Chapter One

With the wind kicking up and the heavy snow pelting down on us, it took almost fifteen hours to get to Margin. A little better than a mile per hour. We had to stop several times for Grady to pick up the town’s scent again and to let him rest since he pulled all of us on the sleigh while injured.

It was a good thing I’d stolen the coat from the brothel at Old Man’s Den, or otherwise, I don’t think I would’ve made it. As it was, by the time we arrived in Margin, I couldn’t feel any part of my body despite Archer shifting to keep me and himself warm. After bursting through the door of an inn with winter savaging our backs, the innkeeper took pity on us and put us in a room for one night in exchange for the nearly full bottle of booze I’d also stolen from the brothel.

That was eight days ago. Archer, the magician that he was, had charmed the innkeeper’s wife into letting us stay longer. He was hurt. He was beautiful. I couldn’t blame her for not being able to resist, though I had noted how her gaze lingered, how she giggled and fretted.

She made me want to put an arrow through her eye.

Which was why I sat in the bar area with Sasha on my lap while the woman doted on him in our shared room upstairs and while Grady stomped around them and snapped everyone’s heads off.

We were a touch high-strung, the three of us, after starting a war and barely escaping with our lives. I was especially edgy, since all I thought about was poison and sex, sex and poison. That was the result of sharing a room with two wolf shifters and scouring the inn’s kitchen for things that could kill and coming up empty. What kind of kitchen didn’t have some kind of toxic ingredient?

Someone entered the inn then, a smudge of brown in the whited-out backdrop behind them. The animal skins hanging on the walls swayed with the surge of wind, and the many bushels of dried herbs and vegetables hanging above the fireplace fell to the stone floor. Most of the candles in the circular chandeliers above went out in puffs of smoke.

“Shut the goddamn door,” an old man hunkered at the bar yelled.

Good to know I wasn’t the only one cranky at winter.

The innkeeper bustled out from behind the bar to help the newcomer close the door against the wind.

I folded Sasha farther into my coat, away from the stranger, and sealing off my borrowed vision. She was half asleep in my arms anyway and already hidden from the innkeeper by the angle of my body. Easier to cover up her existence down here than up in our room with the doting wife since I seriously doubted wolf pups were allowed here.

The door finally closed and latched, and the innkeeper breathed a loud sigh of relief. “It’s rough out there this year, isn’t it?” He bumped into one of the many wine barrels edging the room. A habit of his, I gathered, since it happened so frequently, like he wasn’t aware of the space his own body dominated. “Do you need a room? A drink? I have a mean pot of stew that will be ready within the hour.”

The stranger didn’t say a word, just lumbered toward the fireplace against the wall.

I bent my head over the table so my hair curtained my face. My heart stuttered a warning beat. My muscles tensed as I almost stood to slip out, but I decided against it. I didn't want to draw attention to myself, not any more than I already had. As if sensing my unease, Sasha squirmed once and then stilled, her warm little body as stiff as mine.

Ever since that morning Baba was shot, I trusted no one outside my wolves. This person… Why were they wandering about in winter?

Once again, the door to the inn burst open.

“Shut the fucking door,” the old man at the bar shouted.

“Relax, Bartle.” The innkeeper rushed to meet the newcomer.

It was becoming much too crowded in here. Time to slip aw—

"You have the best seat in the house, I reckon."

A male voice, unfamiliar, from the direction of the fireplace. The first stranger. His voice had a soothing quality, but it didn't take effect since he was addressing me. Me, not the old man at the bar or the innkeeper who'd run over wine barrels on his way back into the kitchen. I dug my fingernails into the underside of the table and prepared myself to snatch the map from the top and run upstairs. A part of me wondered, though, what if this was Thomas? What if this was Archer and Grady’s missing alpha we’d heard howling several days ago?

"You can see who's coming and going,” the man continued. “See anyone of interest lately?"

I shook my head, more of a spasm than a forced movement.

The second stranger headed toward us over the creaky floorboards toward the fireplace, and a buckle on his left shoe must’ve loosened because it clinked. At least, I thought it was a he. No, it was definitely a he. I could often just tell. His steps thudded deliberately as if he were listening, watching.

A weighted silence passed around the room, then the stranger who’d spoken moved toward me. I flashed my hand to the tabletop, crumpled the map in my fist, and slid it onto my lap.

A low chuckle emanated from him. "All I'm interested in is who's coming and going. Not whatever you had there."

