"It doesn't matter," I said into the door, trying to convince myself. "I may not be your real daughter, but you made sure I had something to eat and a fire to keep me warm. I won't ever stop calling you Baba since that's what you are to me, even if you don’t want to be."
I left then, hurling myself out of the room even though I wanted to hear more, say more, no matter how much it hurt me. I wanted to tell him that Ama had poisoned me to see if he cared. Or he might already know and still not care as much as if I'd been Jade or Lee. I couldn't be sure what he knew and didn't, because in the span of a few minutes, he'd become a stranger. He was still Baba, but…he wasn't.
I hadn't consciously made the decision to wander downstairs into Sasha's room, the church’s nursery, or pick up her warm, sleeping form, but I didn't stop myself from gravitating toward her. Kissing her right between the ears, my favorite spot, helped clear my head a little. She and I… We were so similar. Our real parents were both dead, but the shifters in her pack were intensely protective of us both.
"You're my family, Sasha," I whispered between kisses. "You and Grady and Archer. Thomas, too, if… Just if."
Blinking heavily, she nestled into my chest and yawned until a little squeak came out.
I smiled into her fur and squeezed her closer. "Sometimes family discovers each other in the oddest places, not bound by blood but by unspoken promises and sacrifices. I found you at the edge of the Crimson Forest where I was least likely to look, at a time I didn't know I should be looking. I may not be a wolf, but I love you like I am. So I'm going to make you a promise—I will do everything I can to get your sister, Ronin, back to you and back to us. Our family."
Like Jade and Lee. My half-sister and half-brother. Not just friends and neighbors, but real, honest-to-goodness family, and I doubted they even knew.
A door somewhere on this floor crashed open. Wind battered inside and shook the church's foundation. Someone must've not latched it properly.
I bent to lay Sasha back down on the pile of blankets in a crib, and as I did, she blinked up at me. My face floated close to hers, a big round thing framed with a tangle of black hair. My head crowded out most of the room except for Grady’s walking stick leaning against the frosted window, the corner of which was streaked with red.
I froze, squeezed my eyes shut, then peered through Sasha's periphery again. Still there, a long, bloody smear cutting diagonally across the glass. I snapped upright and held Sasha closer, my heart slamming into her side. She stiffened with a whimper.
"Shh. It might be nothing more than food." I stroked her fur, trying to soothe her, trying to soothe me.
But the front door… Moving quickly, I snatched up Grady’s walking stick and backed us into a wall away from the window and the nursery's doorway. Archer and Grady were in the barn rebuilding the sleigh. Surely they'd sense if anything was wrong.
Footsteps raced past the open doorway, too fast to be Grady or Archer in their current states. Thomas? I had a feeling I wouldn't even hear him run.
I flattened myself to the wall and peered out of Sasha's wide eyes. My bow and arrow was where I'd left it—leaning against the wall by the front door. My coat was there, too, something I could better use to hide Sasha. I slid sideways toward the nursery’s doorway, keeping my movements slow and steady. At the edge of the door, I stopped and gathered my courage into the soles of my feet. It was a straight shot to the front door. I'd have to be swift and quiet as I sprinted over the creaky floorboards.
After blowing out a shallow breath, I spun out of the room.
Ahead, a large man barreled through the front door, covered in snow. Did I know him? It was hard to t—
He turned to me and swung up the gun in his hand. Toward Sasha. Toward me.
A split second was all I had, a whole lifetime of terror pinpointed on this moment. I dodged right at the same time he fired. The bullet smashed into the wall behind me, right where I'd been standing. Before the wall dead-ended, I caught sight through Sasha a huge shape hurling through the doorway with a war cry. He knocked into the man with the gun who was aiming at us again. His shot went wild, and then a massive fist crashed into his face as he keeled over. Thomas's fist, I thought. Maybe Grady’s.
My thoughts spiraled while I slowed to a stop. The hall was a dead end, only the nursery, sparse kitchen, and a closet without a door down here. I opened the door to the kitchen and ducked inside—and I immediately regretted it. Snow flurried around the room in a micro blizzard, blown in from the broken window.
