With one hand clenched around his bleeding neck, he lifted the other toward me and took a step.
"Five-step poison that I turned into four. So tell me”—I waved him forward—“how many steps will it take you?"
He took another and then another, gurgling and reaching for me. Louisa kept screaming.
Then, silent as snow, a huge hairy beast burst into the tent, a blur of teeth and claws. It plowed into Faust's back and crashed him into the side of the tent so half of it caved in all around us.
Thomas—snapping, tearing, breaking his brother, for good. Blood splattered and smeared, and I turned away fast, blocking Ronin’s vision with my body so I couldn’t see.
Louisa cowered on the other side of the tent, her screams echoing up into the night. She didn't fight as I took Ronin from her, didn't try to stop us. Didn't shift to try to defend her man. She must've known it would've been a losing fight.
With Ronin clawing up the side of my neck, I shot out of the collapsing tent through the front flap. My boots slipped in the snow as I started to spin toward the left.
Above the screams and growls behind me, a gun clicked about ten feet away from me.
I stopped—and Ronin stared into the eyes of a dead man.
Lager gazed back, trembling as he lay in the snow stained with his own blood. His gun aimed straight for Ronin, and my heart just behind her.
"Where…family…you cunt?" he croaked.
"Dead." I'd sworn I wouldn't kill him, but I didn’t promise I wouldn’t lie to him to torment him. Maybe it was a stupid thing to say to a man with a gun, but how good a shot could he be as his life drained away around him? "I killed them myself."
He screamed in rage.
Ronin was already twisting out of my arms when Lager fired. Just as I bent to catch her by the tail, part of the tent wall behind me exploded in a burst of fur where my head had been. Ronin wriggled free and ran off, and as I reached for her, another gunshot thundered.
Ronin's eyesight winked out of mine. She'd been running so fast to get away from me, she had to be fine.
My whole body numb with shock and cold, I fumbled with another arrow and nocked it.
Silence came from the tent. It came from everywhere, sifting over me as thick as the snowfall. Even Lager's rage had gone quiet.
"Ronin?" I called weakly. "Thomas?"
My vision slid back into place so I was staring at myself from the opposite direction Ronin had disappeared. Snowy feet padded up next to me, and Thomas's large body pressed against my thigh. I rubbed his head, craving his warmth and comfort, and something wet and sticky coated his fur.
"Are you…?" I swallowed. "That’s Faust’s blood? And Gabriel’s?"
He dipped his head in a nod as he crossed to stand in front of me.
"They’re dead?”
Another nod.
“And Lager? I-I don't know what happened."
Thomas flicked his gaze across the narrow valley. Lager lay there, unmoving, his gun arm stretched out in front of him. Behind him, a figure slowly emerged from the shadows. A figure with a gun dangling from fingertips that dripped a steady stream of blood. A figure with a scowl I loved to kiss and a bad limp.
"Grady," I whispered. Relief crushed into me hard, and I held to Thomas to keep my feet underneath me.
Blood covered Grady’s face and gleamed in the firelight. When his gunmetal eyes caught on something to his right, he slowed to a stop, his mouth falling open. Thomas looked, too, and there, like magic, stood Archer. He had Ronin bundled up in his blanket with him, and like every female who'd ever known him, she gazed up at him, completely mesmerized.
"Look who… Look who I found." His voice cracked, and he stumbled to his knees with his head bowed over her.
So there was something that could bring him to his knees—love.
I staggered toward him, my watery vision swinging between Thomas and Ronin's. Thomas and Grady joined us, and I'd never been surrounded by so much affection and devotion. A pack, once broken, now had a chance to heal, together. It had taken all of us and a fight to the death, but we'd done it. We’d defeated our enemies. We’d taken back what was ours. I couldn't stop hugging my wolves and didn't bother to stop the flow of tears.
“You’re okay?” I sobbed into Archer’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” he rasped, standing us both up shakily, “just had to throw up the moonshine cocktail Gabriel forced down me. Some shoes would be nice though.”
