LRR Hood

by Cassandra Johnson

  Certainly, she had plenty of other projects she could work on, but her head was still in another game right now. It would take a few weeks before she could concentrate on anything else.

  Rinsing her wash cloth out in the water, she squeezed the excess out before folding it and laying it over her eyes. Elle wasn’t sleepy anymore. The twelve-hour nap took care of that which meant she was probably going to be awake for the rest of the night. She needed to relax and stop the wheels in her head from spinning eighty miles per hour.

  For whatever reason, after each book was finished; she went through a series of mild panic attacks afraid that the last book would literally be the last book. In high school, she dreamed of becoming a writer, but life had a tendency of getting in the way. After high school, she went straight to work in retail and never seemed to have the time to sit down and finish a project. Eventually, Elle found time to write, to buckle down and finish something and while those first few books never reached the public, it was still thanks to them that she had the courage to write well, and long. To her great surprise after the release of her first book, she found out there was a market for what she was selling and the devoted fans started pouring in. Publishers sought her out, throwing ridiculously large sums of money at her to sign with them. Now three years later she had authored two series and five standalone novels with the potential of becoming a series or at least having certain characters cross over.

  Elle had to remind herself that she wasn’t drying up; the creative pool was still swelling with ideas. So many people told her that she would never make it and perhaps with the end of each book, she feared her own literary mortality creeping up on her. Of course, one day she might retire, but she didn’t see why that had to be a reality at this point in her life.

  ~

  She was beautiful; arctic blues memorized each curve and line of her features that he could see while his mind made up the rest of the details for him. The picture his private detective brought him was battered between his thumb and index finger, but it mattered very little as he ran a calloused digit down the middle of the glossy photo. Gaerik Chalicemen had never been denied anything in his life, much less the company of a beautiful woman, any woman that he chose if he was honest with himself and he prided himself on never lying about his physical prowess.

  Twelve months ago, he had achieved success in one of his lesser conquests, his brother’s beloved secretary JoAnn. After their tryst, he reported her to human resources. She had ignored company policy when she spread her legs for him, but JoAnn wasn’t what mattered here. While in her home, he had noticed she had a lot of books from one author LRR Hood. One battered copy was lying face down on the coffee table at her place, and the title made him curious.

  Since then Gaerik was obsessed with finding out who this woman was and how she seemed to know so much about his species.

  Each report that Gaerik received from his private detected was pulling him deeper and deeper into the tangled and delicate web that Little Red Riding Hood weaved. One day soon he would have Elle Marshal standing before him ready to answer all of his questions. As far as he was concerned, he was already nipping at her heels. She had a name now, so much more than just the author on a book cover, he had seen into her world through her writing and needed to know where she was getting it all from and now, he had a home address.

  Gaerik would meet with her soon, he’d make sure that it was spontaneous, he wouldn’t just show up at her door demanding answers like a deranged lunatic. It was all planned. Smiling to himself he knew that once she saw him and he laid on a little charm, she would have no reason to lie to him, why would she? Unless she knew even more than her books lead on and she figured out that he was just like the men from her little fairy tales.

  Tucking the picture away inside of one of her novels he tossed the book back inside the drawer of his night stand and turned over into the dark sweet smelling locks of the body that was currently warming his bed.

  Chapter Three

  Gallen Chaliceman sat alone in the luxurious comforts of a dimly lit study. A cigar was left to smolder in the ashtray while his eyes, so purely blue, like those of his father and that of his sons, read over the daily newspaper. Hair that was once of the deepest black now stood out a snowy white in contrast to his still youthful features. The man was handsome, in his late fifties, but he no longer possessed the strength he once had as a younger wolf. He also feared his first son’s actions would soon push him from his birth right. Marik’s claims were hardly disputable; Gaerik was a wild card. His behavior was still reactionary like those of a pup where as Marik had always been the son whose moral compass pointed true north. Marik was always the brains, Gaerik the brawn and together they could be an unstoppable force.

  Their petty fights over the years had created a rift between the brothers as teenagers, and now as adults, the twins were like enemies to one another, but what could Gallen do to right those wrongs? Bringing the whiskey glass to his lips, he could not repair his own mistakes in raising them. Almost pitting the two pups against one another for the sport to see who was the strongest. Perhaps had their mother not died in childbirth things would be completely different today.

  Gallen saw both of his children going down two completely different paths, and he was powerless to stop them. His relationship with Marik after tonight would never be repaired, but what could he do? He had forbidden a hunting party to go after his own son, one that would be led by his very own brother. Gallen knew his sons better than either gave him credit for. Marik would chase his brother to the very ends of the earth if need be to bring him to justice for his crimes, not only crimes that put the fate of their pack in danger but to those of innocents alike.

  Gallen did not want to believe that his son would be so foolish and so sloppy as to dispose of a body this close to their home where evidence of their existence would be linked back, and yet Marik was all but positive that he knew Gaerik had committed this crime. The pup had been dangerously close to exposing them countless times and Gallen let it all go with the promise from his son that it would never happen again, but that was a lie. Something always happened. He was too easy on Gaerik where as he ruled Marik with an iron fist when they were growing up.

