Roar (Stormheart #1)(50)

“Then run.”

She did, picking up her knees as much as she could, so that she wasn’t bogged down by the water. But even with all that effort, the water made her slow and tired. Already fatigued muscles grew heavy and numb, and it became more and more difficult to lift her knees. She decided that it would be better to run on the bank, close enough to the water that she could dive beneath it with one jump, but with firm enough ground that she didn’t have to work so hard for traction. When she moved to do that, her boot connected with a flat, mossy rock, and her foot slipped. Tumbling forward, her knee hit the riverbed just before her face plunged beneath the surface.

She broke into the air, coughing and sputtering. She was still struggling to catch her breath when Locke came to a stop beside her. She was already embarrassed, and she knew he would make it worse.

“Did the imaginary firestorm catch up to you? Or did you just fall?”

And there it was.

Without answering, she looped her hands around the back of one of his knees and jerked forward as hard as she could. He made a satisfying splash as his back hit the water. Roar was soaked and freezing, but soaked and freezing with a smile. When he surfaced, it was with none of the hacking and flailing that she had done, just water streaming down his cold, calculating face.

He wiped one eye, then the other. His movements were slow, economical, as if not a muscle in his body ever moved without a purpose, and her heart thrummed with something like terror, but lighter, like the feel of climbing a tall tree for the first time as a child or her first successful attempt at sneaking out of the palace. An anxiety that was both awful and wonderful in equal measure. Then his hands darted forward, clasping her arms, and he pulled until her back hit the water. The last thing she saw before the river swallowed her was Locke hovering above her, the smuggest grin set on his face. She screamed, bubbles streaming up from her mouth, and hooked her legs around whatever part of him she could reach. She jerked and twisted, propelling herself upward until she successfully rolled him beneath her.

Dark hair was plastered to her face and her teeth clacked together from the cold, but that didn’t dampen the victory she felt with his whole body pushed beneath the surface. When he rose out of the water, deadly calm, that victorious feeling disappeared and laughter died in her throat. She cringed, waiting for his attack.

Instead his long fingers brushed away the hair stuck to her forehead and cheek, and she flinched when skin met skin. He stilled and looked at her like hunters looked at prey, as if he were trying to make himself appear as nonthreatening as possible. Then his wet palm slid over her cheek. The slip of his skin over hers was unlike anything she had ever felt. It didn’t feel like that when she touched her own face in the bath or wiped her cheek in the rain. It didn’t feel hot and cold and every temperature in between and all at once. His thumb caught on her chin, the rest of his fingers tickling across the slick skin of her neck, and her mouth fell open from the weight. Or from how hard it was to breathe. Or from the way her heart thought it was a good idea to force its way into her throat. All of them. Or none of them. She didn’t know. She could barely hang on to a thought for more than a heartbeat before it scattered under the intensity of his gaze.

His fingers curved and with the barest pressure on the back of her neck, her body tilted toward his. And it was only then that she realized she still had a leg on either side of him, and the wet fabric of his clothes pressed against the wet fabric of hers. She should have been cold. Freezing. But instead she had a firestorm raging beneath her skin.

Another hand, the one that wasn’t on her neck, touched her hip, trailed up to the dip of her waist, and over to the small of her back. He pulled her closer, all the vials and other supplies hanging from his chest trapped tightly between them. His head angled and bent, and his breath breezed over her open mouth.

She was uncharted territory, and mountains formed where he touched her and a river of sensation flowed down her spine. She watched his mouth, watched it form her name on a barely audible whisper. The hand around her neck tightened, his thumb sliding forward to brace at the edge of her jaw.

When he spoke, his voice vibrated through them both. “Fog is rolling in. What do you do?”

“What?” Her own reply came out breathy and small.

“Fog? Low clouds that cause disorientation, even madness if that magic is potent enough.”

“I know what fog is,” she snapped. The hand at the small of her back sneaked lower, grazing the upper curve of her bottom and making something tighten low in her belly. “Why?” she breathed, unable to form the rest of her question. Unsure even what question she had meant to ask.

“When you’re distracted or feeling strong emotions, the natural barriers of your mind are weaker and more susceptible to being mesmerized by a storm’s magic. Which means something as simple as a thick fog could do much worse than make you forget where you are or what you were doing. It could keep you in the fog, even as it moves, dragging you along with it. Your mental barriers must be without weakness.”

“They are.” It was part of every child’s lessons when they were young, and as princess her training had been more rigorous than most. His thumb smoothed along her jaw, sliding up to tease at the corner of her mouth. She did not know how to react; her brain said to pull away, but her body said something different.

“So tell me, if fog has moved in and it’s too late to run, what do you do?”