He stopped and lifted my hands to a low, cold pile of stones.
"A chimney," he yelled above the wind. "Wait five seconds and then jump down after me."
"What?"
“I’ll catch you.” Then, like before, he'd already vanished. For fuck’s sake.
One.
I waved my hands over the top of it but sensed no heat. Unless this place was abandoned, anyone who left their chimney unlit welcomed death.
Two.
It leaned precariously, an obvious death trap. I posted my hands on the top of it, gauging the width and fearing the depth.
Three.
This didn't feel wide enough for Grady. Not even a little, unless he'd shifted before he'd jumped.
Four.
I fucking hated not knowing what to expect while placing my life in the hands of someone like Grady, someone who could burn my soul to cinders with his kiss and then blow them from his hand with the next rude comment.
Five.
And yet I had to get down somehow. I'd taken a leap of faith before; I could do it again. I’d risked the unknown and had flown across it. If I could do that, I could do anything.
I sat on one edge and swiveled my feet down into nothingness. Did I trust Grady to catch me? I did, wholly and truly. He didn't have to need me to not want me dead.
With a single, long inhale, all that I allowed myself, I scooted forward, lifted my arms above my head, and dropped. I hit bottom much too soon, or what I thought was bottom. The stones underneath me slanted downward, so I followed. They scraped against my coat, pulling and snagging and tearing. Snow and soot hailed down on top of my head. Then, a strong arm caught me. Two of them, one hooked under my knees and the other cradling my shoulders and head.
He dragged me out, his feet snapping old firewood and crumbled stone, and then settled me on unsteady legs. I tilted forward into him, too grateful to care what he might do.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and caught me. Again.
"I flew," I whispered into his chest. At any other time I might've been embarrassed at the wonderment in my voice, or why I'd said that in the first place, but the truth still rushed through my veins like I was flying even now.
“I knew you could,” he said, with the first hint of gentleness in his voice I’d heard in…a long time. His warm breath sighed over the top of my head, and I realized how close we were standing.
The air came alive in the space between us, charged with memories of how his body had felt against mine in the loft, how I’d wanted to open myself to him to feel even more. I reached out to touch him, but he dodged out of the way and cleared his throat.
“Time to go.”
His clipped growl set my teeth on edge. “What did I do to y—” The rest of what I was going to say sucked backward. “The barn. Were there animals?”
“Empty.” Without another word, he took my hand and led me into the freezing hellscape outside.
Smoke choked the air, but the wind drowned out the noise from the fire next door. It blew northeast, right toward the rest of town. No alarms filled the air, and I wondered if the people might let the old barn burn to a crisp. By then, though, it might be too late. I might've just doomed Margin to nothing but ash too. Like Old Man’s Den was and Margin’s Row.
We headed left, our pace as brisk as it could be. My legs kept sinking into drifts of snow, and my face went numb within seconds. We walked for what felt like hours, to the point where I couldn’t feel anything, but there were no tree branches ripping at my hair and face. We must’ve still been in Margin…or somewhere where no trees grew.
Then Grady stopped, his hand slipping from my elbow.
"Grady," I shouted. "What is it?"
Of course he couldn’t hear me. I couldn't hear myself.
I sensed him step away, his absence a cold, sharp thing out here in the middle of a forest. I shot out the end of my bow, searching the space around me. Had something happened to him?
"Answer me, damn it," I snarled.
He gripped my elbow again, much tighter, and raced me in a different direction—southwest, I thought—so fast I couldn't keep my balance. I slipped and slid behind him as he hauled me up a short set of stairs. At the top, he stormed through a door. A controlled fire's heat blasted from a nearby fireplace and brought a spicy stew smell with it.
I wrenched myself away from him. "What was that about? Tell me what you see."
