Red: Into the Dark (9 page)

Red

I wake up and stretch, wondering why I feel so sore. Then it all comes back to me.

Yesterday I was almost murdered.

I hop out of bed and find Nash standing naked on the front porch.

“Don’t you ever wear clothes?” I ask, joining him. I’m naked, too, but I don’t mind. He’s seen me naked plenty of times. It’s nothing new.

It’s too early for me, but I’m wide awake. Birds are chirping and the forest is full of noises and sounds.

“Why would I do a silly thing like that?” Nash raises an eyebrow, turning his attention to me.

“Modesty?” I shrug.

He just laughs. Grams told me once that shifters are notorious for being unaware of their own nudity. They have to be. When they learn to shift as teenagers, they often struggle to control their shifts. This results in a lot of ruined clothes and a lot of embarrassing situations. By normalizing nudity, no one is embarrassed when someone has a mishap.

I always kind of thought it was just a story, but it makes sense to me now. I wish the human world were like that, too.

Things would be so much simpler if we were all just comfortable in our own skin, at ease with where we are in the world.

Nash’s posture is relaxed as he leans over the little railing on the small front porch. Gram definitely knew what she was doing when she picked this spot. The cabin is in the center of a small clearing and although she hasn’t used the cabin very much in recent years, it’s still in damn good condition.

I look out over the little yard. I don’t notice any rabbits wandering close to the cabin, and I have to chuckle. Guess they all know there’s a wolf nearby and they should stay clear. Still, the flowers are starting to bloom and the grass is green.

The morning smells like rain, and I wonder what’s going to happen to me.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“There’s not much to say.” I don’t even know where I would begin. Part of me feels like I should yell at Nash for trying to trick me for so long. A pet wolf? Really? But I kinda knew, so I can’t be too pissed about that. Part of me didn’t want to call him out because I liked having someone to talk to who wouldn’t judge me or give me a hard time.

Part of me liked knowing there was someone who would keep me company and keep me safe when I felt scared.

“I thought they were going to kill me.” I words catch in my throat, but I manage to push them out. “I felt helpless, just like when my brother killed my grandmother. I felt stuck. Trapped. No matter how loud I screamed or how far I ran, it just didn’t matter. They still found me.”

The tears are falling freely, but Nash just rubs my back softly. He lets me speak. He lets me get it all out.

“I’ve never had a friend like you. You’re so comfortable with who you are. I thought you were a shifter. I knew it, if I’m honest with myself, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to ruin one more good thing in my life. I just wanted to be with you, to have you near me.”

“To be honest, I’m a little surprised you weren’t more freaked out about the whole shifter thing.”

“Why? Humans know about shifters. Yeah, you guys are rare, but…” I shrug. “You aren’t a secret.”

“Your brother is a shifter,” he says it with conviction. He knows. I don’t have to tell him.

“Yeah. I’ve known for a long time. He started shifting as a teenager and just never stopped. He always thought it made him invincible, I guess. Most shifters want to hide their identity, to kind of make it through each day without drawing a lot of attention to themselves, yeah? Not Jeffrey. That was never his style. He always had big dreams and if using people or his shifter status was the way to get what he wanted, so be it. He never cared.”

“I know him.”

I whirl my head around and my jaw drops. Nash
knows
Jeffrey? How? My eyes search his face, but all I see is sadness and pain. What happened to Nash to make him this way? What secrets is he holding?

We all have them: secrets. We all have these wounds that are too deep to be stitched, these horrors that are too great to think of in the daylight. We all have pain and agony racing through our veins, but I have a feeling Nash’s are worst than most.

“How?” I finally manage to ask. A million thoughts race through my head, but they all center on one thing: Jeffrey has hurt Nash. He’s hurt him deeply. I can see it in his eyes. Those beautiful, deep eyes are wounded, pained, broken. Something happened to Nash that was so horrible he can’t even bear to think about it, and I have a feeling he’s about to start spilling his guts.

