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

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  “Not to me, it isn’t.” I threaded my fingers between his. He felt so good that I wanted to keep him here. And touch him. I didn’t know where this was coming from, if it was him or me or this moment, but he made me feel…almost greedy with need when I’d never felt like that before.

  My skin burned. My chest pushed against his forearm with every shallow, uneven breath.

  “Aika…” He slid his hand free from mine to cup my cheek. His thumb trailed just below my bottom lip and pressed down to part my lips.

  I lay there speechless, stunned, because no one had ever touched me like this or said my name like it was worth saying again and again.

  He followed the curve of my lower lip and then crept his thumb upward so the tip entered my mouth. Curious, hardly daring to move, I flicked out my tongue to taste him, and the sweet, slightly salty taste of him shocked over my tongue.

  He made a sound low in his throat that trembled the air between us and curled between my legs. I sucked in a breath, all of these sensations brand new, and instantly craved more of them. He grazed his thumb down my chin, over my jaw, and down the column of my neck like all he wanted to do was touch me too. I craned my neck to give him better access as he brushed over my collarbone and down beneath the blanket, pulling it aside. I’d skipped the first few buttons on the flannel shirt I wore, and his finger hooked on the first fastened one. The heat of his touch spread outward and tingled over my nipples just a few inches away from his hand, turning them into two aching points.

  “Aika.” He tensed then, seeming to catch himself. “I came in here to ask you a question.”

  “Okay.” Nodding, I tried not to pant as I pressed my hands to his still hooked in my shirt to keep him there. “Ask away.”

  He heaved a short sigh and flexed his hand out from mine to slide his fingers under my shirt. He pressed his palm flat to my slamming heartbeat, and the side of his large hand dragged over my nipple, tightening it even more.

  My blood hummed through me, fueled with need, and it gathered in an aching pulse between my legs. I spread them wider, my knee knocking into his hip where he sat on the bed as a physical invitation, one my body made for me with no conscious decision.

  It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him or hardly knew him. We both seemed to know enough.

  “Fuck, Aika,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “That’s not a question,” I breathed.

  “No, it—”

  A single wolf howl broke him off, a little one coming from across the hallway. Sasha. The energy around Archer tensed.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  He stood quickly, sliding his hand from underneath my shirt and taking his magic touch with him. "Stay here."

  I gestured to the state of my prone body, but something in his tone made it sound like he wasn't joking. He left the room, and silence fell hard, thin and tight like a tripwire. No more sounds from Sasha.

  And then an explosion of snarls almost right outside my window that sounded a lot like the wolves from my nightmare in the forest.

  Archer’s heat dashed from my body, and terror replaced it, wrapping ice around my stomach. What was happening out there?

  I listened hard for any sound from Archer, but I couldn’t hear anything over the fight outside. He had to be getting a gun or another weapon. He should’ve just taken the bow and arrows still leaning in the corner.

  I made to stand, painfully slow. I was a good shot when I had enough time to aim. I could help drive the wolves off while standing inside the window, even through the tiniest crack. Once I was on my feet, I crossed to my bow, but bending over to retrieve it felt like hot pokers drilling into my side.

  More ferocious snarls and then a sharp cry like one of the wolves had been hurt. But I hadn’t heard a gunshot. Had Archer hurt it? With his bare hands?

  My healing ribs protested as I dragged myself across the room, past the crackling fire, nocking an arrow as I went with more in the quiver slung over my shoulder. The cold outside pressed against the pane of glass, and it chilled my bare toes the closer I drew. I found the latch and groaned, squeezing my eyes shut with the effort as I pushed the window open, my weakened muscles trembling. The smell of wet fur breezed past my nose—and then I could see.

  Again.

  From the middle of a wolf fight. Four different wolves, snarling and snapping their jaws and circling each other, and I was one of them. No, I was two of them, staring out of their eyes, first one and then the other.

