The Big, Bad…
Riding Hood Tales Book 1
Nina S. Gooden
Published 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62210-046-0
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © Published 2013, Nina S. Gooden. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Blurb
All Roux wanted was to bring Grandma her goodies and get out of there before the old lady planted a slug in her back. Unfortunately, her simple routine gets blown sky high when she stumbles onto a crime scene. To make matters worse, the only suspect is a very hunky and very naked Wolf who has decided to claim her as his mate.
Aldrich may be the most overbearing man Roux has ever met, but something about him warms her heart. No one who touches her as gently as he does could be a cold-blooded killer. Roux is determined to prove that, but the closer she gets to the truth, the more she’ll wish she hadn’t. There are secrets in the town of Harmony, secrets that could tear her world apart.
Dedication
To Taylor, who is strong when I am weak, patient when I am panicked, and always believes, even in the face of my darkest doubts. You are my port within the storm, KISA. This, too, shall pass.
Acknowledgements
This is the second time The Big, Bad has been published, and it never would have happened without a slew of people supporting me.
Thanks, first and foremost, to Tracey West, the Acquisitions Manager who was willing to work with my unique situation to get this series where it belonged. In the same vein, Georgia Woods didn’t miss a beat when she took over the project; she pushed it through with the poise and understanding of a true leader.
I also want to thank Allie Hart and Debra Gillen, two wonderful women who took a story that I thought was perfect and polished it until it could truly shine. Our time was brief, but I learned a lot.
Lastly, I thank my family, who the book was originally dedicated to. Whether we are bound by blood, spirit, or (soon to be) law, I appreciate every encouragement and review.
Chapter 1
“Ow! What the―” Something banged against the closet door, and the heavy wood vibrated hard against my knees. I jerked awake and let out another unflattering yelp as my forehead slammed into the vacuum, which was jammed into the tiny space of my makeshift bedroom.
Collapsing back against my scattered “bed” of pillows and sheets, I took a deep breath of fortification before I gripped the knob.
“Come on, Dad,” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear and wouldn’t respond even if he could. “At least let it all be in one piece this time.”
Opening the closet door, I remembered why I cheerfully volunteered to sleep in the small, cramped anti-room. What it lost in luxury, it redeemed itself in being the only safe place in the house to sleep. A dark plume of smoke wafted toward me with malicious intent, but I quickly ducked out of the way and into the living room. As per the norm, my father sat at his desk pouring over a dozen books and notebooks written in a language, I’m pretty sure, only he could read.
Beakers and questionable liquids sat scattered around the room, and I suspect the smoke came from one of them.
“Morning, Daddy. Did you find anything last night?” I kept my tone as bright and cheery as possible, but it didn’t matter. I could have been speaking in tongues for all the attention he paid. “Oh well, maybe next time.” I said it casually but with little hope. There was really no chance of him speaking to me. After all, he hadn’t done so for as long as I could remember. Why would anything change now? I didn’t even know what color his eyes were.
Glancing at the clock above his head, I hissed in surprise. I was going to be late if I didn’t get a move on. Luckily, getting ready in record time was my specialty. I rushed through a shower and breakfast as if I was training for a marathon.
“Bye, Daddy. I’m going to work now! I’ll be back later tonight.” I held my breath, hoping and praying the crouched figured cloaked in darkness and gloom would acknowledge hearing me. Actually, at this point I would have been happy if he looked at me instead of through me.
When nothing happened, I let out a rusty little sigh. My father continued to ignore me, and I tried to ignore my continued disappointment.
I used to think it was normal. After all, why would you suspect something was wrong when you had nothing “right” to base it on?
I closed the door and locked it, resting my forehead against the wooden entryway. I hadn’t expected anything different, but a little part of my heart still wilted each time he glided past me like I was invisible.
I’d never really heard him speak. At least not directly. Occasionally, I'd wake up to hear him knee deep into a vicious cursing stream. On those days, I would press my ear to the closet door and hold my breath. That’s how eager I was to be a part of his life, even from afar.
As far as I knew, my father never spoke beyond the frustration he felt when pouring over his notebooks. So, when I heard a soft voice while I stood outside the door on that morning, I assumed it was just my imagination.
I had work to do, and if I didn’t get a move on, I would be late. Still, I couldn’t shake the memory of the charged voice and its harsh warning that sounded like a threat. “No you won’t.”
* * * *
The walk to the office usually helped me relax and forget about my stony parent. Harmony was a great town and I was happy to live in it. Aptly named for the harmonious way the people managed to thrive alongside nature and all of her creatures. The most obvious being the Wolf Pack. The Pack was comprised of mostly secretive wolf shape-shifters—don’t ever call them werewolves if you know what’s good for you.
The peace between the humans and the Pack was fairly new, only about as old as me, and it had been forged because of a common enemy.
