, her body curled up with her hands against her chest as if to protect her heart. He should have known the moment that it had begun to rain. She wasn’t the type to cry easily, and certainly not in front of him. Scorch it all, he should have realized. She had pushed him away after their last kiss. Why would she have suddenly thrown herself at him now?