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

Epilogue

Black smoke swooped up from the pyre into the low clouds. Pathos, thick and acrid, incensed the air.

A tight knot swelled in Bayne's chest. He watched his father's spirit billow up, roiling free. For a heart-halting moment, the smoke swelled, forming a wolfish shadow against the sky. It's maw opened in a silent howl.

His mother saw it, too. Ania's breath hitched as she gazed up.

Phantom claws gusted along his skin. But the spectral wolf vanished all too soon, subsumed by the cloud veil stretching between Ruinik's Hek and the hall of the winter god far beyond.

Bayne slid his hand over his mother's stiff shoulder and committed his gaze to the roaring flames. In this land of ice, only fire could free a captive soul.

Reia's fiery spirit stood testament to that. She'd thawed his frozen heart.

He followed the smoke up again. He could no longer feel his father's impatient spirit. Urgency no longer gnawed at the roots of his heart.

His father wasn't the only one freed.

Tonight Thorken would sup with the gods at long last. Tomorrow, the mountain would cease rumbling with vengeance.

The squeeze of Reia's fingers around his offered comfort. She leaned into him. "Your father is at rest now. I can feel it."

Bayne gave a weary nod.

Ania moved off, her cheeks bone dry. But pain radiated from her eyes.

He'd lost a father, true, but Thorken had had centuries to guide him from cubhood into warghood. The father had not abandoned the son.

The ache of loss was different for a mate. For Ania, Thorken's death was the infinite torment of a severed limb. But worse, as all soul wounds were. A survivable loss, maybe, but forever crippling.

Bayne clenched his jaw. Swallowing the ache, he turned to glance down at Reia's upturned face. A flake of ash had settled on her pale brow like a kiss.

His chest tightened. "Thorken would have approved of you," he murmured and pressed his forehead to hers. "Your iron backbone, most of all."

"Thank you," she whispered. Eyes glazed, her underlip gave a slight wobble. Her eyes darted to his mother briefly. "I wish the same could be said of Ania."

He brushed his thumb across her brave underlip. "Give my mother time."

But she shook her head. "Some wounds time cannot heal." Her eyes pierced him with sharpest poignancy. "A thousand years couldn't mend my heart if I lost you."

His jaw tightened. He could get no words past the animal knot in his throat. Instead, he kissed the inside of her hand. A fierce kiss met with parted lips and flushed cheeks.

Life came with little certainties. But he would cherish whatever time with her he was allotted. Before death dealt the final farewell.

He'd never forgiven his brother, Thresh, for leaving Ruinik's Hek. Abandoning the pack. Running away. But now, having found his own mate... The weight of insight that such a bond allowed finally made him understand Thresh's need to escape.

It wasn't right. Nor was it courageous. But Bayne understood his brother now. And with such empathy, came the stirrings of deep guilt. Abiding here, with naught but memories of a dead mate, would be the greatest torture.

If Reia had taught him anything, it was that meeting the glare of your enemy denied that foe much of his power. How many times had she rendered him powerless? And in the end she'd even faced the water for him.