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

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  So Archer did, clearing one cheek, then the other, his touch like fire. "Don't cry, Aika."

  "I can't help it,” I admitted, the words thick with emotion. “Grady's going to go insane when he discovers you gave me his walking stick, and these are my happy tears at the very idea."

  He chuckled, and then it faded out into a long sigh. "You want to say goodbye to Hellbreath before we go?"

  I nodded and set my bow, arrows, and walking stick down, then Archer led me to the barn and left me alone with my poor girl. She seemed to be in the same position as last night, no worse and no better. Mostly we just hugged each other while I promised her dozens of things we could do together when she got better, like another picnic in the springtime with Jade and Lee and apples, all she could eat. Not a new name though. She rumbled her dissatisfaction when I suggested it.

  "Okay, not that. Just the other things, but only when you get better though," I whispered into her fur, wet with my tears. I hated to think this would be the last time I saw her. As soon as spring came, I swore I'd be back here as soon as I could, which might not be soon enough.

  I gave her one last kiss and scratch on the top of her forehead, her favorite spot, and then walked out of there with my heart dragging behind me.

  Archer met me outside and wrapped me up closer to him with his arm around my back. "Ready?" he asked gently.

  No, I wasn't. Yes, I was.

  I sighed. "Ready."

  "All you have to do is hold on to the handrail. I won't go too fast, but I'll go fast enough to cover the three miles there. It should take about thirty minutes. The wind is super shitty today though." He led me to the sleigh and then up onto it, showing me where the handrail was, which was rough and easy to grip, even with gloves. Same for the wood under my feet. It felt sturdy and thick enough that I didn't feel like I'd slip off.

  "This is perfect, Archer." I beamed over my shoulder at him where I could hear him securing the bow and arrows and all my other supplies. From the slightly hollow sound of the boards, there must have been a compartment under my feet for storage. It really was perfect.

  "Well, I don't know about perfect, but I think it'll get you there. Okay, I think that's it." He stepped down from the sleigh and stopped at my side. "Shout if you need anything. I'm going to go ahead and shift, and we'll get going. Oh, one more thing. Can you crouch down a little? Just for a second."

  I did as he asked. "Like this?"

  "Yeah, a little more, and turn toward me."

  I narrowed my eyes because his voice was laced with a teasing smile. "Why do I have a feeling you're having fun with me."

  "Probably because I'm having fun with you." He laughed, and then it cut short, followed by the sound of paws hitting the snow and the smell of snowy fur.

  In an instant, I could see again, my own grinning, tear-streaked face right in front of Archer's eyes. My other eyes. A long pink tongue darted out and slicked across my mouth, and then Archer turned and bounded away while I sputtered with laughter.

  "Hey!" I shouted. "You licked my teeth!"

  Just as the sleigh began to move, gently at first, I stood upright, the cold wind freezing my grin in place as we left the cabin behind. A miracle grin, because the rest of me cracked open, deeper and deeper like a jagged ravine every foot we moved away. My temporary good spirits at being licked by Archer's wolf tongue chipped away as fast as a certain realization took hold.

  Grady had been right—this terrain was wild and rough. Archer panted his way through it, dragging me up the sides of hills strewn with sharp stones and twisted tree roots poking at odd angles up through the snow. He looped me around the widest parts of frozen streams to try to cross the narrower channels.

  Through Archer's eyes, it looked the same for miles—snow-covered and wild…and much too overwhelming. I would be walking through some of this, by myself. Finally, I closed my eyes to block it all out, taking comfort in the darkness. Right away, my other senses perked up, right at home taking front and center over vision. Over the hiss of wind and the sleigh cracking a path through the snow, the faint, bubbly song of a winter wren sounded

  We moved surprisingly fast, directly into the terrible wind. It whipped against my nose and cheeks, and I dared lift one hand from the handrail to rearrange the scarf around my neck to better cover my face.

