Chapter Eleven

The secret ingredient wasn’t all that secret. Snake venom.

“Snakes aren’t active in winter,” Shay said. “Their metabolism slows them down, and they’re easy to catch. We have a ton of them in the barn.”

I blinked. “With the horses.”

“The horses usually trample them if they get too close.”

“Usually?” I shot back.

“Ooooh no.” Archer moved in behind me and squeezed my arm, hard. “That’s an issue we’ll take care of. In the meantime, what kind are these snakes?”

“They look similar to the ones we have back home. Black moaners, we call them. We used to eat them.”

And that’s all the information we had. Wolfsbane for the wolf part and maybe black moaner venom for the human part. The question was would it work?

The rest of the night and into the morning, Shay collected the venom in the kitchen, though she’d never done it before. She seemed comfortable enough around snakes, or more specifically non-active ones. I worked on the opposite side of the kitchen, pouring different amounts of the poison I already had into five separate jars to test potency. Grady tended to the horses while Archer kept Gibby preoccupied in the living room. And Thomas…did Thomas things, I guess.

"How are we going to test this?" I asked. "All the wilds I've seen in the forest lately are in the cabin with us, unless…" The soft pitter patter of four graceful feet chasing Sasha through the kitchen whipped my head around.

Shay gasped. "You can't be thinking Ribbons. Gibby would be devastated."

"I'm not thinking Ribbons.” I’d definitely been thinking Ribbons, but for Gibby’s sake, I’d leave the cat alone. “I'm thinking of how good a hunter Ribbons is."

"She's terrible. She'd rather play with her food than eat it and won't ever listen to a word anyone ever says."

I nodded. "My wolves will hunt something, then."

"Not Ribbons," Shay said firmly.

"Not Ribbons." I held up my hands innocently. "The cat will live all nine lives and then some. Promise."

She sighed and ended it on a chuckle. “I hate that cat.”

“Well, if you change your mind…”

“I won’t.” She laughed harder, and I joined in, surprised at how easy it was to be around Lager's wife.

She deserved much better than him, but that wasn’t my call to make. Still, I couldn’t let him live either. Deep down, maybe she knew that, and yet she was helping me anyway. From what I could tell, that was just who she was—kind, helpful, smart. She almost made me want to change my mind about Lager.

A plan was taking root, though, while we mixed ingredients. It would be risky. It might not work. No one would be willing to carry it out. Still, it was the only thing I had, and I thought it was damn brilliant. For now, I kept it to myself. We didn't even know if the poison would work or not.

Finally, we were ready for testing. We even had five different testing subjects caught by my wolves—four vultures and one owl—each in separate cages.

"Gibby, why don't you go into your room and color a picture for Archer," Shay said nervously. "Take Ribbons with you."

“Are the birds pets now?” she asked.

Shay smiled but it didn’t touch her blue eyes. “No.”

"Oookaaay," Gibby sing-songed, then skipped away with Ribbons on her heels.

Archer pinched my elbow from behind, Sasha squirming in his arms to see the birds. "You need eyes for this?"

I shook my head. "I'm used to shooting without them."

He kissed my cheek and then moved Sasha farther away, lowering the soupy void back over my vision.

Pursing my lips against the poisonous stink, I dipped the arrow into the first glass jar, the one with the blackest snake venom. If it worked from a great distance, it wouldn't matter if Faust and his men could smell it. They'd be dead soon enough anyway.

I nocked the arrow and pulled back, letting the familiar movements of my muscles take over. They ached and protested, but they knew what to do. The first vulture on the left flapped its wings against the bars of the cage as it fought to get loose. I'd never felt guilty about hunting before since I'd had to do it to survive, but this was different. I didn't know what the poison would do or if the bird would suffer an excruciatingly slow death. Of course I wouldn't let it, and I definitely wouldn't be eating it once it was dead. A direct shot would kill it instantly, but an arrow to its wing would spread the poison and let us know if it worked.

As I tried to exhale my doubts away, I steadied myself. All eyes were on me, but I'd grown used to that, especially my wolf protectors. They believed in me. Their quiet support strengthened my spine and made me think I could do more than fly—even win back their forest for them. This was the first step.

Inhale. I held frozen while the vulture fluttered its wings. Exhale. I let the arrow fly.

The bird squawked and thumped to the bottom of the cage. Then it hurled itself at the bars. A final thud, then silence.

"One step," Archer said, a giant smile in his tone. “It took one step since you hit its wing.”

"You did it," Grady rumbled. "You fucking did it."

Nothing from Thomas, but his approval teased down the back of my arm when he brushed mine with his. I felt the tingle long afterwards.

“Let’s let the other birds go now.” My voice wobbled, and I felt a little sick at what I’d just done.

"Okay, so it works on vultures," Shay said. "Will it work on wolves?"