  How was this happening? This didn’t feel like a hallucination with the wind biting at my nose, all three of my noses, the one attached to my face and the two surrounded by fur and saliva and blood.

  I—we; who the fuck knew?—stared down the other two. The fur along their backs bristled high, and they bared their sharp fangs in lethal grins.

  My breaths shook as I raised my bow. I tried to steady myself, find my balance, which was hard when my world hurled between one set of eyes to the other while I stood right here. This wasn’t possible. But for now, I had to trust it because I didn’t have any other choice. I had to be peering out of these two specific pairs of eyes for a reason, not the other wolves'.

  Right? Or was I just insane?

  The wolves lunged at each other's throats, a ball of violent fur and spraying blood. Round and round in a vicious whirl, and I screwed my eyes shut to block it out. It was too confusing to watch, and even more to be a part of.

  Still, I felt their hatred and viciousness as if it were mine because I was caught dead center. I didn't want to be. The one time in the Crimson Forest was enough.

  I let my arrow fly. A high-pitched squeal rent the air when it punctured, and the other sounds of battle stopped. With a slow breath, I pried open my eyes again, just a crack.

  One wolf had my arrow through its eye and pawed at it desperately. The other backed off a short distance. The two wolves I saw through swiveled their heads toward me, catching each other in their periphery. Both of their eyes were blood red, and now they—and me—were looking at me framed in the window inside the cabin.

  A scream welled up into my throat. I fought with my own injuries and quivering muscles to get the window back down.

  They couldn’t get to me, not with the window in place. There was easier prey in the forest.

  The window shifted an inch down and halted, shifted and halted, and I watched its slow progress as if I were really a wolf myself. Then, through their eyes, a shadow moved behind me. Slinking out the bedroom door.

  I whirled, putting the wolves at my back behind the not-quite-closed window, which was a mistake, but someone had been in here with me. Someone bald. Not Archer. Not Grady. Now, all I saw was the back of my own head.

  A ferocious growl came behind me outside, followed closely by a squeal and a snap. I spun, and through one of the wolf's eyes, I stared at a dying wolf, its broken neck listing its head to one side. The other wolf I’d caught with my arrow lay in the periphery, dead.

  My stomach nearly revolted, and I backed away, not wanting to see death that up close and personal, not while it happened. Not wanting to see any of this, period.

  A gunshot cracked through the air outside. Was that Archer? What had taken him so long? Or was it the bald man who’d been in here with me?

  Trembling, I inhaled deeply, trying to catch his scent even though he’d gone—tangy and rich like too-sweet honey.

  "Aika!" Grady crashed through the front door, his walking stick thudding hard on the wooden floor.

  I made a desperate sound at the back of my throat and stumbled out into the hallway, using the end of my bow to guide me when I turned the corner. The wolves’ vision vanished from my eyes with my next blink, and I’d never been so happy to be blind again as right then.

  "Who was that man?" Grady shouted.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak as a surge of bile splashed onto my tongue. The man had been in the room with me, and I'd been too focused on the wolves outside my window to even noti
ce.

  "Sasha!" Grady passed by me, his unbalanced footsteps echoing loudly down the hallway.

  “That gunshot?” I croaked out.

  “It was him getting away, but he didn’t shoot me. I was too fast.”

  Grady with his limp was too fast for a bullet?

  Struggling to make sense of yet one more thing, I followed after him and sucked in a breath, just as sharp as my realization.

  The package.

  I dove back into my room and toward the bed on the other side. "No. No. No."

  The front door crashed open again, and a muttered breath drifted down the hallway, pained and hollow-sounding.

  “Sasha’s fine, if not pissed off,” Grady announced from the hall. "Shit. Archer."

  I threw the pillow aside, felt my hands over the top of the thin mattress, underneath it, under the bed, my body groaning, my mind spinning out of control with panic.

  "Aika, get in here!” Grady shouted. “Archer is bleeding out!"

  The package was gone.

