She’ll wake today, Locke told himself. She had to. He did not think he could survive another night with her unconscious. It was not abnormal for those who survived a skyfire strike to fall into an unrelenting sleep. But while Roar had not woken, she whimpered and gasped and moaned in pain, the skyfire flash in her chest speeding up when she did. He felt so helpless, so afraid—both emotions he had not felt since his childhood.
Two nights prior they had left Toleme in the dark and traveled through the night to reach Taraanar. And now as he and Jinx wove their way through a crowded market—this one selling fine silks and pottery and spices, he unconsciously reached for his supply harness for what must have been the dozenth time, only to come up empty. He had been forced to leave everything that could be considered dangerous magic back at their camp for this visit.
Stall owners shouted at them as they passed, shoving various wares in their faces, promising the best prices in the whole market. Jinx looked back at him, her normally distinctive hair covered by a scarf. “Remember,” she said, “be nice. We need her to help us. Do not lose your temper.”
Locke grunted in response. Perhaps he had been a little irritable over the last few days, but what was he expected to be when Roar still lay unconscious in the Rock? He’d had to leave her to come into the city. They’d not been able to bribe their way in on such short notice, and it was much easier to sneak two people inside than an entire crew and a hulking metal carriage.
They turned down the far row of the market, and took a hidden set of stairs down into an abandoned tunnel that used to be part of an aqueduct system and now was home to Taraanar’s storm market. They walked for a while in the dark, their footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. Then eventually, they began to pass stalls. The tunnel was not wide enough to have more than one lane of stalls and the walkway, so they wound their way through the market tunnel for nearly a bell. They passed old acquaintances and familiar bits of magic, but they did not stop to visit. They kept walking until they finally came upon an enclosed market stall curtained by beads and silk fabrics with a sign that read DIVINER.
Jinx said the woman inside was one of the oldest and wisest witches in existence, but it looked more like they had stumbled upon a cheap soothsayer scam. The woman had lived for a time in the Sahrain mountains near where Jinx grew up, and Jinx’s mother had brought her to the witch when she was young and her magic was out of control. Jinx would not say what the woman had divined, only that she could, and her ability was most definitely real.
His body tensed as Jinx rang a bell outside the curtained stall. No one answered. His heart began to sink, stinging as if it sank into acid. Jinx went to ring the bell again and the curtain parted. He could see nothing inside, but when Jinx ducked past the curtain, he did not hesitate to follow. The curtain dropped back into place, settling them all into darkness. A cold sensation ran over the back of his neck, and he shivered.
A candle lit out of nowhere in front of them, a small golden glow in the still, dark space. Then dozens more followed, blazing to life all at once. The witch sat at a table, watching them.
He had expected her to be old and decrepit. She was the former, but far from the latter. Her silvery hair hung long and straight like her posture. Her dark face was smooth, and the only wrinkles he spied were a few at her neck and across the backs of her hands. Her eyes were an eerie, washed-out blue.
“Jezamine,” the woman said. “It has been some time.”
Her voice crawled over his skin, and it felt as if it clung to him, learned him. He fought off a shiver. Jezamine. It had been a long time since he’d heard someone call Jinx that.
“Hello, Avira. It’s good to see you.”
The old woman laughed. “Is it? This one doesn’t look particularly happy about it,” she said, jerking a thumb in Locke’s direction. He straightened his posture and cleared his expression as best he could in his unsettled state.
“My name is Locke,” he said. “And I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Her lips quirked, revealing a few more wrinkles. “Oh, I know. The spirits have been quite keen to tell me about you. You look as distraught as they said.” He stiffened. “Jinx did not tell you I was a spirit witch?”
“I told him,” Jinx said. “You’ve spooked him is all.”
Avira surveyed him, her eyes frighteningly intense. When they weren’t piercing through him, they flicked around his head, as if glancing at something he couldn’t see. He had the sensation of something crawling along the back of his neck, and he had to fight not to swat at the imagined things around him.
“You must learn to find your feet even among things that unsettle you, young hunter. For far more unsettling things await you.”
Cold swept through his chest. If that was prediction, he did not like it. But Avira said nothing else. She only turned toward Jinx and said, “Sit. Tell me your purpose.”