"Only one way to find out." As Grady took the cages outside, I stoppered the poison jar. "We find Faust, and we make him eat a thousand poisoned arrows."

The jar vanished from my hands, plucked free before I could process it was gone.

“I want your honest word, Aika,” Shay said, her voice a low warning. “You have to swear you and your wolves won’t hurt my husband at all. I know how to make the poison, too, now. If anything happens to him that looks like you’re doing… Where I grew up, it was eye for an eye, blood for blood. You can take that exactly as it’s meant to be.”

A threat against my life. She had every right, but Lager had shot Baba and burned down my home. Didn’t I have every right too? If he found me again, he would end me, and I couldn’t let that happen. Yet she had a point. I couldn’t have made the poison more powerful without her. I had to be smart about this, not just follow my rage blindly. Besides, the idea I’d had when we arrived had just bloomed.

“Fine.” I held out my hand to make it official, and to get the poison back. “You have my honest word.”

* * *

Most of us crashed hard after our full night, but not me. I stayed in the kitchen to pace and to run my fingers over the poison jar on the table. We still didn’t know if it worked on wolves, but we knew it was powerful. Now we just needed a wolf to experiment on, and I was sure some worth killing were coming, and soon.

“I suppose you’re happy,” Grady said from behind me.

I turned. “I am. Aren’t you?”

“You weren’t serious about not killing Lager,” he whispered, coming closer, “were you?”

“I gave Shay my word.”

“You can’t be serious. After everything he did.” He grabbed my elbow and gave it a shake. “He burned down your home, sold Jade and Lee.”

I wrenched away from him with a snarl. “I know exactly what he did, Grady. No need to remind me.”

“You’re not being smart about this.”

Fury lit my unseen world in red. “Fuck you.”

I stormed out of there, needing to unleash on him, but not wanting to shout and wake everyone. But the bastard followed me, straight into my room and shut the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“I was about to ask the same thing. Are you going to make a deal with someone else and spare Faust too?”

My jaw dropped to my knees. “How could you say that? How could you think that? What’s between Lager and me is exactly that—between Lager and me. I don’t remember asking your opinion.”

“And what’s between Faust,” he fumed, “is between him and us. Not you.”

“I know, I know,” I spat, tears rising. “Because you don’t need me.”

How could he say this? Why was he like this?

“Please go,” I choked out.

With a snarl, he turned and slammed the door shut behind him.

"You do need me,” I called after him, my heart fracturing. "And I need you too. You, Grady. I need you."

The door crashed inward, and I yelped as I leaped back.

“What the hel—”

“Humans don’t have wolf harems.” He breathed hard, and I realized I was too. “Is that what you want, Aika? To be fucked by multiple wolf shifters?”

“It’s more complicated than just fucking, but…” I jerked my head in a nod.

He closed the door behind him, and the energy radiating off of him scrambled my senses. He was a mess, the buzz of his thoughts was utter chaos, and I guessed this little discussion of ours had nothing to do with Faust or Lager.

Now more than ever, he was an animal wrapped in hard muscle and skin. And he was hungry. He stalked toward me, and the closer he drew, the more my heart beat itself into a frenzy. It pounded to every corner of my body and struck like lightning underneath my skin. The second he touched my hip, I moaned, my whole body anticipating him. He swept his lips over mine roughly as he shoved me toward the bed, pressing with his hips against mine.

I could feel him, so hard and rigid like he'd been in the barn loft on top of me, and he ground up against me so, so nice. With a hungry groan, he spread me out on the bed beneath him. Almost his full weight lay atop me, but I welcomed it, needing more of him and his heat. As he kissed down the column of my neck, he growled low when my sweater wouldn't give more access, and with a yank, he ripped it. I gasped. Buttons rolled across the floor. My breasts popped free of the fabric and met the chilly air, my nipples hardening instantly. He lowered his head, took one into his mouth, and sucked on it. I moaned and squirmed beneath him, my hips riding his thrusts.

"God, you feel…" Breathing hard, he squeezed one nipple between his knuckles while his other hand tugged at my pants. “Fucking amazing.”

He pulled back some, his gaze roaming over my almost naked body and coiling the tension between us even tighter. It burned me to cinders like his touch. It triggered a wild hum in my blood I never wanted to tame.

His uneven breaths feathered my chest as he trailed upward to my lips. "I heard you with Archer. Thin walls, remember? I heard you come. That's the only thing I was focused on."

"Did you picture me?" I asked breathlessly.

"What do you think?" He lowered his hand to my slamming heartbeat and brushed his lips against my cheek. "It was right that he was your first since you loved him first."

"And what about now?” I asked, stroking his jaw. “What's right now?"

"Right now,”—he kissed me again, teasing my mouth open with his tongue with deep, sensuous strokes—"I need to taste you."

That hadn't been what I was asking, and he knew it. Did he think this was right? Did he know I'd loved him second even though I'd tried not to? Even though he'd made it impossible?

