Roar (Stormheart #1)(68)
*
Large hands grasped Roar’s shoulders, and it was only then she realized how badly she was shaking. Locke peered down at her, his hands squeezing, as if he could make her body still through force alone. Over his shoulder, Roar watched Jinx lift her hands. The witch glanced around one more time, and when she found no lingering flames, she curled her fingers and pulled as though she had a lasso around the middle of the storm. And, sure enough, the center of the storm jerked downward, breaking the mass of dark clouds apart. The outer edges of the storm dissolved like steam, and, after another motion of Jinx’s hands, the core of the storm followed, giving way to a sky that was gray, rather than the blue it had been before. But it was calm. Quiet.
Roar watched, frozen and fascinated, long after it was over. It was the first time she’d gotten to see magic at work. She only snapped to when she felt Locke’s hands dragging unabashedly over her body, over her arms first, then smoothing over her waist and hips, tugging at the cloak that tangled there.
“Excuse me.” She shoved him backward, heat rising into her cheeks. “Perhaps ask before you put your hands all over a person.”
He snapped right back, “I thought you were in shock. Your cloak is scorched, and you wouldn’t answer when I asked if you’d been burned.”
“I’m fine.”
Then, to make sure she wasn’t lying, she took a moment to look over her body. She finished pushing the cloak down over her hips and stepped out of it. It had caught fire when an ember bounced off the Rock and hit the bottom of her cloak, and she felt a pang at the loss of something that belonged to her brother, even if it was plain and ill fitting. She had been struggling to get it off when the skies broke open and it began to rain. The trousers she wore were soaked and burned through at the knee and below. Between what remained of the fabric and her calf-high boots, the skin on her legs was red and raw and stung in the open air.
“Fine, huh?” He grabbed the leather around her neck and pulled up the magical items he’d given her. The crystal had gone hot, but not painfully so as it had with the twister. And the firestorm powder he’d given her remained in the tiny bottle. “You did not take it?” he hissed. “I told you that we take no chances with firestorms.”
Locke’s voice was a fierce, angry growl, and she bowed up, ready to growl right back. She was getting tired of his moods—suffocatingly protective one second and a beast the next. Before she could lay into him, they were interrupted by Ran asking, “Who did these?”
He pointed to a small pile of jars that held still-burning embers. Locke paused long enough in his anger to glance over, and then his brows puckered in confusion.
“Sly?” he called out.
From the other side of the Rock, they heard, “Not mine.”
Locke marched away, heading for the pile.
Roar sucked in a breath and said, “I did it.”
He froze, twisting to look back at her. “You what?”
Her stomach rolled. Had she done it wrong? “I captured the embers. A bag of jars fell off one of the horses’ packs, and I thought I might as well do something useful. I caught the embers as they rolled off the Rock, before they hit the grass.”
He stalked back toward her. “And you did it without taking the powder. Scorch it all, Roar. You could have been hurt. All it would have taken was one ember to bounce off the Rock when you weren’t expecting it and hit your skin directly. Have you seen the kind of burns they can cause?”
“Yes, I’ve seen them. And I’m well aware of the danger I was in. It was the same danger as every other person here, and I saw no one take any powder. So why don’t you yell at someone else!”
The others wandered away out of sight to the other side of the Rock, where most of the damage was, likely saving her the embarrassment of being witnesses once again to Locke lecturing her. With a growl, she spun before he could say anything more and began marching away. He did not get to make her feel bad about this. She had seen a storm and stayed herself. She had done something useful after so long feeling useless. She thought at first that he was going to let her be, but eventually she heard him jogging up behind her.
“Roar, wait.”
“No,” she snapped, picking up her pace.
“Would you listen—”
“Can you just leave me alone?”
His hand seized her elbow, and he spun her around forcefully. He growled, “No. I can’t.”
And then his mouth collided with hers.
For a moment, Roar did not understand what was happening. She knew his lips were on hers, pushing hard enough to be punishment, and his fingers threaded through her hair, and an arm wrapped tight around her waist. But even knowing those things, she could not quite comprehend that Locke was kissing her.
She froze, unsure whether she wanted to allow it or shove him away. She had been so angry, but now that blazing heat had melted into something different, like molten glass being shaped into something new. He tilted her head back, his hand gripping tighter in her hair, and when he opened his mouth against hers, she followed. He kissed his own fury into her, melting and reshaping her again and again with each stroke of his tongue over hers.
When he broke the kiss, his mouth stayed close, his breath like fire on her tender lips. She opened her eyes and found him staring, brows furrowed halfway between confusion and anger. Slowly, the world came back into focus—the lingering scent of smoke, the wet cling of her clothes, the sound of voices not too far away.