“If there’s anything left of Faust, I’m sure he won’t argue if you steal his boots.” Grady slapped him on the back, and they both winced.
I placed a hand on Grady’s shoulder, searching for the bullet hole to help stop the bleeding. My wolves needed patched up, and soon. We needed rest and comfort, rather than constant war and barely surviving.
"Thomas," a low, trembling voice said behind us.
When we turned, Louisa stood there, her long red hair swirling around her head and her white fur coat blending with the snow.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." She swallowed hard. “I left the greatest pack there ever was,” she said, her voice catching. “All I ever wanted were pups of my own, but I didn’t know it would go this…this far when I followed Faust. I'm sorry."
Hesitantly, she turned as if there were more to say, and then she strode into the snowfall, never to be seen by any of us again.
I let out a shuddery breath and dropped my head to Archer's shoulder, placed a bit more pressure on Grady’s wound, and wrapped my arm around Thomas's furry back. "The Crimson Forest is yours now, right?"
Thomas shifted and stood at his full height, his large black coat whipping behind him. Snow clung to his eyelashes and beard, such a beautiful threat. He hooked his scarred pinky around mine. "The Crimson Forest is ours now, Aika, including you. What say the rest of you?"
"Agreed," Archer said, then pressed a kiss to my forehead.
Grady gently squeezed my hand tighter to his shoulder. "Yeah. Definitely."
Ronin chose that moment to sneeze.
We laughed in relief, in love, but my laugh stopped short. I sucked in a breath and blinked hard, not at all sure what I was seeing.
When Ronin had sneezed, her front paws had splayed apart slightly and then contracted again as she continued to be putty in Archer's arms. I reached out for her paw, hoping she'd let me touch her while I borrowed her vision. I spread her toes—and my jaw fell open.
Caught between them was a little jagged ruby.
Chapter Thirteen
“They’re here.” Thomas gently pulled the ruby free from between Ronin’s toes and stared at it in his palm. “The ruby caves must be close. Archer, where did you find her.”
“Just over there behind a few of the tents.” Archer angled Ronin so I could see, but there was nothing there but trees cloaked with falling snow. Where he indicated wasn’t near the three caves at all.
I sawed my teeth over my bottom lip. “She might’ve had the ruby stuck in her toes for a while, though, and no one noticed. The caves could still be anywhere…or they could be right there and we just can’t seem them.”
“I’m losing too much blood to stay upright for long,” Grady said, his words slurring some.
“Lean against me,” I told him, and Archer, even in his weakened state, circled to Grady’s other side.
“We’ll go see,” Thomas said.
After he retrieved Faust’s boots and wiped them of blood, Archer put them on and then we were off. All that had happened tonight had stunned me numb and I could feel exhaustion settling in, but the promise of the ruby caves drove me onward. How was it that Faust had had a map, had been right next to them, and still hadn’t found them? It almost didn’t seem possible, but the ruby in Thomas’s hand was evidence enough.
Archer led us in the right direction, following after his own footprints that were quickly filling up with snow. Then he stopped and pointed up a steep incline crowded with trees—and nothing else.
“That’s where she
was,” Archer said. “She only came down when I called for her.”
Thomas turned to me, a frown on his snow-speckled lips. “You don’t see anything other than trees through Ronin. She should be able to see it better than we can since only females can find the caves.”
“Just trees,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean the cave’s not there.”
He nodded. “Up we go, then.”
We helped each other maneuver the slick incline and the trees’ reaching limbs, and then slowly the ground began the change. Still steep and slick in some places, but harder and rockier. My boots gripped much better here and ground the rocks beneath my feet loudly. And they were really rocks, too, according to Ronin’s eyes. Not rubies.
But then behind the next tree dipping low to the ground with snow, the whole world became crimson. As one, we gasped and jerked to a stop. We stood in the mouth of a ruby cave, a great arch of jagged precious stones above our head. Within, they covered every inch from floor to high ceiling. They glimmered and shone with a light of their own and almost appeared to be moving, or beckoning us through the twists and turns deeper into the cave’s depths.
