Chapter Two

"We're heading south," I told the innkeeper and his wife. “We're heading out at daybreak tomorrow."

"In winter?" she screeched. "But Archer—"

"Is fine." But was he fine enough for hard, grueling travel? Was Grady? If they weren’t, I doubted they'd admit it.

"You'll settle your bill before then," the innkeeper said. "Including the cost of the window and the door's lock in the bath. Your man's story about slipping and falling, twice, doesn't hold much water."

"We'll pay for it all," I promised.

We wouldn't. Between the three of us, we had nothing but ourselves.

The innkeeper’s wife clicked her tongue. "If you find yourselves short on money, I will gladly accept that coat of yours. The red one with the white fur collar? I would trade you for mine. It's warm."

"We won't find ourselves short." I turned and headed in the direction of the stairs while I gritted my teeth at the gall of her. I'd seen her coat. It was hardly thicker than a flimsy curtain, but since she'd helped heal Archer, I forced out, "Thanks for your hospitality."

"I'll come say a proper goodbye to Archer later," she called.

Sure. “Proper.” I gripped the stair banister tightly. No, she wouldn't, because we weren't leaving at daybreak. We were leaving right now, and we weren't heading south. We'd go east toward the first circle and see how far we made it. If more of Faust's men showed up at the inn asking questions, my lie might throw them off for a little while. The wind always blew northeast, so even with their wolf senses, they'd have a more difficult time picking up our trail, especially if we covered ourselves with leftover star anise. Since it seemed to be mostly males hunting us, if they couldn't even find the ruby caves, we could hide out there. If we made it. There was too much riding on that word—if.

Like Sasha. If anything happened to the three of us… My hand trembled as I opened the door to our room.

"We're ready when you are, Aika,” Archer said from the bed. “Grady tells me you did a fantastic job keeping the innkeeper and his wife distracted so he could raid the kitchen. Isn't that right, Grady?"

He grunted from the window. "Also got me a walking stick from outside. It's mine. If you want one, go find your own."

Ignoring him, I strode toward the bed where my coat lay and closed my eyes so I couldn’t see through Sasha. She was spinning in circles at the foot of the bed and giving her tail a good chase. I wanted to watch her and laugh, but not from up so close.

Archer snorted. "So thoughtful, this one. Did you only take enough food for yourself, too?"

"And Sasha," Grady muttered.

"He jokes. That's his version of joking. It needs work." Archer leaned over as I sat on the bed and pressed his lips to mine, making my heart jump toward him. "Are you ready?"

No, I thought as I shrugged into my coat. "Are you?"

He hadn't yet gotten up, though I had heard him dress earlier. But even through my thick coat, I felt the tremble in his hands as he buttoned it for me. It wasn't from fear, I suspected, but an onslaught of memories. How close we'd been to getting Ronin back. And how we'd failed. He blamed himself for losing her twice—once in Faust's torturous game of Catch, Kill, Release and the second time in Old Man's Den. We'd just missed the little wolf pup, the only one left of their pack other than Sasha. She'd been whisked away by one of Faust's men in the hopes that she'd lead them to the ruby caves in time for spring’s mating season.

I folded my hands over his to give him comfort, to give him hope. "We'll find her, Archer." Maybe Thomas, too, if he wanted to be found, but I didn’t say that.

"You're right." He slipped his hands over mine and gripped them tightly, almost painfully so. "We'll find your family, too, but not if we stay holed up here for the entire winter. We have to go."

"Can you?" I asked, my voice a whisper. "Can you even walk yet?"

Sighing, he leaned in and nuzzled my cheek. "Yes. I have the will anyway. There for a while, I just wasn't sure if it was worth getting out of bed. The guilt… It feels like it's eating me alive and ripping right through my soul."

His admission, given so freely, stole my breath. Even Grady turned to stare, his weighted gaze a hard pressure against my skin.

"And yet you smile and laugh your way through it." I smoothed my hands through Archer’s silky black hair, my chest cinching at how much inner strength he had after everything he'd been through. "Surely not for Grady's benefit."

 Archer chuckled, the sound reverberating into my stomach and sinking lower. "No, not for his. For mine. For yours. For Sasha's. Mostly for Sasha if I'm being honest. She deserves to have her sister back."

What these two wolf shifters wouldn't do for Sasha. I would do anything for her too. My arms felt empty when I wasn't holding her, and I could kiss the top of her velvety soft head right between the ears for the rest of my life and not complain.

