Chapter Thirteen

"You killed a huge chunk of my pack in just one day," Faust said, stopping about six feet away. "One day. Now, I know you're a good shot—you got Lager's finger after all—but not that good of a shot one hundred percent of the time. I just don't believe it.

This man seemed to like to hear himself talk. I picked up my bow and turned, and my ears homed in through the blowing wind on the sounds around him, how many and from what direction. He'd brought four men with him, all of them staying behind him for now. His other wolf shifters that had been chasing us were surely nearby though. I also picked up on Thomas who grunted with pained fury several feet in front of me, but only the faint crunch of snow from Archer’s way. Not a sound from Sasha. I swallowed hard, wishing we hadn't brought her with us.

"Seems you have a secret weapon that works awfully fast,” Faust said. “I'd like to know what it is now."

Rage trampled up my throat and flattened my voice into a hard, flat sound. "You already know what it is."

"I do? Care to remind me?"

"Five-step poison. I told you about it in Old Man's Den, only instead of five, it’s now four."

"So you did.” He didn’t seem pleased with the improvement. Not at all. “Sorry to say, I didn't believe you. Fast-acting stuff, isn’t it? I imagine you'll be selling it like your daddy does?"

"No."

"Shame. We could really use something stronger to keep out the damn wolves from the Crimson Forest. They keep cropping up."

"We're in the Slipjoint Forest," Thomas ground out. "Neutral ground, you fucking bastard, or did you forget that?"

"Thomas,” Faust scolded. “Now, I don’t remember giving you permission to speak."

A click. Another gunshot.

"No!" I jumped forward, my arms outstretched as if I could catch a bullet.

Thomas cried out in pain and pitched forward into the snow.

I heaved several breaths and curled the fingers of both hands around my bow, my only weapon, the only thing that separated me from them.

Faust hacked and spit into the snow. "Now you can limp around like your dumbass pack mate. What's his name? Burned the whole goddamn town to the ground."

"Don't do this," I warned through gritted teeth. I wasn't begging. I was telling.

"Then give me a reason not to,” Faust yelled. “There's a big lump in your coat pocket there. Might that be the poison I'm after?"

If he got his hands on the poison, this was all over. All that hard work for nothing. If he got his hands on the poison, my wolves, if they survived this moment, wouldn't survive the next.

“Give it to me or I shoot Archer again.”

I shook my head as a sob broke loose. Slowly, with great effort to pry my fingers loose, I let my bow slip from my hands. Then I held them up, showing Faust I wanted to cooperate.

This was what defeat felt like—my soul crushed and ground beneath a boot heel. The feeling dragged down the inside of my skin and weighed down my hand as I stuck it in my pocket. This was the only way.

Because like hell I'd cooperate.

I made a fist around the jar, estimated the distance of the sleigh behind me, and hurled the poison toward it as hard as I could. Glass shattered everywhere, and I hoped with everything inside me that none splashed on Sasha in her box.

"You want the poison?” I shouted. “Go lap it up."

Faust laughed, the sound dark and morbid, and it climbed into my heart and petrified it.

"I like little girls with balls, don't you, boys?” he asked. “And this one has plenty."

On cue, his men laughed and laughed.

"Where's Ronin, you sick fuck? Where's the wolf pup?" That was Archer, staggering toward my back. Blood coated the inside of his throat and made him sound like he was drowning as it bubbled up from his gunshot.

My chest caved in, because he was drowning while bleeding out.

"Here's what's going to happen," Faust said, ignoring him. "Your little girl here with the big balls is going to play a game."

My mind shorted out as I tried and failed to comprehend what he'd just said. My body understood just fine though. It trembled violently. Bile kicked from the pit of my empty stomach and soured my tongue until my eyes burned. I couldn't. I couldn't play Catch, Kill, Release.

"We're through playing your games, Faust," Thomas roared. "Why don't you go fuck one of your wives instead."

"Now that's a great idea." He stepped forward. "But first…"

Vision clicked into place, and I saw myself. Not a fierce woman like I'd been in the covered wagon but a dejected girl with slumped shoulders and a stricken face as if she'd just been slapped.

"I've got quite the little wolf pup detector here,” Faust said, “and her little nose is saying there's one awfully close by."

Wolf pup. Ronin. That was who I was seeing through while she dangled from the scruff of her neck in Faust's hand.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he continued. “She detected yours in Margin when you were at that inn. Wiggled something fierce then while she eyed your second-story window, and like a moth to a flame, we found you. If my math is correct, that makes three wolves the little girl with balls can play my game with.”

"Fucking bastard, let her go!" Archer shouted from right behind me. Through Ronin, I saw a string of blood pouring down his chin and drenching the snow in crimson. He was hurt so badly, but the torture in his gaze was all for Ronin.

"Quiet," Faust snapped. "And let your little girl hear the rules of the game."

I shook my head hard. I didn’t need to hear because the rules had been drilled into my head when Grady had told me everything. How could I forget something so twisted, so devastatingly cruel? This couldn't be happening. Playing Faust's game would crack me wide open and chew through my will until there was nothing left. I couldn't choose. I wouldn’t.

"I don't play games," I said evenly.

"No, see, that's where you're wrong. One of your wolves…Thomas, Archer, the wolf pup in the back of your sleigh there… I'm gonna need you to choose one of them to catch like you would a ball."

One of his men snorted. "Do blind girls know how to catch?"

A fierce tremble raged underneath the surface of my skin because he had a goddamn point. I didn't know how to play catch. That required sight.

"I won't play your ridiculous game," I insisted.

Without a word, Faust marched forward, and a click sounded, followed by the unmistakable press of a gun into my forehead.

