"I'll leave as soon as I'm able." Sooner, if I could manage it.
"You think we're going to actually let you leave with that shit?" Grady asked.
"You're damn right you will," I snapped, and shoved the bottle behind my back.
"Cut it out, Grady,” Archer said. “Enough threats. If she doesn't deliver it, someone else will next month like her pa."
Or like the man who’d shot Baba. He’d wanted the package, enough to try and kill for it. But why? It was just moonshine mixed with dried aconitum, or wolfsbane, and a few more of Ama’s—my mom’s—herbs. None of these things were rare.
Grady stepped closer, his presence looming over me like a threat. "We'll have to burn that blanket outside so Sasha doesn't step on it."
"Burn it?" That was going a little overboard. "No, all it needs is a good wash. Aconitum is only poisonous if you eat it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not taking any chances,” Grady growled.
“Agreed.” Archer crossed toward my other eyes again and picked up the wolf pup, his expression tight with concern, that mischievous glint in his dark eyes gone. "I'll take Sasha to another room."
"I guess I'll get another blanket for the ungrateful wolfsbane dealer." Grady limped after Asher out of the room.
I shook my head. I was hardly a dealer, and I didn't like the implication that I wasn’t grateful. I owed them my life, but I wasn't about to fawn all over them every other second to stroke their fragile, manly egos. Was that what they wanted? Because they'd saved the wrong girl.
Through the wolf pup’s eyes, I spied a hallway and a bedroom opposite mine. Then, like a switch turning off, my vision faded back to what I was used to—like I was staring down a long tunnel filled with murky soup and strange shapes bobbing underneath.
My other eyes had to have been a hallucination. That was the only explanation. I was glad it was gone because it had been too distracting.
When Grady came back, he crossed to the opposite wall, slid something, and then a blast of arctic air flushed into the room. Shivering, I wrapped the blanket tighter around me. His stick clomped along the floor toward me like a third leg, and then he stopped and lifted the blanket.
"No peeking," I warned him.
He grunted. "You have nothing I haven't seen before." He tossed another blanket at me, which of course smacked me in the face. "Shit. Sorry."
Yeah, he really sounded like it, too, with the hint of a laugh underneath his gruff voice.
Asshole.
I scrambled to unfold the new blanket, but before I did, the cold air assaulted my bare skin. Goose bumps pebbled my entire body, as well as the prickling awareness of a stare. He was watching me for just a moment before I frantically covered myself up again.
I shivered into the warmth of the blanket while I tried to shrivel him in size with the force of my glare. "Enjoy the show?"
He laughed, an odd, unexpected sound that made me jump again, especially for someone who usually sounded like they were about to rip out someone's throat. He crossed to the window again, his limp much more pronounced. No clomp of the stick. Was he using it to carry the blanket? He wasn't a wolf, though. Why couldn't he touch the wolfsbane? After a moment, he shut the window then left the room without a word.
I relaxed into the bed only slightly, remembering the large wolf I may or may not have seen before I passed out in the Crimson Forest. It had scared the other wolves away, like it had wanted to help me. But why when I could've been food? Archer had said that Grady had found me in the forest, but neither had offered up any more information. Grady didn't strike me as the kind who saved people, but bless his seemingly dead, rotted-out heart anyway for doing so. There was more to that story. And to why he’d refused to touch wolfsbane.
There was also more to my brain since half of it must've spilled out in the forest. Where the hell had that hallucination come from about seeing through Sasha's eyes? And through the big wolf in the forest. Both had seemed so vivid, so real. Something that extraordinary didn't just happen. Not in the real world and certainly not to me.
I slid my hand underneath my pillow to the package, taking strength from the promise it offered. I would deliver it and explain to Gabriel why it was late. I had to, just as soon as I was upright.
Aconitum was wolfsbane. The bane of wolves.
Even if it killed wolves so I could feed my family, that would mean fewer of them in the future trying to split me apart like a wishbone.
