Little Red (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #5) (6 page)

Chapter Nine

Decisions

Lana was planning to leave his kingdom, forever, dismissing it like a bad memory. Dismissing
him.

The fact that it was his fault didn’t make the pill easier to swallow.

Truth was, with good reasons, Lana believed he despised her, and who would wish to stay in a country governed by someone who didn’t wish them well?

“What was that?” his grandma asked.

They were alone in the room. It was the second time he visited this week and there had been no parade of loose women. She’d probably figured he couldn’t take more pressure right now.

“Aiden swears her family…”

“I got that part. I mean, what’s her name again?”

“Vermeille.”

Mimi frowned, before opening her mouth and trying it on her tongue. “Verm... Vermie… No, that just wouldn’t do. She’ll have to go by a nickname.”

“It means blood red,” Chase injected helpfully.

“There we have it. Little Red. Anyway, dear Aiden wants to give her land, does he?”

Chase weighed his words carefully.

“I’m against it, Grandma. Their ancestors might have come from Jereena, but they are Enomian. Lana studied at a private school in town, and those who know her adore her.” He was delighted Mimi didn’t ask how he knew; investigating a girl he wished to date hadn’t been his finest hour.

“Well, that goes without saying,” Mimi replied without hesitation. “But it was nice of him to offer. I’ll make a new knitted cover for baby Chris.”

Chase cringed, knowing that Aiden and Belle’s newborn had probably just been given that denomination for the rest of his life. He was going to love it at twenty-five.

“That’s not all, is it?”

He sighed and confessed that Lana had reached out to the Eldorians. Mimi listened in silence and glared at him all the way. Then, she said only two words, but they were a clear, simple command from his Queen.

“Fix it.”

The next day, Chase was pacing. There were seventy-nine emails waiting on his inbox – even after his PA had cleared up things that didn’t need his attention – and as well as an arm long to-do-list, he had to attend three appointments, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t busy, but the time dragged. Every few minutes, he stared at his personal phone and glared at it as though the power of his concentration could magically change the content of his inbox.

Lana hadn’t gotten in touch. He spent most of the day wondering whether it meant she’d decided to reject his offer off hand, and couldn’t bother to inform him, or because it was still up for discussion. He asked himself what the Eldorian might have offered. Whatever it was, he was pretty sure he could outbid them – all he needed was for her to freaking
call.

It was about five or six o’clock in the evening when he recalled that actually, while he had her number, she didn’t have his.

Feeling like the absolute fool he was, he hastily sent a text.

Ten very long minutes later, the small, ominous object consented to bip.

Reading her quick greeting, he started typing, before giving up and just pressing on her name. She answered on the fifth ring.

“Lana,” was her only greeting.

“Hey. You’ve been nicknamed Little Red.”

His random announcement was only met by silence.

“It’s a Mimi thing. She has a way of calling people exactly how she likes – thankfully, I’m just
dear.
Well, you’re Little Red. It’s as official as it gets, as she happens to be the Queen.”

To his surprise and delight, his verbal diarrhea made her chuckle a little.

“I apologize for not getting in touch sooner. I’ve been…” waiting for you to call like an idiot. He settled on, “busy.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of princey things to do.”

She didn’t sound judgmental, so he found himself explaining just what he did with his day.

Lana was a good listener. She asked the right questions at the right time and laughed at his lame jokes, too – which might have seemed a bit superficial if she didn’t also interject with plenty of her own.

His phone was warm against his cheek, betraying just how long they’d been talking when he heard her yawning on the other end of the phone.

“Am I boring you?”

“Nah. Not much.”

He could imagine her smile and that made him hard, as though they’d just had a naughty conversation rather than a banal, mundane on about his occupation.

Chase shook his head at the obnoxious bulge in his pants. It wasn’t like she’d described her lingerie: she’d just chuckled, and the dick was ready to party.

Great. Now he was thinking about Lana in lingerie. Why, oh why had he let that image enter his mind? 

Needing a distraction, he decided to finally broach the subject at hand there: “So. I called to ask whether you’d considered my offer.”

They were having an official, non-personal, non-sensual conversation.
You can go to sleep now, dick.
The appendage was twitching in protest, as if to say “but five more minutes.”

Chase sighed and did his best to ignore it.

“I’ve talked to my admin – we should be ready to process the particulars as early as next week if you need us to.”

There: he sounded confident and casual – none of his desperation was evident in his tone.

