Rowan sat on the edge of the bridge, her toes skimming the lake water. She was painting ripples on the surface, watching the circles race outward. And then the clouds opened up, distorting her canvas with a rushing deluge.

"Not again," she muttered, blinking upward. The sky had been dark for days, heavy with ceaseless, winter rain. She loved the rain, but not when it was turning Carthyrk into a miserable quagmire. The brook had since become a river and the lake so swollen that, in the fog, she couldn't see the far side at all.

The mirok loved it, though. His large green eyes peered up at her from beneath the chop, his gaze expectant. He glanced pointedly at the pail of meat beside her hip.

She laughed, licking the rain off her lips, and threw another large chunk of saber troll into the water. "Here you go, Grom."

The mirok snapped the chunk up midair, splashing her already sopping face.

"Grom, is it?" Thrax appeared beside her, dropping a thick coat over her shoulders.

She nodded and threw her pet another morsel. "I asked him what his name was and that's what he replied. Grom." She glanced up through her wet lashes as him. The scar on his cheek made him somehow even more handsome. Dashing in a dangerous and smoldering way. Her pulse skipped as he knelt beside her.

"So the mirok can speak now, hmm?" It was obvious he was trying not to laugh at her.

"Ask him yourself, if you don't believe me."

"All right." He turned to the mirok, smirking. "Just so there's no misunderstanding, let's hear your name from your own...lips."

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Say please."

He rolled his eyes. "Please."

The mirok raised its jaws just above the waterline, lower teeth jutting up from its overbite. The clear membranes flicked sideways across its eyes, a deep rumble blasting from his chest. Something that sounded like, "Grrohhm."

Thrax's brows shot up.

"I told you," she said smugly.

"It sounds like Rrrohm to me."

"Yes, but I can't roll my r's like Grom does." She threw another piece of succulent meat straight into Grom's waiting mouth. "Tell him, Grom. Do you prefer Grom or...Rrrohm?"

The mirok grinned that strange serpentine grin of his and merely uttered another, "Grrohhm."

"Well," Thrax muttered, shaking his head, "that clears that up." He huffed out an amused sigh and relaxed back against a pilon. His hair looked black, the wet waves plastered against his skull. The rain continued, relentless. He crossed his long legs, calf over shin. But, no sooner had he relaxed, than his body jerked upright with shock. "Brek's teeth!"

A large pearly head appeared from beneath the pier, the body snaking languidly through the rain. A mirok twice Grom's length and breadth circled back around to face them. Thrax yanked Rowan back from the waterside, gaping at the female.

"She hasn't told me her name yet," Rowan said mildly, getting comfortable on his lap. She tossed the female a large chunk of meat and turned to glance up at her mate over her shoulder. His mouth was gaping and she was tempted to throw a piece between his jaws, too.

He stared at the female, a deep cleft forming between his brows. "When were you going to tell me?"

Rowan shrugged, collecting rain in the palm of her hand. "She only just appeared this morning. The outland is flooded, I suppose she thought it as good a time as any to find me." She smirked at him. "And now she's found herself a mate into the bargain."

He stroked his chin, eyeing the female somewhat warily. "Now you're a mirok matchmaker, too, eh?" He took her hand, despite that it reeked of troll, and kissed her upturned palm. "A woman of many talents, I see."

She leaned her head into the crook of his shoulder as he pulled her closer. "I hope they have lots of little mirok babies."

"The gods help us all." He was thoughtful a moment and then, "We'd have both the safest and the most deadly warg settlement in the outland."

She hadn't thought of that. "What's your name?" she asked the female, throwing the last of the meat to her.

The female caught the piece almost delicately and swallowed it in a swift gulp. She must've been fed a steady supply of vishi and eggs because she seemed so much larger. Or maybe Hessa's foul carcass had nourished her well.

"If you don't answer, I'm just going to call you Nixra because you remind me of the night goddess." The she-mirok had lived in that dark cavern likely for centuries and her scales were like Nixra's cascade of luminous, starlight hair.

"Nixra," Thrax echoed, watching the female. "Queen of the night, it suits her well."

The mirok didn't seem to object to the name. In fact, she glanced at Grom, mimicking his strange little grin. Although, hers was a little more terrifying.

"Grom likes her," she said.

Indeed, the red mirok had veritable love hearts wafting from his gaze as he watched the large female. Rowan couldn't blame him, Nixra was a beauty. The horns on her head and the thick ridges on her back were pristine ivory and her moonstone scales glistered in the muted light. Now that the troll meat was all gone, the pair sank below the lake, the rain drops effacing any sign of them.

"I wonder what they're doing down there." She really ought to learn to swim so that she could dive down after them. Maybe there was a mirok palace at the bottom of the lake.

Thrax pulled her tight against his chest and kissed the side of her neck. "I know exactly what they're doing right now."

She laughed and caught his next kiss with parted lips. Movement under the eave of a nearby house caught Rowan's notice. Thresh's longhouse loomed on the other side of the drinking hall. He wasn't alone.

