Page 26 of Winter's Edge
“Uh-huh,” Grady said.
* * *
That night, I lay awake thinking about tomorrow. And about Archer. About what I would do if this rickety plan of mine didn't work and I didn't get paid. And Archer. I needed to focus so my family and I could survive the winter, but the man, the wolf shifter, had invaded my thoughts with his heat, and his heart.
I touched my lips, imagining how his had felt there. So soft and full of promise. I pictured his hand sliding over my inner thigh, his fingertips so close to my center, as he pulled my leg open wider. I didn't know that he'd been aware that he'd done it, but I sure did. In fact, I felt it even now, his fingertips tingling every nerve and making them come alive.
Breathless at just the thought, I floated my hand underneath the fur blanket, then over my thigh like he had. It wasn't the same, but it didn't feel terrible, so I kept going. Grazing higher, the same direction that ached and warmed whenever he touched me, right toward my center. I'd never done this, never touched myself like this, never had any reason to. But now…
At the first glide of my fingers, I gasped at how wet and hot I felt. My body twitched and convulsed a little, as if separate from my hand now, feeling all of this as brand new and foreign…and nice. I pressed a little harder and moaned at the sensations sparking wherever I touched. Would this be how Archer touched me while he kissed me and pried my legs farther apart? While he covered me with his naked body and lost himself with me?
My hips writhed against my fingers, seeking more of what I was doing to myself. So I obliged, pushing in deeper, my breaths louder than the crackling flames in the fireplace. I felt like my body was lifting toward something, the edge of a great cliff I couldn't see but that I wasn't afraid of.
Because I imagined I was with him.
A quick knock sounded at my door.
I flew my hands out from beneath the covers, my breaths coming in short bursts, my skin fiery, my heart making a permanent home in my throat.
"Yes?" I squeaked. Embarrassment swamped my body, and I tried again. "Yes?"
The door opened."Aika." It was Archer. Oh god, could he tell what I'd been doing? What I'd been thinking?
But then the tone ofhis voice barreled through everything else. Tense, enough to seal my lungs together with worry.
"What is it?"
And then he said two words that just about killed me: "It's Hellbreath."
Chapter 9
The walk out to the barn was the longest I'd ever had to take. I had questions, but I couldn't voice them through the knot of emotion twisted in my throat.
First, the package was taken, the sole source of money. And now maybe my horse, the only means I had to deliver the package, even a fake one? The universe played cruel jokes. Even if I was successful tomorrow getting money we needed, it wouldn't matter if I didn't have Hellbreath to go into town for food. We wouldn't survive the winter.
But even more important than that was I couldn't lose my girl. We’d found each other while I’d been teaching myself to shoot with a bow and arrow on the side of the house when I was about eleven. She’d wandered up from the direction of Margin, and we just stood there, sensing each other. I’d known right away she was a horse from her telltale sounds, but I couldn’t see her scars. Horrid, Baba had said, like she’d been abused. Since our other horse was on his last leg and no one came to claim Hellbreath, we became fast friends, seeing a kinship in the other, one abused girl to another.
Now, Grady and Archer came with me out to the barn, their boots crackling over the snow. The night was still and cold like a mirror of frosted glass before it shattered. I pressed the lapels of my wool coat to my mouth to keep any broken sounds inside me as Grady pulled open the barnyard door and limped out of the way. He followed Archer and me inside.
I immediately smelled something wrong. Sour and sick like an infection.
"This way," Archer said, his voice somber, and he lightly touched my elbow to lead me forward.
She grunted, not her usual greeting at all.
I slipped off my glove and reached my hand out to her, expecting her to find it with a nudge. But she didn't.
Archer redirected my hand and brought it to her nose. When I touched my fingertips down her silky fur to the tip, they came away sticky and wet. Nasal discharge, which could mean a number of things, not all of them terrible.
"Please," I choked out. "What do you see?"
Grady took a deep breath and let it out slowly as if this pained him too. "She's leaning against the wall of the stable. Her head is tilted like she can't control it. I think it might be some kind of virus because of the discharge coming out her nose."
My eyes filled with tears as I tried to picture all of these things, but I just couldn't. She was tough and stubborn and fierce. She was my girl.
"Is she… Is she in pain?"
A pause, then,"I don't know," Grady said, his voice low.