  Archer had said Old Man’s Den was about three miles, or thirty minutes, away, but it seemed much farther than that by the time he finally stopped. It must have been a much slower three miles while lugging me around behind him. I opened my eyes to see through his, but nothing but forest still crowded around us. I imagined the town was just over the next hill, which thankfully wasn't too steep. Archer’s vision blinked out suddenly, and then two feet instead of four stepped toward me.

  "This is as far as I can go," he said with a sigh.

  I turned and reached for him, my throat pulling tight. Even though I would see him again after I left Old Man’s Den, this felt like the first of our goodbyes. I didn't know what to say to him that could possibly sum up all that I was feeling, and thankfully, I didn't have to say anything.

  He clasped my outstretched fingers and pulled me to him, his lips finding mine in a space between my galloping heartbeats. Unlike his sweet, probing kiss last night, this one felt hard and desperate, his mouth claiming my breaths like he needed them more than I did. And I gave them to him, everything I had and more. Or the best I could anyway since I couldn't really feel my face.

  He roughly pulled away, his ragged breaths steaming warmth over my cheeks. "Go. Hurry. Come back to me, and I'll find you when you do."

  "I won't ever forget this," I said, reaching up to find his cheek. Even now—especially now standing here on the edge of winter—his heat startled me. I wished I could cling to it for longer. "Everything you've done for me and everything that you are, I will never forget it."

  "The same goes for me, too, Aika." He held my hand to his face for a moment and then guided me off the sleigh so he could gather my supplies.

  While he did, I took a small container of dried peppermint from my pocket I’d swiped from Grady and crumbled the flakes all over my coat, pants, and even my hair. The scent was potent, and Archer had already tested its efficiency to mask the smell of another wolf while Grady had been making the fake poison.

  Once Archer secured the package in my coat pocket, looped my bow and arrows around my shoulder, and handed me Grady's walking stick, he faced me in the right direction again. "Head straight. Move quick as you can so you can get out of the wind. I'll be right here when you get back."

  "Okay." Suddenly the risks involved in this plan drilled right to the center of my bones and rattled doubt through them. There wasn't any other way, though, and I refused to just give in to the death sentence winter brought with it.

  I took the first step, which was always the hardest, and led with my walking stick, tapping it back and forth across the snow-covered ground. Archer's heat faded behind me the farther I drew away from him, his gaze a comforting pressure on my back as if he were helping to push me forward against the frigid wind.

  I wanted him. The realization popped into my head so clear and complete and bright that it dashed another impossible smile across my face. I wanted him so much it hurt, more than anything I'd ever wanted in my life. I wanted to get to know him more, discover what made him beautiful on the inside, and out. I wanted to kiss him so much more, do things to him. Have him do things to me.

  My head must've crested the hill because an onslaught of putrid smells carried on the wind, effectively killing all happy thoughts. The smells came from Old Man’s Den, so thick with coppery blood and death that it slimed my tongue with them. I slammed my mouth shut, my eyes watering from the stink, and readjusted my scarf over my nose.

  The town smelled like a slaughter. I didn't remember it being this bad before. Sometimes lambs or other animals were strung up on the side of the single road, still shrieking, and killed right there so the individual parts could be sold.
The single street of Old Man’s Den was like a marketplace just outside of the business buildings.

  My walking stick helped me work around trees and rocks, and then my feet were pointing down the hill. The ground was steep and uneven, too slick in places for me to do anything other than slide uncontrollably. One wrong move and I could twist an ankle, fall and break an arm, rebreak my healing ribs. Or worse, break the package.

  I kept going and dug in my heels the best I could. Gradually, the ground sloped a little gentler, but I didn't dare start to trust it.

  The wind brought raucous male laughter with it, coming from up ahead. I was close.

  To my left, a tree branch snapped. I stopped and whirled toward it, my free hand going to my bow. A wolf? Another wild? Or the bald man coming to see what I was up to?

