Roar (Stormheart #1)(73)
He was intimately familiar with Roar’s sort of reckless independence. It was one thing for him to risk his own life, but to see her risk hers uncorked emotions in him that he thought he had buried years ago.
For the first hour, Roar was stubbornly silent behind him. She had pushed herself back so far in the saddle that she sat on the upward curve at the back, and had to clench her legs tight to keep herself in place. And even then, a change in terrain or speed sent her tumbling forward, her hands grabbing his waist to keep from slamming into him. After the tenth or so time she had tried and failed to keep from falling against him, he was out of patience. Wrapping the reins once around the pommel so he didn’t lose them, he reached both hands back to grip her thighs, well above her burns, and tugged her forward. She squeaked in response, her fingers tangling in the leather straps and holsters that crossed his abdomen. He would be lying if he didn’t admit that he got pleasure out of both her outraged cry and the feel of her surrounding him.
“There,” he said, his voice low so that only she could hear. “We’re touching. I can feel you, all soft and warm against my back.” He heard her sharp intake of breath behind him, and he could swear her fingers tightened on the holster around his midsection. “You can feel me, and the world has not descended into flame again.” Though there was plenty of heat moving down his spine.
“You are such an ass!”
He smiled. “Probably.”
“Definitely.”
“Yes, but I’m an ass who gets what he wants.”
He hadn’t meant those words to sound quite so possessive. He still thought it was a bad idea to get attached to her, but since the kiss, he was having trouble getting himself to care. All the thoughts he had ignored so diligently before abraded him constantly now. Good idea or not—he wanted her. He feared she was fast becoming a chink in his armor, but with her arms still around his middle, those long, delicate fingers splayed out over his stomach, the last thing he wanted to do was pull away.
The sun was setting, but they were near the town on the map, so they pushed on. A smell hung on the breeze that singed his nose and made his eyes water—the rot of death and the smell of burned flesh. In the falling night, they could not see the town clearly, but he had a feeling he knew what was waiting. And sure enough when they got close enough to see, the town was in ruins. Stone and wood lay in heaping piles, the shape of what once was visible only in a few places where a wall or a chimney had miraculously stayed standing.
Behind the ruins of the town they found a funeral pyre, only half burned. He had a feeling this was the town the remnants fled. They likely set the pyre ablaze before they left, and the fire died before it finished the job. Roar buried her face between his shoulder blades and he heard her taking short, broken breaths. Duke lit the pyre again, and the scent of smoke and horror followed them long after they left.
When no trace of death clung to the air, they stopped to make camp for the night. No one wanted to go to sleep, nor did anyone want to light a fire after what they’d seen. So they sat for a while in the dark, talking quietly. They ate bread and berries grown by Jinx before exhaustion forced them all to sleep.
*
The door to Novaya’s cell slammed open in the dead of night. She was curled up on her pitiful cot, and she quickly adjusted her threadbare blanket to ensure it covered the handprint-shaped burn marks on her mattress.
Prince Cassius stepped inside, a torch held high in his hand, and Nova’s magic shook awake at the sight of the flame.
She had not bathed properly in weeks. A handful of times they had dropped a bucket of water into her cell. She had tried to make it go as far as possible, but even on those days, she never got fully clean. Even her body seemed changed—her arms and legs thinner, the roundness of her hips and stomach less pronounced.
Was it not enough that the prince came to question her during the day, now he had to disturb her nights as well? Before all this, nighttime had been the height of her anxiety. But now it was her one solace. The air grew cooler, soothing her heated skin. The dark blocked out her surroundings so that just for a little while, she could pretend she was back in her own room.
Cassius cut straight to the point. “The queen seems to be under the impression that her daughter is dead. Do you know why that might be?”
“Rora is not dead,” Nova hissed back.
“And you know that how? Perhaps because you were involved in the plot to take her?”
“I’ve told you. She is my friend. I would never harm her. Never cause her pain.”
“Would you put her in danger?”
Nova hesitated. She had put Rora in danger, not purposely, but from her inability to tell her friend no. And she’d certainly had more than a few dark thoughts since about all the things that could go wrong in the wilds.
“You know, I had my men search your room again. And do you know what they found? Hidden beneath a loose floorboard under your bed? Quite a stockpile of coins. Perhaps, payment for services rendered?”
“I saved that money myself. Some of it even came from you, if you recall. Bribing me for information on the Eye.”
His eyes narrowed. “All that tells me is you are willing to break the law for gold.”
“And what were you willing to break the law for?”
“I am the law.”
Nova scoffed and gestured around the cell. “Clearly.”