Red and the Wolf (Future Fairytales)

by Kate Rudolph

  Red and the Wolf

  By

  Kate Rudolph

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  More by Kate Rudolph

  Soulless

  Ruthless

  Heartless

  Faultless

  Red and the Wolf © Kate Rudolph 2018.

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.

  Published by Kate Rudolph.

  www.katerudolph.net

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Also by Kate Rudolph

  About Kate Rudolph

  Chapter One

  “My, my, what big petals you have,” Red murmured as she noted the newest growth in the flower grove of greenhouse three. She was on Mandela Colony, one of the four Martian colonies humans had established in the last century. As a botanist, it was her responsibility to ensure that the plants were growing within expected parameters so that oxygen levels remained acceptable and all citizens had enough food to eat. The potatoes, carrots, and green vegetables were the most important part of her duties, but Red loved the flowers best. They’d been her pet project when she moved here out of college, a little spot of beauty in an otherwise supremely functional installation.

  Few head botanists would have allowed the indulgence, but Red had special connections and she wasn’t afraid to use them.

  The flowers were delicate beasts and a constant reminder that she wasn’t on Earth anymore. It was far too easy to kill them, and strangely easy to make them into monsters that could suck up all the nutrients of the dirt around them.

  “Are they supposed to be that large?” The rumbly voice did interesting things to her insides and Red had to suppress a shiver.

  Wood was a relative newcomer to Mandela Colony. With only a thousand people in the installation, it meant that everyone knew everyone else. Despite that, the giant man was still a mystery. He’d been on planet for a little more than a month and Red had spent more time with him than anyone else had. She knew what his sultry mouth and full lips looked like when they tipped up in a smile. She could create his masculine scent through a combination of herbs and flowers growing in the greenhouses, and she knew his eyes sometimes caught the light and reflected it strangely. He had a wicked sense of humor and dripped sex and sin.

  But he was the consummate gentleman. They’d spent plenty of time alone and he’d neither kissed her nor touched her. It was driving Red crazy and if he didn’t make a move soon she was going to need to take matters into her own hands. He was the most attractive single man in the colony and if she wasn’t quick someone else would scoop him up. She’d seen the Henderson twins eyeing him every time they were all in the main cafeteria together. If one of them made a move, she didn’t stand a chance.

  Not that Red was hideous, but more often than not her light brown hair was smudged with dirt from the greenhouse and her skin was ruddy from the warm environment. She spent all her days around the plants and could talk at length about the nitrogen content of various soils, but when it came to people, well, Redding Rider Wallace took after her grandmother in that regard. Plants made sense. If you treated them right, they’d grow and flourish. Deprive them of sun or nutrients and they shriveled up.

  People didn’t always work like that. They had different needs, and sometimes no matter how great things appeared, they floundered. Usually they didn’t seem worth the effort to get to know.

  But Wood wasn’t any normal person.

  “Sure.” Red came back to herself, remembering that Wood had asked her a question. He never seemed to get annoyed when she took too long to answer. Guys she’d hung out with in the past had thought she was slow or that she had some sort of speech impediment. But really she was just too involved with the root systems around her and it took a few moments to untangle it all to get a conversation started. “Haven’t you ever seen nasturtiums before?”

  She’d chosen the bright orange flowers for their ease of growth and the fact that they were edible. It hadn’t seemed wise to grow something beautiful but toxic so close to the food. Besides, if she was going to use the space for something pretty, it also needed to be useful. Space was limited in the greenhouses and though her grandma trusted her with her projects, she couldn’t take advantage and be wasteful.

  Wood reached out and stroked a long fingered hand softly along the edge of one of the petals. Red had to bite her lip to keep from making a pathetic noise as she imagined what it would feel like if he touched her like that. “They’re beautiful.” He looked up as he said it and their eyes locked.

  Red had to swallow hard to keep from saying something that would make her seem foolish. She hadn’t scared Wood away yet, but they’d barely known each other a few weeks. He didn’t know how bad she could get. Who would have known that comparing the lines on a man’s hand to the root system of a weed could be taken poorly? Or telling him his eyes looked like the most fertile soil she’d ever seen? Yeah, her track record with past lovers wasn’t exactly great, which was why she was on her best behavior. She hadn’t sent Wood running and she was determined not to.

  Not until she knew what his lips tasted like. They were so red that she almost thought he used some sort of product on them, but as close as she’d studied him, she was sure it was his natural color. His hair was a deep gold, and he had those same fertile soil brown eyes that she wouldn’t tell him about. Like hers, his skin was a bit ruddy, but it only made him look healthy, like he’d just run a few miles and his blood was pumping strong and true in his veins. When he smiled at her she sometimes caught a glimpse of his teeth. His canines were sharper than any she’d seen on another person and combined with his towering height and those flashing eyes, she almost wondered if he was enhanced in some way, not completely human. But Red didn’t ask. They were still barely more than acquaintances. Even she knew where the line was drawn there.

