Page 76 of Little Red Riding Hood
Red let out a bitter laugh, propping himself up on his elbows. “Is it not true? What is this, then, Wim? Enlighten me.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Oh, don’t you?” Red hated the tremble in his words. “You call me ‘yours’ when you’re inside me, practically bite my neck, and then the moment it’s over, you pull away.” He gestured to the space between them. “You won’t even look at me properly. And—” His voice betrayed him, and he had to swallow down a thick lump. “You haven’t once asked me to stay with you instead of returning to the palace!”
Wim’s mouth opened and closed, his face contorting through several expressions before settling on something between confusion and hurt. “Red—”
“No.” Red sat up fully now, wrapping one of their blankets around his shoulders. “Don’t ‘Red’ me. You mark me with your teeth, leave bruises on my hips, whisper how I belong to you… but as soon as we’re done, you act like… like…”
The words stuck in his throat, choking him. Like this was temporary. Like Red was just convenient. Like he wasn’t worth keeping.
“Red, it isn’t that way at all!” Wim pleaded, orange eyes wide. “I promise.”
“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know that if you don’t tell me?!”
“Oh, Red,” Wim’s words were infuriatingly soft, his hand covering most of his face. “There’s… things I haven’t told you.”
No shit.
Red’s heart squeezed painfully as he asked, “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Back home, for you?”
“No!” Wim exclaimed violently. “No one else, Red. I promise.”
“Tell me, then!”
“Right now, we should get some sleep. It’s already dawn, and we need to make up for lost time when we wake.”
Red’s jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. How dare Wim dismiss his feelings like that? Like they were nothing more than an inconvenient topic to be swept under the rug?
Coward.
He twisted away from the wolf, curling into himself. His arms wrapped around his torso—a pitiful attempt at self-comfort that only made him feel more foolish.
Look at you, throwing yourself at him like some lovesick maiden from one of Auntie Anne’s romance novels. Begging him to ask you to stay. As if you even could.
His cheeks burned with shame. He’d known Wim for what… a handful of days? Yet here he was, practically demanding declarations of forever from a man who’d made it clear their arrangement was temporary.
Pathetic.
The night air seemed to pierce straight through his skin, settling deep in his bones. Without Wim’s supernatural warmth pressed against him, the forest’s chill was brutal. Red pulled his knees closer to his chest, trying to preserve what little heat remained.
He felt rather than saw Wim’s movements behind him—the careful way he draped another blanket over Red’s shoulders, then another moments later. The gestures only twisted the knife deeper.
Don’t pretend to care now. Not when you won’t even discuss what this means.
Despite the added layers, Red’s teeth began to chatter. His body, spoiled by nights spent pressed against Wim’s furnace-like warmth, refused to generate enough heat on its own. Each tremor felt like a betrayal—his own flesh revealing just how much he’d come to rely on the wolf’s presence.
The cold seeped deeper, making his muscles ache. Still, Red remained stubbornly curled away from Wim, refusing to give in to the temptation. He wouldn’t crawl back like some desperate creature seeking scraps of affection.
“Red?” Wim’s voice cracked with vulnerability, a sound Red had never heard from the powerful wolf before. “Can I please hold you? Please?”
The tears Red had been fighting burst forth, streaming down his cheeks in hot trails. His breath hitched as he tried to speak, mortification burning through him at this display of weakness. “If you must,” he managed, the words coming out thick and watery.
Wim’s arm snaked around his waist, hesitant at first, before suddenly yanking Red against his chest in an iron grip. The wolf released a deep sigh of relief, his breath tickling the back of Red’s neck.
Red squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears continued to fall, soaking into the blankets beneath them. His shoulders shook with silent sobs as Wim’s warmth enveloped him completely.
The wolf’s grip didn’t loosen, as if he feared Red might slip away like morning mist between his fingers. In that moment, wrapped in Wim’s desperate embrace, Red had one final thought before sleep finally claimed him—how was it possible to feel simultaneously so secure and so utterly terrified?