Behind me, the door slammed shut, all on its own. Not from the roaring wind in this room, because the door opened from the outside. If anything, it should've been difficult to shut against the wind. Which meant someone was behind me. Right behind me. Someone had trapped us in here and was still here with us. Panic skated up my back. I couldn't hear a thing in here other than the swirling snow battering the walls.
The men after us knew I was blind, an easy target. What they didn't know was that I could see. Without giving myself away, I tightened my grip on my walking stick and crossed toward the window in front of me. A few panes hadn't been broken, and I angled Sasha's head toward those as I gripped the windowsill. Wintry air bit into my face and whipped my hair into a frenzy, making everything move like shadows in my reflection.
But one of them loomed closer behind my right shoulder, steady and unwavering. I let him draw nearer, biting my fingernails into the windowsill. Why wasn't he shooting me in the back to get it over with?
A moment later, I realized why. Something glinted in his hand with the blinding white light outside. A knife. He'd come far too close.
I spun around and whipped out my walking stick toward his head. It struck hard. He grunted in pain, and I was already charging toward the door. But he was right on my heels. His fingers grasped my arm, but I shrugged away from him and swung wildly behind me. My stick soared through empty air. He must’ve leaped away, and in that one second, I'd brought myself closer to the door than he was. Not much considering he could see and my eyes were sinking past the inside of my sweater collar. Not much, but I'd take it.
I lunged for the door, my fingers scrabbling for the knob even before I reached it. The wind helped toss it open, and then I was out.
He was faster than I thought. He crashed into my back and knocked me across the hallway. I caught myself against the wall before my body weight crushed Sasha. Then I turned and ran. I didn't get very far. He caught my wrist and yanked, so hard I felt my shoulder start to give. I yelped and spun around to try and free myself.
A rush of air arced toward me, and then Sasha screamed in pain.
My heartbeat slammed to a halt. No. Not Sasha. What was wrong? What was wrong?
Footsteps came running, then a loud blast sounded from behind me. The man holding me dropped with a thud, nearly dragging me and Sasha with him.
A hand slapped over my mouth and hauled me backward. I fought to get away, my arms springing up to shield Sasha. She was wet, sticky. Squirming like mad and screeching in pain.
Blood. She was bleeding. Oh god, that man had cut her.
"Stop struggling. It's me," a familiar voice rasped in my ear. Grady.
I shook my head violently and tried to rip my sweater off to get Sasha out so he could see her. Finally, she was free.
She must've had her eyes squeezed tight because I couldn't see. I didn't need to to know it was bad. There was a brief pause, punctuated with Grady’s choked intake of air, and then he wrapped his arm around her and me both and led us toward the front door.
I wanted to ask him how bad it was but didn't dare as we snuck forward. The blood on my hands told me enough. It coated them, and the metallic smell climbed up my throat and strangled me. What would happen if the sweetest wolf pup, the only wolf pup this pack currently had, didn't survive? I couldn't bear to think it. The thought blinded me with tears as Grady threw my coat around my shoulders and I scooped up my bow and arrow, Sasha's blood and cries squeezing my chest tighter a
nd tighter.
We barreled out the front door into the feral winter. Sasha's screeches faded, and I didn't know if that was because of the wind or weakness. Grady charged us out into the direction of the wind and shouted something, his hand going to mine and squeezing. His was wet with blood, too, and the way he squeezed, desperately hard but comforting, joined us in our worry for Sasha. Then Archer swept up next to me, the whipped air unable to carry his wood smoke and caramel scent away.
He cradled my face in his hands, his breath a steady, warm blast to the top of my head. "There's no crossbar, so you'll have to hang on to the edge of the sleigh," he shouted.
I nodded and choked out the only thing that mattered, "Sasha."
"She'll be fine." His thumbs caught my tears and rubbed them away. "She's tough like her mother…and tough like you."