  He was left with the hardest decision of his life as he turned to the large bay window of his study, his long legs stretched out before him. The coming blizzard outside swirling around him made the naturally hot-blooded man shiver as he placed his finger against the contact of his smart phone. Gallen was voted down by the Council on the agreement that he couldn’t make a bias decision. He would always vote in favor of protecting his children no matter what they’d done. Gallen wouldn’t be able to make an impartial decision for the better of the pack, he was too softened by his children. Marik would inherit the title of Council Head. It was the only decision he could make while he sent his other son to live the life of a lone wolf, practically giving him permission to flee from his crimes for his heart could not take seeing his punishment carried out.

  “Gaerik.” He spoke into the phone, the connection fading in and out as the storm built around them. “You must listen to your father, your Alpha and obey my word. Do not question me. The council will have your life if you do not heed my warning. Run, boy. Run.”

  Without another word, Gallen hung up. The rumble of the Alpha, a natural instinct, not made or groomed into existence but born still lingered in his throat as he looked down into his lap. “God help me.” He whispered to himself knowing that his son no longer had protection within the pack. Now, not only would the pack be looking for Gaerik but there were serious implications if there was evidence that Gallen was the one who helped him flee from the Council. He was a traitor to his pack, he’d tipped off the man that every pack member believed was a murderer and a threat to their very existence, and in the Council’s eyes, Gallen would be just as guilty of those crimes as if he had committed them himself.

  The Council was moving fast, and he wouldn’t have expected anythin
g less. Anytime a situation such as this one arose, which wasn’t very often the punishment for the crime was carried out swiftly. They couldn’t waste time, it was imperative that when things like this happened when a wolf went rouge that it was kept as quiet as possible. Rubbing his hands over his face, he knew that every pack in the state would be looking for Gaerik by morning and Marik would be the one leading the charge.

  ~

  Gaerik’s eyes saw through the snow as the late shoppers scrambled for supplies as Blizzard Colby pitched his fight against Connecticut. He wasn’t there to pick up bread and coco for the long winter's night, but to watch the progress of his obsession as even she herself seemed to be unprepared.

  He found her house easily enough, Gaerik didn’t plan on barging right up to her door, he credited himself as being smarter than that, but he wanted to see where she lived, it was only his luck that she was on her way out and he followed her through the storm to the shopping center. She was such a curious little creature because he didn’t believe that Elle was human and if she was then she was a very smart little human.

  Per the work that Alex had done for him she was raised in Arkansas by her grandmother and had only recently moved to New Haven a little over a year ago, by then she was already a working author and had published three of her books from the Werewolf Huntress series that had initially brought her to his attention. Perhaps she’d known a werewolf where she’d grown up, maybe even a boyfriend who couldn’t keep his species a secret from her. Indians, the Cherokee’s he believed used to be a tribe there, he didn’t know whether they still were, but there were many old legends about the skin-walkers some of them wolves and other beasts, but they all shared a common denominator.

  More and more Gaerik’s interests were peaked by this woman, and for the first time in his life, it wasn’t because of her physical appearance. Elle Marshal had hooked him from the second he saw that stupid pen name on her book. Elle had captured him first, and frankly, Gaerik found that a little unnerving, he was so obsessed that he was spending hundreds of dollars to find out who she was, where she came from, who did she belong to and as it turned out she had no family, no ties to speak of. There were plenty of books out there about werewolves, but nothing inside them came close to the truths that she was just spelling right out for the whole world to know.

  He could just snatch her right here and now when she came out of the store but what if he was wrong and he only scared her. Gaerik was crawling towards the realization that he didn’t want to hurt her or scare her, he just wanted her. The things she wrote and the way she wrote them felt so strong like she was strong. If she wasn’t a werewolf already he would give her the bite, he would have her, and she would be his Queen.

  Distracted from his mission by the LED screen on his phone lighting up, his father’s name on display, he slid the screen placing the phone to his ear.

  “Dad, I really don’t have the time to talk.” However, before he could get another word in he was cut off by his Gallen’s voice. The tone dropping from the deep baritone that was used in everyday conversation to something deeper, harder, demanding of respect and obedience. The pupils of his eyes shrinking and beating with the rhythm of his pulse. Gaerik Chaliceman had never taken his father so seriously as he spoke the words, “Run boy. Run.”

  His exploits had never been anything but mild play things, but he had never killed any of them. How could Marik honestly believe he was capable of so much stupidity? He supposed that he had never given his baby brother reason to think otherwise of him.

  Putting the car into gear, he saw her then, her coat tied around herself tightly, bundled up in her coat, a knit cap covering her ears while the wind worked furiously to whip her hood right off of her head despite having the draw strings pulled tight to protect her face from the blistering arctic vortex.

  There was something about her, she knew far more about his people than any human had a right to. How did she know, who was her source? By the time she was standing in front of her car, his heart was leaping from his chest.

