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

The Thing About Truth

Reia marched down the cobbled path of Mantor eyes. The city glowed in the moonlight, but it did nothing to chase the chill from her bones. Every time she thought of Bayne's retreating words, she tripped, the burn behind her eyes making her livid with herself.

She gave a vigorous shake of her head and continued marching down towards the Leikker Hall. Bayne hadn't been in his chamber when she'd cautiously entered. Then she'd gotten riled at herself for being timid at all.

To Hekki with that brute and his iron heart! She would not be cowed or answer to the pain between her breasts. She gritted her teeth and rubbed her chest. It was just something she'd eaten that didn't agree with her. Not sentiment at all. She hated him, after all. A woman could fuck a man she hated—it happened all the time. Just because she loved his body didn't mean she loved him.

Not at all. She had needs and that was all there was to it. She ignored the voice that questioned why her 'needs' hadn't driven her to lay with a man before tonight.

"Shut up," she muttered.

"Meh no speak," came a croaked reply from the shadows.

Reia nearly leaped out of her skin. Her nails burrowed into her chest as she spun towards Snigvik's toady voice. "Stop fucking sneaking up on me!"

His large lizard eyes peered out from the shadows. She knew that it was only the new warg sight that allowed her to see even that much of him. With human sight, she'd not have spotted him at all.

The large, green eyes blinked with interest. Her gaze followed his as he cocked his head this way and that as though testing her. Then he smiled that devious little lizard smile, looking impressed for some reason. "Eeh see meh?"

"Yes, " she retorted, willing her heart to relax. Her mouth pinched as she breathed in a deep calming breath. "And I smell you too." His familiar rot scented the air, her heightened sense of smell recoiling. "What do you want?"

The sound of him licking his chops made her ill. And he knew it, too, or he'd not have chuckled with delight just then.

Fear and anger drenched her veins as she turned on her heel and continued her march. She knew it was madness to turn her back on a devious fiend like Snigvik, but she was too numb to heed any good sense.

She could feel him jogging after her, though his feet were warg-silent. "Go piss up a rope," she threw over her shoulder, feigning nonchalance.

"What means that?" Snigvik's voice sounded eerily close.

"It means I don't want your company." The lights of the Leikker Hall spilled onto her as she rounded the path. She picked up the pace, her heart whipping at its roots in dread. It was the same foreboding her father always elicited in her. An awful, rising panic at having that menacing presence at her back.

But there were wargs rollicking beneath the bright stars. With long sticks they raced about, whacking a leather ball over the ice.

She dragged in a deep breath and slowed her pace. It calmed her to see the others. To see Bolrus and Mangart with a group of brawny wargs, spilling out of the hall as they laughed. And Rigor was dancing foolishly around an outside brazier as the music sped up. A merry scene that infused her with sudden boldness and yearning. An unexpected pang struck her chest.

Is this what Rowan had found when she'd left her fastness of stone and iron? Had she, too, found the warg to be...human. Reia had expected them to be foreign and strange—brutish and evil. But, truth be told, the true evils of her life were the men who'd raised her.

She sensed the goblin beside her. "Meh et wof." His gaze left her feeling dank and itchy.

"I'd like to see you try," she muttered. "Wait here." Straightening her back, she left him on the path and hurried into the hall.