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

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  "Something happened to me in the forest when I was being attacked by the wolves,” I said. “I could see. It happened again when I woke up here that first time. And again today. I saw the man then."

  Silence, thick as Archer’s blood scenting the air.

  "I don't follow. You're blind but you can see?" Grady asked.

  "I can see through wolves." The words felt foreign on my tongue, their meaning rattling somewhere at the back of my head where they might never make sense. "Sasha and…you two."

  After a weighted pause, Grady said, "Huh."

  "That's it? Just huh?" I asked.

  "I mean, that's all I got. This is… I've never heard of something like this."

  "Describe it,” Archer said. “What does it look like when you see through…us?"

  "It's like I'm right there inside your head, doing what you're doing up close and personal, and seeing all of it in detail." Bloody, horrifying detail. I swallowed thickly. "I never want to be in the middle of a wolf battle again."

  "But you can't see through us right now in our human forms," Grady said.

  "No."

  "Try."

  "I don't even know—"

  "Try."

  I sawed my teeth together, cursing his name a dozen different ways for being so goddamn bossy, but did as he said. But it wasn't a matter of concentrating hard. It had just happened, all on its own, without any help from me.

  I shrugged. "It's not working. You have to be your…your wolf selves, and you have to be nearby. When you moved Sasha across the hall from me, I could no longer see."

  Grady grunted, a disgusted sound.

  "What?" I shot at him.

  "That's what you call trying hard? You gave up after four seconds flat."

  "Okay, okay," Archer said. "Let's go back to the attack in the woods. How many wolves' eyes could you see through?"

  "Just one, the one standing over me.” Grady, I assumed. Protective then, unlike the hateful Grady now.

  "Just our pack, then… Why?” Archer asked. “What could possibly cause that?"

  Something unlocked in my chest, a feeling tied with a thread I had to follow, if I dared. "Moonshine itself has certain side effects in large amounts, even without the wolfsbane. You said your…pack was poisoned, and I…"

  Archer sucked in a breath. "You were too?"

  I firmed my lips and backed away a few steps, but I had to say it. I had to follow the thread to see if I was right.

  "Aika…” he said gently, “who poisoned you? Your baba?"

  A bitter taste flooded my mouth, as real as it had been fourteen years ago, and I shook my head violently, trying to smear those memories from my head forever.

  But I had to say it. I had to find out the truth.

  "My ama. My mom," I finally admitted, my voice cut from shards of stone. I'd never told anyone that. Ever. Not even Jade. With the truth out there in the open, I felt horribly naked, and Archer and Grady's gazes dug deep into my flesh like fresh bruises. I wanted to snatch it back, claim it was someone else, not my own mother, but a stranger who wasn't supposed to love me. But I didn't.

  "Our eyes…" Grady cleared his throat of some of its roughness. "Our eyes didn't used to go red when we shifted before we were poisoned."

  "Yeah…" Archer said. "Must've been a side effect. So the fact that we were all poisoned, our shifter pack and a human… It connected us. Offered eyes to the one who can't see."

  A breath loosened in my chest, one I seemed to have been holding since I'd told them the truth. Neither of them had questioned me further about Ama. No whys. No judgment, either, when I'd honestly expected a backlash of it. Maybe I judged her enough for all of us.

  "Moonshine itself causes blindness when drunk too much. I guess with you…" I gestured lamely at them. "With shifters, it reacts a little differently."

  "It's still curious why you'd be able to see through us," Archer said.

  "I mean, you're wolf shifters. That in itself is curious, don't you think? So maybe it’s the same thing. What exactly makes you shift?"

  "Magic," Archer offered.

  Oh. Simply put. I'd expected a more complicated answer that had to do with the full moon's gravitational pull on their hair follicles or something—I had no idea—but magic summed it up nicely.

  Magic. I'd never been associated with it, never thought of my blindness as linked in any way to it. But in a way, I suppose it was if magic allowed me to see.