“Hello, Roux!” called a pair of simultaneous voices. Blaise and Ophelia ran the town store. They stocked pretty much everything anyone would ever need, from food to clothing to tools. If you wanted it, they had it. I waved to them as I moved along the simple dirt roads connecting the shops and homes.
"Roux! I'm so glad I caught you. Will you take this shipment of gauze to the Community Watch with you? We're a little swamped since the Anderson boys all managed injuries while hiking yesterday."
"Sure thing, Louise." I took the boxes with a playful smile. "I bet Mrs. Anderson is driving you crazy."
The town medic rolled her eyes to the sky before tossing me a wink. "We all know how she gets when the boys are scuffed. Thank goodness for Mr. Davis, or I'd go nutters."
I laughed while she told me the latest news and gave me a couple messages to hand out on my way. That was how it was in this town. Everyone helped each other out.
Down the road, D’Arcy and Jaye were squabbling again. I sent them home with a threat to box their ears, knowing they were supposed to be helping their mother with the groceries. They were the only children under ten in Harmony, which had a human population of about twenty. Still, they always seemed to find themselves in trouble.
The office was mostly empty, so I set the shipment down on the counter and walked into the back room. “Mina, I’m sorry I’m late, but I brought the gauze f
rom Louise. She said to make sure Mr. Tristan had extras, he was pretty banged up after the fall he took last week.”
Wilhelmina, my best friend, was probably the only person in all of Harmony I felt I could really talk to. Sure, she tended to be a little bit overbearing and aggressive, and once a month she turned into a total bitch…but who didn’t?
It wasn’t until we’d been working together for a while and I commented on how beautiful and shiny her thick curls of blonde hair were that she revealed herself to be a wolf. Typical Mina, she responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She was completely nonchalant about something so big
“Oh yeah.” She shrugged. “It’s so shiny because it’s part of my coat.”
After those words, she had answered each and every one of my questions about wolves. She’d even introduced me to her brother.
She had a shrewd eye, and even with my little walk to get it out of my system, she knew immediately something was wrong.
“You’re not down about your father today, are you?” She asked it as if it were a crime. Before I could respond, she dropped the clipboard she held and marched over to me. “I don’t know why you let him get to you. You know everyone thinks he’s crazy.”
I huffed but couldn't work up the usual steam to defend my father. “He’s not crazy; he’s just a little lonely.”
“He’s been this way for twenty years—it’s time to move on.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and picked up the clipboard she’d dropped. It held the day assignments, and I didn’t see my name listed on the pages.
“Hey, where’s my name? Where’s my assignment for the day?”
Mina eyeballed me, seeing me change the subject. I gave a sigh of relief when she decided to let it go. “You’ll be helping Grandma out today.”
I stifled a groan. Grandma, as the Community Watch liked to call her, was the only elderly person in all the rounds who nobody wanted to go see. Cruel and mean with a wicked tongue, fast cane, and a shotgun, she liked to make volunteers feel as worthless and slow as possible when they brought her groceries. She never really appreciated it, but still something about her drew me. Even when she was particularly mean, she still had this wise glow about her.
“She isn’t all bad,” I said, swallowing my own doubts for the sake of her reputation. “And we should really stop calling her Grandma. She’s not even as old as you guys make her sound…she’s just overly tired.”
Mina snorted. “Only you think so, which is why you’re the one who always gets assigned to her.”
Though everyone normally had four or five visits scheduled, the person who drew Grandma only had her for the day. Between her attitude and the hike to her house, Grandma was usually all anyone could stomach.
Even with the promise of a quicker work schedule, no one volunteered. Thus, we took turns and drew straws, though I usually ended up taking it anyway.
“I don’t mind, though,” I said in a chipper voice. “It’s not like she’s always mean. She even gave me her pretty cloak.”
Mina let loose the bark of a laugh she was so known for. “She didn’t give you that cloak out of the kindness of her heart. She gave it to you so she would know when you were coming and not shoot you with that twelve gauge of hers.” She absentmindedly rubbed her side where she had been nipped by shrapnel from the gun in question.
It was true, the old lady did tend to shoot first and ask questions later. The hood she’d given me was a bright scarlet red and impossible to miss in the woods surrounding her cottage. It was also true the Community Watch had threatened to stop making deliveries if Grandma kept trying to kill them. Still, I liked to think she was genuinely concerned about causing me harm.
“C’mon, Mina, it’s not as bad as you're making it sound. She probably knew you were a wolf. Everyone knows wolves heal much faster than humans, and you told me yourself: the only way to get rid of one of you is with silver. That little bit of gunpowder was probably nothing more than a mosquito bite to you.”
“Which is completely not the point. She can't just go around shooting people because she knows it won't kill them.” Mina scolded me. Her eyes glazed over with a far off look she sometimes got, and she sighed. A comfortable pause settled between us. “Ulric and I still haven’t decided if we truly want to be a part of the Pack. I mean…we might not really belong there. We weren’t born into it; we just kind of wandered here when we were little. We could just…leave Harmony, be with regular people.”
