Roar (Stormheart #1)(70)

“I can do that,” she insisted, but he swatted her hand away as soon as it came near. She looked away as he worked, pinning her eyes on a still-smoking tree across the road while he eased off her boot. She hissed out a breath as the top of the boot peeled away from her burned skin, and he made low, soothing noises, running his hands over her legs, from her calf down to her stocking-covered heel. She tried not to notice the strength of his hands, the rough pads of his fingertips. He braced her foot in the space where his thigh met his hip and said, “This is going to hurt. Push against me if you need to.”

He offered her a hand to squeeze, but she declined, leaning back and bracing her hands on the log below her. He opened a waterskin and dribbled the cool liquid down over her reddened skin. For a moment, it felt nice. But then that sensation seemed to break through her shock, bringing all the pain she’d blocked to the forefront of her mind. She gasped, and when she reached out a flailing hand, Locke took it, allowing her to squeeze his fingers until they popped.

“You have some blisters,” he said, pouring more water over her damaged skin. “We’ll have to bandage it well and often.” He poured water over a cloth until it was soaked and then gently laid it over her shin, wrapping the cloth so that it covered the burns on the sides of her calf as well. He left it there, turning a little and lifting her other foot to prop up on his knee. Then they went through the whole ordeal again, only now she could concentrate on nothing but the pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit down on her bottom lip, trying to stay in control.

“You’re doing well, Roar. Just a little longer.”

She let out a shaky breath, and a whimper sneaked out with it.

“Tell me about Honey,” he said as he wrapped a wet cloth around her leg.

Glad for something else to focus on she said, “She’s my best friend.”

He smiled. “Your best friend? Must be some horse.”

Roar was too frazzled and aching to be anything but honest. “For a long time, she was my only friend.”

“I doubt that. You’re far too…”

“Far too what?” she ground out.

“Interesting,” he answered. “And smart. And vivacious. I can’t picture a world where people are not falling all over themselves to be your friend.”

Her stomach swooped at his words, stealing the heat from her wounds for the flush rising up her neck. She did not understand him, did not know what he wanted from her. First, she had reminded him of his sister, then he could not look at her without bursting into spontaneous arguments, and now … now he seemed so soft—his words, his touch, those eyes.

She snapped her gaze back to the smoldering tree. “Yes, well, apparently we live in different worlds. I … I never quite fit in mine. Honey was my confidant. I told her my secrets and my sins. My hopes and my fears.”

“We don’t live in different worlds now.”

She coughed out a bleak laugh. “Yes, and now that I go rabid in the presence of storms, I am sure to gain legions of friends.”

He laughed, and the sound burrowed beneath her skin.

“Who knows? Perhaps with a little control, you’ll be the best warning system we have ever had.”

“Yes, when I start attacking innocent bystanders, you’ll know to take cover and hit me with a heavy object. Perfect.”

He had been in the middle of unwrapping the wet cloth from her first leg, and he paused, his eyes dark and serious. “I told you … no one is knocking you out again.”

She was too tired to argue and after what happened earlier, almost afraid of what their arguing could lead to. She remained silent and tense as he began smoothing a sticky salve over the burned portion of her leg.

“How old are you?” he asked, distracting her with questions again.

“Eighteen.”

“Have you always lived in Pavan?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any Stormling ancestry in your family?”

She jerked, and it made his hand rub too hard against one of her blisters. She cried out, and his hands left her calves to grip her thighs, trying to hold her steady. “Easy. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t startle me,” she barked, furious that she had let her guard down.

It wasn’t until he spoke again, his tone quiet, private, that she realized his hands still rested on her thighs. “I do believe you are the most confusing girl I have ever met.”

“I’m not confusing,” she insisted. He was the confusing one.

He dropped his chin toward his chest, laughing, and that sound—at once masculine and soft—sent shivers down her spine. Even with smudges of soot on his face and his wet hair wild and loose, he was beautiful. In part, because of the soot and wild hair. He looked every bit the daring adventurer, and that dangerous edge balanced the softer set of his mouth and the long lashes that framed his brown eyes.

“See?” he said. “That’s exactly what I mean. Sometimes you are so painfully shy that my own words tangle on my tongue for fear of saying the wrong thing. Then, other times, you are frighteningly brave. I think if you met a bear in the woods, you might order him not to eat you. And he might just listen.”

“Well, there are some books that suggest challenging a bear. To pretend as if you are the greater predator to scare it off.”