Page 28 of Conquering the King of Storms

His eyes narrowed at me slightly. “What I want isn’t important in this situation, Sway. You’ve been dragged into my world and had your life tied to mine; you’re the one who gets to make the calls.”

Damn.

He was really going to stick with that.

“You saved your world and then ended up mostly-insane, with your life tied to some weak human girl without magic. Don’t you think we should at least attempt to agree on the calls? This isn’t ideal for either of us.” I gestured between us.

“You’re wrong.” His voice was simple, and firm.

I opened my mouth to continue arguing with him—I was actually kind of enjoying it—but he chose that moment to scoop me up off the ground and haul me into his arms. My hands went around his neck automatically, holding on tightly, and he didn’t waste any time before he began to run once again.

The cave seemedto go on forever. My body ached from the effort of holding on to Sirus at the insane pace he moved at, whether swimming or running.

I didn’t know how long we had been going for when he finally stopped. I was used to walking all day every day, given that we’d been traveling for ages, but it felt like much longer than an entire day.

We were both practically delirious with exhaustion, our stomachs clenched with hunger, when he finally set me down. There was no smooth stone where we were, but I was tired enough that I didn’t even care.

“I’ll find food,” Sirus murmured to me. The man looked completely dazed, and I was kind of concerned that he might accidentally slice himself with his wind if he went alone.

“I’ll come. Need to stretch my legs.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but dipped his head in a nod.

I hadn’t expected all that traveling to make me feel like I could trust the guy, but after so many hours in his arms, I was kind of starting to feel like we were friends. I trusted him not to let me get hurt, and that was big for me.

We slowly made our way to the edge of the nearest pool of water. It wasn’t far; it never was.

“There are plants growing just under the lip of most of the pools. Some are edible. Pick whatever you feel, and I’ll separate them,” Sirus murmured to me, as he slid into the water. I was surprised he hadn’t just ripped his pants off altogether and decided to run in his underwear—assuming he was wearing underwear—given how often we were in and out of the water. I was thinkingabout ripping off the skirt part of my dress and just wearing the strappy swimsuit-like portion.

“Be careful,” I warned him, as his gaze scanned the water. It was deep—that was the only thing I really knew about the pools. We had been avoiding swimming down through them, not wanting to risk finding the worst of the monsters, which he said lived near the bottom. We were a long way from there, and would need to swim through dozens of tunnel-like pools in order to reach that part of the Aboa, but I still felt a little nervous about it.

His eyes lifted to mine, and his lips curved upward in a faint smile. “I’m the scariest thing in this Aboa right now, Sway. Don’t fear for me.”

With that, he dove downward.

I watched his ass as it popped up above the water before disappearing beneath the surface I could just barely make out. His air would wrap around his head, giving him the ability to breathe and see under water without a problem, but I still worried. There were monsters in the cave system that I didn’t have names or descriptions for, with powers I probably couldn’t guess if I tried.

My fingers worked quickly through the plants, which were just beneath the water, as Sirus had said. They were thick and leafy, and a few of them had roots that wrapped around my fingers and wrists as I pulled them out. Some were poky, too. That scared the hell out of me, but they didn’t seem to really be hurting me, so I tried not to panic.

If they had been any kind of a danger to me, Sirus wouldn’t have left me in charge of picking them.

When my hands were full of the plants, I slowly made my way to my feet, wincing at the tightness in my back as I straightened it. The soreness in my muscles was unreal.

“You’re fine,” I whispered to myself, as I carefully made my way back to the place where Sirus had set me down against one of the walls. The rock beneath my feet was sharp in some places, dotted with craters that sort of reminded me of volcanic rock. “He’ll be back soon.”

Though I didn’t know which of the plants were safe to eat, I began separating them and sorting them. I couldn’t see their colors, but there seemed to be three different shapes. All of them were long, but some had thick leaves with jagged edges, some had smooth, thin leaves, and some had wide leaves with tiny prickly things sticking out of the sides of them.

The prickly things kept stabbing me, but I figured they were harmless, like some of the weeds I’d had to pull from my dad’s yard as a kid, and ignored them.

Right as I finished sorting the leaves, there was a soft splashing noise.

My stomach clenched, and I opened my mouth to call out to Sirus, to make sure it was him. Before I could, he murmured, “It’s me.”

A relieved breath escaped me and my shoulders relaxed.

“Rest your eyes while I prepare the food,” he told me, his voice soft. He was far enough away that I couldn’t even really see his eyes, which sort of bothered me. Not that I’d say that out loud.

“Thanks,” I whispered back, lowering myself to the floor and folding up into a ball. The temperature hadn’t started to fall, sothe place was still warm, but I was starting to feel a bit of a chill for some reason.

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