  Hitting the accelerator Gaerik sped out of the parking lot, his reflexes swift keeping the car from skidding on the ice and snow already beginning to become packed on the parking lot's slick surface, slowing as he tossed the cell phone out of the window, the blood pounding in his ears, chanting, “Run. Run. Run.” In time with the howling of the wind around him as he sped onto the open road. “Run. Run. Run.”

  Chapter Four

  If coming from the south to the north had taught Elle one thing it was that she hated, absolutely hated, snow. Pushing her shopping cart towards her car, the complete white out of snow choking her and slowing her progress as she once more vowed that she would not live in New England for the rest of her life. With the key bob in hand and ready she popped the trunk on her Ford Escape and began to load groceries into the back. Cursing the white stuff that fell from the sky. As a child, she loved snow, not that she ever saw a lot of it being raised in Arkansas after her parents died. She had told herself it wasn’t so bad; she didn’t need to leave the house that often unless she ran out of food which she made sure that she didn’t. She wasn’t like others who had jobs to go outside of the house. Elle was lucky in that respect, but it did not serve as a comforting balm to her soul that ached for the winters of Arkansas where you might see six inches of snow all winter. Up north it just kept coming and coming until you were left staring outside of the window wondering if you would never see green things again.

  Her fingers felt numb as she tossed the last bag into the trunk and closed the top down, pushing her cart back up to the store where she had to question herself as she looked at other carts that had been left as a hazard around the parking lot, whether she really wanted her quarter back from the cart exchange. Since she was already half way there, she decided that she did. Amidst the howling wind, the roar of a car’s engine was almost blocked out as a black BMW sped past her. In her mind, Elle would have sworn that it was the same car that followed her all the way to the store and now had only missed hitting her by a few inches. Seeing something fly out of the window. Was he trying to hit me? The snow was turning people into lunatics.

  Retrieving her precious quarter back from the cart she stumbled back out in the harsh bitter cold, her snow boots already clogged with snow making their traction on the slick parking lot sub-par. Elle had to take each step carefully when her foot landed in something other than snow that crunched beneath her boot effectively causing her to slip and shout as her ass met with snow packed asphalt.

  Grunting she had twisted her ankle and the pain that radiated through her leg made tears sting in her eyes as she looked at the ground, thinking she had been taking it so carefully only to find the black case of a cell phone. Picking it up, she looked at it carefully for a minute, no damage had been done to the phone, and it was still clutched in her hand as she slowly crawled to her knees, then her feet, testing her weight on the injured ankle. Without a second thought, she put the phone in her pocket as she limped to her car and climbed inside to make her journey home, so terribly grateful that she lived in a house with an attached garage so she wouldn’t have to troop through the snow bringing the groceries in.

  She would not be coming back out of her house for a few days. Remembering the year before, her first winter in Connecticut, she had begun to go a little stir crazy after three days, and that was how she ended up meeting her neighbor Alice. Elle was so bored that she’d come out to shovel her drive way and ended up doing the side walk and Alice’s as well. When the middle-aged woman came home from work just as Elle was finishing she was so surprised that she invited her inside to warm up with a nice cup of hot tea which progressed into whiskey and then wine over takeout food. Despite the gap in their ages they got along remarkable well, Elle always seemed to have better relationships with older women as well as members of the opposite sex in general; her characters were often depicted after strong women, not those girlie girls who couldn’t lift a skillet without breaking a nail
.

  When Alice found out that she was a writer, she’d taken her into her bedroom and shown her what she called her shelves of sin. All her books were trashy romance novels. Some were mild, others a little spicier, but they all came to the same end. Blushingly Elle noticed that some of those paper backs were books she had written.

  Her ankle after the short drive home from Stop and Shop was throbbing as she carried everything inside. The minute she could sit down she took off her boots and removed all of her winter armor, she turned her leg to the left and right seeing the yellowish bruising already beginning to make her skin look plumper as it, swelled. As much as she hated it, she got an ice pack from the freezer and strapped it to her ankle as she put things away. Parking herself on the couch with some hot chocolate and popcorn she turned the TV on searching for a good movie to distract her. When she wasn’t writing, she felt a little useless, but she was still thinking of her last manuscript. Julie e-mailed her that morning gushing about the last installment for Mistress Delilah: Werewolf Huntress. Elle had touring to look forward to in spring, and soon she would be talking with her cover artist about the new design for the upcoming book, but as of right now all of that was still up in the air and so was she.

  Remembering the phone in her pocket, she got up from the couch, hobbling to the hall closet. Digging around inside of her pocket, she came up with the phone and took it back to the living room for closer examination. The black leather case, fancy, initials G. S. C. embossed in the leather, even fancier. Flipping the phone over, she looked at the face of it hitting the lock screen button. Hmm, password protected. She took a sip from her mug and pursed her lips as she swished the sweet chocolate around in her mouth. Her expression as she looked at the digits on display read very clearly.