  She plucked one of the flowers and offered it to Wood. He stared at it for several moments before reaching out and grasping it delicately between two fingers. Their hands brushed and Red couldn’t suppress this shiver. She pulled her hand back quickly, as if that could hide her response. But Wood grinned at her, a sudden predatory glint in his eye that set her instincts warring inside of her. A part of her wanted to run, wanted to find a safe place to hide from the beast that she feared lived inside of this man. Another part, stronger and mature enough to crave the dark, wanted to get closer to him, hide behind him and let him protect her from all of the things that hid in the shadows.

  But Red did neither of those things. She stayed where she was and watched, enraptured, as Wood studied the flower she’d given him before he carefully laced it through a button hole on his jacket.

  She’d marked him. It was nothing permanent, but something primal settled within her at
the thought of him wearing her flower throughout the colony. Everyone would know that it had come from her, know that he’d chosen her, at least for this, at least for now.

  “What brings you to the greenhouse today?” it finally occurred to her to ask. Though the greenhouses were responsible for so many of the nutrients that the colonists depended on to stay healthy, few people wandered in to say hi. For one, there were rigorous requirements for entrance that were there to keep the plants safe and healthy, and for two, the greenhouses were out of the way of the main buildings. No one just wandered in.

  “You promised me lunch.”

  At that reminder, Red’s stomach growled and she looked down at her watch, shocked to see that the lunch hour had passed hours ago. “Did you hold off on eating all this time?” She wanted to spend more time with Wood, but she didn’t want the man to starve! “You should have sent me a message.”

  Wood grinned and traced the petals of his lapel nasturtium. “I did, but that was two hours ago and you didn’t answer. I hope I wasn’t too…”

  “No! Of course not!” Red ducked her head to hide her blush, wishing she had her cloak. Her hood would do plenty to hide her embarrassment, even if the bright red thing made her stand out like a star in an empty night sky. “Goodness, I’m sorry. I must have set my communicator to silent while I was working on the sprout patch earlier.”

  Wood touched her hand, his fingers light and warm against her pulse. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. But if it makes you feel better, you can accompany me to the cafeteria before they close down for the afternoon?”

  Red nodded, relief warring with elation before the two emotions teamed up to fizz in her blood and add an extra spring to her step. She washed her hands in a nearby cleaning station and grabbed her cloak from its hook near the entrance. Everything in the colony was indoors, but the temperature regulation system sometimes made the place far too cool. And though Red would have loved to snuggle up next to Wood to stay warm, she wasn’t willing to shiver until he decided it was time to make his next move.

  “Is it because of your name?” he asked out of nowhere.

  It took Red a moment to realize he was talking about the cloak. She fingered the edge of the material and sighed. “At least I’m not a redhead.” She shuddered at the thought. “When I was about six I tried to get everyone in the family to call me by my full name, but it didn’t take. My mom gave me the cloak when I graduated from high school. She made it for me, didn’t just buy it off the rack. She always loved my name, so maybe it is. When you’re called Red, people can’t resist giving you everything in red. I don’t have the heart to tell them that it’s not my favorite color.”

  Wood studied her for several long moments, going so far as to pluck at her cloak and study it. “Hmm,” was all he said in response.

  “Hmm what?” Here she was pouring her heart out to the guy and all he could say was hmm? Really?

  “It’s green, isn’t it? But you don’t like to tell anyone because they think it’s because you work with plants.” He dropped the edge of her cloak and let it trail after her while his words practically shocked her into stillness.

  “How did you figure that out?” She never wore green, had very little jewelry in the color, and couldn’t think of anyone she’d actually told. Green was her secret favorite, something that was just hers, something that other people purposefully misunderstood if she talked about it.

  “The screen cover for your tablet is green,” he replied. “And your shoe laces. You shouldn’t hide it. Green is a wonderful color. I like it best when I see it in your eyes.”

  Her stomach clenched at the heat hidden in his tone. “My eyes are brown.”

  Wood shook his head and stepped in front of her, turning around and tipping her chin up in one smooth motion. Red couldn’t breathe, the shock of it too much as she stood transfixed in his orbit. “I think the word is hazel,” Wood said, staring at her like he was studying a precious, rare bloom and not an ordinary botanist who couldn’t even get up the courage to kiss him. “It’s brown mixed in with green, perfect and lively, just like you.”

  Perfect and lively. She’d been called a lot of things before, but couldn’t remember anyone using those two words to refer to her. It lit Red up from the inside and made her think that maybe, no matter how slow she and Wood were walking down this road, they had the same destination in mind.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but the door behind them crashed open and her grandmother rushed through, panting and calling out her name.

  “Redding! Where are you going?” Sylvie Wallace looked good for seventy, spry with long gray hair and dancing, bright eyes. She lived for her plants and said all the greenery kept her young. Rumor in the colony was that it was her string of forty-something boyfriends that kept a pep in her step.

