"Watch her, Aron," the chestnut-haired woman behind him whispered. "I recognized her when she walked in. She admitted to shooting that man’s finger off. She's dangerous."
I was, but soon I wouldn’t be.
Wait. The poison in my pocket. As soon as I dropped my bow and arrows, I could—
Two men lunged forward and yanked my weapons away from me.
“You’re taking too damn long,” one of them shouted into my face. “What are you doing, planning something?”
Yes I was, but now the timing was all wrong. The crowd pressed in like vultures from all sides.
The chestnut-haired woman nudged the man out of the way, a smirk on her face that dripped into her voice. “What are you hiding in Misa’s coat you stole?” She stepped forward, brave now that she thought me defenseless, and ripped open my coat at the collar.
“No!” I screamed.
Sasha tumbled free, and the group gasped as they shrank away from her. But as a cornered wolf, as a very good girl, she lashed out at the nearest stranger—the woman who’d torn my coat. Sasha dove for her ankles, and the woman shouted in pain. Then Sasha zipped sideways, dodging between several legs toward the stairs.
“After it,” a man shouted.
“Don’t you dare,” I shot back. I threw myself toward her, but a wall of people blocked my way.
Feet thundered after her. As soon as Sasha spotted the stairs’ incline in front of her, our shared vision blinked out.
A desperate shudder trembled down my spine. Now I was truly blind and alone. My wolf pup was in danger, my wolves were in danger, and it was up to me to get them out.
“What else are you hiding in that coat of yours?” the woman asked me.
Too many hands grabbed at it and yanked.
“Stop it! Get away from me!” The thick fabric pulled and ripped as I tried to keep it around me, tried to wrestle my hands into my pockets. If this coat were taken from me, I’d only have my threadbare one for winter, and no poison. Then, I would’ve truly lost everything.
My pulse raged between my ears. Tears scorched my eyes. If I drew their attention to the poison now, they’d probably make me drink it. They’d find it themselves any second.
The front door burst open. Gunfire crashed into the ceiling, making everyone jump and freeze including me.
"Guns on the floor," a feminine voice barked. "Kick them over to me. Now."
Shay. I’d recognize that strange accent anywhere.
They did as she said without question.
"Nobody move, not even an inhale," Shay ordered. "Except you of course, Aika. I do believe that’s your bow and arrows on the bar top to your left."
I could’ve kissed her I was so grateful.
"Where have you been?" My voice wobbled some as I pulled my coat tight around me. Still, I felt too bare, too vulnerable, and not because the buttons had been ripped free.
"Climbing down from my window after I discovered the door was locked from the inside,” she said casually. “You?”
I skated my hands over the grainy wood, my fingertips eventually finding the comfort of my weapons. “Here and there. How’s Gibby?”
"She’ll be fine. You'll find what you’re looking for upstairs, and not one single person will follow. But since most things here are locked, you'll need a key."
“Thank you, Shay.”
“Any time.”
No one was coming downstairs with Sasha, either because they’d heard the gunshots down here or they couldn’t find her. I prayed with all my might that she’d hidden like I’d told her to in these types of situations, and hidden well.
I nocked an arrow and then swept my aim over every single person here. Much to their credit, the crowd stood frozen. Nobody moved.
Before I spoke, I tried to control my breathing, tried to make myself appear like they hadn’t rattled me a bit, tried to make my point as sharp as possible. "Where's the woman who runs this place? Misa, is that her name?"
No one said a word.
So I released an arrow right over their heads, heard it whistle through the air and hit the back wall with a loud twangggg.
“The next one goes through someone’s forehead,” I spat. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
Still by the door, Shay chuckled. “Oh, they won’t. You’ve scared them too good.”
A man to my right hissed through his teeth, clearly not pleased two women had gotten the better of him. "There's a trapdoor behind the bar and underneath the rug."
Shay shifted toward me with a question on her breath.
"I got it." With the rage brimming underneath my flesh, there would be no more missteps, working eyes or no.
