The boat sliced through sheets of tawny reeds, landing on the rocky banks with a soft thud. Salix snatched her feet out of the way as Briar bolted for the lowering footbridge.

Face blenched, Briar sprinted headlong toward the cover of amber shrubs nearby.

The large black warg upfront cocked his great head, watching her with strange wolfish amusement.

Salix peered over the reeds, her gaze locking onto the wargrex.

His large, golden eyes cut along the perimeter. The tall horn-like ears twitched, alert. At length, he dropped his head to drink. His tongue was long and red, scooping up great mouthfuls of water.

The hull of the last boat slid onto the bank, blocking her view of him. Fascinated, Salix sidestepped, craning to see him around the obtruding boat.

Rath sloshed into the river up to his belly, still guzzling the water. The other wargs were doing the same thing, their manner playful. Even the stub-tail brooding grey warg, although with slightly less enthusiasm.

A smile crept up her face as she watched Rath sag into the water like a great dog to roll and dunk himself. Suddenly, he lifted his massive paw, leaving it hovering over the water. With a forceful swipe, he slammed it down into the sparking chop and then drove his head down below the surface. When he jerked his snout out, there was a panicked fish writhing in his mouth. He swallowed it in one great gulp and strode out of the water.

These disarming antics delighted her. The corner of her mouth jerked up in surprise. They were magnificent.

The water looked so inviting and cool that she was half tempted to join them. But, one by one, the wargs stalked out of the river, shaking torrents of water from their coats.

A blush crept up her cheeks as she took a few tentative steps toward Rath.

She was trying to rehearse a greeting in her head, her hands gesticulating inconspicuously. We've met many times, Har Kan. Her lips pursed with a nervous smile. Yes, in the Great Library, in fact. Many a stern priest has tripped under your silent glares. She tucked a lock behind her ear and giggled, imagining him being amused by that.

"What are you doing?" Lina's voice burst upon her unfolding daydream like a cold, dispelling rain.

Salix plunged her hands into the folds of her skirts, her eyes flaring with guilt. She spun around to face her cousin."Nothing!"

Lina raised a brow. "Well, you look ridiculous."

Salix swallowed, her face blooming with heat. From the periphery, she noticed Rath prowling toward her, his eyes fixed on the opposite river bank.

His muscles rippled beneath his velvet coat as he loped closer and closer.

Salix's heart groped up into her throat, her belly clenching. She licked her lips, moving to intercept him. She didn't know what she would say, but she'd been waiting years to say something!

As he neared, his size doubled. Tripled. He was massive.

Her eyes grew wide just to fill her sight with him. She watched his golden eyes, slow as honey, shift from the opposite riverbank to settle heavily on her. He seemed to understand she wanted to say something.

She became aware that Lina was speaking, but her ears were full of the strange, intoxicating buzzing. She was aware only of Rath and the way he'd begun to slow, sensing she wished to speak.

She knew her mouth was parted. Knew she'd stepped into his path. She knew her body bespoke her wish and he was answering with a gentle tilt of his head, his ears lifting high and his eyes keen. Curious. Potent.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Her tongue was tied. An intense heat wrapped itself like a constrictor around her brain.

Rath waited a second longer before he loped past her, his eyes roving up her wretched, burning face.

She whipped her head around to watch him trot away, his powerful, wolfish gait intimidating. All too soon, his brindle coat melted into the tall grass.

Her shoulders slumped as she watched him disappear. She'd frozen up! Except with powerful heat—she'd melted into a useless puddle! He would now think her some addled twit!

Just then, the captain appeared at her side with a handful of golden fruit. Bruised fruit the size of plums. "Hungry, ladies?" The corners of his eyes creased gallantly as he handed Salix and then Lina the curious forage.

"What is it?" asked Lina, taking a delicate bite of the fruit.

Neither of them commented on Salix's sudden humiliating impotence.

With a shaky hand, she accepted the offered fruit and bit down, eager to do something useful and distracting.

"It's marula fruit," the captain answered, watching the juice spill down Salix's chin as her teeth sank into the sweet flesh."The wargs make sour beer from it, so I'm told. Don't eat too much, mind," he teased, "It's strong stuff. You won't be walking straight after your third bite."

Salix mumbled her thanks, blushing anew under the hot press of the young captain's azure gaze. She swallowed, assuaged by the strange, fermented sweetness chasing away the bitter tang of embarrassment from the pit of her belly. Unnerved by his gaze, she took another bite.

"Why, Captain," Lina purred in a silky voice, "you aren't trying to get us inebriated on our first day, are you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied, winking. His teeth were white and straight, his sky-pale eyes captivating.

Briar appeared, looking perky again. "I think I just drowned a colony of ants." She breezed past with a light step.

"Two minutes, ladies," said the captain, his smile lingering a moment longer on Salix before he headed off to speak to a group of officers from the last boat.

"Did you see the way he looked at me?" said Lina, hooking her arm in Salix's. "Like I was a juicy marula fruit."

"Ladies!" Bowen hollered, glaring at them as he helped Briar back into the boat. "Less prattle—your two minutes are already up!"

Salix hurriedly finished off another whole marula. "Yes, Father!" Her belly burned with delicious warmth. Stealthy bubbles were already working their way into her brain, tickling behind her eyes.

"Good, gods, Highwater!" Baron Pursey was disembarking clumsily from the next boat, his face purple. "It'll take me two whole minutes just to get off this blasted barge!"

Lina, meanwhile, steered Salix toward a thicket that promised some privacy. "We'll just avoid Bri's piss moat, shall we?" They moved a safe distance from where Briar had exited.

"Not too far."

"Don't worry, Lixie, I'm practically High Lady, they'll wait until I'm good and ready to leave."