“I talked to everyone,” she admitted, before marking a pause. “We like it here. The kids do, too.”

He released the breath he’d been holding, a little prematurely.

“But there are things to consider. Two packs quite so near will most probably mean a conflict, eventually. No regular human caught in the middle would survive that. At Skadia…”

“There is a conflict coming,” he interrupted her. “I am going to get that monster and stop him.” That word again. This time, he didn’t make the mistake of leaving it hanging between them. “I’m not calling him a monster because he changes into a wolf. Your animals are beautiful.” Particularly hers. “But his behavior warrants it. If any human had taken a liking to murdering those who passed through his lands, I’d say the exact same thing. I have to stop him, Lana. It’s my responsibility, for the safety of my people and any visitor of our Kingdom.”  

“I see.” 

As she didn’t add anything else, he prompted: “So you’ll stay?”

Fuck casual. He was desperate and owning it like a pro.

“Yes, I think we will.”

As the Chase Hunter she’d gotten to know over the course of the last two hours had seemed rather prideful, she didn’t state the obvious.

She was staying because she wouldn’t want to hear that a feral beast had attacked and torn the Prince of Enom, and all those he cared about, apart. For all the strength she read in him, he was no match for an Alpha wolf, even behind dozens of men.

Lana was delighted to have been given a valid reason to do exactly what she wished to do.

Chapter Ten

Marked

This was not a date. His definition of a date involved chocolate, flowers and candlelight, not tracking animals in the woods, along with a dozen of Wilderlings and soldiers.

Telling himself that it wasn’t a date didn’t stop him from smiling every time the girl looked at him. She smiled back. They had a
thing.
It might not have been the whole ripping clothes off kinda thing, but in time, it would be. He was pretty sure he could kiss her – just as soon as he managed to ditch the audience.

It felt like he’d somehow halved his age, emotionally – although even at fifteen, he’d never been quite so jubilant about anything, even the prospect of playing with boobs.

But that may be because no one he knew then had been blessed like her in that department.

Chase had chosen a few soldiers he knew personally, those he could vouch for, and with Lana’s blessing, had made them aware of the situation. One of them had pointed out that they needed to know where they
could
walk wthout running into wolves, so here they were, on a non-date.

Just because he felt like talking, was a bit tongue tied, he asked her, “You’re quite certain it’s safe around here?”

She shrugged. When she did so, her boobs lifted, fell and bounced under her plain tee-shirt. Twice. They were on the heavy side.

Look down, Chase. Or up. Anywhere but at there…

Yeah, the mental admonition wasn't working.

“It’s not pack territory. Norman might interact with you, here, but he’s careful about following the law – so no one can openly accusing him of wrongdoing. You’re fine this side of the river.”

That made him frown.

“I’ve been on the other side so many times. I often walk or ride a horse from town to the palace. Just last month, as grandma was pretty ill, I’m sure I must have been there…”

“Fourteen times,” Lana said. “Yes. And each time, an enforcer came close enough to smell that it was you, and that you were unescorted by any stranger. So, you were let through.”

“You can
smell
me from a distance?”

The ability to scent something further than a few meters away was probably overwhelming. Chase wrinkled his nose, imagining that what a little bit of sweat would be like, for her.

Then, he visualized ways to get sweaty with her.
Down, boy.
But as per usual, little head was ready to party at the slightest provocation, where she was concerned.

“You and all those honey and chocolate cookies. That was pretty unfair, by the way.”

She was being cute. He couldn’t resist cute.

Suddenly, he didn’t care that they had company. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to close the distance between them, holding her flush against him before capturing her lips.

Oh, hell, he hadn’t been prepared for this.

He’d planned a brief peck – an innocent kiss that was supposed to say
I like you.
Then, he would have stopped it and told her they were dating. They were. She just didn’t know it yet.

But instead, he had to deal with
this.

She melted under his lips, at first, before responding eagerly, hungrily. Her arms went around his neck, pressing her frame harder against his and somewhere between the boobs on his stomach on the tantalizing mouth he couldn’t get enough of, he lost it. Next thing he knew he was taking her by the waist, lifting her and wrapping her legs around his torso, before pushing her up against the first flat surface – a tree.

Chase grinded against her while devouring her lips, unable to stop – he wanted, needed more.

