Mated to the Warg (Wargs of the Outland, #1)

Hekki's Cauldron

The heath was yawning with dawn colors. Rowan felt the warmth of faint light begin to spill over her back. Her hand in Thrax's, they climbed steadily up into a wooded area dense with old growth. The leaves were beginning to bleed their autumn colors. She still had no idea where they were going.

She tried to distract herself from the intimacy of their threaded fingers. As always, his touch enlivened her whole body. His strides were long, but her erratic breathing had nothing to do with the brisk pace or her aching calves. It was his tall naked body brushing against her that fired her cheeks and flustered her pulse.

She steered her eyes away from what was swinging between his powerful legs and swallowed, sucking calming breaths into her lungs. "There's so much wild wood here," she said. Unlike the empty moors close to West Gate that were scattered by lonely alders.

"Yes," he replied. "Some of these oaks are older than my father. The silver birch thrives in this part of the outland." Then he stopped beside a particularly tall tree with leaves more gold than green. It had clusters of thick red berries, like dripping blood. He pressed his palm to the bole. "But no tree thrives here more than the rowan. And she'll flourish even in the harshest places, at the edge of cliffs—even in the underworld. Her wood is strong and resilient." He looked up into the sturdy boughs, reaching up to brush his fingers over the red fruit. "It is said the rowan even once saved Brek from the underworld."

Rowan was staring up at the berries, mesmerized by his low, deep voice. She knew the story of Brek and the rowan tree. The god had gone down to the underworld to retrieve the soul of a beautiful maid who'd died too young. As it turned out, he'd never found her, he'd gotten trapped in Hafsalir, the River of Souls, instead. He'd only managed to pull himself out by catching hold of a rowan tree thriving in the black mud on the banks of that dead river.

Her eyes followed as he trailed his hands down the bark. "Are you implying that I should thrive here, too." Her voice was somber and whisper soft.

"You will thrive here, Rowan, you just have to realize you have no roots in West Gate."

She looked up to meet his eyes, her mind spinning in those gold depths. His words turned over and over in her head, lodging deep inside her like little rowan seeds. "I'm afraid, Thrax."

"Of what?" He pressed closer and she swallowed nervously.

"Of growing roots here." Her chest grew impossibly tight and painful, her voice hoarse. "What if...this place..." Him. She meant him. "What if, after some years, I'm not wanted here. Then there will be no place for me." She might love him and he would grow to hate her.

"The rowan," he whispered, "at the edge of a cliff, grows there because she knows it's the hardest place to be. But if she has faith in her roots and grows them deep, she will be that much closer to the heavens. Is that not worth a little fear?"

A tear skidded down her cheek and she turned away. "You make it sound so easy."

"In time," he said, catching her tear and brushing it aside with his thumb, "it will be easier. The seedling stage is always the hardest." He gently pulled her along and they began walking again.

She wondered if her mother knew of Brek and the rowan tree. Why else was she named Rowan? Or had it been her father who'd named her? From what little she'd gleaned of him from others, he'd always struck her as the whimsical one.

With a sigh, she stowed the thoughts away to be mulled over another time. For now she wished to be distracted. "What's a blood wyrm?" she asked

He glanced sidelong at her with a grin. "A creature much like the mirok, only they have smaller teeth, rows and rows of knife teeth, and they cannot change their shape like the mirok can."