Roar (Stormheart #1)(57)
“Perhaps it wasn’t. But those words were my greatest hope when I was young. To find answers for the unanswerable, a path through the impossible.”
“Then lean on them now. But let us avoid ending up like Lord Wolfram, yes? No tragedies here, Roar. This world will make you a victim every chance it gets. Don’t let it.”
She nodded, feeling those words sear straight to her gut.
“I’m sorry I put you all in danger,” she whispered. “If you want me to leave, I would understand.”
“And what would you go home to if you did?”
She hesitated, but then decided to give him more of her truth. “My mother. And a life that is stifling on the best days, suffocating on the worst.”
He hummed low in his throat. “No one expects you to leave,” he finally said. “I do not know what lies ahead for you. Sometimes the paths of our lives wander far from what we expect; they twist and turn and branch into dead ends. I have lost count of the number of dead ends I’ve encountered in my long life. Each time, when I could see no future beyond a certain point, the future always came anyway. Yours will too, Roar. All you can do is be ready to meet it when it comes.”
Duke nodded his head and wandered back to the group. She considered following, wanted to, even. But then she saw Sly watching her with suspicion. Even Bait wasn’t his usual silly self around her. She did not blame them. They should be wary of her.
She tried to do some resting of her own and retired to her tent for a nap, but she could not turn her mind off. The hunters gathered round the campfire got more raucous as the day passed, celebrating their victory and survival. She had the feeling this was a ritual, a cleansing of sorts. Each laugh hit her with the force of a punch, bearing down on an already impossible weight that sat upon her chest. Soon she was crawling out of her shoddy tent and seeking out Locke’s. Maybe she would be able to sleep if she saw that he was well.
There was a faint blue glow behind the canvas of his tent, and when she opened the flap, she saw a lightning lantern in the corner, casting light on Locke’s sleeping form. His chest was still bare except for the bandage, and his blankets were pushed down around his waist.
His tent was large enough that she could fit with just a slight hunch of her head and shoulders. She had to practically crawl in and out of her own tent by comparison. She crossed toward Locke on tiptoe and knelt beside his sleeping pallet.
His body was a master study in strength—all hard muscles and scarred skin. The waves of his long hair were spread out on his pillow. He had lashes that rested on cheeks that looked as if they had been cut from stone. She wanted to trace the slightly crooked line of his nose, rasp the pads of her fingers over the thickening stubble along his jaw.
She was still angry over the way he had treated her in the river, and she did not know where to put that anger when what she had done was far worse.
The bandage at his shoulder was clean, so at least the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding. She was glad she had been unconscious when he was injured. Her stomach rolled just imagining what he must have looked like with a branch piercing his skin. So like what had happened to her brother.
The bruising on his chest had darkened, and even in the areas where his skin was undamaged, she could see the faint white lines and marks of dozens upon dozens of scars. Hesitantly, she reached out and lightly traced her finger over a raised mark near his lower ribs. His skin was warm, and the muscles firm beneath it. Her pale skin contrasted against his darker coloring, and she had the sudden urge to splay both hands over his chest, touching as much as she could with the spread of her fingers, but she settled for skimming that scar once more.
“Bandits,” he murmured, making her jerk backward. His eyes were still closed, and she wondered if she had imagined it, but then he kept speaking. “Not just storms and military that are a danger to us. We move a valuable commodity, and some people are not content to buy it in a market.”
“You were stabbed?” She wanted to touch the scar again, but she shoved her hand beneath her thigh to keep it away.
“Between the ribs. It was a close call.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Would have fit with the rest of my life. Survive hurricanes and firestorms, only to be brought down by a small blade.”
“I’m glad you weren’t,” she murmured, her eyes cast down toward her lap.
“Me too.”
Those words settled into the quiet between them, and her heart kicked up speed as she searched for the right words to say.
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve been sleeping all day.”
She swallowed. “I only wanted to be sure you were well. I feel … I feel so terrible about…” She trailed off, and let her hand hover over a set of scratch marks on his arm. At the last moment, she thought better of it and pulled back, but Locke caught her hand before she could go too far, pressing it down over the damage she had done to him and holding her palm against it.
“It’s nothing, Roar. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
Her gaze traveled to the bandage on his shoulder.
“Don’t you dare take that on you. Things like this happen.”
“I distracted you. Delayed you. If you hadn’t had to deal with me, maybe this never would have happened.”
“If your goal is to not distract me, I regret to inform you that it’s a lost cause.”