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

Blood Trail

He'd known she'd do it. He'd counted on her reckless spirit. He'd have been disappointed if she hadn't tried to escape. His arrogance was such that he'd even instructed his niece not to stop the girl if she tried. How far could a human really get?

Far enough, as it turned out.

His fangs lengthened as he lifted his flaring nose to the up-sweeping wind. And that's when he smelled it.

Blood. Lots of it.

The metallic tang filled his nostrils so violently, he staggered back with a fulminating growl. Red billowed in his vision, his bones shifting as the wolf snarled awake beneath his flesh. His claws sprang out, his jaws lengthening.

There was another scent on the wind besides blood. A scent that shot ice through his veins.

Snarthrall. There were only two on his mountain and he'd already killed the cub. Which meant...

Fok! Alone he was no match for the mother, but there was no time to go back for the pack. He swore again, his dread coalescing in a deep growl that filled his chest.

His flesh exploded with fur as he leaped into a sprint, barreling through the deep snow on all fours. Fokken snarthrall! His grunts plumed out in hot spurts, his paws plunging deep into the snow. Fokken Reia! If she wasn't dead already, he'd bite her bloody for the terror spearing his gut. Terror for her. The kind of feral dread he'd never felt and hadn't asked for. He almost hated her at that moment for forcing him to feel this wrenching fear. For a human! A woman he hardly even knew.

Her scent blasted up the mountainside, spurring him faster. As the snow devoured his claws, his heart thundered in his ears. All that blood... Despite the wind and distance, the reek became more and more intense. Acrid on his tongue. For the first time in his life, the smell of blood turned his stomach.

He forced himself to slow down, keeping downwind as much as possible. But the wind goddess, perverse and mercurial as ever, sent her gusts in fits and starts, switching directions faster than he could react. As the wind shifted, he lost the snarthrall's scent. Keeping vigilant, he froze, letting his silver and black markings veil him in the falling snow and black trunks of the nearby trees.

Ears stiff, he listened. But the screaming winds, as well as muting his harsh breaths, swallowed any sounds the snarthrall made. He crept closer, halting often to reassess the direction of the blood. No sign of the snarthrall and no sign of Reia, though he caught glimpses of her scent.

On stealthy paws, he finally emerged into a small clearing. The blood trail stemmed from a frozen scarlet pool atop which lay a pile of bones picked bare. An aurog skeleton, still fresh.

The hairs on his nape reared up as he hunkered low, scanning the surrounding trees. Nothing. No green flicker of eyes in the deep night shadows of the woods. No grunts. No reek of oily fleece. But that didn't mean it wasn't close by.

With a last look around, shooting a brisk glare over his shoulder, he loped towards the gaping mouth of an abandoned fox hole. Reia's torch lay trampled in the snow, surrounded by bloody paw prints. His lips curled back in a silent growl as he sniffed the prints, noting the deep grooves the snarthrall had raked into the ice.

A deep inhale at the mouth of the fox hole confirmed what his galloping heart already knew. She was in there. Alive.

A sudden flash of teeth and snarling burst from the hole. Claws struck him in the face and he tumbled back with a roar. But he was much older and faster than the wolf cub. He snagged Basil by the scruff of his neck and pressed him down with a silencing growl.