Chapter 4
“I don’t suppose one of you would mind checking in on my family?” The note of hope in my voice matched the worry that they’d say no.
I’d been here five days, and even though I was sleeping and resting instead of falling out of bed, I was healing much too slowly. The wind howled outside and pressed between the cabin’s cracks. Fresh snow battered the windowpanes harder with every second closer to winter. Jade and Lee likely had enough food to survive for a few weeks, but without Baba’s payment to help support them, they would starve. Jade wasn’t as good a shot as I was, and Baba… Well, I didn’t even know if he was alive.
“Why does your family need checking on?” Archer asked from my bedside.
Grady was here too. He’d limped in after I called for Archer, as I’d thought Archer might be the one to ask because he seemed like he had a heart. Grady… Well, I could feel his anger clinging to him like a second skin, could feel his stare burning through the back of my skull.
“My baba was shot,” I said, purposely leaving out any mention of the package. “I live in Margin’s Row, the easternmost cabin, and we also look out for the kids next door to us, make sure they have food and stuff since their parents died.”
“Why can’t they take care of themselves?” Grady demanded.
“They’re young, younger than I am. Lee has a disability, and Jade has to take care of him.” I bit my lip, then added, “And my baba. She’ll be taking care of him too.”
“Margin’s Row…” Archer said and then paced away. “On the edge of the Crimson Forest.” A chill edged his voice, an understandable one since I never wanted to travel into those woods again either.
“There’s another way,” Grady said.
I stared hard in the direction of his voice. Was he actually considering going? “Yes, but it’s many miles out of the—”
“I’ll put food on the porch, but I speak to no one.” He stomped out, the thud of his walking stick so loud, it seemed like he took issue with the floor.
I blinked after him, my chin dangling to my lap. “What just happened?”
“He’s…going out anyway.”
“I didn’t expect him to go.”
“Honestly? Me neither.”
Then why had Grady volunteered? Surely he wasn’t planning on walking there through the snow, not with his limp. That would take ages.
“Maybe he’ll find your horse, too, while he’s out.”
“Do you have horses?” I asked.
Silence, or maybe he was nodding or shaking his head.
I decided to redirect since I couldn’t see gestures. “A barn?”
“Yeah. Well-stocked too.”
Relieved, I sagged back against my pillow propped on the wall with a sigh. “This healing is taking too damn long. Any estimates of when I’ll be up and walking?”
“Too early to tell.” His footsteps came closer and then his weight dipped the corner of my bed. “You definitely don’t want to push yourself, though, since that could make it worse.”
My eyes burned in frustration. I had too many things to worry about to stay in one place for long, but since I was forced to, I felt trapped inside my bruised and broken body.
“That’s not the answer you were looking for, is it?”
“Not so much.”
“Well, I know something that will make you heal much faster. Two things, actually.”
“What?”
“Number one—my cooking. With Grady gone again, you’ll have to suffer through my cooking, I’m afraid.”
Gone again. Where had he gone before? But more importantly, “He cooks?”
They’d spoiled me with how good the food was here—rich, savory stew that smelled so good that it roused me from sleep, cooked wild bird with crispy skin, flaky bread smothered in fresh butter. I’d been sleeping so much that I never heard who brought it in, but it was still hot by the time I woke, set on a raised tray by my feet. I’d followed my nose straight to it and dove in face-first.
“He does. Sadly, I’m no Grady in the kitchen, but I’ll try to make it so we don’t starve. And number two—how good are you at numbers?”
It took a moment for my brain and stomach to detach themselves from the idea of food, but even then, I had no idea what he was talking about. “Numbers?”
“The things you count and can add up and stuff? There are games to be had with them.”
Oh good. Number games. Despite how unimpressed I was with the very idea, it turned out he was right.
“Again. Please,” I begged after he’d demonstrated three times already.
“Okay, pick a number between one and twenty, but don’t tell me. Imagine it in your head. Got it?”