"NO," Thomas shouted, "Leave her alone!"

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Archer yelled.

One of Faust’s men clocked him hard in the head with the butt of his gun. Another shot Thomas in the thigh. Thomas fell to his knees and bellowed, more enraged than pained. Archer stumbled backward but somehow stayed standing, his everlasting supply of inner strength surely the only thing fueling him.

My stomach shifted higher to my throat. Tears froze to my face, but I swiped them away the best I could so my eyelashes wouldn’t stick together and prevent me from seeing through Ronin.

"Play now,” Faust said, “or a bullet through your pretty little head is the last thing you'll ever feel."

He angled Ronin away toward Archer who vibrated with desperation to reach for the both of us.

All of this—ever single action Faust did—was all part of his sick game to torture us and prove he was the more powerful by force. But as he pushed the gun harder into my forehead, I realized it was a game I'd have to play. If I didn’t, Faust would kill my wolves, slowly, until I cracked.

"Sasha," I gritted out. It shattered me to say her name, ground me into dust that the sweet, innocent pup had been dragged into this game yet again.

"Do it." Faust tipped his chin toward one of his men.

Through Ronin, I memorized every detail about the man opening Sasha’s box. Dark scruffy beard half hidden by a red scarf, a beaked, crooked nose, a large mole atop his right eyebrow—I would kill him for laying his hands on Sasha next time I saw him. I would kill every single one of them.

He brought her out of her box and held her up, and my vision flicked between the two wolf sisters. They squirmed desperately to get to each other, because the last time they saw each other was—

I blew out a slow breath. They’d been divided by trauma then. I only hoped they were too young to relive it over and over like my wolves, last time…or this time.

The bearded man took a few steps away from the sleigh. Without warning, he turned and threw Sasha as hard as he could.

Her vision blurred, but Ronin tracked her. Sasha was barreling far to my right. I raced toward her. Even without several feet of snow, even with sight, I doubt I could've gotten there in time. I tried though. I tried with all my broken heart.

Sasha dropped to the hard-packed snow, then released a pained, high-pitched cry. Oh god. Oh shit. Had she landed wrong?

Another of Faust's men grabbed my arm before I got to her. "Awe, listen to the little runt scream."

I froze, my nerves shuddering at her pitiful cries, and I couldn't take it. I slapped my hand over my mouth to trap my sob, but a terrible retching sound came out instead. She was hurt because of me, and I would never, ever forgive myself.

Behind me, Faust and his men laughed. In front of me, Thomas and Archer seethed, the very air around them quaking with rage.

"Now, little girl,” Faust said, coming closer with Ronin, “if you want to walk away from here, it's time for the second part of the game."

I squeezed my eyes shut, did my best to block out Sasha's cries, and willed myself not to buckle under the guilt.

Slowly, I turned to face him. "Kill," I said, my voice dripping with the type of violent poison I only wanted to use on him.

"Well, well." He cocked his head as he handed off Ronin to another man. "So you do know the rules of the game."

"I don't have a weapon."

"It must be your lucky day." He pulled out a bloody arrow from inside his coat. One of mine. "Got this out of Caro's head, the oldest, wisest shifter in my pack. And you killed him." He slapped the arrow against his leather glove. "Choose one of your wolves to kill with this arrow."

I would rather die. Part of me did when I looked at Archer, his perfect face a mass of bruises and the snow in front of him drenched in crimson. Haunted sorrow filled his eyes, and he looked seconds away from passing out, but he didn't. He couldn't, because broken as he was, the strength he kept hidden held him upright. That's what I loved about him—his eternal strength that allowed him to laugh and play after all he'd been through.

And Thomas… Even though he'd been shot in both legs, he'd refused to stay down too. He knelt on his knees, his fists so tight that he shook all the way up his arms to his wide shoulders. His messy light brown hair tossed against the scars on his face and stuck to his beard, and his fierce gaze swept shudders across my shoulders. He was the most wolfish out of all of them, a real feral beast.

He cut a look toward Archer out of the corner of his eyes, then returned them to me and shook his head a fraction, barely imperceptible. Not Archer, he was saying. Him.

"Now, little—"

"Thomas," I blurted. "I choose Thomas."

"Well, then. That’ll save me from having to do it because of the whole Gabriel situation." Faust flipped my arrow into the air and caught it. "You need to put it straight through his heart. But let's roll it around in the snow over here first, get it nice and dirty with some of your poison." He strolled over to the sleigh and the knelt next to it, then stabbed the tip deep into the slightly bluish snow.

Thomas kept his gaze connected to mine as an understanding passed between us. He knew how I felt about Archer, but Thomas also had to know that if I killed him, Archer would never forgive me. Grady too. He was their alpha, the most important wolf in their lives other than Sasha and Ronin. I couldn't kill a member of their pack when they had so few left, and I tried to convey all this and more wordlessly to him as Faust tromped forward with the poisoned arrow in his hand.

Archer swayed on his feet as he aimed his swollen eyes on his alpha. His tortured expression shifted to me, but I suspected his thoughts changed as I took the arrow from Faust. Murderer. That had to be what Archer was thinking.

He was right.

I stood frozen, shaking, bewildered, unable to stop the tears. It took me five tries to nock the arrow correctly. Three hard swallows to be almost certain I wouldn't throw up. Then I pulled the string back, feeling my coat cinch inward, and aimed straight at Thomas's heart. He watched me closely, and I hoped he saw exactly what I needed him to see. His eyes narrowed.

Faust stalked up to me and leaned in to say, "You better not fucking miss."

My stomach hardened into a painful knot. I closed my eyes so I could see better, and after my heart felt like it had quit beating, I released the arrow.