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

Hekki's Garden Fair

The cold burned deep. Reia writhed and jerked, consumed by a fitful delirium. She fought against the water that clawed down her throat. Against the insidious nudges of cold, dead flesh chasing her in the dark.

But she wasn't strong enough. And the darkness rang with soundless screams. The breathless lullabies of faceless many.

The dead were speaking to her in tongues. She was so cold that even they felt hot against her. Pressing hot palms on her clammy brow. She tried to swat them away. Cursed at them when they tried to choke her with more water. She didn't care that it was hot, she'd had enough.

At other times she pleaded. Begged. She wouldn't fail them again! But their hands bit like iron. Hard as winter ice, pushing her as she thrashed for breath. Always pushing. Always trapping.

Her screams swelled, filling the putrid water with ringing terror. But those hands were immovable granite. Inescapable.

The ravens circled. "You are weak!" they roared. "An embarrassment!" The words stabbed a deep, wrenching pain in her lungs. Blaring pain so loud and visceral, it thundered across the mountains. Blood clouded in the water, inky black, her nails peeling back as she gouged their flesh. Fury and panic engulfed her in total darkness. Again and again. Maybe in death she'd float where they couldn't reach her.

* * *

Reia's body snapped like a bowstring, panic jolting through her like a spray of arrows. She kicked out, screaming, trying to wrench herself free of the snarling heat. Thick blankets coiled around her like grasping hands, heavy and thick. She was drowning in them! She couldn't breathe!

A violent drumbeat thrashed in her ears, but she froze as light erupted in her eyes. And the sound of a fur drape whipping aside as a large shadow stalked through the doorway into the room. A shadow giant, his footfalls like rolling thunder. She barely registered she was in a room at all and not in her tent. Not down a dank, corpse-ridden mine shaft, either. None of that occurred to her. Not then. Not as the hulking threat bore down on her, dragging a cold gust in behind him.

She shivered. It was a man, but her eyes were still adjusting and she couldn't see his face. She saw only that he was large. Impossibly large and broad, his hair a tangled mane of ashy hues escaping a hood of thick fur. Her mouth filled with cinder, thick and choking. She clawed at the furs tangled around her, grasping helplessly for the sword that wasn't there. Her hands shook as dread crawled up her fingertips. She had nothing with which to defend herself. She was as weak and helpless now as the day she clawed into the world.

All the while the man stood watchful, his body taut, light spilling over his thick shoulders, his face shrouded. He grunted, the sound devoid of humor but thick with scorn. It shocked her into silence and she stilled her searching hands, realizing too late she was naked and her breasts were spilling out of the blankets.

With an outraged gasp, she yanked the covers up over her heaving chest. "Who are you? Where am I?" Questions tumbled out in a furious rush, her face pale and her muscles effete. She wasn't in her tent. And something told her, this man wasn't in her cohort. The shape of him was nothing she recognized as Wrasian. And the air that'd swooped into the room when he'd entered was thinner, colder, and it burned as it scraped into her lungs.

He moved closer to crouch down beside her pallet of furs, his head cocking as he studied her face. She scooted backward, her heart slamming against her ribs. Though she knew she was no match for him, even an injured beast new not to be meek. So she grit her teeth and glared back at him.

Something like amusement flashed in the pits of his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a dark, menacing amber that flooded each iris. She blinked, at once disturbed and fascinated by those lambent, animal eyes.