Winter’s Rage
The Crimson Forest Reverse Harem Book 3
by
Lindsey R. Loucks
Copyright
Winter’s Rage (The Crimson Forest Reverse Harem Book 3) © July 2020 Lindsey R. Loucks
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover: Covers by Cherith
Map: mrchris92
Map
Chapter One
He was screaming again, a great bellow that ripped through the caves we'd holed up in.
Not the ruby caves. Just the regular kind, carved about halfway up the side of a hill.
I stepped on the hem of my coat as I doubled back toward him, nearly tripping and striking my head on a sharp stone protruding from the cave wall. If not for Sasha's eyes, I would have. She whimpered and struggled in my arms to get back to her alpha where she'd sit and watch over him until whatever had haunted him in sleep had gone.
"Patience, sweet girl," I said into the especially soft spot between her ears. Careful of her bandaged back leg, I shifted her in my arms. "We're going."
Shortly after he started screaming, he stopped. This was how it'd been for the week we'd been here. Every time he had nightmares like this, though, the sound punched into my heart.
Sasha and I had wandered deep into the cave system, which was a maze of narrow tunnels and huge caverns, searching for food. Yesterday, I'd shot a white lizard, hardly enough to keep the three of us alive, and the day before, I tracked a long creature with too many legs but it got away.
We burst in on Thomas in a small enclave tucked behind a large boulder near the cave's entrance. He was sitting up, his wide, muscular shoulders heaving underneath his coat while he caught his breath. His beard and unruly brown hair made him look like more wolf than man, but the scars cutting down his face balanced his ferociousness with beauty. Maybe that made no sense, but it did to me. I found him perfectly flawed. A fierce beast who genuinely cared in his own private way.
Sasha squirmed loose and limped slightly to sit in front of him, like always. By the angle of her view, I could tell her head was tilted. He ignored her, like always.
"Did you catch anything." His voice was hard and rough, a demand for an answer rather than a question.
"No," I said with a sigh. "We can go to Shay’s neighbor’s—"
"I'll look." He bent his knees, and with the help of the boulder beside him, he hauled himself to his feet, his movements stiff.
After he'd been shot in each leg, I'd done my best to care for the wounds, but even with swift wolf healing, they still looked jagged and raw. They'd thicken the patchwork of scars that already mottled him from head to toe. Sasha was doing well after being thrown in Faust’s game of Catch, Kill, Release, but I fussed over her constantly because she let me. Thomas, not so much.
He shifted, a man one instant and a huge gray and white wolf the next, and loped off deeper into the caves without a word.
I didn't ask him what his nightmares were about. I didn't have to. And when I snapped awake in the middle of the night doused in a cold sweat and feeling as though a thousand wolves sat on my chest, he didn't ask either. He knew.
Archer and Grady, both somewhere unknown. Both hopefully still alive.
Sasha whined softly after Thomas and then sniffed around the blanket the three of us used at night. It had been left here, as well as half a frozen canteen, an empty, rusted gun, and flint for a fire. It had been left here by a dead man named Lukas, if the name sewn into the blanket was accurate. We'd found him sitting against the boulder when we arrived, nothing left of him but his bones and simple belongings.
I shivered at the memory. I couldn't allow myself to think his death meant our deaths too. Yet if we didn’t eat soon…
Sasha sniffed out a path from the blanket and then around the boulder to the cave exit. Of course I followed, not wanting her to be more than two feet away from me.
Past the sleigh leaning near the cave's mouth, she stopped, an empty white void in front of her, and then released a heartbreaking little howl. Swallowing thickly, I squatted down next to her and put my hand on her back as she went on and on, each one scooping out part of my soul. She missed Archer. She missed Grady. She missed her sister, Ronin. I did too. I let her mourn her loss since the wind surely whipped all sound away and the falling snow blotted everything out, including us.
Grady, at least I hoped, would be easy to find since he was only about a mile away at Shay's neighbor's house. To get there, we could take the sleigh. The only reason we hadn't gone there yet was because the cave had been closer, and Thomas and Sasha hadn't been up for any more travel while injured. The way to the caves had taken what felt like hours because I'd been the one to pull the sleigh. Me, with my unimpressive muscles straining to pull Thomas, someone double, nearly triple, my size.
Sasha stopped howling then and peered through the thick veil of blowing snow for the shifters she loved the most.
"We'll get them back," I promised her, my heart cracking a little more. We'd get everyone who'd been torn away from us back, even Archer. I couldn't imagine what he might be going through while in Faust's clutches. I just couldn't do it.
"Nothing."
Thomas's voice right behind me made me leap out of my skin. I whirled, my stomach near my throat.
"If we leave now, we can get to Shay's neighbor's before nightfall."
"Are you—" I stopped because of course he was sure. I didn't think he was healed enough, though. Despite the short trek, it would be rough, but I kept my mouth shut. With Grady, I could argue, was pretty much an expert at it. With Thomas… Well, I'd learned in the short time I'd known him that he met arguments with silence and a cold, hard stare then did whatever the hell he wanted. "I'll put out the fire."