Part of me doesn’t want to know.

Part of me wants to think that if I ignore this, it’ll all just be a bad dream. I’ll wake up tomorrow and go to work, put on my suit dress and my happy face, have an ordinary lunch, and meet my grandma for afternoon tea.

Part of me thinks that if I don’t let Nash tell me his story, I won’t have to admit that my brother is one fucked up son of a bitch.

Part of me believes this just can’t be real.

There are a lot of messed up things in the world, but this? This tops them all. A rogue shifter brother who murdered my grandmother for money and who will kill me to get to the cash? How could something like this happen?

We had the same parents, so why did Jeffrey turn out so evil and I turn out so ordinary?

That’s what I am. In a nutshell, I am normal.

Average.

Plain.

I have plain hair and a plain face and I had a plain childhood.

I didn’t have any weird trauma to mess with my head or make me insane. I didn’t have any strange loss that could explain why I have such a sense of urgency and normalcy. Yeah, my parents died, but not until I was older. Not until I was old enough to cope with that in a very adult fashion.

But Nash?

Something damaged Nash worse than I could possibly imagine.

Something hurt him so deeply that he’s terrified to his very core.

I’m afraid of what he’s going to say. I’m afraid he’s going to tell me everything my brother has done and that I won’t be able to handle the guilt. No matter what Nash might say or think, I feel responsible for my brother. I should have stopped him. I should have found a way.

When he killed my grandmother, I should have shot him, called the police, trapped him.

Anything.

I should have done anything but run.

In the end, it turns out that I’m pretty weak. A strong woman would have stayed to fight. A strong woman would have stood up to her attacker. A strong woman wouldn’t have stood by while her grandmother died mere feet from her.

Is that the type of person I am?

Am I weak?

Nash looks down at me and strokes my hair softly, comforting me without words. I have a feeling that once he tells me his story, nothing is ever going to be the same again. I might close my eyes and pretend that Jeffrey isn’t who I think he is, but we both know that isn’t true.

We both know that he’s far worse than we could ever know.

We both know he could be the end of everything we hold dear.

Nash

“Jeffrey is the Alpha of the pack I used to be in.” The words hang in the air and I can see her swallowing, digesting, trying to understand. How didn’t we see it sooner? How did I not figure this out? Jeffrey didn’t grow up in the pack like the rest of us. No, he came a few years ago, challenged the current Alpha, and won.

He was the new guy in town, the badass. Everyone was smitten with him, including Elise, including Aunt Germaine.

I was one of the few wolves who didn’t like him, and look what that got me.

“You aren’t in the pack anymore? You’re what? A lone wolf?” She cocks her head to the side as she asks, trying to figure it all out. I like that about her. I like how curious my girl is. Even when she asks such a simple question, I can tell there’s a lot of thought behind it. She’s not as innocent or naïve as she looks.

Not my Red.

“Something like that.” The term “lone wolf” has painful implications. The phrase indicates that something is wrong with the wolf, that he or she couldn’t get along with their packmates, that they weren’t good enough to be in a group.

The reality of my situation is very different.

I left of my own free will.

I left because I couldn’t stand the pain.

I left because Jeffrey took away everything that was important to me.

“Nash?” Red places her hand on my forearm and looks up at me. Her wide eyes blink as she watches me quietly. “What happened to you?”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

“It’s complicated.”

“I have all day,” she chuckles, motioning to the empty yard in front of us. We’re surrounded on all sides by miles of forest. No one is coming out here.

No one human, anyway.

“I grew up in a pack called the Silent Canines.”

“Edgy,” she smirks, but I can tell she’s being playful.

“I know. Don’t get me started.”

She giggles, and her voice reminds me of Elise. Oh, I wish Elise could have met her. They would have hit it off so well. Then I would have really been in trouble.

“When my parents died,” I begin, but Red cups my face, suddenly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and I close my eyes. I could let her touch me like this all day, offering me her quiet words of comfort, but I won’t. Not if I want to get this out, I won’t. I have a story that needs to be told. The words of comfort will have to wait.

