Red: Into the Dark (6 page)

But something else has to happen, right?

I shouldn’t be comfortable doing nothing with my life. I never really considered myself to be some sort of pioneer or homesteader. I’ve never been into prepping or apocalypse-anything, so the idea of living on my own in the woods should be terrifying.

But it’s not.

It’s comfortable.

And then the storm comes.

The rain begins falling and before I realize what’s happening, we’re caught in a torrential downpour.

“Come on, Wolfy!” I yell, and race inside the cabin. He follows on my heels and I slam the door shut. I realize, with a start, that Wolfy has never been inside the cabin before. I’m not opposed to having a wolf or dog inside, but he’s always slept on the porch.

I assumed he wanted to be outside.

Now, though, I’m suddenly glad he’s inside with me. The windows rattle and I yank all the curtains closed. It’s dark inside the cabin, even with the lantern. The tiny one-room cabin wasn’t designed to withstand strong storms, and I wonder if the roof will be okay.

“Man, I really hope the roof doesn’t leak,” I mutter. My clothes are wet so I strip out of them and hang them over a chair to dry. I only have a couple of outfits, but I mostly just wear the one. I’ve washed it in the creek a few times over the past few weeks, but it’s pretty gross at this point. Maybe I should just start hanging out naked.

It’s not like anyone would see me.

“What now, Wolfy?” I stare at him for a moment before grabbing a blanket off a shelf and wrapping it around him. “You look cold, poor boy,” I whisper, rubbing his back. He makes a little contented noise and curls up on the floor by the door, and I go to my bed.

I climb in and yank the covers up to my neck.

For the first time since I got to the cabin, I don’t need to play with myself to fall asleep. Something about having Wolfy around makes me feel safe.

Something about this makes me feel like no matter what happens, I’m going to be okay.

Nash

I’ve never felt at home like this before.

Red doesn’t owe me anything, but she makes me feel important. She makes me feel like I matter. She makes me feel like she’s happy just having me around.

Part of me thinks that life in the pack must have really screwed me up if I’m so happy just playing pet to a human girl. Then again, life in the pack was always dramatic once Jeffrey came along.

The former Alpha, the one we had growing up, always kept the wolves in line. We didn’t have huge numbers or anything like that, but we were a community. We were a family. Even after my parents died, I was part of the pack and there was nothing more to it. No one would have thought about kicking me out, making me leave, making me fend for myself just because I didn’t have a mom and dad.

Instead, a single female wolf, Germaine, took in me and Elise. We ran with the rest of the cubs and she raised us as her own. She was a good mother to us: better than anyone I ever could have hoped for. She had been best friends with both my mother and Elise’s, and she mourned their deaths as we did.

Germaine might not have had cubs of her own, but she did everything in her power to give me and Elise a good upbringing. She wanted the world for us. She wanted to give us everything she could. She wanted to make us strong and brave.

I wonder what she’s doing now.

When Elise died, I fled the pack because there was no way the Alpha wouldn’t kill me. He saw me that night, saw me with the blood. For all I know, he framed me for her murder and the whole pack is hunting me. I just don’t know.

But I hope Germaine is okay.

I hope he didn’t do anything to hurt her. She’s a tough wolf, but she’s getting older. Part of me worries that Jeffrey might harm her in order to hurt me, but I know Ryder wouldn’t let that happen.

Before I left, I said goodbye to him and Thorn. They promised to give me updates when they could. We swore to come up with a way to take down the Alpha. Adrenaline and hope were running high when I left, though, and now?

Now I’m lucky to make it through each day. I haven’t heard from Thorn in weeks. Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he’s just been busy. I don’t know.

But with Red by my side, I know I can make it just a little bit longer. With her, I feel braver, stronger. I feel better. Red makes me feel like I can conquer the world if she’ll just smile at me a little more. That sweet, innocent smile is edged with fire and lust. I’ll do just about anything if it means she’ll look at me a little bit more.

After the rainstorm, I started sleeping inside. I still haven’t told her I’m a shifter. I don’t know how at this point. When I started playing pet, I didn’t expect it to go on this long. I didn’t honestly think she would want to keep me around or that she’d have any interest in making me part of her home.

That’s what the cabin has become to me: home.

It’s become a symbol of hope in a time when I felt like quitting. It’s become a refuge, a beacon. Red is the sun in my sky and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Even after such a short amount of time together, I know I can’t go back to the way life was before her.

I have to take down the Alpha.

I have to save her from her brother.

I have to find a way to unite our futures and our lives because I can’t live without her.

***

It feels like the rain has lasted for months, even though it’s only been a few days. Red found some paper and pens and has been sprawled across the bed drawing. Every so often, she’ll sit up and ask me what I think of something and I peek up from my spot in the middle of the floor to see what she made.

She’s a damn good artist, if I do say so myself.

