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

Voyeur

Thesta rolled her eyes and pulled her along, quickening her pace.

Thankfully, Thesta didn't pry into why Rowan's mood was so sour this morning. They kept the conversation light, avoiding the topic of mating nights and ornery wargrexes. As the day wore on and they hunted tirelessly for eggs. Thesta explained that the late nesters like the large, flightless solitaire doves were still laying, feeding on the late summer fruit.

Though the warga never mentioned her brother at all, Rowan couldn't stop thinking about Thrax. Nor did her pulse calm all day. She was so on edge, so certain he'd appear at any moment, that she spooked easily and gasped at everything, even a cricket that landed in her hair.

"Don't worry," Thesta laughed, "it's not a tick." She kept her teasing gentle, perhaps sensing what was wrong with Rowan. The cricket was evicted and the hunting resumed.

Despite Rowan's constant jumpiness, Thrax never appeared. When the egg basket was full and they returned to the lake to fish, she still caught no glimpse of Thrax. She never saw him at all. Not that day. Nor the next. And all she caught at the lake was a gnat in her eye and hook full of reeds.

...

On day three of the nine day mating feast, Thrax still hadn't returned.

He and a small contingent of wargs were off on some wargish business, and apparently her new mate didn't esteem her enough to share any of the details. Why that should leave a pang in her chest, she didn't know. But it did. And she recognized the heat behind her eyes as anger. She hoped he was lying trapped in some bog somewhere, covered in leeches and bog lice.

Rowan was glaring into the fire, watching the sparks and smoke shoot up through the wide sky hatches high in the vaulted roof. The evening sun was sinking below the lake. The broad double doors of the drinking hall were thrown wide and the night air streamed in.

"Is it normal for a warg to leave his warga the day after their mating?" she asked, twisting her thumb ring.

She hadn't asked about his whereabouts or his business, she didn't want the others to know Thrax had left her in ignorance. It was demeaning and it reminded her of how her mother always made her feel. How Elgret always left her in the dark. Nothing important had ever been shared with her because she was never deemed important enough.

Thesta and Ugla, the wise one, were siting beside her. It was the old warga that spoke. "No, it is not." A fact that evidently didn't disturb her, however. "But," she added, "the wargrex is no ordinary warg." Then she repeated herself in wargish.

It was a habit that Thesta had now adopted, too. First Wrasian and then the words would be repeated in wargish. All wargs spoke some degree of Wrasian. Goblick, too. Whatever dialect was spoken in the outland, wargs could speak it. Thesta had once told her that no warg would tolerate the disadvantage of not being able to speak to their enemies. And friends, she'd quickly added.

The wargas were determined to have her speaking wargish like a native by Mothersnight when mighty Brek brought the harsh winter winds. It was practically autumn now, so there wasn't any time to lose. And though she'd be long gone by then, she was eager to learn what she could while she was here.

All around her, wargs were dancing, drinking, and laughing by the iron braziers, the firelight stirring the longhall with gold. There was a large spiny boar roasting on the spit over the hearth fire, dropping fat into the hissing flames. The spines had been removed and some of the young wargs were practicing their spear arms, throwing the spines at a painted troll hanging on the wall.

The drinking lodge and the forge were the only buildings with stone chimneys. She was told that in winter, the doors and hatches would be shut tight and the hearth fire would be kept ablaze. Most of the pack would sleep here through the winter nights.