Jinx sat at the table before the spirit witch, and Locke stood behind her. On the table was a sample of each of the elements—the flame from the candle, bowls of water and sand, and what he recognized as the magic of a windstorm. The latter was in a bottle that had been uncorked, but somehow the magic remained inside instead of spilling out.
He crossed his hands over his chest and listened as Jinx told Avira about Roar’s peculiarities and the way she had taken down the skyfire storm. Locke watched the witch’s face, searching for any sign of recognition or emotion, but the woman was unreadable. Except for the moments when her eyes flicked away from Jinx to stare at the open air, as if someone else were there, filling in gaps of the story.
When Jinx finished recounting the story in its entirety, she said, “It would take us several weeks to reach Locke to confirm the minister’s story. Instead, we thought you could see for us. And if you’re willing, we hoped you could take a look at Roar. She still has not woken and—”
“I do not need to see the girl. She will wake when she’s ready.”
Locke lurched forward. “She will wake, though?” There was desperation in his voice that he knew he should hide. He knew better than to show his emotions to someone he wasn’t sure he could trust, someone who could easily manipulate him.
“My abilities do not work that way, hunter. I see actions, cause and effect. My ability to see and understand spirit does not extend to the living. She will wake. That’s all I can say. And when she does, it will be to a different life than all the ones she led before.”
Jinx asked, “Have you heard any news of Locke? Or seen anything in your visions?”
“Aye, the minister spoke the truth. The city by the sea is no more.”
Locke waited to feel something. Remorse or nostalgia or anything. He knew there had likely been tremendous loss of life. But he could not make himself feel sorrow for that place. The city had been beautiful, of that there was no doubt. But like too many beautiful things, it had rotted on the inside.
A Locke prince had been in Pavan to marry their princess, so at least part of the royal line survived. He wished they’d all been destroyed. Perhaps he should have felt guilty for that, but he could not bring himself to do that either. That kingdom was tainted, and the world was better off with it gone.
“What about this Stormlord?” he asked. “Tell me it’s superstitious nonsense.”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“But you cannot tell me if he is real?”
“I can only tell you that every spirit I send to search for him never returns. Your inferences here are as good as mine.”
He met the witch’s gaze again. Her eyes were a blue so light that they almost looked illuminated, and he felt that tickle on the back of his neck. This time he could not stop himself from reaching back with a hand and rubbing at the spot that felt colder than the rest of his skin.
“You should go,” the woman said, settling back into the worn, cushioned chair on which she sat.
Jinx stood, crossing toward her. “Avira, please. Grant us a little more time. There’s so much we don’t know. About Roar’s abilities, whether or not she truly did call that storm.”
“She can tell you herself.”
Locke lost his patience then. He had let his guard down, and his anger slipped past the tight leash he had kept it on for days. “No, she can’t. Something is wrong with her. She’s sleeping, but I can tell she’s in pain. I know it. That thing in her chest lights up, and she whimpers, and—and—” He fisted his hands in his hair and squeezed his eyes shut tight. “I don’t know how to help her. Tell me how to help her.”
The old woman stood, unfazed by his loss of control. She drifted toward the curtains and pulled them open in a not so subtle suggestion.
“My final advice to you is this: listen. Listen when she speaks and when she doesn’t. Listen when you understand and when you don’t. Listen with an open heart, for a closed heart becomes a cold one if left for too long. That is how you can help her, Kiran Thorne.”
He jerked back, stumbling over his feet as his heart roared within his chest. “What did you call me?”
She waved a hand in front of his eyes, as if she were clearing cobwebs from between them.
“Your head may have forgotten, but your heart has not. Remember that in the future. Now go. She will wake soon.”
* * *
Roar sat on the bank of a small tributary in the Rani Delta. She looked over the unfamiliar land around her—swaying palm trees, tall grasses, and in the distance, sand as far as the eye could see. It was easier to focus on what was around her rather than within her. She was supposed to be washing up, like she had begged to do only a while ago. But her body ached, and her mind was muddled, and inside …
Inside she felt … untethered. As if the strings tying her soul to her body had been cut, and if she did not concentrate, the two might separate completely. As soon as she had woken, there had been so many faces and voices around her, but none was the one she wanted.