I knew better than to try to offer my friend any outward sign of comfort, but I really wanted to. She and her brother had been dubbed the Undedicated by the other wolves long ago. They were the only ones who had the option of whether or not to assimilate into the tightknit group. Everyone else became part of it at birth.
Even though I knew they were thinking it over carefully, I’d never heard her talk about not joining.
Sure, I imagined it would be tough to be part of the Pack with everyone knowing who you were and what was going on with your family at every waking moment, but it never occurred to me a wolf would turn down the offer of family. Even with all the problems, they were such a close group. It was hard for me to consider the possibility of someone not being happy as part of the pack.
To be honest, I was a little envious.
They always knew where they stood, always belonged. “Oh my, what a long face you’re wearing." I said. "If you left Harmony, you wouldn’t be able to be yourself in public. You’d have to pretend to be just any normal human. Why would you want to be normal when you can be extraordinary?”
Mina shook her head and laughed. “Ugh, only someone as ordinary as you would think something so fanciful. It’s sometimes more of a burden than a gift.”
I ignored her unintentional jibe even though I was a little offended. I pulled out the riding hood and wrapped it around my shoulders. “A burden? To be special?”
She gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “There’s a thin line between special and freakish.”
“Your brother is pretty special.” I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did, but the moony lilt in my voice caused Mina to sigh.
“If you like him so much, why don’t you just…I don’t know, ask him out?”
I blushed and coughed lightly, looking away. “I couldn’t ever dream of being so bold. He’s so far out of my league…”
For a second she looked amused, but then something dark fluttered across her face. “Your low opinion of yourself is only because of that father of yours. He treats you like dirt.”
I sighed. “Not this again, Mina.”
“Yes this again. And again and again until you do something about it. Why don’t you leave that little house? Surely you can afford your own at this point. At the very least you can afford your own room.”
I laughed off her complaints. “Look, I know he seems neglectful, but he’s just caught up in his research. He loves me…he just doesn’t show it well.”
Her hands went to her hips, and she shifted her weight onto one leg. “So you think he loves you. How do you figure that? Has he ever even told you he likes you?” She continued over my sputtering response. “Of course not. He never speaks to you. But fine, maybe he’s just quiet and actions speak louder than words. Has he ever shown you he loves you?”
I blushed and closed my eyes, listening to the waves in my memory. “There was this one day…when I was really little. He dropped all of his work and took me out to the sea. I remember the hum of the engine and the way the seagulls cried out. It is…my most precious memory. A day with just the two of us.”
I sighed wistfully and ignored Mina’s scoff. She got so worked up when we spoke of my father. Still, she was my best friend, and I could forgive her for her opinions. She was precious to me.
I cast Mina a worried look. “I know sometimes you get tired of it, but you’re not really thinking about leaving, are you?”
The dark look on her face faded away and was replaced with her usual smil
e. “Oh no, don’t worry about me. I’m just feeling a little restless waiting for the next run.”
I smiled. Mina was always edgy a few days before the full moon, and I had to admit I felt it with her. “Well, you don’t have to wait long. It’s just around the corner. Tomorrow, right? I feel like it was just last week you were running naked through the woods.” Mina’s life was a rollercoaster of excitement and possibilities.
She grinned. “And don’t you pretend you didn’t enjoy finding me the next day.”
We laughed away the hard lines of edginess in her face and once we sobered, she pointed to the clock. “You better set out on your hike to Grandma’s house, or you’ll be out past nightfall.”
“Yeah,” I said, turning toward the door. I grabbed my basket and gave a little sigh. Another day, another boring run. I secretly wished, just once, for something exciting to happen to me.
* * * *
“Oh my, how my legs hurt.” I muttered some hours later. “Here we are.” Grandma’s cottage stood out against the lush emerald forest; a prick from a green thumb oozing pink and purple pus.
From the deep stains of dark pink on the walls to the various shades of lavender smeared on the shutters, the building that housed Grandma was a striking highlight of her personality. It was overbearing and jolting, and she was about as rude and disarming as a thick black cloud on a promising sunny day.
“Or maybe not,” I said to myself. “She seems to be a fan of sticking out and making others do the same.” I walked slowly toward the huge lime-colored door, careful to hold out the sides of the scarlet cloak while I moved. “Granny?” I shouted, knocking lightly. Usually she met me on the porch; I’d never had to knock, let alone shout.
“I brought your goodies…” A wave of unease spread through me as I leaned against the front door. I couldn’t explain it further. The moment I pressed the heel of my hand against the wooden barrier, I knew something was wrong. The air behind the door reached out to me, still and yet abuzz with an odd kind of kinetic energy.
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