And then I saw for myself. Vision slid into place, and I'd recognize Sasha's wriggly viewpoint anywhere. Her gaze bounced up at Archer who stood in the middle of the room with neat aisles of chairs on either side. He wore the most beautiful, relieved smile. My heart clenched with knowing they were all right. Sasha stared at Grady and me, two columns of white frost, while she tucked herself into a tight ball behind Archer’s legs.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said, and then moved to the side.
Behind him, on a raised set of stairs, another figure sat in a chair, legs splayed out, head tilted. Huge and beautifully scarred, if such a thing were possible. A multi-faceted jewel.
"It’s about time," he said, his voice as deep as midnight.
Grady leaned into me. His breath hitched several times, and then he threw himself toward a stranger I felt like I already knew.
Thomas.
Chapter 5
Thomas stood from the chair, his size shrinking the room, and the two reunited shifters embraced.
"You're alive," Grady choked out.
"You sound surprised. You heard me howling the other night, didn’t you."
I listened hard to Thomas, studying him through Sasha who cowered away from him. Everything he said sounded like a command but one you might not mind obeying, and his questions weren’t really questions at all. He didn’t move or gesture when he spoke like he didn’t feel nervous energy or the need to draw attention to himself. His tone did that for him.
His messy hair grazed his eyebrows, a lighter shade of brown than the beard that grew on his chin. His dark pants clung to the long, muscled columns of his legs, and his black flannel strained across the wide expanse of his chest. He was huge, both in size and in natural confidence.
When his gaze shifted my way over Grady’s shoulder, something I didn’t have a name for unspooled within me, the end plucked free with that single look. A connection. Shared experiences. Pasts knotted together. Whatever it was felt powerful.
"Aika," Archer said from the side of the room, "I want you to meet our alpha, Thomas. Thomas, this is Aika Song."
He released Grady and walked toward me then, his strides steady and sure. He had the most interesting eye color, a rich brown with gilded flecks. Intelligent eyes that saw right through me.
"A pleasure," he rumbled, lifting his hand toward me. "You've made quite the impression on my pack."
With poison. My family had played a part in killing most of his pack, and yet he hadn't said it as an accusation. Still, I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I shook his hand and said nothing.
"Where were you?" Grady demanded. "For two whole years, I searched everywhere—"
"I know."
"You-you know? Then…why? What the fuck have you been doing? Who were those wolves who helped me burn down the barn and led me here?"
I blinked toward Grady. What? What? Wolves that helped him? That had led us here? He hadn’t told me any of this, and I hadn’t even known to ask. I glared toward the sound of his voice.
"I’ve been listening with my ears to the ground,” Thomas explained. “Studying the enemy. Making alliances with other packs. Waiting for the opportunity to attack and take back what is rightfully ours."
"Waiting." Grady spat it like a curse. "That's it? And what were we supposed to be doing, huh? You didn’t tell us a goddamn thing before you left us."
"You were serving your purpose, Grady. Looking but never finding. Spreading your scent over Slipjoint Forest while I covered mine."
"With what?" Archer asked.
"
Wolves from another pack. Just like us, they all smell the same."
"You don't," I blurted.
All eyes swiveled toward me, a prickling awareness layered with silence.
"To me, you don't smell the same. Archer smells like wood smoke and caramel, Grady smells like almonds, and Sasha just smells sweet," I said, like it mattered. Why did I suddenly feel like a fourth wheel, completely unnecessary when there were three other, larger, very capable wheels?
"For a human, maybe," Thomas said with a note of curiosity. "To wolves, individual packs smell the same. We can pick rival wolves out with ease."
Oh. I nodded as if I'd always known this, though my cheeks flamed. Part of me wondered what he smelled like, but I instantly scolded myself. Now was not the time for sniffing men I’d just met.
"Why did you sneak away the morning after we met Faust?" Grady demanded. "Why couldn’t you have at least told us where you were going?"
"Because I was too slow to react to what was happening, and by the time I did, most of my pack was gone or severely weakened. Then, it was just us, the six of us."
My heart twisted. The six of them. Him, Archer, Grady, and the three wolf pups—Sasha, Ronin, and the pup Faust had ordered Archer to kill during his cruel game of Catch, Kill, Release.