The first picture she draws is of her grandmother. The second is of Grandma sitting on the porch at the cabin. The third? The two of us at the waterfall.

That one is my favorite.

I make a whining noise when I see it and nuzzle her leg. She laughs and slips to the floor, wrapping her arms around me.

“Oh, Wolfy,” she murmurs. “What would I do without you?” She settles down and leans against the bed, still petting me. I decide to take a risk and crawl over her lap. She’s warm and sweet and smells like sunshine. I rest my head on my paws. My body is across her. Red just pets me.

“I was so scared when I came here,” she tells me. “I was so scared, but you saved me. You know that, Wolfy?”

The only thing ruining this moment is the damn name.

Wolfy?

She couldn’t get more unoriginal if she tried. Well, maybe if she tried. I try not to let it bother me, but I’ve always been Nash. Nothing but Nash. The nickname drives me nuts and I’m tempted to shift, roll over to look at her, and ask her to call me Wolfy to my face.

How would she react?

What would she do if I revealed myself to her as a shifter?

Part of me thinks Red is strong. Part of me thinks she would be brave in the face of something so insane. Would she laugh and wrap her arms around me? Would she whisper that she hoped it would be true? Would she kiss me and call me hers?

I don’t know, but I want to think so.

There’s another part of me, a darker part, that thinks Red would not react well. This part of me worries she would see me and either run away or try to kill me. This part of me thinks Red would feel frightened, scared, and betrayed. Would she run off into the woods again, only to be lost forever? Would she go crazy? Would she feel like another person had let her down?

I don’t know.

She keeps talking, murmuring little sweet nothings, before she finally lets out a yawn. I climb off her lap and Red starts to take her clothes off. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her take off her clothes, but it’s no less exciting.

Oh, she’s going to be
upset
when she finds out I’ve been oogling her this whole time.

She places her clothes in a neat pile on the chair, then pats me one more time.

“Bedtime for me,” she murmurs. Red slips under the covers on the bed and closes her eyes. I settle in the middle of the floor to guard the cabin. My eyes are on the door, but after a few minutes I hear the tell-tale shifting of her blankets, and I glance over.

Sure enough, her hand is moving beneath the blanket and I can smell the scent of her arousal.

Red’s masturbating, yet again. I’ve never met a human female who was this aroused all the time, but I can’t complain. I lay there silently as she finishes up. Red lets out a tiny little mewl as she comes and it’s all I can do to keep from shifting and claiming her as my own.

Patience.

I have to have patience.

Only there’s no one as amazing as Red. She’s the one I want. Someday, someday the time will be right and I’ll tell her who I really am.

I try not to imagine how horrible that conversation is going to go.

“Hey, Red, sorry to be weird, but I’ve actually been a man this whole time!”

Yeah, not so well, I imagine.

Not so well indeed.

Red

I can't catch my breath.

I stop and lean against a tree, telling myself that it's only for a minute, telling myself that if I just stop for one second, I'll be okay. I try to breathe, but it hurts. I hear the howls again, and I push away from the tree, the bark stinging my hand as I do.

I keep running.

My feet sound like cannons as they pound against the ground. My heavy breathing is labored, and I hope the person chasing me can’t hear very well. I won’t be hard to catch if his hearing is better than, oh, say an 80-year-old woman. Still, I run. I have to. If not for myself, than for Grandmother. She wouldn’t want to see me go this way. She wouldn’t want to see me go at all, I realize with a grim smile, but she especially wouldn’t want to see me go down as fodder for a murderer or a wild animal.

I don’t know which is chasing me.

I only know I have to keep moving.

I'm basically running blind through the woods. I have no idea where I am anymore.

My feet move on their own, pounding loudly against the ground. I can't decide whether my footsteps or my heartbeats sound louder right now. I only know that if I stop moving, I'll die, so I just won't stop moving.

I wish I hadn't worn red. It shines in the darkness and I wonder if it lets them see me more easily. Then again, if it's really wolves that are chasing me, I'm guessing their sense of smell is even better than their sight. I could be completely naked and they'd still find me.

It always comes down to this.

My life has been full of mistakes and regrets, heartaches and pains. My world has been ripped from me and handed back in shreds. This is what I get.

Part of me feels like this is what I deserve.

I deserve to die at the hands of a pack of angry wolves. I deserve to have them rip me to shreds. I deserve this. I deserve it.

The howls sound farther away and I slow my pace slightly, giving myself a moment to catch my breath. It's not much, but I'll take what I can get. I've never been so horrified in my entire life. I've never been so scared. I should have thought about the wolves. I should have thought about the animals that lurk in scary forests. I should have thought about those things and figured out a way to protect myself before I ran, but I didn't.

For the millionth time, I feel like a stupid, stupid girl.

