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

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  "Yeah, I like that plan better." I fished in my pocket, comforted slightly by the sloshing inside. "Here."

  He wordlessly turned right again, and I followed into a much narrower space as the hallway. The walls bounced back our sounds much faster than they had.

  "Wait," he snapped and shut the door.

  "No, you wait." I lunged toward the door just as a lock outside slid home. My breaths stalled. "Hey!" I banged on the wood with both my fist and my stick.

  Silence.

  Goddamn it, Aika. I supposed I'd really pissed him off.

  This was not good. Of course, I couldn't have predicted that coming to Old Man’s Den would end with me locked inside a room. A closet more like, I realized as I turned around. My stick hit the leg of a table, and beyond it a simple wooden chair. I sat there to rest for a bit, my exhausted body feeling like it was going to revolt any second against me and shut down. My ribs hurt something awful, and even my healing wolf bites protested that I’d pushed myself too far.

  Time ticked by. I could feel it in my empty stomach, growing emptier by the second. My body did shut down for a while, and I dozed. When I woke again, my brain felt foggy and everything ached. How long had I been out?

  "Hey!" I tried to shout, but my throat had dried so I couldn’t push out anything beyond a croak. Lucky for me, I didn't have to get up to bang on the door with my walking stick since the room was so small. I could sit here and do it. How long would Faust keep me waiting?

  More and more, I just wanted out of here, never mind the package and the money. This had been such a terrible idea. There had to be another way to get money. I could steal it, maybe from this tavern. Or I could go somewhere else and try to work for that kind of money over the next couple of days with my shitty, still-healing body. There had to be another way, though, because this wasn’t working.

  I rose, slowly, my very bones creaking, and turned to explore my options in this room. Behind me, my fingers hit a pane of arctic glass. A window. Narrow. Really narrow. I searched along the other walls, but that was the only one. I returned to it, found the latch, jammed the heel of my palm against it to make it budge.

  Could I make it—

  The door opened behind me. I whirled around, and a wall of spruce and dirt scents pushed toward me while heavy, confident footsteps thudded inside.

  "Well. Kane Song’s daughter." Faust, I guessed. His voice was gravelly but with a lot of boldness behind it.

  I tried to blank my face even though my insides recoiled. He was a wolf shifter, and not the good kind like I was used to. How many had he killed with my baba’s poison?

  "I gotta say, this is a surprise. I expected your pa on the first of the month." A chair dragged across the floor and then creaked as he sat. "Not today, and certainly not you. Alone."

  I cleared my throat, even drier now, my tongue growing thick. No time for nerves though. I had to literally sell my lie. "I left on the first of the month, but am only just arriving today. I was attacked in the Crimson Forest." Better to start with the truth, I supposed.

  "Yes," he said, "I would imagine you were."

  "But my baba never was," I blurted, then scolded myself internally. That wasn't part of my script.

  "No, he wasn't. Your pa had permission."

  And then it clicked. Of course he did. He was the one who was supposed to make the delivery each month, not me. The wolves in the Crimson Forest must’ve known I didn’t belong and attacked.

  A long pause while I could feel him staring at me. "Your pa never told you, did he?"

  "He never told me a lot of things,” I admitted.

  "Curious, though, that he didn't tell you he hired someone else to make the delivery for him, a little later than was scheduled because your old man is sick."

  "Hired? Sick?" What? No, he'd handed the package to me and told me to hide at Lee and Jade's. We didn't have money to hire someone when we could barely afford to survive…

  Realization, sharp with many corners, dragged through me. No, not hired. The bald man who'd stolen the package from me… He'd delivered it, late, with some sorry excuse that my baba was sick. Since I’d been in the Slipjoint Forest when he’d taken it, he’d likely taken that route to get here safely. You could get from Margin’s Row to Old Man’s Den while avoiding the Crimson Forest, but it would take a lot longer. The bald man obviously had.

  Shit. So if he’d already delivered it…

  "So, I'm sorry,” Faust said, “but I've already got this month's supply and won't need any more until after winter."