"Got it."
He had me add, subtract, multiply, and divide, tell him if the number I was thinking had curves or edges, and he would guess it, every time. Like magic.
"Can you teach me?" I asked after he'd guessed my number for the sixth time.
"Sorry, no. A gentleman never reveals his secrets."
I could sense his smile, how I bet it matched the warmth in his voice and was just as infectious as the sound of his laugh. Other than Jade and Lee, I'd never known anyone who'd bothered to spend time with me, especially when they didn't have to.
"You're good with your numbers. Do you go to school?"
"No," I said, flushing slightly with his praise. "School's too far away to travel in the winter, so my neighbor taught me while she taught her brother."
Jade had taught me everything her mother had taught her. Numbers were easy since I didn't have to see them; I just had to understand them, and Jade was patient enough to make sure of that. At around the same time she started to teach me, I'd had two older siblings living with Baba and me, a sister and brother who'd long since moved away, and none of them felt the need to teach me themselves. Or have anything to do with.
"I don't know how to teach someone like you," my sister, Jia, always used to say.
Someone like me.
Useless.
She'd been too busy touching her hair or polishing her shoes in preparation to go into Margin and find a future husband. My brother snarled at me every time I got in his way, which in a two-room cabin was pretty much impossible to avoid.
"What about you?" I asked Archer.
"Nah, my people don't go to school. We teach each other everything we need to know."
"Your people? Who are your people?"
His flannel shirt rustled like he was shrugging, those large shoulders of his flexing. Another non-answer. "Want to see a magic trick?"
Biting back a sigh, I shook my head. Magic tricks would require me acting surprised at certain moments, and I doubted I could pull that off believably. "Do you have any more number tricks?"
“How about something even better? A book?”
Books were always better, and yet another thing I couldn’t see. I loved listening to Jade read from them though.
“I’ll even read it to you so you can rest,” he said as if reading my mind.
And so we carried on like that for three days, just Archer and me, and I liked it. If I wasn't still healing and growing sicker with worry for my family, I probably would have enjoyed it more. He read from an adventure book that took place on the sea, his voice carrying the tension of the heart-stopping events perfectly.
He told me that Grady had brought my bow inside, and so while he spent time with me playing number games, he whittled me more arrows, the scent of fresh pine mixing with his caramel and wood smoke smell quite nicely. He seemed genuinely interested in me, and his warmth and laughter seeped under my skin and blossomed up into a constant smile that made my cheeks hurt.
He couldn't cook for shit though.
After a stew he'd served with meat that had tasted seconds past raw, he crossed toward me. "This will help wash that trash down, I bet. Sorry about that."
"It's fine. I didn't feel anything kick in my mouth, so that’s promising."
"Things are looking up, then." He chuckled and stopped at the edge of my bed, with what sounded like a teacup rattling crazily against its saucer as he handed it to me.
Every night since I’d been here, he’d brought me a cup of opiate tea to help me sleep, but had lessened the dose each night. I’d noticed when I’d woken up in the middle of the night gritting my teeth with the pain, but better that than develop an addiction.
I already had my hands up, waiting, but instead of taking the teacup he pressed to my fingers, I brushed them along his hand. He was trembling.
"Archer, are you…"
"Yeah, I…" He sucked in a breath. "Sometimes I can control that, and other times…" He folded his hand away from my seeking one and handed me the teacup.
I looked up at him, wishing he'd explain, but he didn't. It didn't feel like something I should press on about either.
The tea's steam curled up to heat my cheeks, so I set it aside on the tray at my feet. "Do you think Grady will be coming back soon? I wanted to ask him about what he saw near my house, see if everything was okay."
Archer cleared his throat, and soon the rickety chair he'd placed next to my bed creaked with his weight. "He's gone for long lengths of time usually, so I don't really know when he'll be back."
"So you're just here alone?"
"No, I have Sasha."