"Ask the innkeeper."

"I'm asking you." The legs of the chair opposite me screeched over the floor, and he sat heavily upon it. The chill from his coat shoved outward, bringing the smell of fresh snow and sweat with it.

"I haven't seen anyone."

"Hm." An undertone of disbelief lined the sound, but I'd told him the truth. "Shame."

This wasn't Thomas. If it was, Grady would have seen him. He would have come downstairs by now instead of sticking his face to the window trying to search between the snowflakes for his alpha. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, because whoever this was, he'd come to me for a reason.

"I'm looking for a girl,” the stranger said. “Black hair. Brown eyes. About your height. You haven't seen anyone like that?"

My body went numb. Questions flooded my mouth, but I didn't dare ask them. Could he be talking about Jade?

"No," I managed to say.

"A real beauty. But she escaped Margin's slave auction and ran off wearing a thin blue coat. Angered quite a few potential buyers." He sniffed. "Doesn't matter, I suppose. She's more than likely dead already."

My tongue soured, and I fought down a swallow. He might not be talking about Jade. It could be anyone. Still, my stomach hardened into a worried knot. I couldn't imagine being someone's slave, but to choose winter, choose death, over that kind of life… Well, that told me everything I needed to know.

"Excuse me." I stood from the table abruptly, angling the lump in my coat away from him the best I could, and swept the map behind my back. My hands trembled, and I hoped I wouldn't be sick.

"Of course," the man said. "If you happen to see her, though, I'll be around."

He'd said it with a smile. I could hear it even now. He'd be around watching and waiting, and from the dig of his gaze in my back, he was already watching me.

I skirted between the tables and chairs on the way to the stairs, having already memorized the way. As quick as I could, I strode up to the room and breathed somewhat easier as the distance between me and those men grew.

"It's okay," I breathed to Sasha and myself. That man had been just a man who wasn’t interested in us and had been talking about someone other than Jade. She was too smart to run, too dedicated to her brother, Lee, to surrender to death.

After twelve steps from the top of the stairs, I skimmed my fingers over the door of our room and turned the knob. Girlish laughter sounded from within as well as Archer's easy voice. I ground my teeth together and slammed the door behind me.

"Aika, you're back," Archer exclaimed from the bed on the right.

"And now the whole inn knows it," the innkeeper's wife muttered. She didn't sound as happy to see me as Archer.

"Time to go," I told her, none too politely.

She harrumphed. “But Archer…”

I opened the door again and waved her out. Couldn’t get much more obvious than that.

“I’ll be back first thing tomorrow.” She left then, leaving a trail of sickly sweet perfume behind.

"Aika, she treated my wounds,” Archer said with a note of humor. “Shouldn't we be nice to her?"

"I thought the word please as I said it."

He chuckled. “No. You didn’t.”

I unbuttoned my coat so Sasha could wriggle free, and the sight on the bed through her eyes pulled me up short for a moment. He lay in bed shirtless with the blankets puddled at his hips. His long, silky midnight hair feathered his tawny skin and the ripple of powerful muscles along his chest and arms.

"Are you jealous of her?" he asked, studying me just as closely with his dark, mischievous eyes.

Why wouldn't I be? Having working sight just so I could stare at him all day without Sasha's bouncing would be a dream.

I released Sasha into his waiting arms. "It doesn't matter."

"She's just trying to help. That's all, to me anyway. Honest."

I nodded sharply, my tongue souring at the bitterness this foreign feeling left me with. It would be impossible not to fall for him. I had, quickly, and what amazed me was that I suspected he liked me too.

He pulled me down next to him on the bed, cradling Sasha close, and his gaze kindled something softer and warmer than jealousy inside my heart. "Now why did you come bursting in here?"

"There are two strangers downstairs. One of them knew about the slave trade and said one female slave who looked similar to me escaped, and I can't help but think—"

"He thought you were an escaped slave?" His whole body tensed.

"No, at least I don't think so. He might be talking about Jade. But…maybe not. It makes me so sick that I don't know where she is."

"We'll find her." He released a long breath and glanced down at Sasha, who stared at him adoringly. "And the second stranger?"

I didn't miss the note of hope in his voice. Despite his doubts that the howl we'd heard the first day of winter had really been Thomas, he still held hope his alpha was alive. He hadn’t said anything though. He didn’t have to.