"We'll just hang out up here until you come back, then," Shay said.
"Don't hurt her!" an old man's voice called from the back of the room, weak and trembling. "Misa's the light of what's left of this town. She'd never hurt no one."
"Wrong," I snapped, and the word echoed across the room. My mouth opened and closed to spew more. My whole being shook with the need to prove him wrong, but there was no time. Besides, no one cared. No matter what I said or did, I'd drawn myself as the villain in this town. So might as well keep playing the part.
Relying on memory and what the ends of my lowered bow bumped into, I rounded to the back of the bar, empty except for me. Maybe the barkeep was through the trapdoor too. As fast as I could, I flipped back the rug and felt for a latch. Unlocked. No key required. I opened the door with barely a squeak. Damp, dusty air wafted out, and a square-shaped hole with a ladder met my seeking foot. I had no idea what else—or who—was down there.
Something clunked on the bar top. "Take a gun," Shay whispered. "You say the word, and I'll herd these people outside, block the door, and help you. Hell, I'll go down there for you."
I slid the gun toward me and pocketed it even though I'd never felt natural around guns. Yes, they rang my ears when I relied so much on my hearing, but they were also such cold, impersonal things that my sense of touch recoiled from.
"No." Maybe I had something more to prove. A confident villain with a foolproof plan, I supposed. A blind girl who didn't need eyes to find what she was looking for. I needed to be the one to make the point, though, loud and clear so no one ever forgot. I lowered myself toward the ladder.
But when my foot hit solid earth beneath the trapdoor, I nearly scrambled back up. Confident women didn't need to make points, did they? Confident women knew when they needed help. We were on a time crunch, though, and as much as I trusted Shay, I didn’t trust the others. In here, she had an excellent view of the stairs, of anyone who might come down them, namely Faust. She'd stop him if he did.
My ears burned as I took a step forward, nocking another arrow and pulling it halfway back. My feet whispered over earth that had a slight give and pulled a little at my boots. The air tasted like old, spilled wine, sour and musty. I counted my steps as I went, feeling, listening…smelling. A faint whiff of peonies drifted on the stale air.
"Give me the key." My voice, clear and demanding, slashed the silence apart.
From the echo, I guessed there wasn’t much down here. It felt wide open, baring me completely and with nothing to dodge behind for cover.
Something rustled from deeper within the basement and off to the right, a sound like whispering fabric.
I kept straight and blanked my face of anything but rage so I wouldn't let on I'd heard.
Was Misa armed? Was she aiming a cocked gun at my head as I neared?
"Did Faust pay you to signal him and his men if we arrived?"
Someone exhaled, from behind me near the ladder, slow so as not to stir the air much at all. Not Misa. I would've heard her dress slip past me.
We weren't alone down here.
My heart stumbled and my steps hesitated. I was surrounded by the unknown, an easy target to pick off. And if there were at least two snakes down in this pit, there could be even more.
"Is his payment going to be worth your life?" I con
tinued.
I'd almost made it to where I'd heard her dress. She must be close, watching with as much intensity as I listened.
Something whistled close to my head. I ducked. Strands of my hair breezed across my face, carrying the scent of sweet peonies directly from the right. Before another swing to my skull, I lunged sideways shoulder first. It buried into soft fabric and curvy flesh, straight into her chest from the feel of it. She slammed backward into a wall, and my momentum pinned her there. Whatever weapon she'd had clattered against the wall as it fell. Metal on wood. A gun, probably.
"Who else is down here?" I crushed my forearm against her throat, my ears prickling for anything creeping up behind me.
"N-no one," she sputtered.
"I'm blind, not stupid," I said, recalling exactly what I’d said to Lager—before I shot his finger off.
The steps on the ladder clattered as someone ran up them. Not Faust. He'd never run from a captured mouse, even if she didn't stay captured for very long.
"No one is down here anymore." Raw defeat edged her voice, and then turned poisonous a half second later. "Faust would've killed me if I hadn't done it."
"Where is he now?"