  Chapter 7

  "Put pressure on it while I get the medkit," Grady demanded and rushed out of the living room, his walking stick banging loudly against the floor.

  I stood over Archer's prone form, the smell of his blood thickening the air, and bent to feel for the wound. My fingertips touched his bare chest, the heat on his skin shocking.

  “What happened?” I traced along his skin, searching.

  His breaths were shallow and quick, and he answered me with a pained, "Bitten."

  He took my hand and guided it to the half-circle on his side that seeped with blood without a word, but I could feel him studying me hard. He knew. He had to know I was blind if I couldn’t even find a bite wound that felt ugly and vicious underneath my hands.

  I pressed hard on it, but not too hard, trying to calm my panicked thoughts so I could focus on just one.

  “It was…” His side heaved while he tried to get his breathing under control. "It was during that wolf fight."

  The heavy note in his voice, the slight hesitation—he was telling me something important. In the back of my mind, maybe it had already been forming, but I refused to believe it. Because it couldn't be. Still, the pieces snapped together, faster and faster until a wild from the Crimson Forest stared back. He and Grady were taking care of a wolf pup, were strangely protective of her, and…I could see through wolves’ eyes. Their eyes, as wolves.

  I shook my head hard. Things like this didn't happen. They weren't supposed to happen. Archer was a man, not a wolf.

  "Aika,” he breathed. “Why didn't you tell us you were blind?"

  I frowned down at my hands, still pressed to Archer's heated skin. He’d obviously sensed my blindness was an easier topic to talk about, though not by much.

  “It's not something you just announce upon meeting people," I admitted.

  "Why not?" He shifted on the couch and groaned.

  “You didn’t tell me all your secrets when you first met me either.”

  He blew out a slow breath. “That’s fair.”

  Grady burst in then from the hallway, limping as swiftly as he could. Soon, the smell of antiseptic stung my nose. "Had to restock the bandages because someone got carried away and wanted to wrap Aika up like a mummy."

  "Worth it," Archer hissed. "She saved our asses today with her arrow."

  A heavy silence hung in the room while Grady pressed in closer with the antiseptic.

  "The wolves..." I began, since no one else would.

  "They weren’t from the Crimson Forest," Archer said. “Not the ones who kicked us out. They were part of another pack, starving and searching for food.”

  Another wolf pack… Were they people too? Or how about the wolves who’d attacked me?

  "How?" Such a simple word when said, but I wasn't sure I was prepared for what was sure to be a complex answer.

  "I take it you know," Grady said, and from the tone of his voice, he didn’t sound happy about it.

  When had he gotten back anyway?

  I shook my head as he moved my bloodied hands away from Archer. "That's about as far from the truth as I could ever be. I don't know anything anymore."

  Archer yelped. “Fuck, Grady. A little warning next time?”

  “No time for warnings,” Grady muttered, and it sounded like his head was bowed over Archer’s wound. “Besides, you were distracted by Little Miss Sure Shot. You gonna tell us how you got that son of a bitch through the eye without being able to see it? Yeah, I know now too. I heard Archer a little bit ago.”

  Archer panted and hissed while Grady cleaned him up. “I saw you, Aika. I saw you walk right past me without a word when you went to open the door to Hellbreath. I was right here on the couch.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” I pulled sharply away from them both, a roiling heat simmering in my gut. “Okay. Congratulations. Now you both know. Why are you making such a fucking big deal over it? I don’t.”

  “Relax, woman, will you?” Grady snapped. “We’re surprised is all. Just like I’m sure you’re surprised that we’re wolves.”

  “You’re men,” I corrected.

  “We’re wolf shifters,” Archer breathed.

  I backed away a step, shaking my head, because this was the most insane thing I’d heard in my entire life. Men didn’t change into wolves that changed back into men. I’d thought I was hallucinating when I saw through wolves’ eyes, but this entire situation was just a giant fever dream of fantastical nonsense.

  A sudden tremor ripped up my spine. What if I’d shaken something loose inside my head in the Crimson Forest? Because that was what it felt like—like reality was slipping.