"Faust planned all of this long before he executed it,” Thomas explained, his voice surprisingly measured. “His pack hasn't bred in five years, and he has no explanation for it. Desperation drove him to the Crimson Forest and our ruby caves for a possible solution."
Archer tried to coax Sasha out from between his feet, but she wasn’t having it. She seemed afraid. Afraid of her alpha.
"Then why drive us out?" he asked.
Thomas stepped toward the fireplace at the rear of the room. "Faust takes. He doesn't explain. That's his way."
"Like you," Grady accused, his voice low and tight. "No explanation and you took two goddamn years."
"Grady," Archer hissed.
"It's fine.” Thomas sat in his chair again, the legs creaking. “He’s pissed, so let him be pissed."
"It's not fine,” Grady shouted, making me flinch. “You could've woken us up the morning you left to explain, but you didn't. You left after Archer chose which wolf pup for Faust to kill. You left after seeing little Brennan die, a fucking arrow right between his eyes. You left after Sasha and Ronin tore their own throats apart as they howled for their lost brother. You left, Thomas."
Grady's words shrank the room with echoes, sharp and painful as a jab to a broken rib. I sucked in a breath, but it snagged on a quiet sob because I felt it—their combined pain from their irreversible broken hearts. It became my own, even more than it already had, and it crushed me. Their loss became my loss, and we were forever joined by it and not just our shared vision.
"You left because I killed you," Archer choked out. "Seventeen times, Thomas. Faust shot you seventeen times with a poison arrow because I took too long to choose which pup…to kill. I killed you too. Me. All because I couldn’t choose, and it didn’t make any difference." His voice broke, and the pain rolling off of him suffocated me.
“You didn’t have a choice,” Thomas told him. “I don’t blame you. I blame myself. I didn't know the enemy until it was too late. I didn't even see them coming. When our pack started dying, I didn't immediately know who to blame."
I screwed my eyes shut briefly and bit the inside of my cheek hard. I was partly to blame, my baba, ama, and me.
"I left the morning after because Faust was coming. Again.” Thomas’s voice turned huskier then, scraped raw with emotions and memories. “I led them away from you, what was left of my pack, the three most valuable things in my entire life.”
Led them away…but then what? What else had happened in those two years? He’d been shot with seventeen poisoned arrows, but where had the many, many other scars carved into his skin come from? No, there was something else, something he wasn’t telling us. I’d just met the alpha, but I could hear the truth buried deep, feel it festering inside him like the poison that had coursed through both our veins.
“And now four, from what you’ve told me, Archer.”
“Ronin,” I whispered.
"We would never have known he had Ronin if it weren't for Aika," Archer said.
Thomas's gaze turned toward me, the powerful force of it making my stomach jump. "Thank you."
It was a curious thing to be thanked with so much pure honesty, like those two words barely conveyed the meaning behind them.
"Archer and Grady have done even more to help me,” I said. “I want them—and you—to get your Ronin back."
He nodded and leaned back, owning the chair like a throne. "We plan to."
"How?" Grady asked.
A thud sounded from above, followed by a creak of a floorboard.
Archer surged to his feet, his gaze following another thud and creak from above. "You didn't tell me someone else is here."
"All part of the plan." Thomas waved his hand like it should’ve been obvious.
"What do you mean?" Grady asked.
"You may have noticed that a certain someone was missing when you went to Old Man's Den." Thomas flicked his finger toward the ceiling. "Care to make a guess?"
At the back of my mind, I had wondered when we were there but never would've guessed he'd be in the same house as the missing alpha. "Gabriel?"
Thomas nodded. "Faust's second-in-command."
"What are you getting at?” Grady stared at him. “You're keeping him here to torture him or something?"
"There's no or something. I dragged him back here by the balls after he stumbled into a bear trap. I offered him a choice—tell me everything I wanted to know and live…or don't." Thomas shrugged, the gold in his eyes flaring in the firelight. "He made the smart choice."