"Gone. He left here in a hurry after you arrived and headed northwest.”
I wasn’t so sure I believed her, but I pictured the map Grady had stolen when we were here last. There had been three circles drawn in the northwest corner. I didn’t know what they meant, but they had to mean something.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Shay said softly.
“So tell me.”
A long pause, as if that wasn’t quite the reaction she expected. “Every time he comes here, he threatens me, threatens my employees and customers and expects all of us to fall in line like obedient puppies. If we don't…” She sighed and her dress did too. “He had a favorite girl here once, but she saw through him and avoided him. She was my niece, like a daughter to me. I tried everything to keep him away from her, but she ran away to Margin and sold herself as a slave just to rid him out of her life. I paid her well, and even money wasn’t enough to keep her here. She was given away for free, like that could ever be someone’s worth, and she became his slave. When he was done with her, he gave her to one of his men.” She swallowed loudly. “She didn't just die. She was tortured."
"By Gabriel."
"You know him?"
"I'll meet him soon enough."
"Careful when you do,” she warned. “Faust plays. Gabriel…eats."
My stomach churned. From what it sounded like, Thomas had given Gabriel a literal taste of his own medicine, but would that be enough to render Gabriel useless since he now had Archer?
"From what I know of Lager,” Misa continued, “he takes.”
“And I hunt."
She studied me for a moment as if deciding something, then, “I have the master key to the rooms, but you’ll need a separate key that’s inside Faust’s room to free your man. His room is the room you saw me lock." She dropped the key into my waiting palm, which was surprisingly heavy.
Was this another trap she was leading me into, or was she genuinely trying to help? She seemed to hate Faust almost as much as I did, though, and with him not here, she wasn’t under his thumb.
"Thanks." I started to turn toward the ladder.
"I— I'm sorry the world is like this for us women. Hard. Cold. Abusive and monumentally unfair."
"If you make your point sharp enough, it doesn't have to be." I pocketed the key, and when it clinked against the jar of poison, an idea struck. “You have wine down here.”
"So?"
“Is there enough for all of Faust’s men?”
“Of course.”
“Is there someone who can deliver it to them? Like as a gift? You said he headed northwest.” The words rushed out as the plan took root. He couldn’t have gotten too far, so it just might work.
“I can find someone. Why?”
"So I can make my point sharper. Just don’t let the delivery leave before I do." I hurried toward the ladder, and at my sixteenth step, I reached out and placed my hand on one of the ladder's rungs directly in front of my face. "Thank you for the coat. It helped keep me alive."
“You’re welcome… I’ll get your wine ready.”
She didn't follow as I made my way up, didn't protest as I shut the trapdoor but left it unlocked and covered it once again with the heavy rug. Maybe she realized we were more alike than different, both of us born into a cruel world that had cast us aside because of our genders. Survival had become a chore, but we'd done the best we could with what we had.
Until the day came when I had nothing, and now I would scream the loudest until my point was heard.
"Everything okay?" Shay asked from in front of the bar.
As soon as I stood, agitated murmurs filled the room.
"Never better."
"You killed her, didn't you?" the old man yelled. "Didn't you?"
Without a word, I hooked the key out from my pocket and let it swing at my side as I strode past them. The man began to blubber, and his pain slashed my heart in two. This wasn't who I'd set out to be, but if it made people fear me enough to stay out of my way, then so be it.
"Don't be too long, or I'll start to worry," Shay called after me.
"No need." I started for the stairs, and as soon as I was out of sight behind the wall, I barreled up them as fast as I could two steps at a time.
Soon, the sound of Sasha's cries made that three steps at a time. If someone had heard her, they didn't care. Most were downstairs anyway, but if those who had chased her upstairs had done something to her…
Panic bit at my heels as I pocketed the key again and nocked an arrow. At the top, I faced the hall straight ahead, but her cries came from the right. She scratched at a door and whimpered, and the instant my vision became hers, her cries grew more desperate.
"Are you all right?" I rushed toward her and knelt while she tried to dig underneath the door.
