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

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Grady.

  I knew from his almond smell, even in wolf form, and from my vision shifting back and forth between him and Sasha. My heart stalled at the sight of him. He was hurt, lying on his side while blood gushed from a wound in his back leg. His red glare widened when he saw us. Sasha wriggled fiercely underneath my two coats, the outer one I now saw was red with lush white fur trim.

  The world spun crazily while my vision dashed between the two wolves, so I focused with all of my might on just seeing through Sasha. It worked.

  "I can't get it open," the woman yelled out the window. A pop like something had uncorked came from in front of her, and the smell blasted into me. A smell like moonshine. Poison. "Oh. Never mind. I got it."

  I snapped into action, silencing my questions, my fears. The door Lager disappeared through was shutting, and I spun to shut the door behind me at the same time. Then, after a fruitless pat to Sasha's head to calm her, I silently jammed my arrow below the door to jam it shut. On silent feet, I crossed the room, lodged another arrow underneath Lager’s door, and nocked another. With my lungs screaming for a breath I didn’t dare allow, I tiptoed up behind the woman. My shoulder protested loudly as I drew the string back, but I gritted my teeth and pressed the arrow to the back of the woman's head.

  "Tell me where the wolf pup is," I demanded, my voice low and tinged with dark warning.

  She stiffened. "Fuck you."

  "Do you know what will happen if I shoot you with my arrow"—I dug the tip into the back of her skull—"right here. You'll drop, completely defenseless, but you won't die right away. You'll bleed out slowly and feel every last drop of it."

  I had no idea if that was true or not, but even I believed it. Because of the smell of the poison. The deadly chill in my voice. Combined, those things strangled my hold on reality for a split second and transported me back in time.

  I sounded just like my ama, and I’d always believed her threats. Always.

  The knob of the door Lager had disappeared through jiggled, and he pounded against the wood. “Hey!”

  A tremor shook through the woman’s shoulders. "I'll scream. My husband's right outside this window."

  I tipped her head forward with the force of my arrow, leaned in close so she could feel my threat on her skin. "See how that works out for you."

  She shivered again, a long, violent one that slid to the tips of her fiery hair. "It's not here. The pup. One of my husband's men took it to another town in the Crimson Forest."

  Out of the corner of Sasha’s eyes, Grady jerked like the news had physically hurt him more than his wound.

  Lager pounded on the door harder. “Louisa?”

  "Which town?" I demanded.

  "I…I don't know."

  "Why did they go there?"

  "To look for the ruby caves."

  "In winter."

  "Yes, for spring. Spring is mating season. If we can't find the caves, then we go another year without pups of our own. Don't you see—"

  "No. I don't." I turned Sasha slightly to look at the door Lager was now flinging himself against. "What's in the door to the left of us?"

  "The…bathroom?"

  I pivoted, putting my body between the bathroom door, Sasha, and the woman, my arrow now aimed at the side of her face. She was pretty, maybe in her late twenties. "To the cage you go."

  Gunshots boomed from the bathroom in quick succession. Lager, shooting himself out.

  "Wh-what?" the woman—Louisa—asked.

  "Now," I hissed and scratched the arrow tip across her cheek.

  Scarlet welled and she whimpered as she crossed toward the cage. Grady rose slowly to his feet, his red eyes zeroed in on every movement the woman made.

  "Open it and get inside," I ordered.

  She unlatched it, her hands shaking.

  Grady loped out, limping heavily like he did in human form, and as soon as he was clear of the door, he shifted back fully clothed. Bloodied and sporting fresh bruises all over his face, he looked like he could hardly stand. But then he swung around, snatched the poison jar out of her hands, and shoved her into the cage. She shifted into a snowy white wolf immediately, like the cage itself forced the change. As soon as the door clanged shut on her, she snarled and lunged, her fangs and claws reaching for us. The cage held though.

  “It’s you,” Lager shouted.

  I spun around, and he was glaring with murderous intensity out a hole he’d shot from the door. The power of his hatred wrapped around my spine and shook it.

