Roar (Stormheart #1)(36)
“People die doing what we do. Do you want to die, little girl?”
Her fists balled at her hips, and she raised her chin defiantly.
“So now I’m a little girl again?”
Scorch it. Wrong thing to say. But he was too furious to do anything but double down.
“Yes. A na?ve little girl.”
“I’m not na?ve. I know exactly what I’m asking.”
She lifted a hand to her chest, grasping something beneath the fabric of her cloak. “I know very well what can happen. That’s why I want to learn from Duke. After all, he’s been hunting storms for decades. Maybe he should decide whether or not I have the potential.”
Duke brushed a strand of white-gray hair off his forehead, and leveled them both with a serious expression. His eyes lingered on Locke longer, and it was plain Duke was considering it. For a man hardened by a lifetime of destruction and peril, he had a dangerously soft heart.
Locke said, “We have enough people on the team. She’ll just be a liability.”
Roar winced, and Locke felt it like a blade slicing across his gut.
“What happened to wanting to help me?” she asked. “Did you decide insulting me was more fun?”
The last thing he wanted to do was insult her, but the girl wouldn’t listen. She appeared determined to make exactly the wrong choices, and he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she saw sense. This was why he never associated with anyone but other hunters. They, at least, understood the dangers; and if they got themselves killed, it wasn’t Locke’s problem. But this girl, she would be his problem. He could not do what he did while tied to other people. One death on his conscience was enough.
He said, “I meant I would help you find a job or a place to stay. If you want to be involved so badly, Duke can teach you to run the booth here in our absence.”
She and Duke replied at the same time.
“I don’t want to run the booth.”
“That won’t do.”
Locke ran a hand through his hair, messing up the way he’d tied it back. “Why the blazes not?”
His responding growl had been for both of them, but it was Duke who answered. “The inventory we have now would last a fortnight at most. We won’t be back in this area for months. A job won’t be much help to her if it’s only temporary.”
Roar was looking at Locke with smug rebellion, and even as he wanted to shake her, he envisioned ways that he could wipe that pretty smirk from her mouth.
“So we introduce her to one of the permanent vendors. One of them has to need help.”
Roar shook her head. “No. I can’t stay here. I need to leave with you all. As soon as possible.”
There she was, spinning him right around her finger again, turning all his ire into concern. “Why do you need to leave? What’s wrong?” He stepped closer, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“That’s my business. I wouldn’t want to make myself any more of a liability by involving you.”
He ground his teeth together, before throwing his head back with an aggravated growl.
“This life is not glamorous,” Duke told her. “We travel constantly. We sleep on the ground most nights. When we’re not in danger from storms, we’re in danger in cities where we are considered criminals. This life is not for the faint of heart.”
“There are things I do not know, things I will have to learn. But I am capable. I am familiar with sacrifice. I know what it is to make hard choices.”
“Tell me you’re not considering this,” Locke said to Duke.
The old man was silent for a long moment, both Locke and Roar looking to him for support. Duke rubbed at his mustache, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. “Let’s think about this, Locke. She’s smart. And determined.”
“She’s a child.”
Roar’s shoulders hunched in Locke’s peripheral vision, and he swallowed back the guilt. He could apologize later. For now, it was imperative that he won this argument.
“You were a child when I brought you into the fold,” Duke said. “She’s a young woman with a good head on her shoulders. And if this is what she wants, I’m inclined to at least hear her out.”
Just like that, Roar’s shoulders straightened, and Locke turned to watch a devastating smile bloom across her mouth. His weakness when it came to her only made him more cross.
“What skills do you have?” he snapped at Roar.
“Skills?”
“Yes, skills. What can you do? Or do you just plan to tag along for the ride?”
A flush spread over her cheeks, and her voice was tentative when she answered, “I’m good on a horse. Very good.”
Where in the world would she have learned to ride? He quickly hardened his expression. “Horses are fine for travel, but they don’t do well in storms. They, unlike you, have good survival instincts.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Locke could have sworn he felt an updraft—the first sign that bad weather could occur—and he knew that this time he had pushed too far.
Roar marched toward him, spearing a finger into his chest, and said, “I can read and write. I can speak Taraanese, Finlaghi, and Odilarian. I can read maps. I know enough about grassland vegetation and wildlife to survive without a market to buy food and drink. I’m good with knives and a bow. I learn quickly, and I’m not afraid of hard work. And I’ve spent my entire life reading as much about storms as I could get my hands on.” For a moment, her voice cracked under the weight of her anger, but she took a huffing breath and continued: “I’m good with numbers. It’s been a while, but I think I can probably still draw the constellations from memory, which should make me decent at navigation. I can—”