  I mentally shook my head. Not every sound meant I was being hunted. Besides, I wasn't in the Crimson Forest where the wolves had first attacked me. I came at the town through Slipjoint Forest from the opposite side than what I was used to. I continued on, my senses on alert, just in case.

  The town’s sounds grew loud enough so I could hear snatches of sellers shouting out their wares. I would have to walk through an assault on my ears, all the way through the center of it, to get to my destination on the other side. More scents enveloped me, not all of them terrible like smoked meats and fried and sugared breads. And then terrible in a different way with sweaty, jostling bodies pressing in.

  “But…Aika?”

  My mind scratched at the familiar voice, and I stopped, wondering if it was possible to be in two locations at once. Because that voice belonged back home, not in Old Man’s Den.

  “Lee?” I couldn’t hear myself, couldn’t believe I was saying his name.

  Suddenly, he stood right in front of me and touched my face just as I always did to him, our usual greeting. I’d always patted him on the cheek as a little boy, and somehow it evolved into this—our thing.

  “You’re so beautiful, Aika. I love you.”

  Jeers and whistles sounded nearby.

  “Who’s your friend here, lover boy?” a man asked and slapped his hand on Lee’s back, knocking him closer.

  But I hardly heard him. A bitter tang rolled on Lee’s breath, sharp enough to bring tears to my eyes.

  “Have you…been drinking?” I asked, astonished.

  “My new friends like me, Aika.” He laughed. “So much.”

  I started shaking my head even before he’d finished, disgust seething through my blood. “These are not your friends.”

  “But…”

  “Listen to me.” I held to his face harder. “How did you get here? Where’s Jade?” The panic in my voice sharpened to a point, and I could feel him wince.

  “The nice man took us here. Jade’s in that place.” He nodded his head toward the left.

  “What nice man, Lee? What place?” I demanded.

  “The Scratching Post,” one of his “friends” said.

  Everything inside of me went numb. Oh god. Oh god, Jade. I’d heard of The Scratching Post the couple of times I’d been to Old Man’s Den. Men liked to brag loudly about the women there and all the different ways they liked to be poked.

  Because The Scratching Post was a goddamn brothel, and Jade was only fifteen.

  My throat suddenly felt raw and hoarse like I’d started screaming into a void. I had to get her out of there. I had to get them both out of Old Man’s Den.

  Someone knocked into me hard going the other direction, bumping me away from Lee and nearly sending me to the road on my noodle-like legs.

  “Say goodbye to your girlfriend,” a rough voice said. “It’s time to hit the next tavern.”

  “Goodbye, Aika. I love you.”

  “No, Lee.” I reached out for him, searching in an endless sea of movement, but he’d already gone. “Lee, please, come back!”

  My shout was swallowed whole by rougher, deeper ones, coming straight at me like an angry wall.

  “Edenberry said he smelled a rival wolf coming this way,” a man said as he passed by. “Only one but there could be more coming.”

  Archer.

  My heart pummeled everything on its fall down to my toes. I spun around in the direction the men were headed, into Slipjoint Forest. I could only imagine what they would do to Archer if they found him.

  I worried my lip, sudden indecision pulling hard in four different directions. To Archer. To Jade. To Lee. Or to make the fake delivery.

  Forcing a breath from my icy lungs, I took my next step, my mind made up.

  Chapter 10

  I hated walking through towns, especially now with a walking stick, because I felt like I was shouting the fact that I was blind from the top of my lungs. I grew defensive if anyone got too close or said the wrong thing. Just ask Jade.

  “Who? This?” she’d said once while nudging me. “I’m taking care of her and my brother.”

  We’d been strolling through Margin with Lee on our heels, and she’d said it to impress some random boy she’d met two seconds earlier. So, I’d taken Lee and Hellbreath back to Margin’s Row without her and made her walk a large chunk of the twenty miles back. I would’ve let her do the whole trek if not for Lee getting upset about it, and after I finally rounded back to pick her up, the summer sun beating down, she didn’t speak to me for weeks.