"Nothing but silence." I couldn't leave it at just that since I never wanted to crush his hope, sliver that it was. "It could've been anyone, but…"

"But?"

"I take a lot of my cues from Sasha. If she's relaxed, if she's tense. She perked up downstairs when the strangers came but was still kind of half asleep, so I wonder if Thomas really is nearby—maybe he rubbed herbs all over himself to mask his scent."

"Like we did in Old Man's Den, you mean."

I nodded. "Wouldn't a wolf pup immediately recognize their alpha and react in some way?"

"Probably," he sighed. "Maybe. It depends on if Thomas wants to be found or not, I suppose. If he’s really alive."

“If he's here, he can't stay hidden forever. Maybe Grady saw something out the window?" Speaking of Grady, I didn’t smell his almond scent, feel his anger biting at my skin.

"Doubt it. He's down the hall in the shared bath probably taking a cold one. I couldn't stand him snapping and stomping, so I told him to just go away."

I stood from the bed. "Is there a window in there?"

"Yeah."

"Then he might've seen something, like if the two men came from the same side of town or were together before they came here."

"What makes you think the second stranger's a man?"

"A feeling, I guess. The noise level around him. Women think louder than men." At least in my experience. When my ama wasn’t shouting at me, she was thinking, and that was usually worse. In my own head, my thoughts were deafening.

"Really?" Archer chuckled. "You can hear that?"

"Just the volume, not their actual thoughts. I think it's because women have so much to say and very few who will actually listen. So we pent it up."

"I'll listen."

"I know, and it means so much to me." I leaned down, hoping he'd meet my kiss.

He did, vigorously. His warm breath sighed over my lips as he claimed them. His tongue stoked fiery heat to the end of every limb and back then surged to my center in a tight, greedy ball of need. With one touch, he made me feel things I didn't even know I craved until I did. He slid one hand to the back of my head and rested the other on my hip, gently tilting me toward him and the bed.

Sasha rolled away from us, plopped to the floor, and howled toward the window.

"Hush, big girl," Archer hissed.

She immediately stopped and stood rigid, but her thoughts buzzed in a wild flurry, same as mine. Out in the hallway, a door closed, and Sasha released a quiet whimper.

"I'll see to her,” Archer said quietly. “You go check on Grady? If this place gets too much more crowded, we may have to leave. Just be sure to knock first at the bath door. Who the hell knows what he's doing in there."

Nodding, I climbed off the bed and crossed toward the door, my cheeks flushed from Archer’s kiss. I opened then closed the door behind me—and I all but froze two steps down the hallway.

Someone was here with me. They were breathing the same air, touching their feet to the same creaky floorboards, yet they weren't moving. Whoever it was stood behind me, their gaze whittling down my back with a sharpened blade. Not Grady. I didn't smell his almond scent, didn't hear his silent broodiness. This was different. This was silent and predatory.

My steps hesitated, but I couldn't turn back. I didn't want to shout for Archer, either, because he shouldn't be getting out of bed yet. I had my thoughts, as loud as they were, and they were telling me to act natural, to pretend everything was okay, to let the predator feel like this would be an easy victory.

The air closed in slightly from ahead, signaling I was drawing closer to the bath door at the end of the hall.

I knocked. "Anyone in here?"

I tried to make my voice sound as cool and calm as possible. A grunt sounded from within followed by a loud splash of water. I tried the door, but the rattle of a chain on the other side prevented me from opening it very far.

"Hello?" I didn't want to confirm Grady's name in case the stranger in the hallway already suspected it. I didn't want to turn back and reveal my face either. With the door opened a crack, more sounds filtered out—a groan, water slapping the lip of the tub. "Grady?" I mouthed. Why wasn't he answering me?

The hair at the back of my neck bristled, and I sensed more than heard the stranger behind me take a step closer.

"Grady?" I whispered into the crack.

More grunts, more splashes, and a squeak along the bottom of the tub. Could he see me? What was he doing? It almost sounded like he was…pleasuring himself with abandon, completely lost to the sensations.

But the next few moments dashed that thought away.

"Run," Grady choked out, and then went into a terrible coughing fit.

There was a violent splash and sputtering as well as the sound of boots slapping wet tile. Grady wasn't alone. Someone was trying to drown him.

Run. There was nowhere to go. Certainly not anywhere behind me. The floorboards creaked again then again, faster.