Nodding, I shuddered, the pulsing ache between my legs so hard to ignore. He climbed down my body, pressing kisses to my stomach, and slid his wide shoulders between my thighs. Still kissing, still licking down, down…

My whole body jerked at the first swipe of his tongue where I needed him the most, and then I melted into him with an unsteady moan.

I quivered against him, panted into his next kiss and his next, but all I could think was more. My hips rolled up to meet his mouth. My hands twined at the back of his head, and everything else faded to the background while he brought me closer, closer to flying yet again.

And when I did, I cried out his name, forgetting for a moment about thin walls and everything beyond them. Grady kissed me through it, and then kept going, never slowing. His tongue flicked and danced, pushing me higher when I still hadn't come all the way down.

"Grady…"

He growled inside of me, and the vibration spiraled me out of control. I gripped his hair tighter to try to anchor myself, but I was too far gone, lost somewhere with my head in the clouds.

No, not lost. Grady would never let me be lost. He’d push me and push me beyond my limits but always catch me.

Slowly, I came back to myself, just as he was kissing his way up my chest.

When he brushed his lips against mine again, he drove himself deep inside of me with one thrust. I gasped, loving how full he made me feel. Like Archer, but at a different pace as he began to grind against me slowly as if we had all the time in the world. With him, I felt like I did. It seemed like all he wanted to do was kiss and touch every inch of me. No complaints here.

His tongue swept open my mouth, and I tasted myself on him, sweet and a little tangy. He kissed me deeper, and I drank him in, opened myself wider to him with a moan. I'd had no idea how good sex could feel with two different men. Both had captured my heart and my body, and I craved more. My lower stomach fluttered as I smoothed my hands down his back and squeezed to pull him closer, closer. He growled and tucked his hand under my ass, forcing my hips up at a slightly different angle.

My eyes popped open wide, and I sucked in a breath. "Oh." This new angle… My whole body tingled as pleasure rippled up my thighs, down my stomach, building, climbing higher than the clouds.

He chuckled huskily. "Hang on."

I thought he meant to him, but no. In a blink, he had me flipped around and on my knees, and then he entered me from the back. Like a wolf. Like the wild he was. I gripped the blankets tightly as his hands dug into my hips, his pace now relentless. The force of him made me think he felt like a wild too. Like with Archer, I’d definitely be marked afterward.

The new angle worked from this position, too, even better than before, and soon, my nerves began to quake. Then with a loud, shuddery cry, I went into freefall, and like always, Grady caught me. He wrapped his arms around my middle as I came apart and followed me over with one final thrust.

A guttural, raspy growl vibrated from his chest into my back as he spilled inside of me, his hard muscles twitching. For a moment, we stayed like that, his heart slamming into my back and mine punching his hand splayed on my chest. Then he rolled flat and crushed me to him while we caught our breaths.

After several minutes of comfortable silence, he brushed the hair off my face. "That was a lie when I told you I didn't need you."

"I gathered that when you barged back in here and kissed me senseless," I murmured, lazily tracing his carved chest.

"No, not just physically.” He pulled the blankets up around my shoulders. “For two years, it's just been Archer, Sasha, and me. That would've continued if it wasn’t for you."

"You would've found Thomas eventually."

"That's not what I'm saying. We all needed you, Aika. You challenged us, made us see things the way you do, and you know what I mean by that." He tipped my chin up and kissed me, his tongue skimming my lips and jolting a fresh wave of need through my bruised, joyously sore body. "No joke."

I’d have to remember that after-sex Grady spoke exactly what he was feeling with no grunts or snarls. Good to know.

I adjusted my head back against his chest and sighed into his neck. "We're on the same side now. We just have to play it smart. Your enemies are my enemies, I promise."

"Because you're one of us."

My chest swelled and warmed. I'd never been a part of anything before, let alone a wolf pack I'd fallen head over heels for. It hardly seemed possible—a blind human among wolves—but I didn't know any other way to exist now. It would be like trying to find another way to breathe.

He sighed, and my head dipped with him. "I… I resisted at first because I didn't think you could handle all our problems, and then I resisted because I wasn't so sure I could keep resisting you."

"Why did you think you had to?"

"You'd already fallen in love with Archer. Humans don't typically have harems, and…I guess I was afraid you'd reject the idea."

"Reject you, you mean?"

"I'm angry." Without unwrapping his arms from me, he waved toward his leg. "I'm broken."

"And I'm not?" I shook my head and burrowed into him farther. "Why did you rescue me that day in the Crimson Forest after Hellbreath bucked me off? You didn't know me. You could've left me."

"You were…surrounded, alone, but you refused to give up."

“I'm stubborn."

"Painfully so.” He chuckled. “I couldn't let you die, and I'm glad I didn't."

"I'm glad you didn’t too. Now,” I whispered into his neck, “would you like to hear about how I’m going to get rid of Lager?”