Winter's Edge (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 1)

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  The forest grew wild and was untouched by man since most feared to go anywhere near it, so there were no paths except the one Baba and Hellbreath had made themselves every month for the last two years. On days when there was sun, the canopy of trees was too thick to feel it, but I knew what direction we headed because of the crush of wind at our backs. Northeast. I could set a compass to it if I had one.

  A shotgun cracked behind us. I gasped. Hellbreath tensed but kept going. It hadn't been aimed at us. We were too deep in the forest now, and it had sounded too far away. The man… Who had he fired at? Baba? Surely the man had noticed Hellbreath was gone and could easily follow our tracks. I squeezed Hellbreath's reins tighter and urged her onward with another kick.

  The few trips I'd gone with Baba on Hellbreath, it had taken him roughly an hour to get to Old Man’s Den, but he hadn't ridden Hellbreath as hard as I was now. The closer I drew and the farther I got from Margin’s Row, the more my shoulders loosened. I could make the delivery, get paid, and find a slightly different route through the forest to get home before that man could pick up our trail again. No problem.

  A prickling sensation rode up my back and lifted the hairs along my scalp. Hellbreath whinnied. Fresh snow cracked to our left. Scrapes sounded over wet rock to our right under too many feet.

  Dread plummeted into my gut, heavy as stone, crushing any wisps of hope I might've had. We were being watched.

  Hunted by wilds.

  I could smell them now, their wet fur and the mud clinging to their paws.

  More feet closing in sounded through the forest, all of them keeping pace with Hellbreath. This had never happened before during my few trips with Baba, but he’d always brought his gun with him, just in case. I still had my bow slung over my shoulder and one arrow. One arrow for all of them.

  They wouldn’t attack something as large as Hellbreath. Would they?

  "Keep going, girl," I whispered into my horse's ear. "You can outrun the wilds."

  But even as I said it, I sensed them closing in around us like a noose about our necks. A growl sounded from ahead, terrible and dangerous, and echoed all through the forest, cinching the promise of our fate even tighter.

  Hellbreath skittered to the side and made a terrified whinny. Then she reared up, something she never did when it was just her and me. The reins flapped free from my hands, and I made a mad grab for them. But I was already falling. Falling so long that my stomach turned itself inside out with panic. I landed hard and with a loud crack. The breath surged from my lungs, every last bit of it, but nothing I did would draw more air inside. I croaked, attempted to gasp, anything I could do to get a breath, and in the back of my mind, pain registered, a violent storm of it in my side, my arm, and the back of my head.

  But it was the sound of hooves on snow snaking through the forest without me that brought tears to my eyes. She’d left me, terrified and alone, the both of us.

  Finally, I drew in a pained hiss, the smell of wet fur and mud and dead leaves so thick that it coated my tongue.

  Something nudged my foot. Something else sniffed the side of my head loudly. The wolves were closing in. It had to be wolves.

  I lay there, my cheek pressed to the cold snow, my arm flaring pain even brighter with every heartbeat, and tried to unscramble myself. I couldn’t die here.

  My arrow. I had one in the quiver attached to my back. My bow was there, too, but I likely didn't have enough time to grab both.

  A terrible sound I'd never made before heaved from my mouth while I forced myself to sit upright. Sharp pain pierced my side, and I knew something had to be broken. I took the arrow from my quiver with my good arm and struck out with it. A wolf yelped as I buried it deep, but another latched onto my leather boot and yanked, sliding me easily across the snow. I cried out, holding fast to the arrow, my only weapon, and kicked wildly. Another yelp when my foot connected. A growl on my other side, ferocious and growing louder. Fangs punctured through my coat and the flesh on my bad arm and shook it viciously. I screamed in pain and jabbed with my arrow again, but before I could strike, two more wolves clamped down on both feet and pulled so ferociously that the arrow ripped from my hand.

  They were going to tear me in half, shred me limb from limb, and leave me here to die in the middle of the Crimson Forest. The scent of my blood brought more wolves, their feet padding across the snow toward me. I had no idea how many, and it didn't matter. The pain was leaking into my consciousness now, creeping in like shadows and turning my vision even soupier than it already was.