I pressed my lips to his head with no complaints about kissing there either. "Then let's go get her."

He nodded, and I could feel his smile light the room.

I stood and stepped away slightly to give him space, and he pushed to his feet, a tall, steady pillar of strength.

He scooped Sasha into his arms. “I hope you’re ready for winter, Sasha girl.”

"Let's go," Grady muttered, limping across the room. "The sleigh's already by the back door."

We followed, me with my bow and quiver, and the four of us smelling of star anise. It was silly to think we could defeat winter easier than Faust's men, a fact that ripped the breath from my lungs as soon as Grady opened the back door. Wind and snow battered my face. Cold seeped into my thick coat within seconds and drilled into my bones. I threw my hood up, retrieved the wool gloves from pockets, and squeezed my eyes shut as Archer led me up onto the sleigh. Normally I tied my scarf around my eyes to prevent me from seeing through three wolves at once, but now I held it to my mouth, hoping it would help warm my heaving lungs.

Grady secured Sasha in her little box at the back of the sleigh, his movements jerking the sleigh and threatening to spill me off. Or maybe that was the wind. Archer tied the leather harness around my waist and tied it to the wooden rail while shouting something, but I couldn’t hear what. Then he must've shifted, because seconds later, we hurled forward.

The shock of the blustery cold air narrowed my windpipe to a mere sliver of what it had been. I couldn't breathe. Even with my scarf over my mouth, every one of my inhales were icicles, sharp and painful. Much too shallow as well because of the lingering pain in my ribs. My eyes popped open wide as panic burrowed deeper than the cold. A whited-out nothingness carried me forward as I bounced between my wolves' vision. The sound of their panting loosened my chest some. Vague outlines of the town of Margin sprang up out of the snowy void before whisking past. A steep hill angled down to Slipjoint Forest, and I held on to the crossbar with both gloved hands as we gained speed. The chill bit at my face even harder, narrowed my airway even more.

A loud crack whipped through the air. My feet wrenched out from underneath me, and suddenly I was airborne. The snowy ground charged up to meet my back. Hard. The breath I couldn't spare whooshed out, and I lay there, stunned.

Behind me, all around me, Sasha yipped then squealed, the sounds growing louder, then fainter. My heart stalled. Panic twisted my insides. What had happened?

"Sasha!" Archer shouted.

"The stream!" Grady yelled at the same time.

I formed a mental picture—and immediately wished I hadn't. We were on a hill. Sasha had somehow popped out of her box at the rear of the sleigh and had rolled past me…toward a stream. Likely frozen over. If she hit it just right and fell through.

Footsteps thundered away from me down the hill. I opened my mouth to force in air, but nothing was happening. My lungs were too frozen to function. I wanted to scream for help, but the wind would scatter it into a million pieces before freezing it too. I curled my fingers into the snow, raw, shrill terror surging through my body, and begged my lungs back to life. Tears burned my eyes. At least Sasha was too far away to see through. I couldn't bear witnessing her death if she drowned.

Choking noises clicked up the back of my throat. What if I died here too? What if this was the end for all of us, just barely out of Margin?

"Aika!"

Vision snapped into place. A splotch of red on the snow like so much blood, or a red fur coat. The figure’s back bowed up off the hill as they bucked and clawed and fought for breath. Me. That was me.

Hands grabbed my shoulders and roughly turned me to my side. A hard hit to my back triggered sweet, sweet air into my lungs again. I sucked it all down between wheezing and coughing.

“Breathe into your scarf,” Archer shouted, pulling my scarf over my mouth. “Slow and steady.”

When I could speak again, I choked out, "Sasha?"

A small wolf tongue licked my chin as Archer nestled her closer.

"She's scraped up, but okay."

I flipped to my back, relief coursing down my cheeks and then clinging there, completely frozen.

Grady threw something down to the snow. "The sleigh was rigged to fall apart. Faust's men did this. It's nothing but goddamn sticks and could've killed—"

He broke off, his stormy emotions giving the air an extra bite.

A gentle hand smoothed the hair from my face. "Are you all right?"

Before I could answer, a howl ran a warning chill down my back. It came from down the hill, across the stream, and within the depths of Slipjoint Forest. Others joined it, an eerie song splintering through the wind. A whole pack of wolves.

"Fuck." Archer started up the hill toward Margin with Sasha bouncing in his arms. “Come on!”