  A sharp sting speared my chest, a hurt that somehow felt good. I couldn't explain it and I didn't know what it meant exactly, but it made me feel…alive? That wasn't quite right. Of course I felt alive. It was more than that, like I got to experience something very few did.

  Magic. Not the kind with cards I couldn’t see, but the real kind. The kind I could see.

  "How do you…” I struggled with the words. “What kind of magic is it that makes you shift?"

  Grady crossed in front of me and started poking at the fire. "It doesn't make us. We make it."

  “Oh. And…what about your clothes when you shift?” It seemed sort of trivial, but that sure didn’t keep me from wondering.

  “We shift back fully clothed. All part of the magic,” Archer said, a smile in his tone. "It comes from the ruby caves in the Crimson Forest."

  "That's right, Archer. Go on and tell her everything," Grady growled.

  "She's already involved, asshole, so you can go to hell with all your damn secrets. Maybe if we had fewer secrets, we wouldn't be in this fucking mess."

  Grady's teeth gnashed together so loud I could hear them over the crackling fire.

  "Anyway," Archer continued, his voice low, "those conceived in the ruby caves shift, like us. It's the way it's always been. A female brings all of her harem of mates there when she’s in heat to better her chances of conceiving."

  “Mates? More than one?”

  “Yes. The more mates, the better protected the pups will be once they’re born since they’re all considered the fathers.”

  “Oh.” This was some news. Like sharing a female, and then she could have multiple men all to herself. That seemed…perfect? I had too many other questions to stick on that subject for long. "And if you're not conceived in the caves?"

  "Then there's no creation, no wolf pups to carry on the pack," he said. “Pregnancies don’t happen outside the ruby caves.”

  "So now that someone else is controlling the caves…"

  "That's right.” Archer sighed. “Nearly two years ago when we were pushed out of the Crimson Forest was the last of any new births or pregnancies for our pack."

  "Like it matters," Grady grumbled. "The whole of our pack is almost completely dead."

  "Sasha," I said. "Sasha was the last birth."

  A stillness lowered over the cabin, wrought with melancholy and deep sadness. I opened my mouth to ask why, but Archer blew out a shaky breath like he did when his hands trembled. It made me wonder about Sasha’s mother, if the mother was close to Archer. Was he the father? Had he conceived a baby with a female shifter? For some reason, the thought of him being with someone like that twisted my heart around. It shouldn't, but it did.

  Maybe Grady was the father, though that seemed less likely since he snapped and hissed like a feral beast. Archer was a lot more loving…and heated. They were both fiercely protective and doting of Sasha, which made sense because she was just a baby. Not only that, she was the last baby of their pack.

  "Sasha is a wolf," I said carefully, redirecting a little to hopefully easier topics. "Will she shift soon? Or has she already?"

  "Pups don't shift for the first time until they're around four or five,” Archer explained. “They keep warmer that way with the extra fur while they're little."

  "I see." A sudden idea occurred to me, and it made my blood pound with anticipation. "When I first woke up here, you offered Sasha to me to hold." I sawed my teeth across my lower lip, my cheeks flushing at how badly I'd reacted to that. She was just a baby. Completely harmless,
Archer had said. "Um, so, can I do that now?"

  "No," Grady said simply.

  The word crushed me far more than I ever thought it could.

  "Not until you wash your hands in the snow. You didn't wipe all of Archer's blood on my coat." There was almost a smile in his rough voice, or at least the suggestion of one down deep.

  I grinned, not feeling guilty about wiping blood on him in the least, and turned in the direction of the door.

  "There's a bowl of it by the fireplace I haven't used yet,” Grady said. “I can get—"

  "No. I can do it."

  "Well, okay then. I'll go get Sasha."

  His limping footsteps faded down the hall, and I crossed to the crackling fire.

  "Aika…" Archer said, his voice tense with worry.

  "I'm not going to stick my hand in the fire. I've been alive for nearly twenty years, and see?" I waved my hands in the air and then winced at the resulting bolt of pain through my ribs. Damn it. Never do that again, Aika. "No burns."

  "No fear, either.”

