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

The Storm

Somewhere in the impenetrable darkness, thunder pealed and rumbled. Or was that the pang of lightning slamming in Rowan's skull? Another crack and rumble shook the air. She became aware of horses. The wet stench of them. Restless nickering. Mud squelching underfoot. Canvas flapping. The sound of leather tack creaking, and disgruntled male voices shouting above the wind.

Her mouth wasn't working or she'd have called out to them, whoever they were. Since when were there horses in Carthyrk? Striga notwithstanding.

Why did her lips feel like straps of old leather? Why was her tongue bone dry?

She tried to move her hands, but her arms were as heavy as iron. Wait, they sounded like iron, too! At the sound of clanking metal, she gasped. Her eyelids finally flew open.

She blinked and cursed as a sharp bolt of lightning lit the sky, blinding her a moment. Not just in her head but cracking through the sky with ominous violence. When it passed, she realized she was sopping wet and cold. She shook her head, trying to clear the blur from her eyes, but it hurt too much, so she held still and too inventory of her pain.

Her hands were manacled, no mistaking that. Through her waterlogged eyes and the hideous throbbing in her head, she could see the iron shackles around her wrists. Her skin was raw and stinging. But more disturbing even than the manacles was the little gold band on her finger. Her old wedding band.

She tried to speak, but the sound was muffled by a dirty gag. As her vision cleared a little, her surroundings came into focus.

She was in a spartan little tent, sitting in the mud with a smelly horse blanket thrown around her shoulders. The gag in her mouth tasted like an old man's codpiece. Disgusting! What in Maeda's name was going on? Where was she?

In answer to her silent question, the tent flap was shoved aside and Merritt ducked inside. She hissed, shutting her eyes against the painful lightning streaks. Beyond the tent flap lay only sodden gloom. But it wasn't the dark of night. A storm raged in the sky behind Merritt. Even with the tent flap back in place, she could hear it, and the interior flared with light each time lightning snapped across the sky.

She glared balefully at Merritt as he crouched beside her looking far too cheerful.

He tugged on the gag a moment, but then paused as though uncertain. "Don't look at me like that, dear heart. You know I'm doing this for your own good, don't you?"

She growled, her skin crawling with rage and revulsion. The bastard had kidnapped her! By the pain still coursing in her brain, she guessed he'd knocked her senseless. When Thrax found them, he'd kill Merritt. Well, if there was anything left of the cur once she was done with him.

Her eyes seemed to convey every dark thought because he quickly dropped his hands, deciding against the ungagging.

She summoned what calm she could and hooded the hate from her eyes. "Please," she said around the gag. "Please."

He wavered a moment and then sighed, yanking her gag down. "There's no use shouting because—"

"You bastard! You Hekki-spawned rat! When Thrax finds out what you've done..." She was too enraged to continue.

"He won't find out!" Merritt swallowed uncomfortably, looking over his shoulder as though the shadow of the wargrex had crept over his grave. "He thinks you've left him. All very civilized, I assure you."

Her belly heaved with nausea. But it quickly passed. "No, impossible. He knows I wouldn't leave him." Did he, though? She'd never gotten to tell him she loved him, and that she had no intention of leaving next summer. That Carthyrk was her home now. "He'll come for me." But her voice grew soft as dismay stole into her chest, and unbidden into her eyes.