Without thinking, I drew back my leg and kicked the door with more determination than strength. My boot must've struck it just right because the chain snapped, and the door swung open. I rushed inside then skirted left, with what felt like fingers skimming through the ends of my hair from behind. A him. A stranger him. His boots hit the wet tile at top speed, and he slid and splashed toward the middle of the room.

With a choked cry, Grady surged up out of the bath. Two bodies toppled to the floor with heavy grunts. Fists smashed into flesh over and over, but whose?

The stranger who’d been behind me moved to block the door, his steps loud through the water on the floor but slow and calculating.

I needed a weapon, something to get us both out of here alive, but without my bow and arrow, I had nothing. Nothing but my hearing. Keeping the wall at my back, I circled the room, knocking onto a low wooden table topped with fluffy towels. I took one and twisted it as tightly as I could between my hands.

"Who do you work for?" I asked.

"I think you know," a different voice than the one I’d heard downstairs answered.

The punches slowed, and then someone staggered to their feet.

"Faust," Grady said, his voice wet and hoarse. No movement from the man on the floor next to him. "He sent you after us in winter?"

"You burned down his town."

"Will he send more after I kill you?" Grady bit out.

"Confident words for a half-drowned naked man with a severe limp. You and your pet blind girl are hardly a match for us."

Burning rage seethed a hole right through my stomach. Pet blind girl?

"Yeah?" Grady rasped. He kicked the man beside him. "Tell that to this guy."

"That worthless sack of shit?" The man tsk-tsked. "Faust wants the three of you dead or alive for what you did to Old Man's Den. Either way, I intend to deliver."

He took a single step toward me, and then in a splash of movement, Grady was on him. With a lethal growl, he shoved him up against the wall, the air around him tight with livid tension.

"Deliver this message instead." Grady's voice bit viciously, raw with the water he'd been forced to swallow and the intensity with which he hated this man. "We will destroy Faust and everyone associated with him. The Crimson Forest is my pack's, and we will take it back. Tell him to be afraid, because when it's my pack's again, we will see him suffer." Violent emotion cracked his voice and vibrated off of him like a war drum.

I trembled because I felt it, too, this vicious beat inside me that constantly reminded me of all I'd lost. It wasn't much, but it was all I'd had. Baba, Jade, Lee, Hellbreath, my home, a chance at surviving. All gone. I knew Grady's desperation well.

"You'll tell him this?" he demanded.

Silence from the man, but when he shifted his gaze to me and crawled it all down my body, the vileness of his thoughts spoke volumes. For those seconds, I was glad I couldn’t see. Feeling it, hearing it, was terrible enough.

"Only if your pet blind girl rides my cock," the man finally said.

There was a moment of dead calm, the quiet before the storm while I digested those words. Then, hell shattered the small space in the flash of a second. A window along the wall exploded, and a blast of wintery air swirled through the room.

"Wh-What?" I whispered, unable to say more.

"If he can get up, he'll deliver the damn message." Grady roughly took my hand and charged us out of there.

"You threw him out the window?"

He said nothing, dragging me behind him as he limped heavily along down the hallway. It was worse now after we’d narrowly escaped Old Man’s Den, the drags and thumps of his stride much more pronounced.

Once he shoved open the door to our room, he turned as I followed him inside, anger rolling off of him. He pressed closer, the water clinging to his naked skin soaking through my threadbare clothes. In one fluid motion, he backed me into the door as he shut it. "Have you ever done what you're told in your entire life?"

Behind him from the bed, Sasha's head had swiveled toward him, and her vision clicked into my eyes. He towered over me, completely nude, his powerful muscles tensed. He was terrifyingly beautiful, even more so since he stood so close. My breaths grew ragged as my heart charged its way out of my chest. Even though he'd attacked two men, possibly killed them, I wasn't afraid of him. But I was afraid of what he was doing to me. Around him, I felt as untamed as a wolf.

“What happened?” Archer demanded from the bed. “I heard breaking glass.”

Grady slapped his hand against the door next to my head, his seething breaths rushing past my cheek. "When I tell you to run, you run. Don't come breaking down the door and inviting more of Faust's men in."

"He was drowning you," I hissed.

"What?" Archer said. "Someone was drowning you?"

"I solved that problem, didn't I? Me." Grady gritted out. "I don't need you."