  I'd failed, and I hadn't just failed me, but Jade and Lee. Baba, too, if he was still alive.

  Useless.

  I'd tried so hard to prove I wasn't.

  Teeth snapped together to my right, yet another wolf. A low, vicious growl crawled up its throat, and I sensed those around me immediately take a step back. This was a new wolf. A different one.

  Snow crunched underneath it as it lunged forward. The sounds of a brutal fight slipped through my fading consciousness, and I realized as I sank under that I could see my body from above. A red patch against stark white in clear definition, my tangled, dark hair, the tilt to my eyes, even the curve of my blood-spattered lips, while my life seeped into the snow.

  I could see. And that was how I knew I was dying.

  Chapter 3

  I woke slowly, wrapped in warmth and with fur tickling my nose with each inhale. Fur… That was new. My head ached and felt foggy, but I sure didn't remember sprouting fur…ever. I felt funny. I must've been dreaming. Best to keep at it.

  Somewhere, a nearby fire crackled, warm for being outside at winter's edge. Unless I wasn't outside…

  More and more awareness crept in, bringing with it an onslaught of stiff muscles and achy bones. How was I not dead?

  I blinked open my eyes—and gasped. I was staring at myself lying in a bed and covered with a long fur blanket, neither of which I recognized. I almost didn’t recognize myself even though I’d seen myself countless times before I’d gone blind. Same long black hair. Same face that looked as frightened as I felt. But…how was I seeing myself when I was mostly blind?

  Wait. That had happened in the Crimson Forest too. I'd peered down at myself from above like the angel of death. Now, I was looking at myself from across the room, on the other side of the crackling fire.

  A shudder ran down to my toes. Was I dead? Because this was not what I expected it to be like.

  Slowly, carefully, I moved my legs across the bed to test that theory out and see if I could find out where I was. And then why I could see myself. The last thing I remembered was that the wolves were homing in on the pulse at my neck to snuff it out. I should've been dead.

  Sitting up bolted pain across my ribs, and I stopped and hissed, seeing sweat bead across my forehead from across the room. Two ribs were surely broken, maybe more, and someone had taken great care to wrap up my torso loosely. My arm nestled into my side, held there by a sling.

  If I were dead, then death had some pretty amazing healthcare.

  My head swam. Pretty sure I’d been given a painkiller because I felt loopy, like my brain and body weren’t quite connected. Surely that was why I still saw myself from across the room.

  When I was pretty sure I wouldn't pass out, I slipped my legs out from under the fur blanket. I was naked from head to toe, able to see the scratches and wolf-shaped bites all over my skin, the bandages covering the gashes that bloomed red in the middle.

  I saw all of it. It was as though I had a pair of working eyes, but they were unattached, sitting like marbles on the other side of the fire.

  I shivered. That was a disturbing thought. Way to go terrifying myself with my own head while my current situation hardly put me at ease.

  Still, I wouldn’t find out anything if I stayed put. My feet found purchase on a cold, hard floor, but my legs buckled as soon as I tried to stand. I crumpled to the floor in a heap, feeling every cut and bruise and break scream as I slammed against the floo
r.

  "It's not," a deep, rough voice called. Something thudded-dragged-stepped on the other side of a door. Then a large figure barreled into the room, the top of his head nearly skimming the wooden-beamed ceiling. He carried a long walking stick in his hand.

  I yelped and scrambled for the blanket to cover myself with it.

  His eyes, a steely gray, connected with mine even though he wasn't looking at me, softened just a fraction, and then he turned his head toward me.

  But my eyes, the tricky, uncooperative ones on the other side of the fire, aimed at me again so I couldn't study him further. They did point out, though, that I was anything but covered. I quickly adjusted the blanket.

  "You're up," he growled.

  "Your definition of up must be different than mine," I muttered from my position on the floor. My voice sounded different, rusty and unused.

  He grunted, then shouted, "Archer," making me yelp once again.

  I hated loud noises, especially when I didn't see them coming. That was obviously the drugs sparking a little blind humor. That, and the disorientation of seeing myself from across the room.

