Roar (Stormheart #1)(56)

“Don’t worry about it, princess.”

She would worry about it. Knowing her, she would worry herself sick over it. “I attacked you. Attacked, assaulted, mauled, beat—whatever word you want to use.”

“Mauled,” Bait murmured to Jinx behind them. “Good word choice.”

Roar continued: “If I had had the chance, I think I would have hurt you much worse. Whether I wanted to or not.” She buried her head in her hands.

“But you didn’t hurt me. I’m tough enough to take a little brawling with a girl half my size.”

His hand smoothed over her shoulder, and she recoiled. He was the last person who should be comforting her. The soft, concerned sound of his voice grated over her nerves, and she wished he would yell. That he would be angry and aggressive like always. “I bit you,” she hissed.

Locke held out a hand to Ransom, who helped him to his feet now that Duke had finished binding his wound. He used his uninjured arm to brush off dirt and dust from his bare torso while he casually tossed out, “Not the first time I’ve been bitten by a pretty girl.”

Jinx snorted, and Ransom groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Really?” the big man said. “That’s what you’re going with here?”

Locke bent at the knee, squatting in Roar’s line of vision. “You didn’t hurt me. Besides, you’re in much worse shape than me.”

“You were speared through the shoulder.”

He shrugged, unsettling his bandages for the moment. “I wasn’t the unconscious one.”

“What if it happens again? What if I am filled with rage when you all are sleeping or focused on something else?”

“We’ll be cautious. If you feel any emotion that isn’t your own, let one of us know. And—” He looked at Duke again, frowning. “Perhaps we hunt only smaller storms until we know more.”

“No!” Roar leaped to her feet, head still spinning. “Please. Don’t shut me out. I’m here. I want to do this. I need to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I do. Because I left behind everything to do this, and if I fail … I cannot fail.”

His expression softened, and again she wanted to shake him until he was as angry as he should be. As angry as she was with herself.

“You won’t fail. But hunters who want to stay alive must be as prepared as they can possibly be. And for that, we need time to figure this out.”

Duke added, “The first rule of hunting is knowing your limits—when to fight, when to run, and when to be cautious. We’ll camp here for a few more days so that the two of you can recover. Perhaps the rest of us can make hunting runs nearer to Sorrow’s Maw and begin bulking up our supplies.”

Locke began to protest, but a firm look from Duke cut him off. “You’re no good to us if you don’t heal properly. Ransom, set up his tent. If he won’t lie down, make him.”

*

The others did have to force Locke to rest. In fact, they had to force him back into his tent several times that day while remaking the camp. Roar thought her tent looked a little sturdier this time, though still somewhat jumbled. She would get better. She had to.

Hour by hour, the others began to unwind from their adrenaline-filled morning, but she could not seem to do the same. Roar was consumed with doubt and shame, but these feelings she knew were all her own.

She thought physical activity might calm her mind, so she busied herself with clearing the debris left by the twister, piling up broken tree branches on the sides of the road to clear a path. There were gouges in the earth where the storm had torn up the soil, and even with the debris removed, the road would be rocky.

When there was no more she could do, she made her way back to the Rock, studying the outside for damage, of which there was remarkably little. Dents and dings certainly, but with the way that twister had looked she would have thought it could tear anything apart. As she stood marveling, Duke ambled over to stand behind her.

“How are you feeling?” the old man asked. His voice was not as soft as it used to be, and his lanky frame was stiff.

She almost said fine. But there were precious few things she could tell the truth about, and this was one of them.

“Confused,” she answered. “Sore. Worried.” Guilty.

“Confusion leads to knowledge for those brave enough to seek it.”

“And if there are no answers to my questions? You’ve been doing this work for decades, and my problems are unfamiliar even to you.”

“And is that where you want to draw your line? When you give up? At things that are unfamiliar?”

“No. Of course not. But—”

“All things were unfamiliar once upon a time. If we all gave up when there were no answers to be found, there would not be hunters like us. Sometimes you must make answers when there are none.”

Her lip wobbled at the familiar saying. “How did you know I loved that book? Did you see it in my things?”

“What book?”

“The Tale of Lord Finneus Wolfram. Those were his last words to his uncle the king before he left on his doomed search for a new world. All my life I’ve dreamed of an adventure like that.”

“Ah. It’s a popular saying in our line of work. I did not know that was its origin.”