  Panic burned up my throat, so raw and fierce that I thought I might scream. I had to make him listen, do whatever was necessary so he’d pay me.

  "I have something better than what he gave you." I fished the fake poison from my pocket and laid it on the table between us, a temptation wrapped in hope. "It's twice as potent."

  "Hm…" He picked it up, and I licked my lips, my mind spinning on what I could possibly tell him that would make him believe me when I still wasn't sure of the dosage and all the different ways it worked exactly on people like him. Wolf shifters. And on the fact that it was just moonshine mixed with harmless herbs and not real poison at all. The screw lid on top squealed slightly as he twisted it, and then he inhaled. "Well. Certainly smells that way."

  "Ever heard of the five-step snake?" I blurted.

  "Can't say that I have."

  "After a five-step snake bites you, that's how many steps you take before you fall over dead. Just five." I nodded at the bottle still in his hands. "That concoction… That's what I would call a five-step snake."

  "You don't say.” There was a tinge of interest in his boisterous voice, but that didn’t mean anything. Interest didn’t put money in my pocket. “And how do you know this for sure? Did you try it out?"

  "I did. I dipped one of my arrows in it and shot it into my horse." The lie poured out easily, but my insides shriveled back from the words as if they were offended I could even think such a thing. I was offended, too, but I kept going. "She was sick anyway, so I was doing her a favor. Five steps, and that was it."

  "A horse, huh? Impressive."

  I couldn't tell if he believed me or not, or if he was just spouting off what he thought I wanted to hear.

  "Surely you didn't strengthen your pa's potion all by yourself though?"

  His tone wasn't dismissive of my intelligence, but the words sure were.

  "I perfected it," I bit out. "All by myself."

  He paused for several beats, and then, "Show me."

  I was too busy glaring daggers at him to realize the implication right away. "On you?"

  He chuckled, completely void of any humor, a chuckle that crawled across the table and glared right back. "Let's find an animal, and you can show me this new and improved version."

  Thoughts crashed together inside my skull. One, this poison couldn't do what I'd just said. Two, by animal, what if he meant Archer since he'd already been detected outside of town? Three, this poison couldn't fucking do what I'd just said.

  I schooled my expression, feigning confidence, and shrugged. "Whatever you say."

  He stood, and I could feel him towering over me, and reveling in it. "What's your name, girl?"

  "Aika."

  "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Aika Song." He turned, his heavy boots carrying him out of the cramped room.

  "If it's such a pleasure, then you won't leave me here for long," I called after him. "I have places to be, after all."

  Another empty chuckle. "Don't we all." He shut and locked the door behind him.

  Bastard.

  Now, alone in the silence, I could think about how screwed I was. Like really drill down and discover the depths of my stupidity. The dumb had no end. Shit shit shit. What was I supposed to do now? Sure, a well-placed arrow could kill anything, but poison? That quickly? What the hell had I been thinking?

  But I refused to let myself crack. I'd come so far and had a little farther to go. Whatever animal he bro
ught me to kill, I'd just have to shoot it and hope for the best. Not Archer, though.

  Oh god, please be okay, Archer. And Lee and Jade, and even my baba too. This would all be over soon, one way or another.

  Sooner than I'd expected, footsteps pounded outside and the door banged open.

  Vision, clear as day, clicked into place inside my head. I gasped as I looked at my face through something else's eyes.

  Oh, shit no. Archer? Thomas? Yet another wolf? But no. The only wolves I could see through had been poisoned just like me.

  The unexpected disorientation caused my stomach to sway, my hands to fly to the table's edge and hang on. Wait, not just my stomach was swaying but the thing I was peering out of as well. Behind my head in the darkened window, I spied the animal through my borrowed vision. A wolf pup with red eyes, no older than Sasha. It swung from Faust's meaty hand from the scruff of its neck, its nose twitching furiously.

  Another wolf I could see through. Was it part of Archer and Grady's pack? Did they even know it was here?