"What did he tell you?" Grady asked.
"The truth. He told me his pack came from north of here and hadn't bred in five years. He suspected the reason was an over-abundance of humans near their land and dwindling water supplies but wasn’t sure. He also told me about the poison and where it came from."
I tried not to squirm or hold too still while the walls in the room squeezed in on me. Grady hadn't handled it well when he found out what I'd been trying to deliver to Faust. What would Thomas do? Torture me too? I had no idea, and somehow, that was worse.
Archer cleared his throat, a careful, deliberate sound. Grady stood rigid as he gazed out the window.
"And what will you do with him once he's told you everything?" Archer asked.
"Insurance. Bait. I haven't decided yet. All I know is that it will be a painful fall for Faust from the top of the Crimson Forest all the way down into his grave. We strike soon. We strike hard. After that, the future is ours."
There was an edge to his voice now, a hint of violence that went much, much deeper. After everything that had happened to him and his pack…had it made him lose his mind?
"I found a map in Faust's office." Grady fished around the inside of his coat and then handed it to Thomas. "Two spots in the Crimson Forest are circled. Could be the ruby caves or a hideout. Whatever it is, it's important."
Without even glancing at it, Thomas rose from his chair. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. My friends from the other wolf pack are guarding the place and will escort us out of Margin. Until then, rest up. There’s a bath upstairs. Some of you really need it." He strode from the room, easing the knot in my chest somewhat.
Through Sasha, I saw Archer and Grady share a look I couldn’t read. This was a shock to them, no doubt. How many things had changed from the old Thomas to the new?
Now wasn’t the time to think this, but where did this leave me? With Thomas, I wasn't quite sure where I fit in anymore. I would still go with them, still fight this war I'd helped start, but as a human, I was obviously separate from the pack. Now, I felt that more than ever. Before, with just Archer, Grady, and Sasha, I felt free to voice my opinions. With Thomas, I didn't think I was allowed to have
one. We were expected to do what he said. Period. But…that wasn’t the way I knew how to be.
Archer crossed toward me and dipped his forehead to mine, smoothing his hand down the side of my face. His touch helped thaw what the fire couldn’t, and I melted into him. "Thanks for keeping her safe, Grady."
He grunted and limped from the room.
“Talkative guy, isn’t he?”
“Let’s not talk about him anymore,” I said, remembering his mention of the other wolves. Why hadn’t he told me?
"I won't." Archer’s breath caressed my lips, and I leaned in so it could touch all of me. He captured my mouth and probed it wider with his tongue, seeking the part of me that yearned for him the greatest.
As it flared to life, it caught my breath and curled my toes. Heat spread over my thighs, and I pressed in closer so he could feel every part of me that wanted him. With a groan, he worked his hand between the buttons of my long coat, between the buttons of all my inner layers, and skimmed his fingers over my breast. I gasped into his kiss, his skin a thrill on mine, and rocked my hips forward.
“Aika.” He brought his hand to my ass and ground me against him, kissing me with desperation. "I never want to be separated from you again."
“I don't either,” I breathed. “It killed me. I'm a part of this now, and a part of you and Sasha. I can't change that, and I don't want to."
He rubbed his thumb over my nipple and made my body hum. "Come upstairs with me."
It took several long moments to unscramble myself and follow his leap. "A bath?"
"Grady's just waiting to walk in on us again. I think he gets off on it. I want you all to myself for a little while." He cradled my cheek, the fingers of his other hand trailing toward my other breast. “I want to forget everything while inside of you.”
“I want that too.” My head spun with need as he kissed me again and again. Heat flushed through my body and gathered at my center, a constant ache impossible to ignore. I didn't want to ignore it, either, was tired of tamping down my urges as two wolves drove me crazy with want. Even Grady. Despite how angry he made me, I couldn't deny that something hung in the balance between us too.
Winter's Bite (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 2) Page 4