by Cora Carmack
What were the two of them doing that took them away from the inn?
He cast the thought away. None of that mattered, not when he’d been so afraid that she was … He shook his head, refusing to dwell another moment on the possibility.
Kiran slowed as he neared, covering the last of the distance in a few long strides. Then he caught her face in his hands and kissed her.
He did not care that it was raining, or that the tips of his fingers were burned from a brush with the flames inside the inn. He rarely cared about anything else when Roar was around. She melted against him, and did not try to stop him when he pushed back her hood and tangled his uninjured hand in her short, skyfire-white hair.
Despite the cold fall of rain, her lips were fire beneath his own. She met his desperation without a moment’s hesitation, as if she knew that he felt like his heart might burst if he did not pull her as close as possible.
“I couldn’t find you. I thought…”
She quieted him with the soft brush of her lips against his jaw, then his cheek, before resting her forehead against his. She murmured apologies between light, teasing kisses, and Kiran could do nothing but hold her tight within his arms.
When his heart finally slowed to a bearable pace, he pulled back and asked, “What were you doing out at this hour? I thought we agreed the city was not safe.” The words came out harsher than he intended, but one glance around them made clear those words were true as ever. Fear knotted his insides all over again. Even though she was safe. Even though she was in his arms. He was somehow still deathly afraid.
Was this what it meant to be in love? Would he live the rest of his days in a constant state of fear that this one slice of perfection he’d been given would be torn away like every other good thing that had come before her?
The corners of her lips twitched down in a frown before she gave him her practiced blank expression. Sometimes he loathed that look. He never wanted to see her withdrawn and emotionless. And it irked him that he’d had the same expression once upon a time, until she came into his life and smashed it into pieces. Now his emotions were always too near to the surface.
She stepped back slightly, out of the circle of his arms. “I had something I needed to do. Plus, Jinx was with me.”
“I don’t like the idea of the two of you out alone. There’s too much we don’t know about the state of the city.”
“You don’t have to like it.”
As his fear faded, he found frustration filling up the space left behind. “What I don’t like is the fact that you keep hiding things from me. We’re either in this together or we’re not. It cannot be both.”
Roar laid her hand on his chest, directly over his heart. She exhaled and closed her eyes. He wondered if she could feel the way his heart beat harder just at the proximity of her touch.
“I know,” she answered. “I want that. I do. That’s why…” She hesitated, squared her shoulders, and continued, “That’s why we need to talk. Tonight.”
Something in her voice wavered, a sliver of vulnerability breaking through. And even though he’d been longing for her to open up to him for weeks, he now found himself a little … unsettled. Curiosity had been strangling him from the moment he first laid eyes on Roar. He had tested every limit of his patience in recent days in an attempt to give her the time she needed. And now that she was ready, he realized he might not be. Whatever Roar was hiding, he had a feeling it would change everything.
* * *
The crew spent the afternoon helping the inn clean up what damage they could. It was lucky that only the top floor of the building sustained significant damage, and the rest only suffered from a layer of soot on every surface and the lingering scent of smoke. Many other areas of the city had not been so lucky.
Apparently Jinx had been the one to supply the rainstorm that saved this area from the worst of the damage. But in other parts of the city, they were focusing now on cleaning up the bodies, not just debris.
Aurora and Jinx had been the only ones to occupy rooms on the top floor. So when night fell and they’d done as much work as they could for the day, the hunters gathered to discuss their lodgings for the next few days. Jinx suggested the girls all bunk in Sly’s room. When Roar started to respond, Kiran touched the back of her hand.
He leaned toward her, pressing his lips to her hair first before whispering, “Stay with me?”
She squeezed his hand and nodded in answer, and he found himself wishing they were alone in his room already. He did not know where the urgency came from, except that Stormling cities always made him anxious.
He felt more at home in the wildlands, dangerous though they were. There was something comforting in knowing the danger that lurked around you, in calling it by name. But in this city, in all Stormling cities, he was acutely aware that humans could cause just as much damage as the fiercest of tempests.
He and Roar excused themselves from the group, but not before he noticed another pointed look pass between Roar and Jinx.
That urgency rose another notch. It did not help that Roar had been unusually quiet through the whole day, and the same was true now as they climbed the stairs up to Kiran’s room. Her brows were furrowed and her lips pursed. He wasn’t even sure she was paying attention to where she was going—her thoughts were so clearly turned inward.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything more than you want it to,” he told her.
Her eyes jerked up and over to him, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Staying with me,” he finished. “I didn’t ask because I wanted—I asked because I want you with me. That’s it. No more, no less.”
Roar slowed in the hallway, and turned to face him. Her hand lifted and one delicate finger traced over the leather straps of the supply harness he wore.
“You’re a good man, Kiran Thorne.”