Carefully, she removed the only article of clothing she wore—a large tunic that went to her knees and smelled like Locke. Duke had given her a linen towel and a smaller cloth with which to wash. She pulled the larger towel around her shoulders to ward off the chilly winds that came in from the sea and edged forward to the river. She dunked the cloth into the water and scrubbed her skin clean as best she could while sitting on the bank.
She heard something crashing through the copse of palm trees behind her. Branches parted, and Locke stepped into view. His face had darkened with exertion, and the hair over his forehead stuck to his skin with sweat. He looked like he’d just run half the world to get to her, and yet from the moment he’d seen her, he hadn’t taken another step. He stood frozen in the shadows of the swaying palms. His eyes dipped down, taking in the towel that covered her. Her skin warmed as his eyes traced over the length of her uncovered legs. Abruptly, he turned away.
“I should have announced myself.” His voice was low, but it carried on the wind, and the familiar cadence of his speech was like an embrace that she had not realized she needed.
She smiled. “Your crashing through the trees was announcement enough.”
His head lowered, and she could see the beginning of a smile. She took a moment to study him while he was turned profile. His harness was missing, but he wore his Stormheart belt. Over his linen shirt was a thick hooded leather jacket in the same style as the one she had bought in Toleme, made to allow easy access to his weapons and supplies. He looked … weary.
“I’ll go. Let you finish, uh … finish.”
He turned back the way he came and she said, “Wait!”
He did. She didn’t know how to put into words the clawing feeling she got in her chest at the thought of him leaving. Duke hadn’t told her where Locke was when she woke, only that he would be back, and that he had barely left her side the previous two days.
Two days. The thought still boggled her mind.
“Roar?” Locke asked, his voice strangled.
“Just give me a moment. I’m almost done, and then we can talk. Stay there, just as you are.”
He swallowed, and then nodded his assent.
Trusting that she was strong enough to endure a moment or two in the water, she shed the towel and waded in. The water was so cold it stung her skin. She crossed her arms over her chest to block the wind, and shuffled a little farther in. The current was swift, so she bent down where she was rather than risk getting any deeper. She scooped up water in her hand, splashing it over her upper body. She gritted her teeth against the shock, and tried to move as quickly as she could.
Some of her hair fell down into her face, a tumble of snow-white strands. She jerked backward in shock and lost her footing, falling back into the water.
“Roar? Roar, what happened?”
Her body shook with cold, so the words came out in a stutter as she said, “I—I’m f-fine. I fell. That’s all.”
“Let me go get Jinx to help you.”
“No,” she said, “I can do this.” He groaned and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, but didn’t protest. “Why don’t you sit down?” she asked. “You are making me nervous.”
He shuffled closer without looking at her. Then he sat down facing toward the palm trees so that he couldn’t see her without turning all the way around.
She focused back on what had made her fall in the first place. How was her hair blond again? Surely it could not have faded in mere days. Nova assured her that the dye would last for several months. She grabbed a chunk of hair, pulling it within her line of sight, and sure enough, all of it was once again that familiar pale blond—from the ends, to as far up as she could see.
“Locke…” she called out from where she still sat in the rushing river. “My hair is different?”
He cleared his throat. “It was like that after … after the skyfire.”
Light flashed below her, and if she had not felt her heartbeat pick up, she would have known it by the flickering lights in her chest. She leaned her head upon her knees and focused on breathing, on staying calm, not on all the things that were wrong. She must have stayed silent too long because Locke called out her name again.
“Almost done,” she said, pushing herself back into motion. She decided to dunk her head beneath the water and call that good enough. She came back up shivering, but her head felt clearer and her body less fatigued already. Carefully, she pushed up to her feet and wobbled toward the shore. Water sluiced over her skin in icy rivulets, and she snatched up the linen towel as soon as she made it to the bank, pulling it tight around her. For a moment, she stood there, trying to shake off the cold, staring at Locke’s broad back. He looked tense, and he kept running a hand through his hair, a nervous habit of his.
There was something empowering about knowing she made him nervous. That it wasn’t only she who came unraveled when they were together.
With her hair sopping wet, she dried her body as much as she could, and pulled the tunic back over her head.