He needed her neck. He had no idea why, but once his eyes had zeroed in on it, he couldn’t concentrate – the tormenting kiss somewhat lost its hold, whatever h did, his gaze flickered back to her exposed skin. Finally, he couldn’t do anything about it: leaving her lips, he dropped his face on her neck and kissed her there.

Lana completely froze, and feeling her apprehension, he dropped feather light kisses down from the nap of her neck to her jaw, slowly, languidly.

She moaned and her head fell back a little, giving him a better access.

Encouraged, he sucked her skin, and found himself biting it a little bit, too.

“Don’t!”

Lana pushed at his chest and the spell was broken.

Normal Chase – the guy that didn’t go around biting people – stared at her, confused.

“Sorry, I have no idea…”

“Exactly,” she snapped, angrily, holding her hand up to her neck.

Oh shit.

Now he looked he saw it hadn’t been a little lovebite. Far from it.

“Tell me you haven’t broken the skin,” she begged.

He stayed silent, as he totally had. There would be a mark there.

Chase was probably crazier than he though as some part of him was strangely… not glad, because he’d hurt her, but ok about it? She’d smelt delicious, felt amazing, and all he knew was that he’d wanted to brand her as
his.

Somehow, he’d felt like biting had been a good way at the time.

“Are you smiling?” she growled.

Fuck. What was wrong with him? He totally was smiling.

“Hmm… sorry?” he said, doing his best to look contrite, and failing, as a bigger grin broke free despite his best effort. “I genuinely have no idea what came over me. I guess it is a little bit funny – in a
I’ll need a straight jacket soon
way, of course.”

He wasn’t helping his case.

“You don’t have a weird Wilderling explanation, do you?”

He’d said that in derision to make her smile but instead, she averted her eyes.

“Lana…”

“Later. We’re giving a show.”

They undeniably were: from the guys’ expressions, ranging from amused – the pack members – to point blank shocked – the soldiers – they probably wished they’d been given popcorn.

So he agreed: “Later.”

Lana walked away, grumbling under her breath. When she passed the redhead guy – Tarik, if Chase recalled – he smirked and the girl openly snarled at him.

“You’ve got the plan you needed,” she yelled from the other end of the clearing. “Let’s go home.”

And on this note, she shifted.

While he was unsure why, Chase was beaming like an absolute fool.

Lana reasoned that she wasn’t as fucked as she could have been. For one, while the stupid, obnoxious, gorgeous guy that just smelt way too good had marked her as his, she hadn’t returned the favor. That would count for something, right? They weren’t actually mated.

She was pretty sure they weren’t. She was the dominant and he hadn’t topped her.

Hasn’t he?

Lana had to consider that. Frankly, there was probably no Wilderling or human alive who
could
top her. She wasn’t one to brag but she lived with her wolf in such a perfect symbiosis that she could call to her muscle power while on human shape – something no other wolf did, not even her mother.

But Chase had cajoled her into submitting and unbelievable as it was, she
had
.

He was the dominant – a sneaky one, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d earned his victory fair and square.

Fuck.

She was mated.

Slutty Wolfie Puss was torn between doing a happy dance and getting her to turn back and jump her delicious, sculptural, hunky mate’s bones.

Stop it!

In response, Wolfie sent her a jolt of pure lust that made her nether region explode. Her wolf didn’t speak, but she communicated just fine. That was what she felt. She was an animal: her mate had claimed her and she needed sex right now.

Fuck.

That’s the idea.

She made it back to the edge of the forest circling the royal palace in a couple of minutes, then she paced while the others caught up. Wolfie was too agitated, so she turned back to her usual form.

Oh, perfect. Her nipples were pocking right through her top.

She was closing her coat over her chest when they made it back, sooner than she’d thought – the Wilderlings had changed, and had invited the humans to ride them.

That got her out of the carnal funk.

It wasn’t unheard of – they carried their children on their backs, and fellow soldiers, too, when having someone with agile fingers was necessary. Still, she hadn’t expected that they’d somehow warmed up to the Enomian soldiers enough to allow that.

“This is the way to travel!” one of them yelled, pointing down to his mount – Alarik, from the look of things.

Lana smiled.

Two weeks ago, she wouldn’t have imagined that possible.

Chase was dismounting Tarik, and as soon as she saw him, her mind sank right back to the gutter.

Mate.

Chase’s gaze was focused on her, and she saw desire as well as confusion. He didn’t know why he needed her like that.

Damn it – she was somehow going to have to tell him
“by the way, you just married me.”

It was going to be a long day.