Page 11 of Little Red and Her Creatures of Chaos
Radley comes into the living room dressed in an oversized shirt and shorts. Her red hair is piled into a messy bun on top of her head. She sits in the chair across from us and tucks her legs under her.
“Doing some light reading?” Nash asks, gesturing to the coffee table. I didn’t even notice the stacks of books sitting there until now. My mind is only on Radley.
“Can I just be honest here?” Radley asks and sits forward in the chair. We all nod, and she starts chewing her bottom lip, something I’ve noticed that she does when she’s nervous. “I’m just now finding out things I always thought I imagined are real. I’ve had vivid dreams for as long as I can remember. My parents tried to fix me by taking me to psychologists, saying I had anoveractive imagination and I couldn’t tell reality from fiction. My grandma is the only one who’s ever been honest with me. These dreams…aren’t dreams, are they?”
Mason regards her slowly, making sure she’s ready for this. He finally nods and sits back on the couch. “They aren’t dreams.”
“And you guys aren’t…” she buries her face in her hands. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this. But you guys aren’t entirely human, are you?”
“Radley,” Mason says softly, waiting for her to lift her face. When she does, I can see how warily she’s watching him. “Ask the question you want to ask.”
“Can you turn into wolves?” she blurts.
“Yes,” Mason answers.
Radley wraps her arms around her waist. “Wow. Okay.”
“I know this is a lot to take in,” I say, sitting on the edge of the couch. I want to reach out to her so badly, but Mason’s wolf growls in my mind, and I know he’s right. I can’t risk freaking her out. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve read about?”
“I don’t even know where to start. Wolves, bonds, mates, born, bitten, late developers. You name it. I feel like it’s a big jumble in my head right now.”
“Do you want all the answers to those, or do you want to ask us questions?” Nash asks, and something about his deep voice makes her shiver.
“I think I’d rather ask questions,” she says quietly. “The night in the woods, at my grandma’s cabin, you guys were there?”
“We were,” Mason answers. “We thought you might be ready because you’ve never manifested yourself that way. We were wrong. I apologize if we scared you.”
“What do you mean by manifest?”
Mason clears his throat and leans forward to brace his arms on his legs. “Before, when we’d seen you in these dreams, youwere just an image. Like we would only get flashes of you, but that night, you came to us.”
Radley’s face turns deep red, and she groans. “Oh my God. So, last night…?”
“Was real,” I answer.
“Holy shit. I’m so sorry. I never should have been there! I should have left or whatever?—”
“Radley,” Nash cuts into her rambling. “It’s fine. We knew you were there. We could have stopped.”
“Why didn’t you?” she whispers.
“Because we wanted you there,” Mason says, his voice getting a little raspier, showing how this is affecting him.
“We could smell you,” I blurt and try not to cower when Mason gives me another warning growl.
“What?” Radley squeaks.
“Your scent is unique to us,” Nash explains, but his wolf isn’t any happier with me. “Even in human form, our senses are magnified.” Radley’s eyes widen, and I can sense her discomfort.
“We don’t want to overwhelm you, so why don’t you sleep on the information you have tonight? We can meet back up tomorrow,” Mason suggests.
Radley nods and then looks at the three of us. “I’ve seen you guys for a really long time.”
“Since you were eight,” Nash responds. “It’s the same time we started seeing you.”
“Why then?”
“It’s when we formed our pack,” I say.