“It’s like it just appeared,” Archer whispered. “Dropped in front of us like…”
Awe swelled up inside me and nearly stole my voice. “Magic.”
Thomas turned to me, our grins forming at the exact same time. “Ladies first.”
Right. Because as part of the Crimson Forest pack, as a female, I was supposed to invite them in. With Ronin in Archer’s arms behind me guiding my way, I entered. Warmth caressed my face and thawed my frozen lungs, and then I just stood there like I was caught in a dream. Magic radiated from each individual ruby and filled me with such a sense of wonder that a place like this could exist. I’d never been anywhere near as beautiful and never imagined I could see it before I met my wolves.
“Come in. Please.” I turned to them with tears in my eyes. “I love you all so damn much, so…come in out of the cold.”
They did without hesitation, and then with smiles, touches, and tender kisses to the top of my head. By entering, they’d joined my harem officially and completely and had just made me the luckiest woman in the world.
“What if you’d refused?” I asked, and then my cheeks flamed. What a stupid question after all we’d been through.
Thomas hooked his finger with mine and led us forward. “We’re not idiots, Aika.”
“Even Grady,” Archer said with a teasing tone.
Grady sighed. “Says the man wearing only a blanket in the middle of winter.”
A chuckle burst out of me, the first bit of happiness and hope lifting my burdened shoulders in a long time. They were truly mine, and I was theirs.
Deeper into the caves, the temperature climbed, but not uncomfortably so. Around a sharp bend in the cave, a pool of clear, mirror-like water stretched several feet to the other side of a tall cavern. Rubies glowed softly from underneath, but they appeared smooth, worn that way from the water. Steam lifted from the surface, and it looked so inviting that I wanted to peel off all my clothes and step inside.
Archer dropped his blanket and did just that, and he groaned as he did. “It’s perfect.”
“Everything about this place is,” Grady said, grimacing as he took off his coat. “Look.”
Fish darted underneath the water, their white scales dotted a brilliant red. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, enough to keep us alive for a while.
Thomas tightened his grip on my hand. “This is a far cry from the cave we holed up in.”
“No kidding.” I smiled down at all of our reflections staring back with relieved faces. “This is exactly what we needed. It’s like the ruby cave knew, or it just thought ahead…if caves can do that.”
We settled ourselves around the pool—and in Archer’s case, in it—while we tended to wounds and soothed our souls. Days passed in our ruby oasis, and we spent our time talking and planning for the future. We slept on the ruby floor of the cave naked since it was so warm with our clothes and coats underneath us to protect from the rough stones. Ronin slept curled next to Archer, but while awake, she liked to wander, though never too far away from her protective pack, and would bring us lizards or snails as gifts. Every once in a while, she’d whine pitifully.
“I’ll go get Sasha,” Thomas said after one such time. “Then we’ll be together like we should be. I’ll leave right now.”
I grinned at him as my heart swelled. He’d come a long way from not even being able to look at the wolf pup to holding her to reuniting her with her sister. “If she gets ornery, just—”
“Kiss her between the ears,” he said with a smile. “I got that from watching you.”
I stood from my coat on the ruby floor and crossed toward him. “Come back to me, okay?”
“Always.” He touched his nose to mine and lowered his voice. “When I get back…”
“I know,” I whispered, my blood thrilling at the promise in his voice. “Be safe.”
After he left and Grady took Ronin exploring through the caves, I stripped in front of the pool, feeling Archer’s eyes upon me. A smile spread over my face at his groan, his splashes slowing.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked, stepping in up to my calves. Instantly the water soothed aches I didn’t even know I had.
“I hoped you would.” The water rippled around me as he neared, and the two of us drew together, led only by our hearts.
We wrapped our arms around each other, his skin warm and wet and addicting. Every part of our bodies touched, but I wanted closer.