  Red shot Wood an apologetic look. “Sorry, this should only be a minute.” She’d hoped to skip out before her grandma could stop her, but that had been a fool’s dream. Her grandma claimed that the plants whispered their secrets to her, telling her everything that went on around them. Red had believed it with her whole heart when she’d been a child, and even as an adult it was hard to imagine how else her grandma got all of her information.

  Sylvie’s eyes danced as she regarded Wood. “So where’s the young man taking you? Should I expect you back before morning? Please say no.”

  Other grandmothers baked cookies. Red’s wanted her to get laid. “We’re getting lunch,” she replied evenly. “I’ll be back in an hour, Grams.”

  Sylvie harrumphed. “You can barely get started in an hour. That man looks ready to explode with wickedness. Take him up on it before one of those Henderson twins makes their move. I’ve heard what either of them can do and you don’t stand a chance.”

  Red’s cheeks flamed and she really hoped that Wood couldn’t hear. And if he could, she hoped he’d pretend that he’d gone deaf for the entirety of this conversation. She tried to lead her grandma a few steps back, but the woman refused to be moved. “It’s lunch in the middle of the workday. And it’s Wednesday!”

  Her grandmother looked momentarily confused. “You know there’s no rule saying you can’t ha—” she cut herself off at Red’s harsh look and recovered, “you can have all the fun you want in the middle of the week, and twice on the weekend. You only live once, kiddo.”

  Neither of them mentioned Red’s mother, but her ghost hung heavy over the conversation. She’d had the brunt of raising Red after her dad took off. And then in Red’s junior year of college she’d just faded away, cancer eating her up before doctors could even begin to get a handle on treatment. Since then, Grandma Sylvie had been responsible for the care and raising of Red Wallace, and she hadn’t wanted her only grandchild to miss any opportunity. Red loved her grandmother, and she’d much rather have a free spirit than someone who’d try and crush her under stodgy expectations. But that didn’t mean that she appreciated her grandmother’s meddling when she was about to go to lunch with Wood.

  “I know, Grams,” Red assured her. “But right now it’s just lunch. And the Henderson twins aren’t anywhere near us. Did you need something for work? Or was this just you trying to embarrass me?”

  Her grandma didn’t even have the grace to look chagrined. “No, embarrassing you is just a bonus,” she blew a kiss to punctuate the point. “Did you do anything to the carrots in Greenhouse Four? The water levels were a little low on the last three cycles.”

  Red shook her head. “I keep to my kingdom, no trying to conquer anyone else’s land. Sounds like there might be a clog in one of the pipes. I’ll check my levels to make sure it’s all good in my neck of the woods. When I’m back from lunch.”

  “If you need to take the rest of the day…”

  “We’ll be back in an hour.” She kissed her grandma and shooed her back towards the greenhouses where she could torture the rest of her employees. Red turned back to Wood and her fingers twitched to flip up her hood and hide her surely flaming f
ace. She felt like a kid who’d been singled out by the teacher at recess, only worse, because sex was now somehow involved, and it was no longer just this potential thing between the two of them. “Sorry about that.”

  “Is she so… brash with everyone?” Wood asked, looking sympathetic. “I can’t say I’ve had much interaction with Sylvie.”

  “Yeah, you’re a little young for her. But just a little. If you were about seven years older, she’d be all over you.” And Red had enough competition as it was, she couldn’t imagine the mortification she’d feel if she and her grandma were pursuing the same man.

  But Wood tipped his head back and laughed, the rich sound filling the hallway around them and wrapping around her like a warm hug. Red wanted to reach out her arms and latch onto the sound, and as it faded, she was left with the smallest sense of dissatisfaction, a promise unfulfilled. “I’m not sure I would survive the lady’s advances.”

  Red let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Some of the men on the colony thought that her grandma was too much, too sexual, too feisty, too out there. And if Wood had said a negative word towards her, Red didn’t know how she’d feel. Sure, her grandma embarrassed her at times, but that woman was made of love and kindness and there wasn’t anything the two of them wouldn’t do for one another.

  “She’s my grandma,” Red replied, as if that explained anything.

  “If you’ve got any part of her in you, I think that’s something to be proud of.” Wood brushed his fingers against the back of her hand and in one smooth move laced their hands together.

  Red smiled after him as they walked down the hall. Just one more reason this guy was perfect. Now she just had to figure out how to make it obvious to him that he was perfect for her.

  Chapter Two

  Of course her grandmother was waiting for her when she got back. Red hung her cloak on the hook and picked up her work tablet in silence, hoping if she didn’t speak that Grandma would go away. Several minutes passed while she checked the oxygen reports, but she could feel the weight of her grandmother’s expectant gaze settling heavy on her shoulders. After another minute of clenching her fingers on the side of the tablet she finally put it down and snapped her gaze up to her grandma.