  Grady handed me the poison like it was about to explode all over him, which I corked and pocketed. "We need to… Archer. Now." Panting, he pointed toward another closed door opposite the bathroom and then leaned heavily against me like the effort had done him in.

  "Get back here, you little bitch," Lager shouted, his hand wriggling through the hole in the door. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you, you fucking cunt."

  "Is Archer in trouble?" I held to Grady to prop him up and practically dragged him across the room toward a door on the right wall.

  Grady leaned harder against me. “Yes,” he ground out. “Faust caught him first while we set the fire, so I came after him.”

  Lager's continued fury needled into my back, and I knew he'd carry out every single promise he was making. But he was still trapped for now, hopefully with no more bullets to shoot his way out, and we had to get to Archer.

  Panic sealed up my chest. "Is Archer in here?" I asked, though it sounded more like begging.

  "No," he said between pants. "But maps of the Crimson Forest are."

  I wasn't sure why we needed a map, but I saved my breath and didn't ask. I was losing steam anyway from having to support Grady's weight. The next room was empty except a chair piled high with stinky blankets and a large map on the wall. I shut the door behind me and then we crossed over so Grady could tear the map off the wall.

  "It has writing on it," he explained through labored breaths. "Drawings but I'm not sure what they mean."

  I nodded as we started toward the hallway door, but what sounded like the bathroom door in the first room crashed open with a deafening bang.

  "Go," Grady whispered.

  We dashed into the hall as fast as possible. Which wasn't fast at all.

  We shut the door behind us as Lager barreled into the room we'd just left.

  Grady shoved me diagonally across the hallway toward another room.

  Heavy footsteps thudded toward us from the other hallway, just seconds from turning into this one.

  "Faust." Barely a whisper from Grady. He snicked the door shut seconds before Lager burst from the opposite room and Faust turned the corner.

  "They're here," Lager cried. "That blind bitch and the Crimson Forest pack. Locked your wife up in a cage."

  "Where?" Faust snapped, his voice so loud it cracked against the door.

  I shriveled in on myself, wishing I could disappear.

  Grady tightened his grip around me and leaned in, his lips on my ear. "I'll cause a distraction. When it's clear, take Sasha and run."

  I shook my head hard. He was already hurt. If they caught him, who knew what they would do? What else they would?

  "Here,” Lager answered. “They were just here."

  "For once in your life, don’t argue with me," Grady whispered, his breath feathering my cheek.

  "Shit,” Faust growled. “No one went past me. Find them. I already have one downstairs."

  He already had one… Archer. Dread sank to the bottom of my gut. He was probably coming up here to get the poison since his wife had never dropped it down. It would be stupid to assume it was the only batch he still had.

  Grady shoved me toward the door. "When the coast is clear, get to Archer before Faust does. Hurry."

  Faust strode past our door toward the end of the hallway where his wife was. Lager pushed into another room, the one next to us from what it sounded like.

  I had seconds, if that, to make a break and run.

  I hurled
myself out of the room on tiptoe and ran as fast as I could down the hallway. Moments later, glass shattered from the room I'd just been in. The window? But Grady was still in there. Had Faust or Lager thrown him out? Unless… Had he thrown himself out the window as a distraction?

  Panic stormed through my veins and crashed between my ears. How the hell were we going to get out of here in one piece?

  Footsteps came hard toward the direction of the window just as I rounded the first corner into the final stretch toward the stairs. Faust said he had Archer down there, but where?

  I pounded down the first set of stairs and then the second.

  I crossed the tavern area at top speed, accidentally knocking into a few chairs and scraping them across the ground. Too loud. I was being way too loud.

  Feet pounded toward me down the stairs. Someone was following me when they should've been investigating the broken window.

  Shit.

  A quick glance through Sasha behind us just before I turned the corner revealed Lager. My stomach dove sideways. I passed a lantern hanging on the wall and then quickly doubled back. Lager had never shifted when he’d chased me out of town and through the forest. Maybe like me, he was human. If that was the case, he needed to see. But I didn't. I'd lived most of my life in darkness and did pretty well. Time to see how he did.

