She had taken off running, just as he’d wanted her to, and yet even as he was driven forward by the thrill of the chase, determined not to lose sight of the blue and white girl ahead of him, it was Warg who soon found himself caught up in the game Saphris was playing.
And thus, the hunter had become the prey.
He had seethed at first, and fell to storming off whenever Saphris so much as looked at him with a glint of smugness in her delicate face - real or perceived - but the truth was it was part of an even bigger game, one that Warg found harder and harder to keep playing.
As a stallion, formerly of the Lagoon, the Peak was meant to be a prison, and he wasn’t supposed to enjoy being there. But as the seasons passed, and he got to spend more time with Saphris, and watch over her daughter as she grew, Warg found within himself no desire to leave.
Not until now, when, having distanced himself from the rest of the Peak mares during the fall season, Warg woke one day to find Zadi being watched over by her grandmother, while Saphris was conspicuously absent. Deeply irritable, Warg spent the better part of a day ranging through the valleys, searching all the places he thought Saphris might be.
But he couldn’t find her anywhere.
Not until she wanted to be found, apparently. From where he’d perched alone on a rocky outcrop low on the mountainside, so he could brood in peace, his green eyes caught sight of the flashy white of her coat that always seemed so pure and bright to him. She was returning home, and the dun stallion wasted no time in scrambling down the slope to intercept her, blocking her path.
"Where were you?" he snapped, ears tilting back in clear displeasure that she had wandered off where he wasn't free to follow. Warg lingered there, all stiff, fighting to keep the possessive aggression from his stance lest one of the other Peak mares happen to catch sight of him and mistake it as hostility.
"Saphris," her name was a growled warning, though there was a flash of concern in the depths of his wild green eyes. Instantly Warg looked in the direction she had appeared from, as if in search of a stallion pursuing her, bristling like she was his to protect, rather than a member of the Peak herd of mares who defended their own. But there was no thunder of hooves, no bellowed challenge.
Just Saphris, with the scent of water and earth and the musk of a stranger all over her.
Breath hitching unevenly as his chest heaved, Warg's head snapped around and he leaned in, muzzle trailing over her skin, searching for any injuries, as though that would make it make sense to him - if she was hurt and hindered in escape, or if she was attacked… The very thought had him trembling with rage, and he crowded in against her, as if to shield her from the world, or keep himself from falling apart, his voice a low rumble in his chest. "Saphris…"
|