I had to believe he was telling me the truth, but even so, a sob racked my shoulders. I couldn't imagine Archer and Grady without Sasha. She was the reason they put one foot—padded or otherwise—in front of the other. She was the symbol of hope for this broken, lost pack, and all of them, all of us, revolved around her.
"You have to hang on, Aika. We have to go now." He stepped me up onto the sleigh, and using his arm for strength, I crouched down and felt my way to the edge with slick hands.
My gloves… I didn’t know where they’d gone to.
Something bumped up behind me, and a hint of antiseptic burned my nose.
"Grady's on the sleigh with you patching up Sasha," he assured me. "She's okay, if not royally pissed off."
I wished I could've seen for myself, but she still must’ve had her eyes squeezed shut. Her cries, though, had turned into her version of a growl—a slight buzzing.
"And Thomas? Is he coming?"
The wind knocked his answer away.
After a second, I was staring at myself through a wolf's eyes, his eyes, a whirlwind of black hair and a red coat against a white angry void. He swiped his tongue across my lips like a good-luck kiss and then took his place at the front of the sleigh. As we began to move, I closed my eyes against the movement and ducked farther into my hood, hanging on tight.
I hadn't asked where we were going. The circled place on the map or somewhere Thomas had ordered? My ears pricked for the sounds of the other wolf pack guiding us out of Margin, but I couldn't hear anything other than winter. We went slowly, too slow to outrun our predators I thought, but maybe that was for Sasha's sake so Grady could patch her up, and mine since I had nothing to tie myself to.
Soon, the box at the back of the sleigh clicked, and then Grady’s presence vanished from the sleigh and must’ve reappeared at the front, because then we went faster.
"It's going to be okay, Sasha," I whispered into the wood. She likely couldn't hear me, but it didn't matter. It needed to be said.
After a while, the white void seemed to have swallowed us whole. Other than the constant bumps underneath, the only thing that existed was the kind of cold that shivered to the quick, and then farther than that. My teeth chattered and my bare hands were so numb that I couldn't be sure I was really gripping the sleigh as hard as I needed to be.
Once we came to the bottom of a large hill, the sleigh slowed to a stop. Footsteps, two of them, drifted to my ears from the right. The hill was so big that it must've muffled some of the wind.
Then, nothing.
I snapped open my eyes, but all I saw was darkness like from the inside of Sasha's box. I turned to reach for her, but my raw fingers were useless on the latch. "Archer? Grady?"
Snow cracked underfoot directly to my left, and I whirled.
"You're shivering," Grady muttered.
"No-no shit. Tell me what's happening," I demanded. "Why are we stopped? Where's Archer?"
"There’s a cabin at the base of the hill, and it just so happens it's the circled spot on the map. Archer and the other wolves are checking it out now." He settled his big hand on my back. "Lean into me."
I did, craving anything other than the block of ice I existed in. Even out here, he radiated fire, and I wanted to wrap myself up in his heat. He slid his arm around me, a protective shield scented with almond. I angled my face into his coat collar and breathed him in deep. Bit by bit, the shudders lessened and the numbness faded to angry tingling. Silence buzzed between us as it so often did, but this time, his thoughts seemed as loud as mine.
“What kind of woman puts her life on the line over and over like that?” he finally asked.
I blinked up at him, wishing I could see what had made him ask that. “She was hurt.”
“It could’ve been a lot worse.”
"She doesn't care what I am," I said with a shrug.
I refused to imagine a lot worse, the very idea dragging down my soul.
He touched my chin and tilted it upward, brushing his thumb up my jaw. "What kind of woman?"
Well, what was I? At one time, I had an answer, but it no longer seemed to fit. Useless. Broken. Those had been Ama's labels for me, not my own. I'd found my true self while lying in the Crimson Forest looking down at my body through a wolf's eyes. I'd glimpsed useless and broken then, a bloody pile of blind girl. But I'd also seen something stronger deep within, not a girl, but a woman, and one who could bite back. One who'd found the strength to stand up and forge onward and even fly.