  It let out a pathetic little howl and squirmed violently in Faust's grip.

  I'd shot all kinds of wilds before, young and old, I was sure, because we needed to eat, but never one I could see through. And never one to prove a lie.

  I'd talked myself into a corner. Now it was time to talk myself out. Because I couldn't do it. I couldn't shoot this wolf pup, even if this poison I'd brought really did work.

  "You have anything older?” I asked as calmly as I could manage. “I'm not accustomed to shooting pups just to make a point."

  "And I'm not accustomed to little girls demanding I pay them when I already did." Faust’s voice came out low, dangerous.

  "You never paid me."

  "I'm sure I did. I paid the man who says he works for your pa. Sounds like there was a communication breakdown between the three of you, which is not my problem. Shoot the pup or get out. Either way, do it quick."

  When I refused to do either, he made a low growl in the back of his throat and turned to the door, the room tilting crazily through the pup's eyes.

  "What about an advance for spring?" I blurted, my desperation lifting my voice higher.

  He stopped. "That's not how any of this works. Why don't you go home to your pa, little girl."

  "I could work for you up until winter. Sweep, do dishes. Whatever you need me to do." I swallowed down the terror those words brought me. I shuddered to think what 'whatever' might be, but I didn't have much of a choice. It sounded like Lee and Jade didn't, either, and I had to do anything I could to get them far away from here, with money, so we could survive like we always had.

  "I don’t hire people who waste my time," he said, and then left, taking the pup's eyes and every last shred of hope I had with him.

  I slumped into the chair, feeling my defeat crush deep into my bones. What now? See if someone else was hiring? Like the brothel? The idea made me numb, hollow, and maybe that would be how it would feel lying on a bed with a stranger on top of me. I might as well be dead.

  Right now, I wasn't though. I could still find a way to survive the winter. I could steal food, but without sight, I couldn't see who might be watching me and then afterward throwing me in jail. Terrible idea.

  I gathered every ounce of will I had left and rose from the table. I would go get Lee and Jade at the very least. After that… Well, I didn't have it in me to think that far ahead.

  I left the tavern the same way I came in, though much slower, listening over the taps of my walking stick for where Faust had gone with the wolf pup. But the hallways were empty, the rooms beyond silent other than the main part of the tavern, which I avoided.

  Outside, the frigid air closed in with snapping bites and the harsh promise of the coming winter. The reminder I didn't need turned my lungs to ice.

  I had no sense of how long I’d been in the tavern, but the gnawing in my stomach suggested quite a long time. It might have even been night. Time to head back, see if Archer—

  Something hard rammed into my shoulder as it passed, and I spun around, in absolutely no mood for that bullshit.

  "Get the hell out of my way,” I snapped. “There’s plenty of road. This part is mine.”

  A whistling chuckle came on a horse-shit scented gust of wind. One that I'd heard before floating on the wind the night Hellbreath came back to me. A chuckle that locked my muscles up tight.

  Him. The bald guy who'd shot Baba. The guy who'd stolen the package and ruined everything.

  "So sorry. Must not have been looking."

  I recognized his voice, too, the strange accent. The same as when he’d shouted at Baba before he shot him.

  The snow between us crunched as he came closer.

  I fought the urge to back away, to shoot him with a real poison-tipped arrow, to scream for help, to beat him to death with my walking stick. He was the reason I was here right now, seriously considering selling my body for money while it sounded like part of my family had been taken against their will, and my baba might be dead. Fury shook through me, more penetrating than the cold.

  "Hey, don't I recognize you?" he asked.

  My stomach turned in sickeningly slow circles that he was even looking at me. He'd stood in the same room with me at Archer and Grady's when he stole the package. Who knows how many times he'd seen me before or after that.

  "Doubtful," I said, trying to keep my voice even.

  "No, I never forget a face. You’re that blind girl, aren't you? Kane Song's girl."

  How dare he even say his name. "How do you know him?" I gritted out.