Meera was on the tips of her toes, running her hand through his hair. Suddenly she ruffled it playfully, the rain swallowing whatever it was she said. But Thresh gave a bark of laughter and scooped her up. He'd been chivalrous at first but, the next moment, he had her draped over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Rowan didn't need preternatural hearing to catch Meera's happy squeal. They disappeared indoors after that.

Rowan sighed. "They are adorable together."

Thrax made a disapproving sound low in his chest. "It won't end well."

She lifted her finger to his lips, crosswise, to shush him.

But he nipped at her finger playfully, forcing her to curl her fingers or lose a digit between his fangs. "I'm serious, min skani, it won't end well for them."

"Yes, you said that already." Her shoulders dropped.

"They're not mates, there's no warg bond. She will grow old and die, and he'll still be in the prime of his life long after she'd gone."

Though her thumb was bare, she ran her forefinger over it as though twisting her father's ring. "What happened to his mate?"

Thrax was silent a long while. "He doesn't speak of her and I never pressed him. He joined my father's pack when he was very young, and his mate already dead. When I left Warrow to forge my own pack, Thresh and Torgon joined me. Thesta and barthac, too. Over the years, other wargs joined, too." He stroked her knee thoughtfully. They were both sopping wet from the rain, but neither of them cared. "The only thing I know for certain is that, like me, Thresh is a younger son. His birth pack is near North Gate. A place called Ruiniks Hek, a city of ice high in the mountains. His older brother, Bayne, is wargrex there."

"Is Bayne as charming as Thresh?"

Thrax snorted. "Thresh is the sweet-natured of the two."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh." His mouth flattened. "There's a sad history there—of madness and hate. Some tragedies have a way of twisting wargs into monsters. Bayne is such a one."

She shivered at the look on his face. "I'm almost too afraid to ask what—"

"Then don't, for I'm in no mood to tell a sad tale." He heaved a heavy sigh. "Anyway, you'll meet Bayne at some point, I'm sure. Wargs gather every tenth cycle on the Blood Moon. It's called Tungfolk—the meeting of packs. I wager our pack will grow after it is discovered we're immune to nixrath."

"Tungfolk? Sounds important."

"It's a chance for mates to find one another and for new alliances to be forged." He planted a hard kiss on her mouth and stood up. Without warning he yanked her up and slung her over his shoulders, just as Thresh had done to Meera.

"What're you doing?" she squealed.

He playfully bit the side of her thigh. "Oh, so it's only adorable when Thresh does this, eh?"

"No, you brute, you're doing it all wrong!"

"Min skani," he tutted, "that's not what you screamed last night. All night long."

Blushing furiously, she swatted his back. It was so brawny, she was sure her hand smarted far worse than his flanks. "You'd better not act like a savage once we get to West Gate." The mention of their going back to visit her old home did what not even the rain had been able to do.

His mood was visibly dampened as he set her down inside their dry hall. He fetched a thick blanket from one of the benches and wrapped it snugly around her shoulders. "You really want to spend Mothersnight with Elgret?"

"Call it unfinished business, Thrax."

His face darkened. "Merritt will be there."

"Yes." Her stomach hollowed. She still harbored much guilt over leaving him in the hive, and she wanted to make sure Shebol had returned him to his family in one, recognizable piece. Thrax had mediated between Elgret and Shebol for his release.

His nod was grim. "Hopefully the rains abate before then." His gaze narrowed. "Will you take Meera along?"

"No," she answered firmly. "She'll be showing by then and I'd rather not have her bear the brunt of any vicious slurs. Thresh will hear them and murder whoever is stupid enough to whisper against her." Meera's pregnancy was still a shock. Rowan had suffered under the belief that a mate bond was required for warg conception. They all had, even Thrax had been amazed. As for Thresh... He'd wandered around in shock for nigh a week after he'd found out his little human was carrying his child.

Meera was ecstatic. Thresh, too, now that the shock had worn off. That was all that mattered.

Thrax had explained that because Thresh's mate bond was forever severed, perhaps it was a sort of arrow slit the gods had devised. A mostly impregnable wall of fate that sometimes allowed for an aberrance to escape through that loophole in the event of death. It was too rare a thing—unheard of, in fact. So what other conclusion was there to draw? Wargs born out of bond were almost never heard of. Those born half human were rarer still.

As Thesta was fond of reminding them all, Maeda never made mistakes. The child was no accident of fate. The goddess was a tricksy crone, a loving mother, and a vengeful maid. Meera would bear Thresh's child. And then she would, goddess willing, live a long life. But Thrax was right, Meera would grow old, and she would die. Thresh and his child might linger centuries thereafter.

Life was so fickle and fleeting, sometimes even fragile. Less so if you were a warg, or bonded to one as Rowan was. But still, no one was truly immortal, and no one immune to death.

It was for that reason that she would make time for her lady mother. As cold as Elgret was, she was still and all Rowan's mother. Flesh and blood. They even looked the same.

Mothersnight seemed as apt a time as any to try to kindle a bond that'd been cold too long.