I pressed a kiss to his neck. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, leaning his forehead against mine. “For the first time in a long time, I’m finally starting to forgive myself. It helps that Ronin is here”—he kissed me—“and Thomas”—another kiss—“and you.” He kissed me again, deeper, one that left my whole body aching.
“I love you, Archer,” I breathed. “I feel like I always have.”
“I love you too. So much.” Still kissing me, he walked me backward and then laid me half in the water and half out, my back resting against my coat on the floor. “Let me show you how much.” He kissed his way down my neck, my chest, my breasts, taking his sweet, sweet time.
I squirmed beneath him, my body desperate for more. His long hair caressed my skin like silk as he kissed his way down my stomach and then between my thighs where I pulsed for him.
His breaths teased me. His lips tormented as they drew closer to my center. The first stroke of his tongue arched me into him and created a ripple in the water that lapped right where he did. He groaned, and the vibrations tingled heat up and down my nerves.
My body separated itself from all control. My hips rocked forward to meet his tongue’s strokes. I sank my hands into his wet, silky hair, making the ends feather against the already sensitive flesh of my inner thighs.
“Archer…” I moaned.
He slid one hand up over my stomach to my breast and squeezed, his palm rubbing my nipple even tighter. With one final kiss to my center, he worked his way up again, taking his time to lavish his attention all over my body.
“I love you, Aika,” he said, then he entered me, slowly.
“I love you too,” I moaned into his kiss.
His hips moved against mine, deeper and faster, and my whole body clenched. I cried out as blood roared through my veins. He moved expertly, taking his time while he thoroughly loved me, and brought me to climax again. Then he came, too, while he kissed my hair and groaned my name.
It was like this for three days with Archer and Grady, Grady and Archer, not nonstop, but close.
“We’re making up for the time you hated me,” Grady murmured, still shuddering inside me.
“I never hated you,” I said, stroking my hand through his short hair. “I couldn’t.”
“Well, I didn’t make it easy for you.”
“Love never is. It’s horrible and complicated and hurts, but it can br
ing out the best in people. It’s the best gift to give someone else, and I craved it for so long. But it’s never easy.”
“Loving you is the easy part. It was admitting how much that tied me up in knots.” Then he kissed me, straight to my soul.
When Thomas finally came back, he looked like an icicle yet he smiled as he retrieved Sasha from inside his coat and set her down. Sasha and Ronin’s gazes connected from across the pool, and their sisterly bond sealed the two of them together for the rest of their lives. They bounded toward each other around the pool, tumbled into a furry ball, and then began a game of tag like they’d never been apart.
The rest of us looked on and laughed until we cried. Even though my stomach bounced sideways as I watched them through each other’s eyes, I didn’t dare close mine. I didn’t want to miss a single second of their reunion.
“We’re together. Finally.” Thomas said it like he couldn’t quite believe it, and I went to wrap my arms around him.
Later, when I stepped out of the pool dripping wet, Thomas appeared from around the corner, silent as a ghost like always. I didn’t hear him, but I could feel him, the power in his gaze as he looked at me, not just my naked body but all of me.
“Hey,” I said, my voice catching as I felt for my clothes next to the pool.
“Don’t.” Stalking forward, he hissed a low growl through his teeth. "On your knees."
My body quivered in anticipation, melted into his touch as he thumbed my chin upward. Then I sank down in front of him, used to following his demands since everything he said sounded like one.
"You've never done this before." He slid his thumb over the seam of my mouth, and I parted my lips for him, inviting him in with my tongue.
"No," I admitted, though I could guess what he wanted. Needed, more like, if the tension surrounding him meant what I thought it did. "None of the books Jade tricked Margin's librarian into giving her went into…this."
He retrieved his thumb, and while cupping my jaw, he undid his pants. "I'll show you what I like."
With a nod, I took him slowly into my mouth. He tasted salty and sweet, his flesh a combination of iron wrapped in warm velvet. Moaning, I licked my tongue over and around him, and he groaned as he slid his hand to the back of my head.
Winter's Rage (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 3) Page 13