Page 20 of A Little Red
“God, you are so bad at lying,” he blurted out. But that only made him feel better about trusting her. If she was this bad about lying, he would have seen through her the moment she’d actually tried to deceive him.
“It was the truth. I saw my brother and my sister. We just didn’t go… home.”
“Where did you go?” He couldn’t figure out why she was being so hesitant. What was so bad that she couldn’t tell him?
“My sister is an environmental activist. We have always supported her,” said Scarlet, with a sniff. “She needed help. They were going to cut down old-growth trees. So Ochre and I went to help her.”
“You went to a protest?” Liam tried to wade through the gibberish she was spouting. “And your brother’s name is Ochre?”
“And my sister’s name is Azure,” said Scarlet, looking fierce. “Deal with it.”
“It’s fine,” said Liam. “Red was always my favorite primary color. How do you go from protesting to handcuff bruises?”
“We handcuffed ourselves to the trees,” said Scarlet, nervously. “The logging company hired Blackpool, the security outfit that beat up all those pipeline protestors. We had to make sure they couldn’t move us.”
He stared at her in disbelief.
“You spent four days handcuffed to a tree?”
“Only one day really,” said Scarlet quietly.
“Did you…” Liam frowned, trying to figure out what to ask first. Attending a protest was so far outside of his realm of experience that he didn’t know what to ask.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
Her eyes closed and she made a helpless gesture.
“We don’t tell each other things.”
That hit him like a sucker punch. It was true, but he didn’t want his secrets to mean that shecouldn’ttell him hers.
“And a lot of people don’t… approve or whatever. But you know what, fuck it. I’m not sorry. We won. The trees are safe for now.”
“You won?” Liam repeated. “I don’t understand. Did they… How did you get bruised?”
“Well, we were protesting. If we don’t want to look like raving psychos we have to remain non-violent, but it’s not like those Blackpool thugs give a shit about how they look and they’re probably never going to get arrested and they know it. It doesn’t matter. It just… made me really tired. And I wanted to come home. And I’m so tired.” Her voice started to shake and her lips twisted unhappily.
She hadn’t answered the question, which meant the answer was that some asshole had assaulted his… Scarlet. Someone had pushed Scarlet around and she didn’t want to talk about it. Wolves were not serial monogamists. They tended to either be constant daters or with the magical one mate that made the sun rise and set, so Liam didn’t have much experience in the field of relationships, but he knew an oncoming meltdown when he saw one.
“And I wanted to get a rabbit before I came home,” she continued, trying to blink tears out of her eyes, “but Ochre didn’t bring my bow and I got in a fight with Azure and all that’s in my fridge is broccoli!” Scarlet ended on a sob and Liam gave up pretending and pulled her into a tight embrace.
“But Scarlet, baby,” he said, rocking her, and kissing the top of her head. “You’re a vegetarian.”
There was a garbled response from his shoulder.
“You don’t eat store-bought meat?” he guessed.
The response seemed affirmative.
“I really should have asked about that one sooner. OK,” he said, pushing her back so he could look her in the eye, “here’s the plan. You ready for the plan?” She nodded. “You’re going to change out of your work clothes and into something comfy and I’m going to run out to my car for a minute.”
She nodded again.
“Ready?” He gave her a little shove toward the bedroom and then dashed outside. He grabbed up his emergency bag and the cooler from the trunk and was about to head back when he caught the whiff of something skunky. He paused, his nails thickened and he felt his canines lengthen.
There was a laugh from up the street and a door opened with a gust of smoke, light, and pounding base. The weed smell drifted down to him as two people came out of a house and headed up the street. Liam shook his head at his paranoia and he went back up to Scarlet’s apartment.
She was wearing itty-bitty shorts and a tank-top when he got there, which made his tongue want to loll out of his mouth. She looked better. He thought she’d brushed her hair and washed her face while he was gone.
