Captive Of The Warg, (Wargs of the Outland #2)

Shadow In The Dark

Reia didn't scream as she tumbled down. It was only as claws snagged her dress, and she was jerked to a halt, midair, that her screams tore free.

No! Not like this! She'd chosen how to die! But she'd waited till the last minute. Wavered too long. And the bear had her now!

From the cradle, Reia Rathbone never held control. Never owned her life. Why would her death be any different?

Her father's laugh thundered across the mountain as she struggled and kicked. Terror stole her breath, fire bursting in her chest as she writhed.

But it wasn't Rafen's laughter. It was a soaring bellow. The sound of the bear filling the outland with rage. But the sound narrowed, peeling away suddenly. And then the world fell deathly still.

Her body shook with tension, waiting. An excruciating wait. Dangling from her skirts, she swayed in the wind, the blood flooding to her head. Black spots flickered in her eyes. Silence prevailed, all but the roar of the wind and her rasping breaths. But there was no tug from above.

Why wasn't it yanking her up? Her limbs froze as she flung her gaze wide. It grew wider still to see her skirts all twisted in the branches of the rowan tree. Not so useless after all.

"Reia!" Bayne's face was pale and human as he leaned over the edge of the cliff. The clouds moved wraithlike between them. His mouth hung open and he was gazing at her as though he'd never seen a woman hanging upside down from a tree.

"Where's the fucking bear!" she shouted, writhing on the branches like an impaled worm.

"Fucking dead," he growled, but his voice was hoarse and thin. "Can you climb up?"

"Don't you dare let go of me," she commanded the rowan as she bent herself upright and wrapped her bone-white fingers around a slender bough. With her grip sure, she untangled her dress from one set of claws before moving to the next. Her hem was anointed in rowan blood, the berries having burst in her fall.

When she was free, she grabbed a fistful of bright berries and stowed them in her pocket. She wanted something of the tree that'd saved her life.

"Thank you," she whispered to it as she climbed up along its dark trunk. When she was within reach, Bayne closed his blood-soaked fingers around her forearm and hefted her up over the edge. She didn't miss the tremble in his arm.

It took her a moment to realize she was hugging him. Hard. But for a moment, she indulged herself and gripped him tighter. She'd nearly died, he could mock her if he wanted, she didn't care. She was alive. They'd survived the ice bear and that was a mighty feat from which there was no recourse but to vent one's relief against the warmth of another's body. Even a warg's.

But that was a lie. In the course of her life, she could sum up on one hand the number of times she'd sought comfort from someone, let alone a hug. It'd always made her feel weak. Yet she found herself drawing him around her like a cloak, his heartbeat a rumbling calmative. And instead of feeling weak, her body sighed against his, his warmth anchoring after that terrifying fall.

As the sound of her pulse waned to a soft trot, she recalled the bellow that'd thundered past her ear. Her flesh shivered with remembrance, and she could still feel the brush of fleece against her face. The rowan had saved her but not the bear. Bayne must've used his momentum to shove the beast over the edge.

Reia squeezed him harder, then peeled herself off him to sit up. She opened her mouth to thank Bayne, but her tongue stilled. Her gaze faltered on his pallid face.

He wouldn't be mocking her any time soon.

His chest was a mess of ravaged flesh. His head lay aslant, eyes closed, and mouth slack. A cold lump swelled in her throat.