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

Thesta

"Maybe so," he snapped.

"It's my brother's manners that surprise me," Thesta interposed calmly, stepping hurriedly between them. "Despite how it seems, Rowan, he wasn't raised by golrags, I promise you."

She raised a dubious brow. "Maybe I'm better off with the golrags than with him."

"That can be arranged," he snarled back at her.

Rowan wanted to rail at him for being a beast, but his teeth looked incredibly sharp just now—more so than the golrag's had—and she wasn't feeling suicidal. She'd poked him enough, it seemed.

Thesta touched his arm lightly. "Be patient, Brother. Much has happened, give her time. You've known of her for ten years, but she has not had that same advantage."

His jaw flared, drawing Rowan's eyes to his mouth.

To Rowan Thesta said, "Try not to take offense, Har Kani—"

"Just Rowan," Thrax snapped. "She hasn't earned that title yet."

Rowan shot Thesta a suffering look. She planted her hands on her hips. "Impossible not to take offense when all he does is insult me."

Thrax flayed her with another scowl. His mouth was hard and unyielding, his silence somehow more imposing. Expecting at any moment for him to bark something mean at her, she watched his mouth. But his brooding silence only made her all the more aware of his lips.

Suddenly, all she could think about was how warm those hard lips had been when he'd kissed her. She turned away with a blush, appalled at the sudden shift inside her. The flames of temper banked to a warm glow in the pit of her belly. Saliva pooled in her mouth as his scent filled her nose.

Thesta's glance bounced between them. "It is the warg way to be blunt, Rowan, and it is the human way to be..."

"Always offended?" Thrax offered. It earned him two glares. Three, actually, but Meera's was more subtle.

Thesta pinched the bridge of her nose and tried again. "You must both stop taking offense and giving offense, lest all you be left with are high fences and a vast distance between you." She sighed. "The goddess works in mysterious ways, we must be thankful to her for this mating."

But Rowan wasn't thankful, she was choking on resentment.

Shaking her head, Thesta steered her brother towards the stairs. "You may leave your mate in my care, Brother. Go now. Take your rest, and mend your temper."

He gave a terse nod, the flames in his eyes licking over Rowan in a devouring way. If it'd been all wrath, she'd have withstood it a little better, perhaps, but there was something else in the look. Something that set her cheeks afire.

Instead of taking the stairs, he took a step backwards. Then another. There was no railing to stop him as he dropped from the landing out of sight. Rowan gasped and scurried forward to peer down. It was no small distance to the ground. The drop should've broken every bone in that prodigious warg body. Yet there he stood below, glaring up at her, whole and haughty, his feet planted firmly in the earth. Growling, he took off and vanished from sight beneath the house.

"He hates me." Her limbs felt like lead as she backed away from the edge.

"I wouldn't say that." Thesta's response caught her off guard.

She grimaced as she faced Thrax's sister, silently berating herself because she'd spoken aloud when she hadn't meant to. "Oh?" she said, recovering with a forced laugh, "does he look at everyone that way? And here I felt special."

Thesta clucked, unamused. "He'd not have brought you home if he hated you."

"I don't care if he does."