  If I was wrong… I wasn’t wrong.

  I unhooked the lantern and moved as fast as my legs would carry me toward the next one, taking as many as I could carry. Careful not to clank them together, I set them down in one of the rooms and closed the door. Darkness crowded into Sasha's eyes, but as a wolf, she could see through it. I closed my eyes so I could hear through it. As I stood with my back pressed up against a wall, my ears burned as they dissected each individual sound.

  "What happened to the lights? I can't see a goddamned thing," Lager shouted.

  He was close, almost right to me. With my bow and arrow still in one hand, I buttoned my coat over Sasha's eyes in case they gave off a preternatural glow in the dark.

  Another pair of footsteps thudded from the direction of the stairs. Faust, maybe. If I could somehow get behind him, he would lead me right to Archer, and then I could put an arrow through him before he did any harm to my wolf.

  "Keep looking," Faust ordered.

  Fast, confident steps plowed down the hallway perpendicular to mine.

  Unsure, stumbling ones stepped down this one.

  I slipped closer to Lager and bit down hard on my lip until I tasted blood. I wanted him dead. I wanted him to suffer. But I wanted to find Archer more, and Faust was leading me directly to him. So I snuck past Lager while he cursed and stomped around blindly. I'd deal with him later, face to face with plenty of light and a whole lot of time. When my hand curled around the corner of the wall, I swept left toward Faust. I could still hear his steps, the faint splash of another jar of poison hitting the glass sides.

  I unbuttoned my coat and then readied my bow and arrow, Sasha's vision focusing just as he neared the front door. It swung open then, bringing with it a shimmery blast of heat and smoke from outside. And two men, one of them badly injured and leaning heavily on the other.

  “You said you had something for this guy?” the upright one asked.

  Faust tossed the jar of poison up in the air, and the uninjured guy caught it.

  "Give him the whole bottle," Faust said, slapping him on the back, and then he slipped out into the fiery night.

  I stopped and took in the two men, who stared right back at the woman with a wolf in her coats and aiming an arrow right at them. The uninjured guy I didn't know. The other…

  Oh god. My whole being shattered just looking at my wolf's face. Archer, covered in blood and both eyes almost completely swollen shut.

  The man with the poison frowned. "Wha—?"

  Behind him, the door swung open, and a cannonball barreled into him. He went sprawling to the floor in a tangle of limbs with Grady on his back all the way down.

  Grady, just as bloodied as Archer.

  The poison bottle flew from the man’s hands and smashed to the ground. Some of it must’ve splashed up because the man flinched away from it and screamed. Grady cut him off, though, already rolling him onto his back, his fists flying at the man's face.

  Archer, without anyone to prop him up, teetered wildly on his feet. I dodged to his side, and Sasha whimpered as we drew closer and the smell of blood on him thickened the air with copper.

  "What happened?" I asked him, my hand splayed across his chest. His heart beat a crazy rhythm into my palm.

  "Ronin," he rasped. "Where's Ronin?"

  It was as if the name had grown strings and puppeted Grady off the man. His fists were bloody, and the man on the ground didn’t move. He stared at Archer, his face ashy behind the blood and bruises, and a look of pure torture creased his features.

  And then I knew why. Archer didn't know Ronin wasn't here, had already been taken into the Crimson Forest, and telling him might destroy him all over again.

  “Found the lanterns, but no bitch.” Footsteps sounded behind us. Lager.

  Grady and I didn't hesitate. He took Archer's other side, and we helped drag each other out of the tavern. Smoke and fire choked the air, making breathing almost impossible. The flames had spread to the two buildings neighboring the jail, and the jail itself was completely engulfed. People scrambled about to refill buckets, and others stood in assembly lines passing up buckets to slosh on the fire. It didn't look like it was doing any good.

  We darted as fast as we could away from the chaos toward the right along the side of the tavern. We averted our faces, but the smoke billowed so thickly I didn't see how anyone would see us anyway.

