Roar (Stormheart #1)(82)

She shifted her hips, twisting until her knees touched his side and she could lean her chest completely against his. He groaned, breaking their kiss, and her whole body tensed, waiting for the onslaught to come. His mouth slid to her jaw, tasting the rain against her skin, and though she could still feel the foreign emotion, and tears still mixed with rain on her cheeks, it remained muted.

His ragged breaths crashed against the sensitive skin of her neck between kisses, and she shivered as an intense shock zipped down her spine. She leaned back, tilting her head, and finally the hand at her back loosened its hold on her shirt and slid beneath the wet fabric to curve around her ribs. The tips of his fingers were burning embers against her bare skin, and she pushed up against his touch, encouraging him the only way she could. Her hands tangled again in his hair, and she was shaking under the barrage of sensations.

“Roar,” he murmured, his lips grazing over her pulse point.

Oh skies, that was good. Such a little touch, but she felt it everywhere.

“We should go inside.”

She only tightened her hold, and arched her body into his touch, wanting more. She could lose herself in this man. She could shed more than just the sorrow that tried to smother her. In his arms, she could let go of everything. He even outdid the pull she felt to her home and the responsibilities that waited for her there. For this man … she could let go of Aurora and be only Roar.

“You’ll catch your death of cold out here,” he said, resisting her pull and leaning back to look at her face. “Roar?” His brows furrowed, and those perfect, tempting lips dipped down in a frown.

She sat up, trying to drag him back, trying to reclaim that intensity that had pushed everything out of her mind. But his hands found her cheeks, and she knew the moment he saw the tears still gathering. His jaw went slack, and he reared back in horror.

“P-please,” she stuttered, trying not to choke on the false emotion that was flooding back in. She was shaking still, but now it was tremors of agony. “Hurts,” she whimpered.

He cursed, a long string of insults for both himself and the storm. Gently, he eased her off his lap and onto the wet sand. She hurt too badly to do anything more than lie back and struggle to breathe. The rain bombarded her face, so she rolled to her side and squeezed her eyes shut. She heard Locke yell, a savage sound that was much more like her nickname than anything she had ever done.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, shaking and soaked to the bone. But she could hear Locke panting just outside the reach of her vision. His labored breaths and grunts told her that he was fighting to take the storm down.

And after a while, she heard no more thunder. Skyfire did not light up the dark behind her eyelids. And the pound of rain on her body had ceased.

She opened her eyes, and though the skies were still black, she knew the storm was gone. Locke stood a few paces away, his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breaths, his back curved ever so slightly. She could not see his face, only the wilted shape of his normally strong form.

The grief had drained away, but every part of her body ached as if something really had been crushing her. She felt hollowed out, like the sorrow of an entire lifetime had passed through her in moments. She stayed there, curled up in a ball, shaking from the cold. The longer Locke kept his back to her, the more doubt crept in.

When he did approach, he didn’t say anything. He just scooped her up into his arms, and began carrying her back toward the town. She swallowed down the instinct to snap that she could walk on her own, because she wasn’t sure she actually could. She leaned her head against his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to curl her hands around his neck, but she didn’t have the courage, didn’t even know if she should want that.

This wasn’t her life. Not really. It was only a detour before she went back to her world, no matter what she had thought in the throes of his kiss. Even if she could trust him, he couldn’t trust her. And that gutted her.

Bitterness lined her tongue because she saw plainly now that she had done to him what Cassius had done to her. She’d manipulated and lied and used him to get what she needed. She curled her head into her hands and pushed her palms against her forehead, trying to block that line of thought. At least until she was alone.

“Almost there,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. He was taking care of her, even after what she had just done.

“I can walk.” Her own voice rasped, barely above a whisper.

“Don’t. Just … please don’t, Roar.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant don’t walk or don’t talk or don’t look up at the hard set of his jaw and the grim line of his mouth. So she assumed it was all of them and returned her head to his shoulder and shut her eyes against the world.





The first people of Caelira lived where the desert met the sea. They were proud like their makers and thrived in a savage land where there were far more ways to die than to live. But over time, they began to believe they needed no masters. And they took what they wanted and behaved in whatever way they wished.

—The Origin Myths of Caelira





18

He would never forgive himself. She was soaked to the bone, her skin too pale, her body curled up with her hands against her chest as if to protect her heart. He should have known the moment that it had begun to rain. She wasn’t the type to cry easily, and certainly not in front of him. Scorch it all, he should have realized. She had pushed him away after their last kiss. Why would she have suddenly thrown herself at him now?