"Right. Of course,” I said. “Why do you have a wolf pup? Did something happen to its mom?"
He was quiet for so long I wondered if I'd actually asked him a question. "She was… She was orphaned. Her and her older brothers."
"And you saved them?"
The chair scooted back across the rough floor as he stood suddenly and took several steps away. "No."
So much emotion in that one word, so much loss and heartache, that it made my chest pinch.
What was it about him and Grady finding things that needed to be saved, like me and the other wolf pups? Why did they care so much? I understood their fierce love of animals. Hellbreath was my girl and I would be destroyed if anything happened to her, but to adopt a wild like they had and feel so much sorrow for its siblings? Maybe I was too much of a hunter to understand, but everyone near the Crimson Forest was a hunter. You had to be if you wanted to survive winter.
"I need to go check on Sasha," he rumbled and then left the room, closing the door behind him.
I nodded, even though he was already gone. He or Grady had named Sasha, I guessed, so was she like a pet to them? What would happen when she was grown? They couldn't keep her, a wild like she was.
Archer didn't come back for the rest of the evening, and I carved it into my memory not to ask him questions about Sasha ever again. Even though I burned with curiosity, I didn't want to hurt him.
I dozed, but a sound outside my window filtered through my consciousness—a light scrape like a tree branch. No trees grew near this room, though, at least that I'd heard before now. The fire crackled, a low, comforting sound that beckoned me back to sleep, and for a long while, that was all I heard. Then it came again, farther along the wall. Trees, at least in my experience, didn't move around like that so the wind could rattle their branches against cabin walls when they hadn't before. I did drink all of my opium tea, though, so who the hell really knew.
It came again. Persistent. With purpose. Someone was out there. Not a wild unless they'd developed a working knowledge of rhythm when no one was looking.
Was it Grady? Had he come back? If that were him, then why the strange noises? Unless he was hurt…
Slowly and with great car
e, I shoved myself into a sitting position. My ribs protested and sang with pain and my bites bit back, but I hissed my way through it. If it wasn't Grady, then I obviously wasn't going to fling open the front door. If it wasn't Grady, whoever it was may have peered into the bedroom window and saw me lying here, asleep. An easy target. I didn't even have a weapon. Not with me anyway. Archer’s arrows he’d carved for me were all the way across the room.
I needed to tell Archer.
Listening hard, I opened my mouth and called, "Archer?" Not loud, but loud enough, except from the way my voice bounced between four walls, I remembered that he'd shut the door on his way out.
Shit. Was it worth getting out of bed for? Even now as I sat here, feeling slightly loopy from the opium tea and the pain in my body that balanced it out, I wondered if I'd dreamed it.
I didn't hear anything now, just the fire. But if Grady was out there and hurt, he could freeze to death. I didn't have to like him to not want that to happen.
Sending up a silent prayer that I wouldn't crumble once my feet touched the floor again, I slid my legs out from underneath the blanket. My bare feet slapped the ground lightly, and I stood, keeping one hand locked to the mattress for support. There. Maybe. My legs wobbled some, but so far, so good. I slipped my hand free and stood on my own two feet, the first time in eight days.
Hell yes. I gave the V for Victory sign with my fingers as I held my arms out in front of me and crossed to the door. Jade had taught Lee and me to do that when we did something right. I'd take any victory I could.
Even though my arm still hurt, I took off the sling so I could at least arm myself with an arrow. Archer had told me he’d set my newly whittled arrows and bow in the corner of my room. After fumbling around to find one, I opened the door and stepped out, making sure I missed the creaking floorboards right outside. Across the hall, I remembered seeing— No. No, I didn't remember seeing it. I'd imagined seeing a door across the hall. Sure enough, it was there, closed from the feel of it.
I swallowed hard, shoving away how I'd known it was there.
"Archer?" I said softly.
Silence.
I'd never explored the cabin before, had no idea how large it was or where Archer might sleep. Should I knock?
Winter's Edge (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 1) Page 3