If there were ever a picture of someone who could get nothing right, it would be me. Right here, right now. Just me.

Makes-mistakes-Marcy. That’s what I am.

Why did I wander so far from the path today? Why did I sneak out on my own? I should have waited for Wolfy to come with me. I should have woken him up, but I didn’t.

For some reason, I just wanted to go on a walk on my own. I wanted to explore a little bit by myself. I wanted to clear my thoughts and my head and just relax for a little while.

So I sneaked out of my cabin before my wolf could wake up, and now I’m being hunted.

I hear a howl that sounds closer than the rest, and I take off running again. I’ve lost all sense of direction. I have no idea where the cabin is, where the waterfall is, where the path is. I’m running blind and I have a sinking feeling that it’s going to be the death of me.

I race over some underbrush and around a tree, then put my back against it. I try to catch my breath, but my breathing sounds loud and unnatural in the sudden silence of the forest.

Just when I begin to think maybe I’ve lost them, I hear a snicker.

A human snicker.

“Well, well, well,” the voice says. “What do we have here?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and stand perfectly still, as if that will make me invisible.

As if that will give me a chance.

The voice laughs and I feel cold, hard hands on my chin.

My eyes pop open.

There’s a giant man in front of me. He’s at least 6 feet tall, maybe taller. His tan skin is muscular and even with just the thin rays of sun for light, I can tell he’s shredded. Despite his physical perfection, I feel nothing but fear when I look at him.

“W-W-Who are you?” I manage to squeeze out.

“W-W-Who am I?” The man sneers, mocking me. My heart crashes into my stomach. He’s going to kill me, or worse. He’s going to hurt me and destroy me and he doesn’t care at all.

It’s one of Jeffrey’s men. I’m sure of it, but why is he naked? And how did he get here so fast? And what about the wolves I heard chasing me?

I focus on breathing, on getting through the moment. Surely there must be a way I can escape. I just have to find it, right? Only as I’m thinking this, my hope is crashing.

The man grabs me and hauls me through the woods. I try to kick and fight, but he punches me in the stomach and I vomit everywhere. Waves of pain pour over me and my head goes fuzzy. My eyes go black for just a second, and when my vision clears, we’re in a small, grassy clearing.

There are four wolves there. My body tightens as I see them, and I look up at the man, questioningly.

Is he going to feed me to them?

“Time for some fun, boys,” he says, and throws me to them. I scream as I land on my hands and knees in front of the wolves. My hands sink slightly in the damp earth and I start to cry as I look up at the four faces staring down at me.

I start to shake.

This can’t be happening.

This.

Can’t.

Be.

Happening.

I ran for so long and finally, I found a place I was happy. Finally, I found a place I belonged. Finally, I found something – someone - that made me happy. And now it’s gone, ripped from my hands before I even had a chance to get comfortable.

The wolves move closer and I can feel their breath on my skin. I close my eyes. I don’t want to look into their eyes as they tear me apart.

This is it.

This is the end.

I hope they go for my throat.

I hope they make it fast.

But before I die, the air around me changes, and I open my eyes.

And gasp.

The wolves are gone, replaced with four very big, very naked men.

“Changers,” I whisper. They’re real. Grandmother’s stories were always just that: stories. Oh, I knew about my brother, but part of me thought he was an anomaly. Part of me thought I was imagining it. Part of me didn’t want it to be real. Her stories, though… Grams always warned me about wolves in the forest. I sometimes suspected her stories had a hint of truth to them, and the realization that I’ve definitely, undoubtedly been living with a wolf who may very well be a changer, as well, settles in my stomach.

If only Wolfy had trusted me enough to reveal who he really is.

If only I had believed in Grandmother enough to focus more on her stories, to realize there were more men out there like Jeffrey, that him being a wolf wasn’t just some freak accident.

“Why?” I ask quietly. They’re going to kill me. Now that they’re changed into their human selves, I wonder if they plan to do more. Rape me? Torture me? Play with me? What are they going to do? I’m no virgin, but I’ve never been abused.

Not like they’re going to do to me.

Not like they want to hurt me.

“Your brother sends his love,” one sneers, and he yanks me to my feet. I stand still, crying quietly as he rips my clothes from me.

I don’t fight back.

I don’t protest.

I don’t do anything but stand there, like a frightened little kitten. A wave of disgust washes over me as I realize I always promised to fight back if something bad happened, but now I have a chance and I won’t.

I can’t.

They’re too big and there are too many of them. Fighting would just anger them and make them hurt me more, so I stand perfectly still as they strip me down to nothing.

And I am bare before these strangers.

“Don’t break her,” the first man says, the one who threw me to the wolves. My head spins around; I had forgotten he was there. The man in front of me grabs my chin and turns me back around.

“Oh, I won’t break her,” he says, looking into my eyes. “But I’m going to make this hurt.”