Salix nodded, dubious. "I was late this morning, cousin, or have you forgotten? I've already exhausted my father'sforbearance and goodwill today, thank you very much."

"As to that," Lina purred, "I waited in the Great Hall forever, you know. I was really quite vexed at your inconsideration, I don't mind telling you."

"My...what?" Salix halted. "But we agreed to meet in the Great Library!"

"No, my dearest, don't be silly," Lina replied, exasperated. "It's so out of the way, I'd never have suggested the Library."

Salix hobbled, glaring down at her offending boots, feeling foolish, indeed. "I suppose I might've misunderstood—"

"I forgive you." Lina leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper. "Now about that captain. He's very handsome. You like him, too, don't you?"

"Well..."

"I've noticed how you keep watching him."

"Actually, I was watching—"

"No, no, don't try to deny it." Lina made a tsk-ing sound. "Though you'll never catch and hold a man's interest with the way you blubber and blush all the time."

Salix glanced back at the group, her brows pinching. "This is far enough, Lina. The prefect said not to wander far."

"No, he didn't, he said to stay together. Which you and I are doing..." Lina clucked her tongue, shaking her head. "There you go, mishearing again."

Salix blinked, her brain murky with bubbly warmth. "Still..."

Lina peeked back at the river. "Nothing to be scared of, nothing would dare trifle with us—not with our warg protectors about."

Salix narrowed her eyes as a dark shadow drifted through the long grass. The black warg? But she'd just seen him at the river, hadn't she?

As though on cue, the large black warg from the river loped past, heading inland. His Greta yellow eyes flicked briefly to them. Gods, he was massive up close.

But if he was here, what black warg had she just glimpsed in the spear grass?

Salix blanched. Maybe she'd eaten too much marula. Her eyes were running amok. She was seeing more black wargs than there were. But just to be sure... "Cousin, are there four wargs or five out here?"

Lina pulled Salix a little further until they couldn't see the others at all. Her cousin glared down at her. "Four, you ninny." Slate blue eyes narrowed peevishly. "No more marula fruit for you, you can barely tolerate a glass of wine as it is."

That was true. "This is far enough," she said, digging her heels in.

"You don't want the captain getting a flash of your backside, do you?" Lina winked. "Or do you?"

Salix rubbed her arms. "What if one of them is watching?" A prickle of awareness raced up her nape. She looked around but could see no one.

"Why on earth would they watch you take a piss?"

That was a fair point.

With one last look around, Lina nodded, appearing satisfied. She hiked her skirts up and squatted down. The chirping cicada song paused as Lina sighed. "Get to it, Lixie," said Lina, letting loose a loud, gushing stream. "No one's watching, least of all that handsome captain, mores the pity."

"I don't care about the captain," she muttered.

"Your blushes say otherwise."

Salix sighed through her nose, eyes shooting skyward.

"Take it from me, sweet cousin," said Lina, "a man wants what he cannot have—you must drive him wild with wanting you. And the trick is to keep him wild. Keep a man guessing."

"That sounds awfully confusing."  Salix darted a furtive gaze about before she squatted down, too. "At any rate, I was just being polite to the captain." It was the wargrex she was fascinated by.

A strange, potent blush seeped into her cheeks. She swallowed, startled by the feeling of her body unanchored and on the brink of floating away. Her palms slammed into the ground as she lost her balance. The gods curse that blighty marula fruit!

"Politeness leads to frigidness," Lina was saying, her voice penetrating the buoyant fizz in Salix's brain. "The badge of every little virgin—frigidness. No man wants a frigid fuck."

Salix felt her ears burn red. "Lina!"

Lina shook out her skirts as she stood up. "Careful you don't sprout a set of teeth between your legs."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't want a warg-eater in your cunny, do you?" Lina said, her giggle loud as bells. "For want of use, your maidenhead will ossify into jaws of steel. Why do you think your aunt's celibate? No man would dare trifle with the set of iron fangs under her formidable skirts." More raucous giggling ensued.

Salix threw her cousin a beseeching glare. "Hush, they'll hear you!"

Lina made a pair of jaws with clawed hands and crowed, "Chomp, chomp, cousin!"

It was hard to swallow that analogy. The image of a steel trap between her legs horrified Salix. The warg-eaters that hang in the armory, with their awful clamping iron jaws, were used as orken deterrents these days. Not to kill wargs as in days of yore.

"What man wants his cock snapped in twain," Lina continued.

"You've made your point," Salix grumbled, dropping her skirts as she straightened with an unsteady wobble, her spine stiff.

The sight of a black face and glaring yellow eyes in the grass transfixed Salix with sudden horror. She froze, the blood rushing down to her viscera. "Lina!"

"What is it?" Lina turned to follow her gaze. "What's wrong?"

Salix blinked to the space where deranged yellow eyes had been a second earlier. The grass was unmoving, however. As though nothing had been there at all. "There was a warg just there, I swear!" She squeezed her eyes shut to clear the thick fog in her brain.

Lina shook her head. "I think the heat and the marula fruit has boiled your nut, cousin." Lina patted Salix's cheek with a surprisingly cold hand and led her away.

But Salix's scalp rippled with disease as her cousin led her away. She glared over her shoulder at the spot where she'dseen the black warg. Something warned her it wasn't the marula fruit playing tricks on her eyes. And it hadn't been the regal black warg. Imposing as he was, the black warg exuded a calming protective mien.

No, the yellow eyes she'd seen had been decidedly cunning. And the black shadow of his bulk was far larger than the other wargs.

Salix shivered.

A phantom claw scraped up her spine as she and Lina retreated to the boats. A shadowy presence had made itself known. One that belied Lina's dismissive chatter and rebuking denial.