“I’m covered.” The tunic still left her legs bare, and it clung to her damp skin in places, but it was more modest than the towel. He began to turn slowly. The line of his jaw came into view first, and her eyes caught on the hair that grew there. It was thicker than usual, closer to a beard like Ransom wore. She wanted to run her fingers over his face, to learn the texture of his bristled jaw.
Then his eyes were on her—on her wet hair and her flushed face and shaking hands and bare legs. He was on his feet immediately, crossing toward her and pulling her against his hard chest.
“You’re freezing.”
She burrowed further into his hold, pressing her face into the hollow of his throat and breathing in the scent of him. He smelled like the woods and sweat and horses and warmth. The heat he gave off transcended touch. It filled up her lungs and her heart and the aching hollow place inside that she had been wrestling with since she woke.
For long moments, they were content to stand there wrapped up in each other. He held the tears at bay, held back all her fears and doubts. Over and over, he ran his fingers through her wet hair, and that easy, safe moment came to an end when he said, “This color suits you. I did not think anything could make you more lovely, but I was wrong.”
She spun away from him, gasping, as the rest of the world came rushing back in.
“I should take you back to camp,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“No,” she cried, her voice too loud, too desperate. Softer, she said, “I’m not ready to go back.”
He looked like he wanted to disagree, but after a moment’s hesitation, he peeled off the leather jacket he wore, leaving him in a linen shirt that was rolled up to his elbows. He didn’t give her a choice, only picked up her hand and pushed it into one of the sleeves. She was still cold, so she didn’t fight too hard as he coaxed her into his jacket.
He took her hand and pulled her farther up the bank, into a nook between a semicircle of palm trees that blocked some of the wind. He settled her between his knees, wrapping his arms around her as another layer of warmth.
“How do you feel?” The deep gravel of his voice made her turn; she found his head bowed and his face turned sideways, his eyes fixed on her beneath the fall of his dark hair. She should not have felt pleased at the distress he wore like a second skin, but she had spent her entire life feeling like she wasn’t enough. To think that a man like Locke felt so strongly about her was a boost to her weary spirit.
She did not know how to answer, but then he began to speak, recounting the rise of the storm and his own attempt to diffuse it. Her throat ached when she swallowed, and she focused on breathing to fight the tears she could feel begging for release. She said, “You went for the heart when you could have just dispersed it. Why?”
“It was a powerful storm. Strong enough that it might have taken me a long while to dismantle it. And with it right over us, there was too much risk that you or I would be struck before I could get it down. Going for the heart was the fastest way to end it.”
“And more dangerous for you.” She couldn’t stop the anger in her words. The memories were rising, and she could not forget the way it had felt to feel both his pain and the storm’s.
“I’ve taken on skyfire before. I knew I could handle it.”
She wanted to shake him, to beat her fists on his chest until he was as distraught as she. “I could feel it. I felt your soul struggling. You could have died, Locke. And then after I pushed you away, you … you were dying.”
Her voice broke, and the tears came. She was too weak to hold them off. She buried her face in her hands, curling into her knees, and cried for how terrifying that night had been, for her fear of losing him and the way it had completely shattered her inside. And she cried for that storm. That frightened, innocent storm.
He made a noise between a groan and a growl, and pulled her tight into his body. He wrapped his arms around her, knees and all, and held her tight.
With his forehead pressed to the back of her neck, he said, “You could have died too, you know.”
That only made her cry harder because it wasn’t true. That storm would never have hurt her, and in return she had … killed it? Was that the word when you ripped a spirit out of existence? It tore at her all over again because when she had reached into that soul, she felt clearly how afraid and confused it was. And she had confirmation that the Sacred Soul believers were right about at least some things. She’d seen flashes of a small boy in a desert town not too different from Toleme. She’d seen his parents—love and adoration clear on their faces. She experienced flashes of his childhood—games played with other children, the bed he shared with his older brother, and the storm that had taken his life. Rather than passing on, he had stayed to watch over his family, too afraid that he would miss them if he went. And when they grew old and died, he simply faded into the ether until Roar unknowingly called him from the sky with her blood sacrifices.
She grieved for him, for what she’d taken from him. And when she saw the flash of her skyfire heart below her, she could not help but wonder if some part of him was with her still.