He stood abruptly, taking his heat and protectiveness with him. Had he grown impatient with me?
"I'm a woman who loves fiercely and with her entire, stubborn heart."
"Stubborn is right," he growled.
"And what are you, Grady? What kind of man are you?"
A long, long pause in which I ground my teeth together, then, finally, "Tired."
"That's it?"
"That’s enough."
"Tired of what?"
"Resisting." He stomp-limped away, and I gazed after him, wishing I could see him.
Tired of resisting. Resisting what exactly? Or…who? A spark of feeling lit deep inside of me, one I held on to with my whole being.
Footsteps charged up the hill and scraped underneath the dead tree branches that grew close to the ground.
"The cabin," Archer said, only slightly out of breath. "There are people there."
"Who?" Grady demanded.
"A family. Human from the smell of them, but…"
"But what?" I asked.
"Aika," he said, his voice heavy with tension. "It's Lager's cabin."
Chapter 8
A hiss escaped through my clenched teeth. Lager's cabin. The man who'd taken everything from me and would kill me without hesitation, whether there were now four fingers on his hand or not.
"How do you know?" I asked in a voice much calmer than I felt.
"I can smell him, for one," Archer said.
That sickly sweet honey scent. Wolves likely smelled it much stronger than I did.
"And for two?"
"There's a child's drawing on the desk inside the northwest window. It very clearly states all the members of the family. The Lager family."
The map we'd taken from Old Man's Den had led us right to Lager's family. Did he even know we had it?
"He's a fucking fool, then," Grady rumbled, reading my thoughts exactly. "What kind of man circles a target over their family?"
"He's new here. My baba said he came from the south and decided to settle in once he heard about our poison." I adjusted the quiver on my back and headed downhill, my muscles tensed for battle, my fingers itching to loose an arrow straight into Lager's eye. "Still, though. He’s a fucking fool."
"Whoa." Archer dodged in front of me and slipped his hand around my waist, pulling me to a stop. "His family is there, Aika."
"And what about my family?" I wrenched myself free, fury ripping up my throat. "Jade and Lee… Would he have sold his own goddamn family into slavery? He had no right. He had no right to do everything he did, and I wish I could take the bullet he shot Baba with and shoot his cock right the fuck off."
"We know," Archer
said. "We know exactly how you feel, but it wasn't Lager's wife or kid who did this to you."
“Then they need to know what he's really like," I fired back.
"Don't be blinded by your vengeance," Grady told me.
"I can see it plain as day,” I shouted. “This is what you thought of me, isn't it? Baba's daughter, the poisoner. You wanted to kill me, too, didn't you? As soon as you found out what I was. How is me going to Lager’s cabin any different?"
"You're no killer," he said through gritted teeth.
"Watch me." I jerked out of Archer’s grip and slipped my way down another hill, tapping the snow with the end of my bow.
My wolves didn’t try to stop me, but I felt them nearby, always present.
My bow smacked the edge of a cabin, and I hit it softly against it until I found the door. I banged my fist against it then stepped back to nock my arrow and aim. Rage steamed from my nostrils as I waited, oblivious to any storm but the one raging inside me. I'd get the shot. I didn't need eyes to kill Lager. I needed just me.
My heart blasted into my rib cage, a familiar sensation when I was the prey. Only this time I was the predator.
The door creaked open.
The bow string bit into my raw fingertips and slicked them with blood. I held myself ready, ignoring the pain.
The door creaked wider, and the smells emanating from inside registered briefly—too sweet honey, fresh bread, and smoke from a crackling fire.
I opened my mouth to spit his name, but something attached itself to my coat by my leg and rubbed itself against me.
"Ribbons, no!" an airy, accented voice cried. Young. A little girl. "Not outside!"
I froze all the way to my bleeding fingers.
"Please, grab her!" the girl begged.
Winter's Bite (The Crimson Winter Reverse Harem Series Book 2) Page 6