He pushed off the door, leaving me bared and vulnerable to Sasha's eyes while his words penetrated deep. I don't need you. Did anyone? Through Sasha, the falling expression on my face answered that plainly enough. Even Archer, who glowered after Grady with a murderous look, would be fine without me. He could have anyone, someone a lot more useful than a pet blind girl.

So useless and broken…

I’d wanted to stop believing what Ama had told me again and again, but that was proving really fucking difficult with even more words sharp as corners flung my way. Heat swallowed up my neck and scorched the backs of my eyes.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Grady?" Archer shouted. "You don't have to be such a fucking bastard all the time. Now tell me what happened in the bathroom."

"I was cornered and attacked by one of Faust's men." Grady slammed around the room while searching for his clothes. Sasha bounded off the bed and followed him. "Aika here brought in another."

"I didn't bring in anyone,” I said, my throat thick with emotion. “He was watching me go down the hall, probably a lookout for the other man. I didn't want to go back and face him again, and I didn't know what was happening to you. I was just coming to ask you a question."

"What?" he demanded.

"If you'd seen anyone enter the inn. There were two strangers downstairs."

"No, I didn’t see them coming until it was too late."

"No, the two up here and the two down there aren't the same,” I insisted. “One of them had a loose buckle on his shoe, and the other had an eerily soothing voice as he talked about slaves."

Grady grunted. "This inn's getting way too crowded." He snatched the towel from my hand, unraveling it, and ran it over his head. "And small."

I glared at him through Sasha's and my eyes. "So you're saying we leave?"

"That's what I'm saying."

Wind battered the side of the inn and rattled the frosted window. When I'd lived in Margin's Row, I hated having to go to the outhouse in winter and would hold it as long as possible. Even with a rope to guide me from our cabin, I became disoriented as blowing snow knocked me this way and that. Without a rope, I would've surely died. Without the wolf shifters, I didn't stand a chance. If we became separated, if they decided they both didn't need me…

"Wherever we go, it will have to be close,” Archer said. “I'm healed, but not completely."

I crossed toward the little nightstand and picked up the map we’d stolen from Faust’s tavern. "We go where Lager's map leads us. The circled places, even the one in Slipjoint Forest since who’s to say there aren’t ruby caves there too?"

"We don’t know what's there," Grady snapped.

"He's right,” Archer said. “If we go there, we could be walking into anything, and we'll likely be tailed by Faust's men if we do. I don't know about you, but I don't like being surrounded."

“Where, then?” I asked.

"The nearest town we haven't burned down is about sixty miles away.” He sighed. “And the shortest way there is straight through the Crimson Forest."

"We could stay in Margin, but not here." Grady took his place by the window and rubbed the glass while Sasha yipped about his heels.

"This is the only inn in Margin." I tapped the nearest circled spot on the map. "This is close. The trees in the Slipjoint Forest will help give us cover from winter and anyone who follows us."

"There's nothing there, Aika," Grady rumbled. “That’s just a stupid map.”

"There could be,” I fired back. “It was at Faust’s tavern, so it's probably important."

"Not the ruby caves…" Archer said. “Faust wouldn’t be that stupid to circle them on a map, would he?”

I sawed my teeth across my bottom lip, considering. Only female wolf shifters knew where the ruby caves were, the only place where breeding among shifters was successful. The caves were the reason Faust's pack had taken over the Crimson Forest in the first place by force with the help of my mother's poison.

"No,” I decided. “Faust's woman, the redhead, hadn't yet found the caves."

Grady chuckled, a dark, bruised sound. "And you believed her?"

"I did. Unless the map was brand new, why keep it for the two years they've been in control of the forest and not go see why those places were circled?"

The headboard creaked as Archer shifted. "Unless the map was brand new and winter was coming the very next day."

"I could see the caves through Sasha's eyes to help guide us there," I said pointedly to Grady's back. "You might need me after all."

He stayed quiet for a long time because he had to know I was right. And I hoped me being right was killing him, slowly.

"We could hole up there if we make it, but come spring, I'm through hiding. I want my home back.” Grady turned to face us and picked up Sasha. “I want what's ours."

"And if it's not the ruby caves circled on the map?” Archer asked. “If it's nothing but the Crimson Forest in winter with Faust's pack hunting us?"

Neither Grady nor I had an answer, it seemed. Here in the inn, we'd be hunted until we were dead. Out there, facing a wintery unknown… If we didn’t find shelter fast, we'd just be dead.