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

Herb Wife

With Byane's growl shaking her bones, Reia whipped around to face him. His fangs were glistening, lips rolled back in a fighting snarl.

With a mind all its own, her hand shot out to slap him across the mouth. The instant her palm cracked against his lips, she felt sick. Her stomach flipped in horror.

But Bayne hardly seemed aware of the offense. He was sniffing the air, eyes clenched with fury. Then he grabbed her hand—the one she'd used to slap him. She fought back, trying to rip free, thinking he meant to requite the favor with a throttling backhand. Something she'd been raised to expect.

But, instead, he lifted her palm to his nose and sniffed. Then he sniffed again, his nostrils pinching in disgust.

Venting another growl, he dropped her hand. "Brek's cock, it's you!"

She sucked a breath in, clutching his forearm to keep steady. "Yes, it's me, you flaccid sack of meat!"

"Reia—"

With might and main, she punched him in the chest. "You bloody napped long enough!" Heat sprang into her eyes.

His nose curled up. "Reia—"

She punched him again, her chest heaving with warring emotions—relief, rage, and dregs of terror. "You're as useless as a bag of bollocks!" She was about to tear into him some more, but he gripped her arms and held them to her ribs so that she couldn't move. It was too much. Panic speared through her lungs. The last of her sanity cracked under his firm hold.

Her eyes flooded with black splotches, her legs kicking out. Vaguely she was aware of a shrill howling sound. A sound so human and frightening that she froze. It was her. The sound had hemorrhaged from her own throat!

When her eyes cleared, she saw that Bayne's lip was bleeding. The knot throbbing on her head suggested she'd knocked him soundly. Good.

Panting, she met his eyes. Yellow fire pulsed with every one of his ragged breaths. Except for her head, she was unhurt. Not drowning. Not bruised from his powerful fists.

Her brow pinched under his steady silence. "Let go of me, warg."

"Punch me again, human, and I'll use my teeth to restrain you next time." He let her go, none too gently, licking the blood from his lip as he moved out of reach of her fists.

She sat shivering in the cold, her heart floundering loudly in her ears. She wrapped her arms around herself, caging the chaos within. But those steady golden eyes seemed to bore into her soul, glimpsing all wreckage she tried to contain. "Why...why didn't you hit me back?"

He looked away, his mouth tight. "A male is less a male if he is prey to his rage."

Especially a male like this one who could strike a man dead with a well-aimed blow.

His eyes dropped to his hands, his fingers curling into his palms. "A wargrex without control is a fist without a head." The silence stretched, filled by Reia's unsteady breaths. When he spoke again, his voice frayed at the edge with a menacing growl. "Tell me why the fok you reek like a goblin?"

She glanced down at her palm where she could still feel the phantom slide of the goblin's tongue tracing her heart lines. "Because one licked me," she answered simply, looking up.

Bayne's cheek twitched. His lips sank down over his fangs and he looked to have lost most of his bluster. "One...licked you?" he echoed, the lines between his eyes deepening.

"Yes." For some reason, seeing his confusion calmed the acid sloshing in her stomach. It made him seem human. Almost boyish. She leaned back, her head falling to the side. "Wargs biting me, goblins licking me—next I'll have snow trolls sniffing my trews."