"Get up." Grady grabbed the front of my coat roughly and hauled me to my feet. "Run. As fast as you can.”

I tried, but with the wintery air once again blistering my lungs as I fought my way uphill, my effort wouldn't last long. Behind me, feet thundered through snow. Too many of them. The wolves were chasing us. Were gaining on us. I refused to slow down even though I couldn't breathe. They'd attacked me before. They'd do it again, especially now that we'd declared war against Faust.

Grady held tightly to my elbow as he practically dragged me behind him. With his long, powerful legs, he limped faster than I could run. The wolves sprinted faster than both of us, though.

We were headed back into Margin, but where would we go? They'd find us, just as they had before.

Archer shouted something from up ahead, and Grady banked us to the right, away from him and Sasha. We were separating, likely to separate the chasing wolves, but I hated that idea. Too many things could happen to them, and I might never see them again.

The ground levelled out beneath my feet. The buildings in Margin blocked some of the wind, but running only became harder. A stitch of pain formed in my side as we burst onto the main street. The wind and snow hurled into us from all sides, now unobstructed. Surely we weren’t heading back to the inn. That would be suicide.

Grady tore us across the street between more buildings. Feet trampled the snow behind us, moving even faster now. We'd never outrun them.

Something snagged at the hem of my coat with a snarl. My balance teetered, and my feet slid backwards. I started to go down, but Grady jerked me back up. A loud crack ripped through the air, followed by a pained wolf whine that stopped short when it struck a wall and fell to the snow.

Grady swung me around what felt like a heavy wooden door and shoved me inside. The smell of shit assaulted my nose, but I breathed it in deep lungfuls, thankful to be out of the blowing snow. Something pounced hard against the door just as Grady slammed it shut and secured it with what sounded like a wooden beam sliding into place. He turned me toward the back of the barn, crossed us swiftly toward the side, and then gripped both my hands and settled them on two vertical pieces of wood.

"Climb," he ordered.

I did, placing one foot above the other until there were no more steps. A loft, I imagined, with a lot of hay bales prickling my palms as I climbed up and over them. The smell and feel of the hay pinched my heart with memories of Hellbreath, but I locked that away for now.

More and more wolves hurled themselves at the door of the barn, the booms an echo of my thrashing heart. Facing that direction, I shrugged off my bow and nocked an arrow.

"Grady," I said between pants, loud so he'd hear me over the wolves' assault on the door. "Where's Archer and Sasha?"

"Safe," he said from below.

"How do you know that? Did you see where they went?"

A beat of hesitation and then, "No."

"But—"

"You don't know Archer like I do. He will do anything to protect Sasha. Anything."

"I do know that, but he was injured," I hissed.

"Injured or not, he's the strongest shifter I know."

I knew that too. He'd have to be to withstand all he had and to find the will to keep from crumbling into tiny pieces. He even found it in him to laugh and joke and make fun of Grady while maintaining the most beautiful spirit I'd ever known. It would crush me if anything happened to him or Sasha.

"I'm worried is all. I just want them to be—"

"I'm shifting now." Sure enough, four padded feet hit the ground below the ladder.

Why, did he think that would save him from the chore of speaking to me? Or to stop me from talking? I'd talk his ear off just to spite him, the bastard.

But as we stood off with the door, now quiet, and the howling winter beyond, the only things I wanted to say were questions. Why did he have to be so hurtful? Why take the time to slip his fingers inside of me and make me come apart in his hand while setting fire to my soul with his kiss if he didn't need me? What if he really didn't need me? All questions I wanted answers to, but I wasn't so sure I had the courage to hear the truth.

So I boiled with frustration while Grady paced underneath me, his limp noticeably better in his wolf state. He must've been too far away to share his vision with me, too far away in more ways than one.

We waited like this for what felt like hours, and eventually I set down my bow and arrow as exhaustion settled in. Night had probably fallen, peak time for wolves hunting their prey. I imagined them circling or holing up nearby with watchful eyes, biding their time. We couldn't stay in here forever. As I made a bed of hay and covered myself with more to keep warm, I realized we couldn't stay here at all. I was still freezing, even with my thick coat. My teeth chattered, and the rest of my bones seemed to rattle just as loudly. But I couldn't very well traipse outside and find someplace warmer.

Wherever Archer and Sasha were, I hoped they were more comfortable. And I hoped all of us survived the night.