Gwen Foster, or Red to her family and friends, slowly drove her beat-up old Honda Civic out of town, heading towards her Grandma's house. Wearing a pair of grey leggings and a thin white t-shirt that clung to her slight, compact frame, she quietly sang along to the radio as she drove, looking for the turnoff that would mark her Grandma's driveway. It had been months since she'd last visited, going back to just before Christmas when she'd dropped off a batch of cookies she'd made, and Red felt guilty it had taken her so long to stop back.
Seeing the turn, she swung off the main road and onto the narrow driveway. She'd hated the woods as a kid, always convinced there were monsters lurking in the shadows. Her Grandma, on the other hand, had loved them, always telling stories of wolves and witches and things that lived just out of sight. Eventually, she'd turned those stories into the novels that had earned her a small fortune in book sales.
Her Grandma's house was the same as always, a cozy, two-story sitting at the end of the long driveway, windows all dark except for the flicker of a lamp in the upstairs bedroom. Red parked and sat there for a minute, engine off, letting the silence settle.
She stepped out into the cold, pulling on the old, red fleece hoodie she'd brought along, and headed up to the house.The house loomed up, familiar yet strange in the shadows, like a fairy tale monster that might eat you alive if you let your guard down.
Red stepped inside and closed the front door behind her, the echo of the latch snapping shut amplifying the eerie silence inside. The house was dark as she crossed the front hall and made her way farther into the house. She shrugged off her hoodie and draped it over the front bench, pausing to listen for the comforting creak of Grandma's footsteps or the drone of her kitchen radio. Instead, the house sat in darkened silence.
She called out, "Grandma?" testing the air, but her own voice sounded alien, swallowed up by the thick hush. No answering call. Not even a cough. A prickle ran the length of Red's arms, and she scowled at herself for being a coward. Grow up, Gwen, you're 23, not some scared kid.
"Grandma?" she repeated, louder now, irritation covering her unease. She tiptoed through the living room, past the empty kitchen, and stopped at the foot of the steps briefly before slowly heading upstairs. The hall at the top stretched before her, the only illumination a strip of harsh light that bled out from beneath the master bedroom's door.
Red licked her lips and called again, "Grandma, it's Red! Are you okay?" Her voice didn't so much bounce off the walls as get sucked right into them.
She advanced slowly and paused outside the bedroom door. Something felt off, but it had to just be the quiet and the dark messing with her head. She hesitated briefly but then reached for the knob, twisting and pushing the door open at the same time.
Something moved behind her as she stepped into the room, her eyes trying to adjust to the sudden brightness. Before Red could even gasp, a hand the size of a bear paw clamped down over her mouth, sealing her scream in her throat. Another arm, brawny and corded, snapped around her waist and yanked her flush against a wall of solid muscle, pinning her arms to her sides with humiliating ease.
She kicked backwards, catching only air and then a tree-trunk thigh. The grip only tightened, squeezing her lungs empty. Her heels scrabbled at the wood, socks sliding uselessly, and she clawed at the hand smothering her mouth, digging in with her short, ragged nails.
She tried to twist her head free, but the fingers dug in harder, followed by a hot breath in her ear. "Looks like I caught myself a tiny little bunny. Don't make this harder than it has to be." The voice was a rough purr, each word vibrating against the base of her skull.
She was half-dragged, half-carried backwards, into the middle of the room. Every instinct screamed at her to keep fighting, but she was held so tight her ribs hurt.
The hand over her mouth finally loosened enough for her to snarl, "Let go of me, you freak..." She thrashed again, knowing it was pointless but trying anyway.
"Stop squirming," the voice said, softer now. "You don't want to see what happens if you don't."
Red's chest heaved, both from panic and fury. She twisted her head enough to get a glimpse of her assailant's reflection in the glass of a framed painting. What she saw was a mass of dark hair, eyes like chips of obsidian, and a mouth that curled up at one corner, wolfish and mean. The face was almost beautiful in a way, but with an edge of danger and intensity.
He spun her around so fast she almost lost her balance, only to be yanked upright, toe to toe with the man who'd caught her. The hallway light poured over him. He was tall, with shoulders that blocked out the whole world behind him and arms thick as telephone poles. His hair was wild, black as soot, falling into his face and tangled like he'd never heard of a comb. His eyes, cold and depthless, gleamed with the cruel hunger of a predator. A straight, cruel mouth. He looked like something that ate pretty girls for breakfast, and smiled while doing it.
Red jerked against his grip, teeth bared, but his hand on her wrist only cinched tighter, the pressure agonizing and intimate. Her hands felt suddenly very small, her own strength a bad joke.
"Let go," she hissed, and the words came out more desperate than she meant. She glared up at him, refusing to be cowed, even as the panic swelled in her throat like bile. "What do you want? Who the fuck are you?"
He grinned, a flash of white in the dark. "Wolf," he said. "But you can call me whatever you want."
She spat, full force, aiming for his cheek. It landed on the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away with the back of one hand, laughing. "Feisty. I love that."
He wrenched both her wrists above her head, one-handed, and pinned them to the wall. His other hand hovered at her throat. "You should learn some manners, little bunny. You're in my house now."
"This is my grandmother's house, you psycho!" She kicked at him again, but this time he blocked her knee with a casual shift of his thigh.
"Not anymore." His voice was soft, almost pitying. "She's gone."
Her mind went blank for a heartbeat. "What...what did you do to her?" The words came out a whisper.
Wolf shrugged, grinning wickedly.
She clawed at his wrist, but he only used his other hand to grip her chin, forcing her mouth open. He held her there, immobilized, his fingers digging crescents into her skin.
"You're going to do exactly what I want," he said, each word dropping like a stone, "and maybe, just maybe, you'll get out of this alive."