  "Coming, coming," a different deep voice said, and then my other eyes swiveled toward a man in the doorway, his long black hair like liquid night. Just a glimpse, and then my eyes were trained on me again. "Oh. Well, you made it to the floor, at least. That's…progress?"

  "How—" I started to ask how I could see myself, but that would be admitting that I was blind, at least usually. They didn't need to know my weaknesses, or my strengths. I'd asked Jade once, and she'd said my eyes looked “normal.” She wouldn’t lie, so maybe I could pull this off. "How did I get here?"

  "Grady found you outside the woods," the second man—Archer?—said. "You were in pretty bad shape, so he brought you here."

  Grady and Archer—I filed the names away.

  "Can you…?" Archer started. "Do you need help back—"

  "No. I don't need help." My voice came out sharp like it always did when someone automatically assumed I was useless. "You…fixed me?"

  "Well, fixed is relative. Grady here can make a mean sling, and I can stick fresh bandages on my fingers so they look like long claws…so there’s that.”

  "You're not fixed," Grady said, his tone clipped.

  I sure didn't feel it, or look it if my other eyes were anything to go by. If I was hallucinating, I definitely wasn't fixed.

  “What’s your name?” Grady demanded.

  “Aika Song,” I said. "How long have I been here?"

  "Three days," Archer said.

  I sagged against the side of the bed, defeated. Three days. I was late with the delivery to Old Man’s Den. If it was late, there would be no payment. Those were the rules. No payment meant we’d starve since there were still several supplies we didn’t yet have for winter.

  "You can leave when you're up to it, but in the meantime…" Archer gestured toward my other eyes, crossing over to stand in their periphery. He turned to look at them, his long, midnight hair falling over dark, mischievous eyes. "I think you have a fan."

  "Okay…” A fan? I must've hit my head harder than I thought when Hellbreath bucked me off because nothing was making sense anymore. “Have you seen a horse around? Black and goes by the name of Hellbreath?"

  "You-you named your horse Hellbreath?" Archer moved closer to my other eyes, close enough so I could see the defined cut of his shoulders and neck under a not-quite-fully-buttoned red flannel shirt.

  "My baba did,” I said, though I’d insisted he didn’t. As always, he hadn’t listened. “It's what she answers to."

  “Baba?” Archer said.

  “Dad.” My cheeks burned. I often forgot not everyone had Far Eastern roots like Jade, Lee, and me. That was a custom my ama, my mom, had drilled into me the roughest.

  "I saw some horse tracks earlier," Grady said, his hard, loud voice so near I almost yelped again. "I'll put out some hay, see if she comes to eat."

  “Thank you.” Even if I felt up to leaving here, I wouldn’t get far without Hellbreath.

  Archer scooped my other eyes up into his palm. I reeled back, so wishing I had a clue what was going on. But seeing him up close in detail took my breath away, for a number of reasons. First, how was this possible that I could see him so clearly with eyes that weren’t my own? Second, he was beautiful. Smooth, tawny skin. Strong jaw. He made kissy faces at my eyes, equally a bizarre string of words as it was watching it happen. His full lips seemed just inches away from me even though he was all the way across the room.

  "Who's my big girl?" he cooed. "Do you want to go see your new lady friend?"

  An answering chirp sounded, as my other eyes connected with me again. What was that? Archer brought the thing closer, the chirping thing that held my other eyes.

  "What…?" I desperately wanted to finish that sentence, but again, I didn't want to let on that I was blind. Still, whether these men had bandaged me back together or not, I didn't trust them. Or this thing I could see through. "Um, is it…"

  "Don't worry. She won't bite,” Archer said. “Not hard anyway."

  Oh, I was worried all right.

  He strode past Grady from behind my other eyes and pushed them toward me like he expected me to take them. It. The chirping thing I could see through. My palms grew slick, and my tight nerves sucked toward my backbone, away from whatever was coming. But I was so damn curious about why I could see that I reached my arm out tentatively. My fingers stroked fur, soft and familiar…and terrible.

  I jerked my hand back. "Wolf," I hissed and scrambled back onto the bed and against the wall with the blanket, my bones and ripped flesh screaming in pain.

