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.
“IN 30 DAYS, you will die.”
She was a hunter.
In thirty days he would be her prey.
He would turn into the same beast that decimated the wagoner.
“There… there has to be a way. I don’t… I don’t want to die! I don’t want to turn into that THING!”
She finished bandaging his ankle, using her left shoulder to pull it taut, “… I will make it quick.”
He jerked his leg back, only for her one hand to take hold of it. He hissed as her fingers dug into the bite. “Isn’t there another way?! C- could-” His eyes glanced at her shoulder, the wheels in his mind turning into overdrive, “Maybe if you cut off my leg? That could stop it! It’s an infection right?!”
Her lips twisted to the side and her eyes narrowed, “… I didn’t cut off my arm to stop an infection. That creature tried to stop me from getting out.”
Tristan paled, “Get… getting out?”
Her gaze softened, “… I have been bitten more than once.”
His mind went back to the wagoner and his stomach twisted and churned. His cheeks puffed up and then he swallowed the water and bile back into his stomach, “… How… how did…?”
“I was swallowed whole, my limbs broken so I could fit better.” Even though they were still strangers, she was awfully blunt. She stood up and unhooked the silver chain around his neck, walking over to a heavy wood beam, “My father freed me. But that beast…” Her voice darkened and deepened into a snarl, “Killed him. Resilient creatures.”
His head was throbbing, his eyes blank as he tried to process the enormity of the information she just shoved onto him, “But..how… how did you survive? How are you not… not like that thing?!”
“A witch.”
The most obvious answer in the world.
It was an answer he latched onto, “Then, then maybe… maybe the witch! Ask her! Maybe then you won’t need to kill me!”
He barely flinched as she kneeled closer to him, though he yelped as she locked his bandaged, torn ankle into a shackle, connected to the same chain that was his leash. She snorted, tilting her head, “… Why would I do that?”
He gulped, the weight of the chain anchoring him to the ground. He was tethered to this cabin, this forest.
To this Red woman.
“… You wanted a dog… do… do you really want a companion just for 30 days?” He thought back to his time in the lodge, the sweet whispers given to his clients in order to avoid having a ripped apart asshole and more cigar burns, “If you… you want a dog… wouldn’t that be because you’re… lonely?”
Her smirk vanished, and she looked up at him, those crimson eyes going wide. They softened before closing, “… You are my prisoner. My dog for 30 days. Perhaps… if you prove useful, I’ll extend the sentence.”
She was still a woman. She was still a human with needs. A human who longed for a warm body to lie with.
There was a reason she didn’t kill him on the spot.
He had to hide his smile, his head lowered in deference. “I hope to earn your favor.”
If he entertained her enough, then he could earn a cure.
If not, then at least he had 30 days to escape.
Either way, he would earn his elusive Freedom.
One way or another.
“You’re going to be the death of me, Red.” He panted, sweat down his chin and neck as he looked down at her.
“You’re my dog, so you shouldn’t complain.”
He looked over to the hill of wooden logs they had just stacked, his hands red and covered in liquid-filled bubbles, “If I’m your dog, what the hell would you make a slave do?!”
He jumped as a thunderous crash caused the ground to rumble beneath him, his eyes wide as he looked at the fallen tree.
“A dog doesn’t complain.” Red’s left axe-hand gleamed in the rare light peeking through the canopy. She wiped the sweat off her brow, that toothy pearl grin across her lips, “If you were a slave, I’d chop that tongue right off. Be grateful.”
Grateful?
Grateful for the 30 days she so generously gave him?
He sighed, looking down at the silver chain connecting his leg to her wrist.
She truly treated him like a working hound. Even giving him a leash.
Grateful…
Maybe he should be.
He grunted at the sharp tug, blinking as those blood eyes stared at him, before she tilted her head towards the now chopped up tree. “Stack this. Then we go home.”
His ears turned hot as he walked over to the logs, picking one up after eying it thoughtfully.
Home?
The rays of light peeking from the blackened leaves caused the leash to glimmer.
This was just another prison.
He grunted as he continued the hard labor, looking back towards the Red woman.
Her eyes were focused on the woods and her brow was arched down, sharply.
The woods were silent, but she glared at them, daring any intruder to enter her domain.
This was her home, not his.
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 Seven, “A New Life,” lands next Saturday. He starts making himself useful, which turns out to be its own kind of chain.
If this got you, restack it or send it to the friend who likes their romance with teeth marks. That is the whole marketing budget.