Sasha stepped between my legs and blinked up at him from under the bottom hem of my coat. Even though he'd slept some, bruised pockets hung beneath his eyes. He seemed to hate sleep since it tortured him with dreams, but he couldn’t help succumbing to it.
I scooped up Sasha and slid by him, and as my shoulder brushed his arm, the air trembled around us. My breath caught as the connection I'd sensed between us when we’d first met flared with the physical contact. He had to have felt it, too, maybe even craved more of it like I did, because he reached out and took my wrist.
"Hurry, Aika. It’s probably going to take us several hours just to get down this hill, and night will be here soon."
Nodding, I pulled away, my fingers hooking into his and then slipping free.
Realization struck me as I walked away from him. This connection reminded me of what I'd felt when I first met Hellbreath. A kinship of sorts, like we'd suffered similar trauma and abuse, her with her scars, and now Thomas with his. It was a little different with him, though, sparked brighter with a simple
touch, like I needed to feel his scars in order for him to know the true extent of my invisible ones.
While he slowly lugged the sleigh down the hill, I settled Sasha nearby and then snuffed out the fire. It felt wrong stealing a dead man's things, but I packed Lukas's items up anyway to take with us. They hadn't done him much good, but maybe they would us. Wherever he was, I hoped he agreed.
"Okay, Sasha girl." I peered up at myself through her to make sure all my buttons were done up on my coat and my scarf wasn't accidentally knotted in my hair. "We're going to get Grady."
She squeaked excitedly and crouched low, her whole body swinging with the force of her tail.
I chuckled as I carefully picked her up. "Sums up my feelings exactly. Let's go."
On the way toward the cave's mouth, I pulled up my spine and tried to steady my pulse. I didn't want to go out there again. I did, but I didn't. Winter made travel near impossible, doubly so when running for our lives, which we'd been doing too often lately. We had to do it, of course, but I dreaded it all the same.
A low groan came from the opening, and then Thomas's large hands hoisted the rest of him up. He looked spent already with sweat trickling down his temples and his shoulders heaving. He slumped against the cave wall to catch his breath.
"Will Faust be waiting out there?" I asked to give him a moment to rest. "Or do you think he sent some of his pack to hunt us?"
Thomas grunted. "He thinks I'm dead."
"That didn’t answer my questions."
"He has Archer. I doubt the novelty of that has worn off yet, so no. I don't think Faust will be waiting out there."
I flinched as my stomach soured. What would it mean if the novelty did wear off? I didn’t want to know.
"He knows that you have Gabriel at the church in Margin with my baba, doesn't he?"
"No,” Thomas said and ground his teeth. “All he knows is that Gabriel left to find me, and he knows what I did to Gabriel the last time I saw him."
"Which was what?" I asked, my voice cracking a little.
He turned his face to the void outside, remaining silent.
I tried another, hopefully less delicate route that wouldn't dead-end in silence. "Since Gabriel is Faust's second-in-command and you…did something to him, wouldn't Faust want to kill you himself? He seemed happy to have me do it for him."
"Faust's game is torture and slow, painful deaths.” He cut a glance at me then glared a hole into the opposite cave wall. “But he can't kill me himself."
"Why not?"
"A couple reasons. Partly because I'm his brother." He clambered out of the cave, leaving me to follow him out into the bitter nothingness or stand there with my jaw dangling free.
Questions hurled through my mind and stung like snowflakes against my skin. Faust and Thomas were brothers? The only glimpses of Faust I'd seen were through Sasha before we'd come here, and I'd been so focused on Ronin dangling from his fist that I hadn't really looked at the man.
Thomas’s brother.
But he can't kill me himself.
Can't? Or won't?
Chapter Two
"They're not here."
Three simple words, but their meaning crashed into me and nearly undid the sliver of hope that had brought me to Shay’s neighbor’s cabin. We stood in the middle of the one-room house, which was hardly more than stacks of wood. The sounds of our voices lost themselves in the angry whistling through the cabin’s cracks. The place was freezing and smelled like old soup. On the way inside, I'd bumped into a small, rickety table against the wall and caused the full bowls to clatter and slop. Only two bowls. Not enough for Shay, Gibby, and Grady. Whoever had been eating from them had left in a hurry, and to leave perfectly good food behind… That was something I’d never imagined.
"Do you think they ever made it here?" I whispered, my throat too constricted with worry to do much else.
Sasha padded around the tabletop and sniffed loudly at the bowls while keeping an eye on her alpha.
"I don't know.” Thomas absently picked up a spoon while his brown eyes narrowed on the rest of the cabin, crinkling the scars at the corners. “The snow covered up all tracks."
"Are we at the wrong cabin?"
"No. The only other house around here for miles is Shay's."
And we'd burned that one to the ground to trick Lager, Shay's husband, unbeknownst to Shay.