  We had a complicated relationship, and I often hated the attention she received for her looks and was even jealous of her name. Jade sounded so much more exotic than Aika. Jade had purpose. Aika was just some random letters strung together to make a weird sound at the back of your throat.

  Still, she might as well have been my blood sister, and now I was leaving her behind in a brothel. Leaving her brother behind to drink even more at another tavern with his so-called friends.

  And Archer… He could fend for himself.

  I had to believe that, just as I had to believe I was making the right choice by continuing with my original plan.

  Guilt dragged at each of my steps, though, as I cut my way through the crowd in slow motion.

  Someone's elbow jabbed a little too close to my healing ribs, and I let out a hiss.

  Whoever it was just chuckled, a smoky, feminine sound that instantly made me think of sex. Not with her, but in general, like maybe she worked at one of the brothels in town.

  "Sorry, dearie, but you're on the wrong side of traffic," she said.

  Oh. I swatted at the ground with my walking stick and tried to maneuver to the right, but there were too many bodies. This place was hell.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake." I swung my walking stick higher and landed several hits until people finally moved out of my way.

  The woman had been right. Over on the right side, the crowd flowed in the direction I needed.

  Soon, my ears perked at the sound of horses snorting and pawing the ground up ahead. There was a hitching post there where Hellbreath always went directly to when Baba and I would arrive from the other side of town. Just to the right of it was where I needed to go.

  When I got there, I could tell I was in the right place because of the booze and tobacco smell and the certain clang-flap-clang of what sounded like a flag with metal parts beating against its pole. From the sound Baba's voice had made when he was here, the place he went to sell the poison had a window with an awning over it within a small offshoot of a building. A man always stood behind the window, and I could hear him now, spitting into a tin cup and setting it back down again.

  My stomach turned, but I tried to ignore it.

  I iced my voice with as much authority as I could and said, "Here for a delivery for Gabriel or Faust."

  "Faust's not expecting any deliveries today."

  "That doesn't change the fact that I have one for him."

  He sighed. "What is it?"

  "It's the same thing my baba—my dad—brings every month." Was it called poison or something else? Baba never had to answer all these questions about it, so I had no clue what the answers wer
e.

  "The first of every month," the guy said, seeming to know what I was talking about. He must’ve known my baba.

  "Yeah," I snapped. "I left on the first and just now got here. Things happen."

  The guy stood there, seeming to assess way too long. If I couldn't even hand the fake package off to Gabriel or Faust, this was a waste of time. I'd have to find another way to get the money, and fast.

  I thought of the smoky woman who'd run into me on the way here. Did she work in a brothel? I could never do that. Jade could never do that. I wouldn’t let her even if she did.

  The guy stepped back and parted a beaded curtain behind him. "Winky, is Faust here?"

  "In the back," a voice hollered.

  "Follow me," the guy said.

  Follow him where? I gritted my teeth. "I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific than that."

  "Why the fuck…?" He opened a door to his left, and mumbled low enough that I almost missed it, "Stupid helpless cunt."

  A simmer ignited in my gut and flared outward under my skin.

  “Sorry, didn't quite catch that last part," I ground out as I shoved past him through the door.

  "I said solid, heavy coat. Yours, I mean. Great craftsmanship. Did you make it yourself?"

  What a terrible liar. As his footsteps thudded past me, I swung my walking stick out at the last minute and cracked him hard in what sounded like his kneecap, enough to earn a grunt and then silence from him. I didn’t even try to look innocent afterward either.

  I followed the sounds of his movements through the beaded curtain into a building with dusty wooden floors, drafty walls, and loud male voices ahead and to the left. As we moved to the right, all of my doubts hardened into stone. This wasn't a good idea, coming in here like this. Not where I felt trapped between walls. Not where there were fewer witnesses.

  "How about I just give it to you, and you can give it to Faust in exchange for my money?" I asked.

  He didn't say anything as he turned right, his footsteps clipping along the wooden floor.