He scoffed beneath his breath. Most people would take one look at him and call him trouble, danger at the very least. He was glad she saw differently.
“I’m a man, that much is true. And I want to be good for you more than I want anything else in this cursed world.”
Her tiny finger curled beneath one of his leather straps and drew him closer, slowly, temptingly. At the same time, her head tilted to the side and she looked up at him with blue eyes that broke his heart and put it back together again.
“You ARE good for me.” She lifted up on her toes and stole another piece of him from the corner of his lips. She kept doing that—chipping away pieces of him he did not even know were loose.
She turned and led him the rest of the way to his door, pushing her way inside, finger still wrapped around his harness strap. But as soon as she stepped inside the room, she halted on a gasp, and her hand dropped away. Kiran followed her inside, closing the door behind them, and found her kneeling next to the bag containing her belongings, clutching it tightly to her chest and staring up at him with tears in her eyes.
“You saved my things,” she said through choked tears.
“Of course I saved them. When the storm first started, I went straight to your room. You weren’t there, but your bag was.”
She made a noise somewhere between a sniff and a laugh. “I—I’ve been so worried all day that I forgot completely that I’d left this in my room. I would have been devastated if it had burned.”
Kiran swallowed the lump in his throat and murmured, “I would have been devastated if you had burned.”
Roar pushed her belongings off her lap and rose to her feet. She came to him, snaking her arms around him and tucking her head beneath his chin. He returned her hold, and they stayed like that for a long while. Together they reminded him of some kind of tourniquet—like the pressure each of them exerted on the other held all their wounds closed.
“I never want to feel like that again,” he spoke against her hair, his voice scratchy. “I never want to imagine a future without you.”
Roar did not answer, but pressed her face closer to the
hollow of his neck. He thought she might stay there forever, and he found he did not much mind the idea. But eventually she did speak, whispering, “I need to tell you the truth about my past, about my life before I left with you.”
He swallowed, and it was suddenly difficult to remain still. He needed to pace, to do something with his hands, to do anything to keep himself calm through whatever was coming next. But somehow he stayed right there, still folded together with her like the pages of a book.
“I am going to tell you everything,” she continued. “And then tomorrow, I have to meet someone. I’d like you to come with me, if you still want to when I’m done.”
Skies, he hated the anticipation of not knowing, of fearing the worst. Though, honestly, he truly did not care about her past. He did not care who she had been before or what she’d had to do to survive. He only cared about who they were to each other moving forward.
Slowly, she pulled back to look him in the eye. “Before I tell you. Can you do one thing for me?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“I just need one moment where the rest of the world does not matter. I need one moment that’s only about you and me. I want … a pause. I want the eye before the storm continues.”
“And how do I give you that?” Kiran asked.
She smiled, a full smile—not the nervous one he’d seen all day.
“That’s simple. You kiss me.”
Kiran searched her eyes, the brilliant blue hue swimming with emotion, and then he stepped back and moved toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Roar’s voice wobbled a little.
He stopped next to the door and looked back at her. Then he reached up and turned the lock.
“I’m pausing the world.”
* * *
Aurora’s breath caught in her throat at the warm look in Kiran’s eyes. He looked at her like … like a man who loved a woman, and all at once, she felt very grown up. When she had left Pavan, all she had was a lifetime of waiting—waiting for her magic to manifest, waiting to come of age, waiting in fear of her secret getting out, waiting for some day in the future when she could finally be the true Aurora.
And now … here she was. She had discovered so much about the world and herself. She’d faced danger and taken control of her own choices. She’d seen deserts and mountains and walked unfamiliar roads. She knew what it looked like when someone loved her. In some ways, Aurora had lived more life in her few short months with Kiran than all her previous years combined.
She looked at him now—the dark hair that fell to his shoulders, the strong, stubbled line of his jaw, the broad expanse of his chest. He was stunning in the glow of the room’s lanterns. His body was big and strong, and she could not help remembering all the times she’d been pressed against him—so, so close, but never close enough. Would tonight be the night that they took things one step further?
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Kiran crossed toward her—two long strides eating up the distance between one blink and the next. He didn’t touch her, but he stood toe to toe with her, his head tilted down toward hers.
“What were you just thinking about?” he asked.
She knew a flush was rising in her cheeks, could feel the heat, but she met his eyes anyway. She was not embarrassed, not with him. When she thought she would have to marry Cassius, she’d been overcome with nerves at the thought of being intimate, being vulnerable with a man she barely knew. But now, the swooping feeling in her stomach was not nerves, but anticipation. She trusted Kiran with her heart. She was about to trust him with her greatest secret. It was surprisingly easy to trust him with her body as well.
“I was thinking about you,” she said.
“What about me?”
She didn’t hesitate. “How good it feels when you touch me.”