"Where else, then?" I asked.
Thomas let the spoon fall with a loud clatter. "We hole up here for a while. Check to see if they had time to clear the cupboards. I’ll look for a cellar."
Another non-answer, which meant he didn't know and would never admit to it. But where had they gone? When we left them, we'd been chased by Faust's wolves and had to separate, leaving them in Shay’s carriage. What if we hadn't diverted all of the wolves and they'd caught up to the carriage?
Thomas started toward the door, his movements stiff and purposeful, then stopped. "Grady knows what he's doing."
"I know. But every minute he and Archer aren't right by my side is another minute I'm worrying myself to an early grave."
A long pause in which he might’ve turned back, but Sasha was too busy sticking her tongue into a bowl for me to see. "They feel the same way about you. Get an arrow ready in case we're not really alone."
I nodded, and as soon as he closed the door behind him, I let myself break a little more. The top of Sasha's head smothered most of my sobs as I searched the cupboards, and she pressed her head back a little against my lips as if to help quiet the sound. Or maybe to offer comfort or warmth. Whatever the case, she seemed used to my breakdowns by now.
I laid all I could find out on the table—five hard biscuits, flour, and half a sack of potatoes.
With a heavy sigh, I slumped into a seat and settled Sasha on the table in front of me.
"Just one for now, okay?" I said, breaking off a piece of biscuit for her.
She whined, and I almost did too. Everything that could possibly be wrong, was. We were hungry, and very few of those I loved were where they were supposed to be—with me.
"We won't give up, will we, girl?" I angled my chair so she could see over my shoulder but so I could still protect her with my body. I'd learned that lesson the hard way. "Right now in this moment, a tiny part of us might feel like giving up, but we won't. We're sad. We're starving. We're worried more than we've ever been worried before, but you know what that does? It makes you stronger, braver, and for a girl of any species living in this world, that's what matters the most. Strength. Bravery. Never giving up. And also letting me cry into your fur night after night."
She tilted her head one way and then the other, studying me.
"Okay, and you crying into my hair too. But when the crying's done and we still haven't given up?"
Thomas entered again with hardly a sound, his arms filled with pickled vegetables, jams, a large sack of dried beans, and a bunch of firewood. Snow speckled his windblown hair and beard and dropped in large chunks to the floor from his boots.
"Rage."
I shivered farther into my coat at the fierce way he said it. "You're right. Rage is all that's left."
He stalked closer to unburden himself onto the table, mindful of Sasha but not risking a look at her. "This is all there is except a shelf full of dust."
"Whoever lives here wouldn't have made it through winter with that."
"They might not make it anyway if they plan on coming back."
"I don't think Grady and Shay ever got here. If they had, they would've taken everything whether they were in a hurry to leave or not. These people, whoever they are, they ran without a plan."
"I agree." He crossed with the firewood toward the fireplace on the left wall.
"So what were they running from?" I swallowed thickly. "And will it be coming back?"
"They're human. I can smell it. If it was Faust’s wolves, they wouldn't have had time to run."
"Something else, then." Thank goodness I didn't have the menta
l energy to imagine what it might be.
While Sasha and I gnawed on our biscuits—they were more like rocks, really—Thomas quickly got a fire going. It spread a surprising amount of warmth throughout the cabin despite all its cracks. Still, I couldn’t stop shivering.
"I'll take first watch,” he said, standing in front of the fire. “You sleep."
I rose on tired legs. "I'll make something for us to eat first."
"These pickles will do just fine for tonight." He crossed to the table and opened the jar one-handed with a quick jerk of the lid.
I sank down again, grateful. "It takes all my energy to try to get warm, and I'm still frozen no matter what. I fucking hate winter."
"I prefer it." He strode toward the bed behind the table and whipped the checkered blanket off the top. Then he draped it over my shoulders, his hands lingering for only a moment. Big and warm and soothing.
"Thanks… Sit and rest. I could've gotten—"
"Save your energy for rage,” he said, sitting across from me. “We're going to need it."
The gesture warmed me more than the threadbare blanket, but I tucked myself farther into it all the same. "Do you think they went back to Margin? Grady and Shay, I mean?"
"Anything's possible." He crunched on a pickle, the loudest thing I'd ever heard him do. Unlike Grady bashing through doors and stomping on the floorboards like they’d wronged him, Thomas moved like a ghost. "We'll find them."
"I have to go back anyway for my baba at some point." I took a pickle from the jar and offered it to Sasha who ignored me, her attention split between the hard biscuit and her alpha.
"Do you."
Not a question. Never a question with him. "Well, he did say you were keeping him captive."
He leaned back in his seat, his gaze on me. "He's free to go anytime."
"So you're not keeping him captive, then?" Because he definitely was keeping Gabriel.
"No more than I am you.” He gestured vaguely with his pickle. “It was after I saved your dad’s life and he masked my scent with his blood when I was… Well, I found out who he really was after that."
Winter's Rage (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 3) Page 1