Faust's door. She’d been wriggling to get out of my coat earlier up here, though much, much quieter than now, probably because she’d sensed something then too.
"Ronin," I breathed. "You smell Ronin." My throat knotted as I scooped Sasha up. My chest ached at how deeply my little girl missed her sister. It destroyed me every time we'd been so close to getting her back—and failed, over and over.
"Look," I said, my voice cracking as I traded my bow and arrow for the key. "We'll get Grady and Thomas back for you, and they'll help us get Ronin and Archer back too. You know they will."
She calmed a little, but not much. With her help, I closed the distance between the lock and the key, then stopped. Was this another trap, another ambush, another lie? I strained to hear anything beyond my wild heartbeat and Sasha's pitiful whimpers, but there was nothing else. I set her down behind me, just in case. Then I unlocked the door. It swung open silently, and an array of scents wafted out—wet fur, sex, blood, opium smoke, and moonshine.
Sasha waddled between my legs and peeked out from underneath my coat. The room was a disaster. Chairs with missing legs lay on their sides, the bed was stripped, the sheets bloody and wadded in the corner, and moonshine jars—Baba's jars—dripping what was left of their contents onto the wooden floor.
Whatever had happened in here, it sure looked as though Faust had been in a struggle, and hurt. Or…Ronin. Oh God, not Ronin. Sasha’s gaze returned again and again to the blood. If he'd hurt Ronin—
Sasha released a pained whimper. My heart breaking with each slam, I picked her up again and pushed the door closed behind me.
"Hush, Sasha, hush," I whispered into the top of her head.
Bile skated over my tongue, but I forced it back down. Even if Ronin were hurt, Faust needed her alive to find the ruby caves. He'd do everything in his power to keep her alive. He would, even someone as monstrous as he was.
"Help me find the key, sweet girl, and we'll get out of here faster."
She went limp in
my arms as she so often did with my continuous kisses, her gaze steady on the bloody sheets. I couldn't tell if she was calming down or giving up, though, since she knew more with her wolf senses than I did. My eyes burned as I turned her away. My determination stumbled, but I squared my shoulders and vowed I'd keep it together for her sake. For all our sakes.
I followed Sasha's eyes toward a small table in the corner, miraculously still standing with an empty water pitcher and two glasses. No key. What if Faust had taken it with him?
Turning slowly, I scanned everything while still kissing Sasha to keep her calm, but sped past the bloody sheets—
My stomach jolted at the same time Sasha whipped her head to the pile in the corner again. There. Something metal caught the candlelight from the wall, just the tip of something that didn't belong. I lunged forward and whipped the sheets to the side. The key, wet with fresh blood.
What if I had this all wrong and it was Grady's blood?
My nerves squirming at the thought, I picked the key up and pocketed it. My fingers came away sticky, a familiar feeling since they'd been covered in wolf shifter blood all too often. Absently, I wiped them down my coat as I crossed to the door, my feet leaden. I'd been so eager to rescue Grady, but now…I dreaded what I'd find.
Something clicked.
The door. Someone was coming inside.
Shit. I hadn't locked the door after me.
The door cracked open.
Dread sealed my lungs closed as the door opened wider. I spun behind it. As I did, my bow and quiver slipped off my shoulders, but I caught them before they exploded noise through the room. My back hit the wall as the door opened farther. Slow, heavy footsteps entered the room.
I didn’t dare move. I clutched Sasha so tightly to my chest, my arms ached. She stayed motionless, quiet, and peered between my fingers.
Then, we saw him. He strode into the room past the open door and stopped, looking around the ransacked room. Dark scruffy beard half hidden underneath a red scarf tied around his neck, a beaked nose, a large mole on top of his right eyebrow. I'd committed him to memory when he'd thrown Sasha at me in Faust's game of Catch, Kill, Release.
Blood roared beneath my flesh in blistering waves. Vengeance chewed through my veins until I shook with the urge to end him right here.
Winter's Rage (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 3) Page 9