Roar (Stormheart #1)(96)
She moved closer, and then sat beside him with her legs crossed. She ran her hands over the smooth fabric of her pants, from her knees to her ankles and back again. With her head down she asked, “Is that why you fought to keep me from joining?”
He swallowed. And there was more emotion in his voice than he wanted there to be when he said, “I would fight it still if I thought it would work. But I find now that I am loath to part with you. I’m sorry for all the times I pushed you away, for all the times I made you angry. It’s only, after I met you … for the first time in a very long time, I had no desire to throw myself into death’s path because I could, to see if I could survive. Because death meant leaving you, and that was unthinkable. Is unthinkable. Feeling this way, the way I do about you, Roar, it’s scarier than any storm I’ve ever faced.”
She made a soft, hurt sound and burrowed closer to his side. She turned her face against his shoulder, and he felt the dampness on her cheeks. He let his hand fall to her uninjured hand resting on her knee. He would have been content just to touch, but she laced their fingers together, squeezing tightly.
“Why go by Locke if you hated it so much?”
He sighed and huffed out a halfhearted laugh. “You are determined to make me spill all my secrets, aren’t you?”
She pulled away, eyes wide and head shaking, and he immediately wished he had never opened his mouth. She said, “No. Not at all. You don’t have to—”
He pulled her back against him and said, “My secrets are yours. Every one of them.” She swallowed, and the answer didn’t please her as much as he thought it would. He continued: “When Duke took me on, I did not remember my real name. It had been so long since someone used it. Mostly I just got called kid or boy. There was a hunter on the crew then named Bear. He was tall and skinny and bald, not a speck of hair on his face. To this day, I still don’t know how he got the name Bear. Anyway, he got tired of calling me boy and started calling me Locke, since that’s where they picked me up. I was too young and intimidated to ask for a different name, so I let it go. It was maddening at first, but eventually … I did not mind it so much. It was a reminder of where I came from and the mistakes I made. A reminder to do better in the future.”
“Oh. Poor thing.”
He frowned. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. That’s not why I told you any of this.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for that little boy who lost everything, including his name.”
When she leaned her head against his shoulder, her cheek against his biceps, he did not feel like someone who had lost everything.
“Give me something else to call you,” she murmured. “The name Locke doesn’t deserve you.”
“I would accept handsome, strong, superior male specimen—”
She pushed him hard enough to send him sprawling over onto his side. But she was laughing. And she could push him as many times as she wanted if he could hear that.
“I’m serious. You’ve never thought of going by something else? You could choose anything.”
He levered himself back up to sit beside her, then shrugged. “I’ve been Locke for nearly half my life.”
“And you don’t think everyone who knows you would gladly call you something else if it was what you wanted?”
“There’s no point. None of us use our real names.”
“So choose another nickname.”
“I can’t choose my own nickname.”
“Fine, I’ll choose one.”
He smiled. “Really? Let’s hear it then.”
“Not right now. That’s too much pressure. I need time to think and choose the best option.”
“My whole future is in your hands here, my very identity.”
She laughed. “Thank you, that certainly reduces the responsibility,” she said and leaned her head back onto his shoulder.
They were still leaning on each other, hands entwined, when the others came back in. He expected her to pull away, but instead she leaned in a little closer, held his hand a little tighter. Ransom’s expression was grim as he approached, and Locke asked, “How bad?”
“It got the whole north wall and about two dozen homes. And … all the soldiers. Minister Vareeth has people searching the rubble to see if there were any more casualties. He was very grateful for our service. He offered to let us stay as long as we needed.”
“Well, that’s good at least.”
Ransom said, “Did any of you think this storm was more sentient than most? At the end, when we had already broken it up, it lashed out with magic one last time, trying to mesmerize me. It might have had me if I’d been distracted or injured.”
“I felt it too,” Locke said. “Struck hard enough to send me to my knees.” Roar leaned closer to him, her bandaged hand sneaking up to lie on his thigh. “So from now we don’t let our guards down for even a moment while we hunt. I didn’t like the feel of this one. It was nearly more than we could handle.”
“Yes, sir,” Bait said with one of his playful salutes.
Roar rested her chin on Locke’s shoulder, and her breath played across his neck. He did not think she had any clue just how much power she wielded over him.
“We could call you captain,” she suggested.