Roar (Stormheart #1)(67)

“What’s your plan?” Ransom asked from atop his mount. “Make her so exhausted that she can’t ride her own horse and will be forced to share one with you?”

Locke whipped his head around to face his friend. “What are you on about?”

“It’s not a bad plan. If you have to spend days on horseback, doing it with a pretty girl pressed against you is definitely the way to go.”

“You’re mad. I’m trying to make sure she stays alive.”

“Right. Then why don’t you train her to pitch her own tent instead of doing it for her like you have the last few nights? Tell me, friend, just how many times have you pitched a tent for the wild one?” Locke plucked an apple from his saddlebag and flung it at Ransom. The bald man caught it and bit into the fruit with a cheeky wink. He added, his mouth full of fruit, “Your shoulder is never going to finish healing if you keep trying to woo her via tent.”

“Enough of your theories. There’s nothing—” Before he could finish his denial, a terrible wail filled the air, followed by an ominous crack. He swung his head back toward the Rock, where the sound had originated, but before he could discover the cause, a scream rent the air.

Roar’s scream.

He forgot about the first sound in favor of the second, and turned to see her horse reared on its hind legs. The noise must have scared it, and now the mare was bucking hard. Roar slid backward, out of the dip of the saddle, but she held tight to the pommel.

The horse’s hooves crashed back to the ground, and Roar was flung forward. She winced in pain, but managed to secure her place once more. Then a strong wind gusted behind him, followed by vicious pops and crackling and the acrid scent of smoke.

Once more, Roar’s horse reared in fright, and when Locke finally looked back toward the Rock he knew why. There was fire everywhere—the patchy brown-green grass went up like tinder, the scrubby trees that lined the road exhaled flame up into the sky, the sky … well that appeared to be burning too. Overhead, too low to be a naturally occurring firestorm, the sky rotated with heavy winds and spit burning embers onto the earth below.

Another scream sounded, and he whipped his head back just in time to see Roar fly from the back of her horse. She landed in a roll, coming up on her feet only a few steps away from the rapidly expanding blaze.

He cursed and flung himself down from his horse. A hard slap on its rear sent his stallion running safely away from the flames. He wanted to run toward Roar, but while other members of the team had some experience with torque storms, they were his specialty. Low against his spine, he felt the warmth of the firestorm Stormheart hidden inside the leather of his belt, and he plucked it out to hold in his palm. He drew power from within himself and from the stone, and flung a hand toward the swirling clouds. The air was stiflingly hot around him, and every breath raked down his throat and stung his lungs. The harsh smell singed his nostrils, and sweat slicked over his skin.

He stood outside the range of the falling embers, but he saw them battering at the top of the Rock, leaving black spots before rolling down the frame and landing amid the burning grass with the others. Jinx and Sly stood in the eye where no embers fell. He focused, the magic flying out from his fingers to collide with the storm. It surrounded it, searching out the edges, feeling the mass. There was no heart to this storm that he could sense, which meant it was magicborn.

There was another scream to his right, and the urge to look for Roar burned in his gut as hot as the flames that lay ahead of him. From his hip, he snatched one of the jars that held thunderstorm, pulled the cork, and threw it in the direction he’d seen Roar before. His shoulder protested, but there was no time to feel pain. The jar shattered, followed by a gust of wind and the crack of thunder. He hoped the rain would drown the burning land while he focused on the firestorm.

Once his magic had flowed all the way around it, and he knew its size, he concentrated on the right side of the storm. He raised both hands and, with a growl, used all his strength to yank the right side of the storm down and toward him. This broke up the rotation, and as he’d hoped, the storm crumbled against the resistance he provided. Without a living heart at the center, the storm was no match for his magic. The clouds folded and thinned, and the embers stopped falling, and it only took a few moments more before the dark clouds of the thunderstorm overtook the space where the firestorm had been.

“Jinx!” he yelled into the pouring rain.

He didn’t know exactly where she was, but he heard her yell back, “Got it!”

Jinx was their torrent specialist. She would stoke the thunderstorm until the rain had put out the last of the flames, then do away with it as he had done with the firestorm.

Finally, he gave in to the overwhelming urge to search out Roar, and his stomach dropped when he saw her. She was soaked, and stood still and silent, staring up at the sky as if mesmerized.

The drab traveling cloak she wore had been ripped down the middle, and its torn neck now sat around the curve of her hips. The bottom of it was charred and still smoking lightly, and the white shirt she wore beneath it stuck to her skin in places and had been singed to ash in others.

He trudged through the mud and ash to reach her, but even when he stood directly in front of her, she only had eyes for the storm overhead. And it was then that he realized … she wasn’t screaming. Or attacking anyone. Or unconscious. Whatever had happened when that twister had struck wasn’t a problem now.