  "We're both businessmen who happen to be in the same line of business."

  The business he'd stolen. "When did you meet him?"

  "Well,"—a whistley chuckle—"I only ever met him the one time."

  "The one time you shot him, you mean."

  A low rumble circled us, and I realized we’d drawn a crowd. Alcohol-laced breath floated on the air.

  "That’s quite an accusation,” he said, his voice like a warning. “I'm not so sure I would go around spreading such filthy lies if I were you."

  What little control I had fled as anger stampeded all my senses. Within seconds, I had an arrow nocked and aimed. "Don't you ever threaten me again or I swear—"

  "You swear what? That you'll kill me?" His laugh rose up louder than the rest of the men who surrounded us. He stepped to the right like he was circling his prey. Making a show of mocking me. "A blind girl?"

  "I'm blind, not stupid," I snapped, homing in on his every sound, every movement, every backtrack he made to try and trick me. "I know exactly where to shoot to bring you down and make you suffer. And I very rarely miss."

  Our growing audience hooted and jeered.

  "Give me the money that should've gone to my baba," I shouted.

  "Sure. Okay. But only if you can answer me this." He seemed to do a little dance in the snow for his admirers from the sound of his frenzied steps, and they yelled appreciatively. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

  Yeah. We were done here. He wasn't going to give me shit unless I gave him a very sharp reason to. I let an arrow fly. I heard it split through the air, the crowd's sudden intake of air. And then a satisfying howl of pain.

  "How many fingers are you holding up now?" My fury ripped up my throat as I nocked another arrow.

  "Jesus fucking Christ," he screamed.

  A click sounded, just barely over the tumultuous pounding of blood through my veins. The onlookers' jeering turned to angry shouts as they pressed in. A horrendous crash of thunder ripped through the air.

  Then suffocating silence, thick as a blanket of snow. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. Why the thunder? Why the silence?

  It wasn't until pain, fierce and hot, registered in my shoulder that I realized my mistake. One of my many, many mistakes. That hadn't been thunder. It had been a gunshot.

  At once, two thoughts crashed against my temples.

  I'd been shot.


  And run.

  Chapter 11

  I bolted to the right, toward the tavern I'd just left, swinging my walking stick in front of me like a bat. Another shot went off behind me, and a hailstorm of splintered wood sliced at my cheek as part of the exterior wall exploded. The bald man, or whoever was shooting at me, was aiming toward my head, and he might not miss the next shot.

  The bullet hole in my shoulder chewed pain down my entire arm. Blood soaked down my side. My legs threatened to curl me to the ground.

  I ducked through the door next to the windowed entry and spun to bolt it behind me just as someone flung themselves at it from the outside. The floor shook from the force. I'd pissed quite a few folks off today, doubly so since I was a girl and not acting like one. I had a feeling every single man outside the door would not be stopped by a simple locked door, and I wasn't too stupid to think it was the only one into the tavern.

  They would come for me. All of them. I was a stranger, a smart-ass girl, and I'd hurt one of their own.

  I had to get out, find a way back to Slipjoint Forest. Back to Archer. Shit. What if something had happened to him? What if he wasn't even there? I would be wandering the forest by myself in the middle of the night while bleeding out from a bullet wound.

  But hell if I'd stay here.

  I moved through the side halls in the tavern the same way I'd gone before, remembering the way by touch and sound and memory. There had to be a door—

  The window. The window in the room Faust had kept me in. Not ideal, but I knew exactly where it was, and if I was right in the layout of the building, it should lead to the back of the tavern. Which could be ten times worse. And if I got stuck in the window?

  Shit. But I didn't want to spend all my time looking for a door that led outside, either, unless I doubled back and went out the front again…

  My shoulder screamed so brutally that it made my head swim. What if I couldn't even make it through the window without passing out from pain? Blood had tracked all the way down my side by then and was dribbling into my boot. If I wasn't already, I'd soon be leaving a trail that would lead right to me. Best to end the trail by doubling back.