“I was an orphan pup in the pack. I was almost a teenager, but an orphan still the same. My cousin’s parents were killed at the same time as mine. There was some sort of pack feud. I don’t really know all the details. All I know is that they were there, and then they weren’t, and Elise and I had no one but each other.”

“That must have been so scary.”

“It was. Everything changed after that. Jeffrey came to our pack. No one knew where he came from. He fought two other wolves and completely slaughtered them, then he challenged the Alpha of the Silent Canines. It wasn’t even a close fight. Jeffrey demolished him and took over control with the pack. He was crazy with power after that. He killed any other wolves who challenged him. He wouldn’t even let their families bury the bodies.”

I try not to focus on the images of their corpses that haunt me. I’m not that scared kid anymore. Things are different now and I have to be braver, for Red, and for me. For a long time, I let the fear rule me. It’s what kept me a member of the Silent Canines for so long. Kind of ironic, I laugh humorlessly. The Silent Canines was full of silent members too afraid to speak up, too afraid to do what was right.

“Then what happened?” Red whispers the question. There’s no doubt in my mind that she knows just how horrible her brother is. She grew up with him. She knows he’s awful. I hope she’ll share her own story with me at some point, but right now, she needs to hear how I know him. She needs to know what this means, what being with me is going to entail.

Because the truth is that even if Jeffrey is after Red, he’s going to be after her even harder once he realizes we’re together.

Jeffrey hates me.

He views me as an abomination to all things shifter. He thinks I’m flawed and a hundred kinds of fucked up. He doesn’t care about doing the right thing, about being a good leader. No, all Jeffrey cares about are numbers.

How many members can he get in his little pack?

How many women can he get in his bed?

How many dollars can he get in his bank account?

He doesn’t care about people
or
shifters. He certainly doesn’t care about me. My stomach sinks as I realize that no matter what happens, Red and I are in this together now. She can’t go back to being on her own. She would be torn apart in our world. No matter how strong she is, she’ll never be shifter strong. She’ll never be animal fast. She’ll never have the speed or the senses that we have.

I have to protect her.

“My cousin started dating him,” I tell her, and she gasps. I can tell she’s obviously shocked. Whether it’s more about Elise or about the fact that Jeffrey took a girlfriend, I don’t know. “And Jeffrey destroyed her.”

“Oh, Nash.”

I take a deep breath. I have to get this out, have to tell her. No matter how much it hurts to think of how my beautiful cousin faded away with him, I have to tell Red.

She has to know what we’re facing.

“She loved him, thought she could change him, thought she could make the world a better place, but the only thing that happened was her death.”

Red puts her arms around me and holds me tight. Her breathing is fast and her skin is cold and clammy as she touches me. This moment is anything but sexy, but I appreciate her just the same. She’s reaching out to me, letting me know that I’m not alone. Who else would do that?

I’ve been on my own for so long that I can’t think of a single person – human
or
shifter – who would put their life on the line for me.

Red isn’t even doing anything huge or meaningful. She’s just listening to me share my pain. It’s been months since Elise died. It’s been months since I left the pack and sometimes the pain feels so raw I don’t think I’ll make it through the day. Being with Red has been the most wonderful kind of distraction.

It’s been the most wonderful kind of joy.

I hate knowing that she’s hurting, too. I hate knowing how close they were to taking her. I hate knowing that I was so close to losing her and she doesn’t even know that I’m falling for her.

She lets go of me and pulls back, but I don’t want that. Not now. Not after I’ve touched her and held her close. I hate the distance that’s between us, so I reach out and hug her. Red says nothing as I wrap my arms around her and just hold her. She’s sweet and soft to my hard and lean. She’s tiny compared to me, just a sweet little thing.

I kiss her forehead and she sighs with contentment.

We both know the peace can’t last forever, but we’re going to take advantage of it while we can.