Locke’s hands ran up and down her bare legs, from ankle to knee again and again—soothing away the chill that clung to her skin. He turned his head, pressing his cheek against the left side of her back, above her heart. “Shh, princess. We are alive and together. That’s what matters. We’re both okay.”
If only that were true. But Roar had begun to think that she was very much not okay. She could feel things. Things that scared her. Things that she hoped she was imagining. She rested her chin on her knees, staring out at the swift current of the river. When the words came, they were barely above a whisper. “It’s my fault.”
“No, brave girl. None of this is your fault.”
He always thought too highly of her, even when she did not deserve his trust, and never had. She uncurled, straightening her legs, and he wasted no time in pulling her back against his chest, winding his arms around her middle. He felt so good around her, so safe. She turned her head to the side, hiding her face against his neck. But as much as she reveled in his touch, she felt equally compelled to pull away. To make him pull away. To make him understand that she was nowhere near as good as he believed her to be.
“It is,” she insisted. “Everything that happened that night was because of me. I called that storm and then I killed it.”
“You didn’t kill it. You did what you had to do to survive. That’s our frame for this life, remember? We survive. Nothing else matters.”
“You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”
“Try me. Tell me why you think you called the storm.”
She could tell him a great deal more than that. Even now, she felt the cold brush of hundreds of souls around her, thousands, maybe more. She could feel them in the earth, in the trees, in the rushing waters. They lingered in the air, and she had the peculiar fear that if she took too deep a breath she might breathe one in. Some were sweet, innocent, like her skyfire boy. Others bore more resemblance to the twister that had filled her with such fury. Those souls were dark and twisted and hungry. They wanted to be storms, pushed at her to make it so. And she knew with a bone-deep certainty that she could do it. She could call any one of them to be a storm.
The thought frightened her enough that she gripped the hands Locke had on her abdomen, pressing them in, making him hold her harder.
She said, “He was innocent. I called him to manifest as skyfire and then killed him when all he wanted was my attention.”
“Why are you calling it a him?”
Oh gods. She didn’t know if she could admit out loud what she had done, just how heinous a betrayal it had been.
“I felt his soul, Locke. Not just emotions. His soul. I communicated with it. It was … a child.”
“You mean like a young storm?”
“No. I mean that the soul of that storm used to belong to a human child. The emotions I feel from storms come from real souls of human spirits that have not passed on. The soul of that twister had been consumed by violence and revenge. The thunderstorm was overwhelmed with grief. And the skyfire … the skyfire was a child who didn’t want to leave his family. That restless feeling I had before the storm? That was him. I had been calling to him for days, and he was tired of waiting. He wanted to … play.”
“I’ve never come up against a storm that wasn’t bent on violence and destruction. That storm certainly didn’t feel innocent when it was trying to scorch me.”
“He was afraid. I know it sounds insane, but I promise you he did not mean to harm us. Not in the beginning. While you were unconscious, we … spoke in a way. Images and feelings passed back and forth. When I explained that you were hurt, he felt remorse.”
“Roar, it’s not poss—”
“It is possible. I know what I felt. That storm was more afraid of us than we were of it. And I—I killed it. I destroyed it. I’m the monster here.”
“Don’t do that.”
She was crying again. She couldn’t help it. She kept remembering the feel of that soul, his fear and confusion and the way he had surrendered to her without any hesitation. He trusted her. Locke’s hands started those soothing, sweeping movements again, this time along the outside of her thighs—knee to hip and back again. “You are not a monster. You could never be.”
“You don’t know.” He did not know anything about her. Not really. If she told him the truth—not just about the storms but about who she was—he would never forgive her.
“So, tell me. Explain it to me. I’ll listen. But I promise, nothing you say could make me care for you any less.”
She stiffened. All she wanted to do was turn around and tell him that she cared about him too, far more than she had let herself realize until she’d seen him unconscious and near to death in the desert. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
His hand found her jaw, and he turned her head, tipping it backward so that she was forced to meet his eyes. “I have had days to sit by your side, praying you would wake. Days to think of everything I wish I had said and done. I know exactly what I’m saying.”