  "She's just a pup," Archer said.

  "I hate wolves," I spat. I'd been attacked by wolves, nearly killed, but why was it I could see through a wolf pup's eyes?

  Archer must have turned the pup so he could hold it close, away from me, and he and Grady shared a look that turned their faces to stone.

  "And yet you entered the Crimson Forest, which happens to be full of them, by yourself," Grady bit out, his brutal tone chasing a shiver across my bare shoulders. "What did you expect would happen?"

  "Shut it, Grady,” Archer said. “No one expects to get attacked."

  I tucked the blanket up under my chin. "No, I didn't expect it. I've made the trip to Old Man’s Den several times with my baba and had no trouble, but Hellbreath must’ve gotten spooked."

  "Several times doing what?” Grady demanded. “Do you work for Faust?"

  "What the fuck, Grady?" Archer said.

  "Making a delivery." A cold awareness slithered into my senses and dropped into the pit of my stomach. "Did I come here with a wrapped package?"

  Archer brought his hand up as if to scratch behind my ears. The pup’s ears, I meant. "Yeah, I think you did, actually. Something fell out of your pants when Grady brought you here. Think it’s still by the front door."

  "Go get it," Grady growled.

  "Fuck off. You go get it," Archer told him.

  Grady limped out of the room with his walking stick, but not before he iced me with a suspicious stare. No eyes required—I could feel it penetrate to the back of my skull. If anything, though, it was me who should feel suspicious of them. Why were they keeping a wolf pup like a pet whose eyes I could see through, and why were they acting so strangely? Grady, specifically.

  Archer sighed. "Sorry about him. He's just…Grady."

  That explained nothing. "Who's Faust?"

  He took a breath like he was about to answer, but in came Grady with his thud-drag-step strides. Something slapped hard next to me on the bed, tinged with the smell of blood and sweat, and the overwhelming smell of moonshine. The package was leaking. I roamed my hand over the furry blanket, feeling the wet splashes, and unwrapped the bottle from the soaked cloth. The cork had come loose, but after a little shake, it didn’t sound like that much was gone.

  Silence had fallen, more than a few heartbeats' length, thick with an u
nnerving sense that something was very, very wrong. Uneven footsteps echoed backward, away from me, followed by a sharp growl too deep to belong to the pup.

  "Why the fuck were you delivering wolfsbane?” Grady demanded. “You do work for Faust, don't you?"

  "Wolfsbane? No, this is moonshine mixed with aconitum," I insisted.

  "Aconitum is wolfsbane," Archer muttered.

  "Okay," I said, drawing the word out. "My baba makes monthly deliveries of it to a man named Gabriel, not Faust. This month, he was…held up, so I volunteered to take it."

  "Gabriel is Faust's second-in-command,” Grady ground out, his voice rough and sharp and heavy with accusation. “Wolfsbane is the reason we're—"

  "Okay, just hold on.” Archer turned and raised his hand at Grady then set my eyes back down on the other side of the room. They flicked back and forth between the men and me, and the pup whimpered. “Why does your pa—baba—make these deliveries?"

  I shrugged because the reason seemed so obvious. "For money so we don't starve. Once I'm able, I'm going to Gabriel to deliver it."

  "The hell you are." Grady started for the bed, but Archer held him back.

  "I am," I fired back. "Too many people are depending on me to put food on the table. What’s the big deal anyway? Who cares what I deliver to Gabriel? How does that affect you?"

  Archer glanced toward my other eyes. "We have a long history with Gabriel and Faust."

  "Fucking really, Archer?” Grady hissed. “You're going to tell her everything?"

  "She doesn't know anything, dipshit. She's still healing. She's not going anywhere."

  I hated that Archer was right. My little crash-landing with the floor had awakened the pain and sharpened its teeth. I wasn’t going anywhere, but as soon as I could, I would, and then try to explain why I was late with the delivery. On the few occasions I’d gone with Baba, Gabriel had seemed like an understanding guy. And if Grady tried to stop me from going? I’d put an arrow through his eye. If not his eye, then his balls. I'd call it a calculated miss.