  I didn’t have to see his smile. I could feel it, just as clearly as I felt my own.

  My toe hit a pot, and water sloshed inside. I knelt, hovered my palms over the surface to test for steam, and dipped a finger inside. Warm but not hot.

  “Are you doing okay with all of this?" he asked.

  Was I? Honestly, I might never know.

  "Are you?” I asked. “With me, I mean, and my blindness."

  "Yes and yes," he said quietly.

  I could feel him watching me as I scrubbed my hands beneath the water, and something about his voice, the slight wonderment of it, took me back to the time when I lay in bed with him sitting next to me. Touching my heart. Feeling it beat for him, skin to skin. A tingle spread low in my belly, and I wondered what it would be like if he touched me right there.

  A human and a wolf shifter.

  The wolf shifter still waiting for my answer.

  "I think…it's a lot to take in, but I'd like to try."

  A devious chuckle wound through the limping footsteps from down the hallway. "I'll bet."

  I was about to demand what he was talking about when my vision slid back into place, like with a click of a button, from Sasha's eyes drawing closer. There I knelt with the fire behind me and stared back at her, my mouth slightly open, my long dark hair an absolute nightmare of a mess.

  And then Archer lying on the couch, shirtless. The flames danced shadows across his gorgeous tawny skin, his muscles cut and sculpted with precision. His pants sat low on his hips to allow for the large bandage on his side, and the bones there peaked into a V shape. His long black hair feathered out around him, and his dark eyes were soft and loving as he stared at Sasha entering the room. Did he look at me like that too?

  Sasha blinked away, and I saw myself smile right in front of her, one that lit up my entire face.

  I quickly stood, dried my hands on myself this time, and held them out, palms up. "Do they pass inspection?"

  “Good enough.” Grady settled the ball of furry magic into my arms, and I wasn't afraid.

  I held her close, feeling her warmth seep through my flannel, and she curved her little body into my chest. I smiled into her fur and inhaled spring leaves kissed with sunshine.

  "Hi, Sasha," I whispered.

  She let out an adorable squeak. She buried her nose into my hair and sniffed, and I immediately felt sorry for her. I probably reeked. But she kept sniffing and let my hair curtain over her eyes as she nestled in.

  I planted a kiss on the top of her head and held her close while thinking about my next course of action. Because I couldn’t stay here. I had to get back home. But first:

  "I'm going to help you, you and your guardians," I told Sasha.

  Grady grunted. "This is some news."

  "How?" Archer asked.

  I took a deep breath, aware of the risks, all 6,000 of them. "You can help me make more poison."

  Chapter 8

  The tension in the room strangled the air from the room. Sasha popped her head up and blinked at her two guardians, and they both stared at me hard.

  "Help you make poison?" The rough edges in Grady's voice, the fiery blaze in his steel eyes, made me back up a step, clutching Sasha tighter. "That's going to help us?"

  "Yes," I said firmly. "My family still needs food for the winter. That hasn't changed, but the way we were going to earn money for it has. The original poison is gone, but with your help, I can make more, or at least something that smells like moonshine. I'll add some mountain chicory since it looks like wolfsbane, or any type of purple flower, to make it look exact."

  "You're talking about tricking Faust with a knock-off of what your pa usually gives him?" Grady’s voice grew louder until it was practically a roar.

  Sasha flinched and curled deeper into me, tucking her head into my armpit so I could no longer see.

  But I stood my ground. "Yes."

  "And if it doesn't work?" Archer said softly.

  "It has to work, and I won't know unless I try. I can't just do nothing. That money… It’s our last hope."

  "The guy who took the poison,” Grady snapped. “What if he made the delivery and already collected on it? What then?"

  "I don't know what he did with it, which is why making more is worth a shot.”

  Grady took a step closer. "Once again, you said you would help us. This sounds an awful lot like we help you, and we've done more than enough of that."

  "Grady," Archer hissed.