Her heart felt like it might burst from her chest, and before she could do something stupid, like tell him she loved him, she said, “I must have called the twister too. The one that killed those soldiers and destroyed all those homes. I—I have a twister Stormheart. It belonged to my brother. I keep it on a chain beneath my clothes most of the time, but on that day it was in my pocket. I cut my hand on that knife, and later I touched the Stormheart while I was thinking about those soldiers, about how a part of me wished I had hurt them. Or worse. The twister happened only a few moments later. It was me. I know it was. I took out an entire company of soldiers over the bad deeds of a few.”
His face remained stoic, and she never saw the disgust she expected to find. He said, “I would have killed those men if I thought I could do it and still keep you safe. The rest of those soldiers were in the wildlands, they knew the risk. It’s not as if you put a blade through each of their chests. You are not responsible for the actions of a storm, even if you called it.”
She jerked her head out of his grasp, turning away. “If Ransom had died, would you say the same thing? Or Jinx? Or Bait? Or Sly? You blame the military for your sister, even though they were just following orders. In a way, that twister was following mine.”
“Enough. I don’t care. I don’t care if you called that storm, if you called every storm there ever was. I would love you anyway.”
She stilled, and her breath caught in her throat as an ocean rolled over her eyes, blurring everything around her until all she could do was feel—feel his heat, feel her heart rage with joy and terror, feel the desperate grip of his hands on her thighs as he waited for her to speak. And for the briefest moment—she left behind everything she was and had ever been.
No more Aurora.
No more Roar.
For a few seconds, she was only the girl that Locke loved.
And maybe she was selfish, but she wanted to remain that girl as long as possible. She wanted to pretend that there was no kingdom waiting for her and no dangerous abilities she did not understand. So she turned and kissed him, and held on to that girl with everything she had.
* * *
Sweeter than wine and softer than silk—Roar’s kiss was the kind of kiss that could bring a man back to life. And in a way, that was exactly what it did. Locke had been running on instinct, on grit alone, for far longer than the few days he had waited for Roar to wake.
When Duke had offered him a way out, he had taken it to get out of Locke. But there had also been that blackened, broken part of him inside that thought surely his luck would run out in the wilds. But again, fate dealt him another hand. He was a good hunter. Very good. Again and again, he went after storms that no one else would touch. At sixteen, he’d thrown himself into a firestorm when men twice his age were running in the other direction. At eighteen, he ran away to face a hurricane on his own after Duke had declined to go after it with the whole crew.
He survived the flames and the waves and the winds.
Again and again and again, he survived.
But with each narrow brush with death, he felt a little less alive. Each scrape with devastation scraped off a little more of his soul.
Until this kiss. When she breathed hope through his lips, filling his lungs with joy and sowing dreams beneath his skin. Roar made him want to do more than survive. With each soft sweep of her mouth over his, she dismantled the frame of his world and built a new one.
Tentative hands crept up his arms, tracing into the dip of his elbows and curling around his shoulders. She twisted her body, bit by bit, trying to press flat against him, whimpering into his mouth when she could not make the position work. He took her by the hips, and as he lay back, he pulled until her smaller body rested on top of his. He’d had to remove all his weapons and magic when he visited the witch, so now he felt the full press of Roar’s body against his own with nothing in the way.
The light brushes of her mouth were as maddening as they were euphoric. He wanted her with a desperation he had never experienced. He tried to pace himself, tried to let her hold the reins. He focused on familiarizing himself with every part of her he could reach. He dragged his hands up from her hips, learning the softness of her waist and the valley of her spine. He traced his fingers along the paths between her ribs, pushing beneath his heavy leather jacket to touch the twin wings of her shoulder blades. He thought he could touch her for years on end and never know her as well as he wanted to.
When he smoothed his hands over her sides, venturing near the curve of her breasts, she inhaled sharply against his lips. He paused, unsure if he was crossing a line. He waited for her to say something, but she remained still above him, her eyes squeezed shut and mouth still open on a gasp. Then, ever so slowly, she arched her body, turning so that his right wrist grazed her chest and the heel of his hand continued over her curves. He took that as permission, learning the shape of her there too, and when she exhaled on a moan, he lost the battle with his desperation.
