“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.