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

The Reckoning

Reia gripped her dagger tight, her limbs watery. Snarling deep in his chest, Bayne darted towards the bear. But as the bear brought its boulder paw down to swipe at the wargrex, he feinted and rolled to the side. For a warg of such bulk and broad muscle, he moved and swerved like a hawk.

Slowly, Reia backed away to the edge of the cliff. Gaze frantic, she scoured the bleak upland for something—anything—to snag her hope on. The tree line offered some promise, but the watchful forest crooked its hoary claws like a spider to a fly. She wouldn't survive long out there without a cohort. For better or worse, Bayne was her cohort now. If she wanted to live, she had to guard his back.

His grunt of pain had her flinching. By the breadth of a whisker, Bayne narrowly dodged the bear's guillotine jaws. She had to do something!

But the outland gave her nothing. Her eyes slipped and tripped over naught but vast, plummeting windblown rock at her back, cut deadly smooth by prevailing storms. Except there was one stain of color in sight—a small, useless rowan tree growing on the only foothold in sight. Its berries stood out like tiny blood blisters.

She gripped her neck, head shaking. It couldn't be something useful like nightshade berries, could it? No, it had to be pointless, fucking rowan berries. A rowan had no other use than its sour berries. So unless she wanted to give the bear a case of the trots, her only recourse was the blade in her hand. A weapon smaller than the bear's forefangs.

The sound of a bone-jarring wallop shook her with tremors.

Waves of white clouds had surged in from nowhere like a tide of angry whitecaps. The swirling chop blotted out all but the last few feet of icy crag so that the rowan seemed to grow out of the lapping mist.

Her heart plunged into the swirling mass of white, her wind-tossed hair carving welts in her face.

A painful roar blasted over the cliffs, nearly knocking her off balance. She stumbled back from the edge, jerking her eyes to where the two combatants tumbled on the overhang. Only moments before she'd been kissing the warg right there. His fangs seized the bear's fleecy neck, wrenching his head in vicious zig-zags. The bear roared again, aiming blow after blow at the warg. Its pelt was too thick, and the warg's fangs drew no blood that Reia could see. Yet Bayne was covered in blood from where the bear's long claws had torn his pelt.

"Fuck!" Her mouth was dry, her stare fixed. The blur of tearing flesh and the awful snarling sliced her innards to ribbons. But she couldn't help Bayne—it was madness to charge into the fray. One swipe of claws—from either beast—and she'd be dead. If she did nothing, however, Bayne would die.

And she'd be next.

"Fuck!" she screamed again, inching towards the beastly ravel of fur and fangs. With another curse, she kept herself small and low, looking for an opening. If only she could approach the bear from behind. It proved impossible, though, for every time she moved in, the bear spun around.

It'd managed to knock Bayne off twice already. And each time, the wargrex's movements became more and more jerky. But he was back at the bear's throat, hanging on like dangling flesh as the bear reared and tossed, raking claws down Bayne's back.

Reia loosed a cry of fury, her movement hagridden. Her breaths rasped out as she tried, again and again, to sneak up on the bear. And every time she was thwarted.

With a gut-wrenching yelp, Bayne was flung from the bear's neck a third time. The ice bear shook its pelt and galloped towards the warg, its jutting lower jaw like a spade full of fangs.

Another futile shout wasted, Reia bent down to snatch a sharp rock. It filled her trembling palm, the weight solid in her grasp. For a second, it steadied her hand. Her eyes locked on the bear's broad skull. Gritting her teeth, she catapulted the rock as the bear lunged for Bayne.