He hummed beneath his breath, and she knew he wanted to smile, could see the tension around his mouth as he tried to hold it back.
He raised his hand and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “When I touch you here?”
She leaned into his hand. “Yes.”
“And here?” he asked, trailing his fingers down over her jaw to dip beneath the leather collar she wore and graze the sensitive skin of her neck.
She tilted her head up, giving him more room, and he failed to fight off his smile this time. “You already know the answer,” she told him.
He chuckled, and a languorous heat unfurled in her belly. It really was as if the world outside had ceased to exist. There was no more worry, no more frustration or urgency or guilt. It was if they had all the time in the world.
“I do,” he said. “But I like hearing it all the same.”
“You mean your ego likes it.”
He snaked an arm around her middle and yanked her forward until she crashed into him.
“All of me likes it.”
And then he kissed her, and time couldn’t move fast enough.
The kiss ignited immediately, going from slow and soft to deep and passionate. He pulled her up on her tiptoes, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. But when that wasn’t enough for either of them, his hands curled around her hips and pulled her off her feet completely. Her legs wound around his waist, and then he was walking her toward the bed.
Aurora broke the kiss to pull at the leather straps that kept on the collar and vest she wore. She had the top two undone when Kiran tossed her on the bed. She squealed in surprise, and he laughed as he crawled onto the bed beside her.
“You could have warned me,” she said, her hands moving quickly to undo the rest of the straps.
“Where would be the fun in that?”
When she finished with the last clasp, Kiran helped her remove the protective vest, leaving her in a linen shirt and pants. He removed her boots, followed by his own. Then he lay back and rolled onto his side to face her. She did the same.
They stared at each other, and a flicker of nerves surfaced. Maybe she needed to tell him now, before things went any further. She had gotten her pause. It would never be long enough, but it had calmed her spirit. It would have to be enough.
Kiran interrupted her thoughts by rolling her back and coming to hover over her. His upper body was propped up by his hands, and his legs were tangled with hers.
“I thought we were paused,” he murmured. Lowering himself until his body rested lightly against hers.
“We are,” she said, lifting her chin to graze a kiss along his jaw. “But it can’t last forever.”
“It can last until I’m done kissing you.”
“And how long will that take?”
He slid one of his hands past her waist, down over her hip, and to the cradle at the back of her knee. With one good tug he had her leg curled around his hip, and their bodies pressed more firmly together.
“Only one way to find out.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. He gave her every kind of kiss that night. He began with the painfully slow ones that caused pleasure so sharp it nearly hurt. He kissed her fast, as if they had to fit a whole lifetime into this one night. He kissed her hard and soft and everything in between.
Aurora waited for him to ask for more, but he never did. She almost asked herself, but found she did not mind the endless kisses that led nowhere except to the next one and the next. It made her feel like this was simply one night of a thousand more they had to go.
Finally, sometime between the dead of night and the early morning when the lantern had burned low enough that they could only see each other, their kisses slowed and they lay content in each other’s arms.
And finally, Aurora knew the time had come.
Her head was laid against his chest, his heartbeat steady and sure in her ear.
“And now the world goes on,” she murmured.
He stiffened slightly, but kept his arm tucked around her. “So it does.”
She didn’t want to, but Aurora sat up and scooted off the bed to stand. Her nerves were back in full force, and she could n
ot lie there on the bed with him and get out the words she needed to.
She walked to the room’s one tiny window and stared out for a moment. She could just see the top of the palace dome over the neighboring buildings, gleaming in the moonlight. She thought about her mother in there somewhere, ill and believing her dead.
She was alive. That was something. But for how long? How sick was she?
Aurora had the best of intentions when she left, but something along the way had gone terribly wrong. And if her mother had never received her letter from Nova explaining the truth of her supposed kidnapping, it likely had been wrong from the very start.
“I do not know where to begin,” she finally confessed.
She heard the bed creak as he moved, but she did not let herself look at him, too afraid she would lose her nerve.
“Start with the simplest truth.”
The simplest truth. She could do that. She took one last look at the palace in the distance, and then forced herself to face him.
Then she confessed to her first lie.
“My name is not Roar. It’s Aurora.”
We are not free when ruled by fear.
—leaflet dispersed by the rebellion
7
Aurora.
It was a pretty name. But something about it set Kiran’s heart racing.
Aurora.
“Why lie about your name?” he asked.
Roar—no, Aurora winced. “It’s not completely a lie,” she answered. “Most of my life I’ve gone by Rora. Roar was just … a clean slate.”
He could understand that. After all, he had spent half his life going by a name he hated simply because it was where he had grown up.
“And why did you need a clean slate? What were you running from?” And more importantly … was she in danger by being back in this place that she’d once seen fit to run from?