  “Are you gonna pass out?” Grady demanded.

  A burst of anger sparked at the implication, and I marched toward him to slide my bloody hands down the back of his coat. “I liked it better when you weren’t here.”

  He gave a low rumble, half growl, half chuckle. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “Everything you told me, Archer…” I said, pointedly ignoring Grady.

  "It was the truth,” Archer said. “Most of our pack was murdered over our turf in the Crimson Forest. Grady and I are what's left, and Sasha. Our alpha is missing, has been for years.” He paused for a moment. “I think he's dead."

  "And I think he isn't,” Grady yelled, and Archer hissed in pain right after like Grady had taped him up a little too violently.

  The tension in the room tightened, just as thick and smothering as the silence.

  Had that been where Grady had gone, then? To search for their—I swallowed, barely able to entertain the idea—alpha?

  Grady huffed, and I imagined I could feel the edges of teeth in the sound. “Our pack was close, real close, and I know I would feel it in my gut if he was dead."

  "So this…this pack that kicked you out,” I said, feeling like I was stepping on shaky ground. “Would they ever come to finish the job?"

  "I doubt it," Archer said.

  "Probably so," Grady said at the same time.

  "Well.” I nodded. “That clears everything right up."

  "We're not even in the Crimson Forest," Archer said. “We’re right on the edge, in the Slipjoint Forest. Neutral ground. That’s what Faust said anyway.”

  Faust, as in the guy above rank from Gabriel, who we sold the poison to. Had Baba known all this? That he was dealing with wolf shifters the whole time?

  “Slipjoint Forest…” I began. “Is that where you found me, Grady?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Slipjoint Forest bled right into the Crimson Forest. If I’d made it there, I’d gone a little too far north, but not much. The two forests converged around Old Man’s Den, where I still needed to go…

  "Those wolves who just came here…” I said. “I think it was a distraction to get the poison. It’s gone. The bald man took it. You saw him in my bedroom yourselves.”

  Which was how I’d seen him too.

  A heavy sigh from Archer. "Shit."

  Gr
ady stood and limped away, and the air around him crackled with tension. “What the fuck, Archer? You’re upset the poison’s gone?”

  “It belonged to Aika, asshole. It’s how her family gets fed.”

  “Well, right now, the biggest deer I could find in the Slipjoint Forest is probably still feeding your family, even after a week,” Grady said. “I even delivered it to their doorstep. You’re welcome.”

  I sucked in a breath. “You did? Did you see any—?”

  “I didn’t stop to take in the sights,” he snapped.

  I sank my eyes closed with relief. Jade would’ve found it, probably while it was still fresh, and would’ve used every part of it she could to keep her and Lee alive. Possibly my baba, too, if he’d made it. But even a deer wouldn’t last through the winter, despite all our other ready-made foods like deer jerky, dried fruits, and pickled vegetables. Maybe half the winter, so about two and a half to three months, if they spread it thin. We really needed payment from the delivery for one last run into Margin for more supplies.

  But now the bald guy had it, the very definition of my family’s survival. Gone.

  “This bald guy,” Grady said. “Why does he want your poison?”

  “Control, maybe.” That was the only thing that made sense to me, at least.

  Archer shifted again on the couch and groaned. “So…this guy is nudging you out of that business just like the wolves kicked us out of our home. For control.”

  When he put it like that, it made it sound like we had a lot more in common than I’d thought.

  “How did that guy know about the package and exactly where you kept it?” Grady asked.

  A shiver chased down my spine. Because he’d been watching, maybe right through the window, and I hadn’t even known.

  "Have you seen that man before?" Archer cleared his throat like he was testing to see if I'd admit it or not—the part about seeing, specifically.

  "No, I... No..." But I had seen him, really seen him, from outside the window through the wolves' eyes. How could something like that be real?

  I could feel both Archer and Grady’s gazes on me, waiting since I'd trailed off.