Content note. This is dark fiction for adult readers. Red and Her Wolf does not look away: coerced sex, physical and sexual abuse, graphic violence, gore, body horror, captivity, and a curse that rewrites a body against its will. Tristan is twenty, and every character on the page is an adult. If those are your woods, come in.
“Stop running.”
Though he had planned on ignoring that command, his ankle twisted against a root and he collapsed, crashing onto the ground. He panted heavily, sunken blue eyes gazing up past the canopy and towards the purple sky. He whined, seeing the orange edges creeping up the sky.
How long was he limping for?
He clenched his teeth, hissing as he turned onto his stomach, struggling to get back on his busted and bruised soles.
Freedom.
He must be close to it.
Nevermind that he had not been moving fast at all.
Nevermind that the crimson figure had been leisurely following him, a cougar following a wounded calf.
He needed to get… to freedom.
He… needed to stop fooling himself.
He turned his head, sapphire eyes dully looking at the grim reaper in scarlet. He chewed on his cheek, leaning against the tree trunk, heaving as he struggled to catch his breath, “Please… don’t… don’t kill me. Pl-please.”
They chuckled again, the hood tilting suddenly to the side. The pop from the being would’ve made him jump if not for how EXHAUSTED he was.
“You are bit. You’ll become a beast.” The chuckling stopped, a snarl in its place, “I KILL beasts.”
“But… but I’m not a beast. I don’t even… know what that THING was.” He looked over to the figure, realizing that the voice, while deep, was two octaves higher than his. The words were direct and blunt.
Yet the tone was distinctly feminine.
He was talking to a woman. A woman who scared him more than any man or monster, even the creature from before.
Humans, women, can be reasoned with. Though his mother was a despicable cretin, she, with the proper amount of blubbering and submissive posturing, could be reasoned with.
His mother was at the bottom of the barrel of humanity.
This woman, no matter how terrifying, could not be as bad.
“Please…” He slid down to the ground, knees hitting rough bark and mud, “I don’t want to become a beast. I don’t want to die. So please, let me live.” He crawled forward, his eyes glancing at the sharp edges of the axe head. He jerked his head away; any more time spent on that thing and he would run.
Either way, he was dead.
“I will do anything for you. There is nothing I won’t do. Please let me live, I’ll be your slave if it means I can live.”
This was true.
He would do anything.
Besides, Freedom could wait, if it meant he could be alive for one more day.
“I have no need for a slave.”
He whimpered, sitting back on his heels, tears clearing dirt and sweat from his cheeks. He bit his bottom lip as the axe head came closer. The edge was sharp, sharp enough that the slightest brush of it left a clean cut along his neck.
At least his death would be painless.
The flat of the blade hit his chin, and he was forced to tilt his head up. Blue eyes, filled with despair and fear, gazed into bright red depths.
Her eyes shone like blood diamonds, blinding his gaze and keeping him trapped.
The woman was silent, her expression and features hidden underneath the dark of the hood. She was deliberating his sentence, “… a month.”
His heart skipped a beat, “A… a month?”
“Until the next full moon. I will keep you alive.” The blade moved away from his neck and he sighed in relief, his shoulders relaxing.
However, he tensed as a chain was lassoed around his neck, the bloodied hook clamped into the link that hung shallow just below his Adam’s apple, “Wh-what?”
The red woman tugged on the silver leash, “I have no need for a slave. A dog makes for a better companion.”
A dog.
That’s what he had become.
A dog.
He thought back to the strays in the town; starved, ravenous mutts, beaten and kicked into alleys.
Honestly, that is not much different from his own experiences.
He silently followed the woman deeper and deeper into the woods. Though the sky had taken a light blue and pink hue of the morning, the canopies of the trees loomed wider. The full leafed fingers of the branches devoured the sky the deeper they went.
He shuddered, the sounds of life in the woods becoming duller. Sounds were being swallowed the longer they drifted into the abyss.
She kept the pace slow, though each time he dared stop, a sharp tug would bring him out of his stupor. She knew where they were going; this was a path she followed by muscle memory. He feared she was just leading him to a proper grave site when a well came into view.
She stopped by the well, wrapping the chain around a metal pole sticking out of the stone. With her right arm free, she pulled on a rope, tugging a full bucket of clear water. Setting it on the ledge, she lifted her hand and pulled off the hood. He wondered why she never used her left hand; surely lifting a bucket would be less cumbersome than holding an enormous axe one handed.
However, before he could contemplate further, she lifted the bucket over her head, finally using her left arm to steady the bucket, leading the boy to a chilling revelation.
The axe… WAS her left hand.
She turned the bucket over. A waterfall cascaded down her body, bringing old orange and brown mud and guts away to flood the ground. The woman grunted, sighing softly at the ice cold water, lifting her head as she looked up towards the treetops.
He never had laid eyes on anyone like her before.
It wasn’t just the bladed limb.
She was… beautiful.
Instead of a predatory killer, he saw an entrancing girl, with bright bold eyes and thick lips. The water made her red cloak and ivory, blood caked dress cling to her curves.
The women of the township, as vile as their husbands, could not hold a candle to such dangerous radiance.
Yes, the red woman was dangerous.
He could feel it as she pulled on the chain again, gazing at him with simmering embers in her eyes, “Are you thirsty?”
He swallowed, his throat scratchy and raw, giving a slow nod.
She tossed the bucket back into the well, her left axe-hand on the stone ledge as her right swirled the rope around. Tugging the rope tightly, she lifted the bucket from the well and placed it between them. She glanced at him once more, a slight smirk on her face, “Drink.”
He limped forward, cautiously lowering his head to the bucket, taking a slow sip.
His eyes fluttered, and he moaned. The clear, pure liquid soothed his throat, and he shivered in delight. His timid sips became full gulps, and he lapped up the liquid greedily.
“What is your name?”
He paused in his revelry, water and drool down his chin as he gazed at her, surprised, “My..my name?”
She raised an eyebrow, her lips splitting into that wide, pearly grin, “My dog has to have a name.”
“Even if… you’re going to kill me?”
“Not for a month. Do I have to name you myself?”
No.
No, she did not.
The only thing he had was his name.
She would not take that away from him.
“… Tristan… my name is Tristan.”
Red and Her Wolf stays free. All fourteen chapters, forever, no rope across the door. It is the front hall, not the whole house. Behind the Speakeasy rope: Victoria and the rest of the novels chapter by chapter months before Kindle Unlimited, the character files, the art (the tasteful kind and the other kind), and the memes I only trust the regulars with. $6.66 a month or $69 a year. Patronage, with teeth. 🐺
Chapter Five, “Red,” lands next Saturday. He is about to give her a name, and she is about to tell him what the bite means.
If this got you, restack it or send it to the friend who likes their romance with teeth marks.