He rolled, pressing her back into soft soil, and crushed his mouth against hers. Her response was equally feverish and frantic. Her fingers pulled at his hair, and her knees surrounded his hips, nestling him deeper against her. She arched up into his hand again, and he plunged his tongue into her mouth as he gave her the contact she wanted. The contact they both wanted. His other hand trailed down to one of the thighs hooked around his hips, and when he touched her bare skin, her teeth caught his bottom lip.
He groaned, sinking his hand beneath the tunic she wore, his tunic, until the perfect curve of her bottom filled his hand. She surged up against him, hips mashing against hips in a way that made him break their kiss and drop his head to the hollow of her throat to catch his breath. Her hands left his head to run down his back and then up again, and he covered her pulse point with his mouth, feeling the wild, rapid reminder of her vitality against his lips and teeth and tongue.
She moaned, and the sound burrowed beneath his skin, burning him up with want. Their hips began to rock—slow and subtle at first. But as he covered her neck with kisses and teasing nips of his teeth, she began to pull his hips down with her legs at the same time that she lifted her own hips up. It was torture and bliss all at the same time.
From beneath the thin fabric of the tunic, a blue-white light flickered with increasing intensity. He pulled back, watching that pulse of light with both wonder and trepidation. He slid his hand up from her chest to the neat row of buttons at the top of the tunic. Giving her plenty of time to protest, he undid the buttons gradually until the top of the tunic was loose enough that he could ease it down to reveal the light branching out over her chest. It streaked up to her collarbone and across to her sternum and over the slope of her left breast. The tempo of the flashes increased as he stared at her, and he could not help but lower his mouth to experience the marvel with more senses than just sight. He closed his eyes, and the beat of her heart lit up the black behind his eyelids.
Again and again, he followed different bolts of light with his lips, racing in an attempt to keep up. Sometimes, the action made her laugh, shivering as if the quick glide of his lips tickled. Other times she clutched his shoulders and held her breath, especially when he traversed the slope over her breast and the valley in the middle. He forgot about racing the light in those places and took his time, letting the light come to him again and again. Soon, she pulled his head up from her chest, and he went with a growl that she soothed with the softest, sweetest kiss he had ever received. Against his mouth, she whispered, “I’ve never—You … you are the first.”
He loosened his hold on her body and tried not to jump to conclusions. Lifting himself up a little, he braced his weight on his elbows and asked, “First what, princess?”
Her eyes were wide, worried almost, as she answered, “First everything?”
He thought back to the first time he’d kissed her—hard and angry and demanding. He felt the sudden urge to worship her lips, to worship all of her to make up for his mistakes.
He covered her cheek with his hand and trailed a thumb down to her mouth, over the reddened curve of her bottom lip. He felt far too much satisfaction that these lips had never known another pair but his.
He leaned down to nip at her swollen bottom lip. “I’m the first to touch this mouth? To taste it?” Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her blue eyes flashed with heat. She nodded, her tongue darting out to soothe the skin he had tugged between his teeth. “That means it’s mine. My territory. And I’m prepared to protect it, every hour of the day if I must.”
Those lips that were now his tipped up in a smile. “That’s very dedicated of you.”
There was still so much he wanted to know about her. But he didn’t want to assume that because she kissed him, she trusted him. He finally had her in his arms. The last thing he wanted to do was push her away.
Her long fingers rubbed at the corner of his jaw, down the side of his neck, and slipped along the collar of his shirt.
“I want you to show me,” she murmured.
“Show you what?”
She smiled again. “Everything? Show me what you said before.”
“You mean that I love you?”
She nodded, her grin widening. “Yes. Show me that.”
He groaned and leaned down for another quick taste of her lips. He wanted to give her what she asked. He would love nothing more than to spend the next few hours explaining in explicit detail with his mouth and hands just how beautiful he found her.
But it wasn’t long ago that she had fallen in that river, too weak to even stand. And now that he knew he had her firsts, he was determined to make each one as special as she deserved. Which meant the bank of a river, while she suffered from the cold breeze with wet hair, was definitely not the right time.
“I will show you,” he promised her, “as frequently and thoroughly as you like. But not now. Not here. Let me get you back to camp where it’s warm. We’ve got all the time in the world, princess.”