  When we reached the rear of the tavern, Archer stumbled out of my grip and crossed into Grady's path. "Ronin! Tell me!" He had to shout to be heard over the roaring fire, and the effort made his shoulders heave, made his legs almost give out.

  I went to reach for him, but he held up his hand for me to stay. The orange glow in the night cast a horrifying light on the blood all over him. He didn't look like Archer anymore, but something much more dangerous.

  "Tell me," he shouted, his voice agonized.

  Grady shook his head. "We need to get out of—"

  "Tell me where Ronin is!" His voice cracked, and I felt myself splinter in half.

  Grady hung his head, the muscles in his jaw working like he was struggling to find the words. "She's not here. One of Faust's guys took her to another town in the Crimson Forest to search for the caves."

  Archer staggered backward as if Grady had just hit him. Then he sliced his bruised eyes toward me, and what I saw in them through Sasha hollowed me out with an excruciatingly dull edge. There wasn't an accusation there, just defeat, brutal and raw and devastating.

  "I'm so sorry," I tried to say, but my sob swallowed everything up.

  "No. No, you're wrong. She's in there." He broke toward the tavern again, but Grady lunged in front of him with his forearm pressed to Archer's chest.

  "She's not in there,” Grady shouted into his face. “We would've found her. You know this, Archer, because you and I tore the tavern up looking for her. She's. Not. There."

  "No." Archer shook his head, his eyes going glassy like he couldn't focus on any one thing. "No." He backed away several feet from Grady and then stopped. His whole body crumpled as he fell to his knees. A yell ripped from his throat, so full of pain that the sound punctured my heart with a hundred thorns.

  Sasha joined in with a little howl.

  And then it began to snow.

  Chapter 16

  Grady patched Archer up the best he could as fast as he could, but he refused when I offered to look at his leg.

  "No time," he'd told me.

  He was right. The snow was already coming down in big wet flakes, and we still had to get to Margin's Row before the whiteout hit. But with Grady hurt and Archer totally out of commission while he lay on the sleigh, and not being able to
cut through the Crimson Forest to get there, the trek was slow. So slow I feared we wouldn’t make it home in time.

  I sat on the sleigh next to Archer with his hand gripped in mine. Tears tracked down his face, and he kept his eyes squeezed shut, whether in pain or sorrow or both. I didn't blame him at all for not wanting to look at this cruel world at all right now. Sasha lay tucked in his side with her nose on his shoulder, never once tearing her gaze off of him, even though she had to be tired. Every once in a while, Archer would squeeze my hand which made my throat pull tighter. I almost wished he were mad at me for telling him where Ronin was, for getting his hopes up. Then maybe I could've put this consuming guilt I felt toward that. Instead, it was eating me up slowly.

  My heavy heart pinched my lungs, making it hard to breathe, and harder still with the plunging temperature. I shivered farther into my two coats.

  The faint scent of smoke still touched the air, even after we’d been going for some time. It must’ve seeped into our clothes, too, because it was all I smelled, like we were made of fire.

  After taking my blindfold off, I saw what Grady saw from in front of our sleigh. Huge fluffy white flakes and tree branches already laden with them. A flat expanse of forest instead of rolling hills. I imagined we were getting closer to Margin's Row.

  I hadn’t been able to ask Lee about Baba. If Lager took both Lee and Jade to sell them, what would he have done with Baba? The second gunshot I’d heard the day I’d left echoed in my mind, sharp and terrifying. I didn’t know whose gun it’d been, didn’t know if Baba was still alive or not, didn’t know where Jade and Lee were, and all this not knowing was slowly killing me.

  To hide from all these worries, I started to tie my scarf back around my eyes—but stopped. Gradually, as if blossoming from a dream, warped, but familiar shapes appeared in the distance through Grady’s eyes. Eight of them. Eight similar cabins in a row and a small barn in front of the easternmost one. We came upon them from the rear out of Slipjoint Forest, and the closer we drew, the more broken the shapes became.

  Scorched black piles of rubble. Only the stone chimneys remained, pointing like accusatory fingers at the early-morning sky.