  "I was getting to that," I gritted out. "Gabriel, and therefore Faust, is in Old Man’s Den, and I’m guessing that neither of you is allowed there if his pack kicked you out of the Crimson Forest, right?”

  “That’s right…” Archer said.

  “I can, though. I've done it before. You said your alpha is missing, and you've been looking for the past two years. What if he's there, the very place you can't go to?"

  "So, what, like a prisoner?" Archer asked.

  Grady limped away and then stopped, and I didn’t have to see him to know the gears in his mind were churning. "Say he is there. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to find him?"

  "I'll tell you how. You favor your right foot when you walk and scuff the foot of your left along the floor because you hurt your heel or your ankle badly and didn’t rest enough to heal it. The bottom of your left boot is so worn that it’s lost its traction and slips along the floor easily, which tells me that your injury was some time ago. And you, Archer.” I turned toward him. “You smell of crisp wood smoke and caramel, which could mean a lot of things, like maybe you melt the candy over a fire outside or—”

  “To get away from Grady,” he said with a touch of what might’ve been awe. “He’s a viper, and I won’t share. I pour the caramel over apples, but not the ones I give to Hellbreath.”

  My heart warmed that he was taking such good care of my girl. And because I was right. “You want to know how I know all that? By listening. By smelling. By being aware. I may not be able to see, but I'm not…" Useless. "I'm not stupid."

  "Nobody ever said you were stupid, Aika," Archer said. "And that is impressive."

  Grady cleared his throat. "You guessed all this—"

  "I didn't guess."

  "You knew all this just from your other senses…"

  "They're sharp, and I sharpen them more every day. I've gotten so used to not seeing that I've started not to miss it, until… Well, until I could again, through you all." I smiled at Archer and adjusted Sasha since he was the only one I really wanted to look at through her.

  He smiled back, warm and heartbreakingly beautiful.

  "Say you go into Old Man’s Den,” Grady started. “What if Thomas isn't in there, and you can't help us?"

  Thomas. Thomas, their alpha? I filed that away.

  "Then I help you widen the search until we find him."

  Grady scoffed. "I'm not sure what good you can do in places I can go. I'm a wolf, remember?
My senses are damn good too. Plus, it's going to be winter soon."

  "If Thomas isn't in Old Man’s Den, then we cross that bridge when we come to it," Archer said.

  I knew he was just playing along since he thought Thomas was dead, which meant that he just wanted to help. Help me. He cared enough to want to, even after finding out it was because of Baba and me that he had not much more pack than was in this cabin now. That meant a lot.

  "Look, I know you guys don't owe me anything after saving me…” I said.

  "You saved me too.” Archer pointed to his bandage with a raised brow. "This could've been a lot worse."

  "And I know my family’s role in making the poison directly affected you…" I continued.

  "You didn't know how though," Grady muttered, glancing over his wide shoulder.

  I nodded, grateful that he actually believed me. "So let me help you. Going into Old Man’s Den is a start."

  Archer groaned. "I don't know, Aika. Faust is a firecracker with an even shorter fuse than Grady. If he finds out you tricked him by giving him fake poison…"

  Grady turned and faced us, his jaw set. "Then we go with her. Right to the edge of town."

  "We won't be able to go in, though,” Archer said with a sigh, “so if there's trouble, shout, and we'll…probably die before we reach you."

  "I won't shout." I would never if it meant he could die. Grady, too, because it had sure sounded like he'd agreed to the plan before Archer. I suspected he would do almost anything to find their missing alpha. "So, do we have a deal?"

  Grady looked to Archer, who stared up at the ceiling for answers for a long moment.

  "Yeah," Archer finally said, his tone colored by dark worry. "We have a deal."

  One day later, Archer and I sat on the couch while I directed Grady on how to mix the poison concoction. Since Archer was still recovering from his bite wound, he couldn't do much else other than entertain Sasha. He had a ball that he'd throw at her, and she'd chase it and trip over it with her clumsy, short legs. I wished I could've watched her from a distance and not right up close through her eyes because all the bouncing she did during her mad dashes triggered a constant spin in my stomach.