Scarlet Disaster by Colette Rhodes

Chapter 15

“Nate,” Gabriel sighed as Lou’s door shut with a resounding click. “You need to tell us, what is going on with the beautiful woman staying in our house who you are both intrigued by and terrified of?”

“The one who fucking despises you,” I added, just in case there was any confusion.

“My house,” Nate grumbled, subtly reiterating to Gabriel that we weren’t a pack before he started having those delusional ideas again. “Nothing is going on. I’m not terrified of her,” he added, giving Gabriel a surly look, but not bothering to contradict me since we all knew I was right.

“Why is she staying here?” Gabriel asked patiently.

“You know why,” Nate shot back, giving him an affronted look. “You were there last night. You heard that guy. You fought him.”

“He’s a powerful as fuck Alpha,” I agreed. My muscles had been aching all day, and I’d bet Nate’s ribs were still smarting. “No one is disputing that. But pretending to be in a relationship with her? That’s pretty extreme.”

Nate scrubbed a hand over his face, his usually clean shaven jaw dotted with dark stubble. We were all exhausted after running patrols between here and Lou’s place all night. Nate had stayed at the house with her, but I knew he hadn’t slept. When Gabriel and I finally came home around six am after hunting our breakfast, we found Nate pacing back and forth in front of the cabin, clutching his aching side, looking slightly deranged.

Frank had left right away, but his packmates had hung around just to antagonize us. Mostly by pissing all over Lou’s property. I had no idea how Gabriel had survived there this morning, it reeked.

“I wasn’t going to contradict her when she told Frank that I was her boyfriend,” Nate replied wearily, repeating the same line he’d given us in the car after we’d left the bar last night. He hesitated for a moment, but finally elaborated. “It would have been a dick move, and covering for her was the least I could do after… anyway... I just thought if I could convince him that she’d chosen me, he’d take it as an insult and leave.”

“Because you’re weaker than him?” I asked. Nate snarled reflexively, his eyes glowing as his cougar rose to the insult.

“Stop irritating him, Brooks,” Gabriel muttered, massaging his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. “I see your logic, Nate, but there were easier ways, you know that. Frank won’t believe she’s chosen you unless there’s a mating mark. Anything short of that is practically an invitation.”

Nate grunted, digging out a beer from the fridge before slamming it shut and slumping back against it.

“You like her. You feel protective over her,” Gabriel pressed. I started feeling a little sorry for Nate—I’d been on the receiving end of one of Gabriel’s talks where he pushed me to talk about my feelings, and it was the absolute worst. “I feel protective over her too.”

Nate full on growled, muscles rippling like his shift was imminent, and I darted towards the hallway to make sure Lou didn’t come out to investigate the fucking lawnmower sound that had started up in our kitchen.

It totally wasn’t as impressive as my growl. How could Lou possibly say she was a cat person? I bet she’d be a dog person if she heard my growl.

“Shush,” I chided Nate, looking between him and the still closed door at the end of the hallway. “They were literally on a date last night. He suggested she date all of us. Don’t act surprised that Gabriel is into her.”

It probably wasn’t the best time to mention that I liked Lou as well. She’d agreed to be friends and I totally respected that, but if she was open to Gabriel’s idea, then I wasn’t going to object. We were only here for a few more weeks anyway, it couldn’t go anywhere.

Even knowing that, I was surprised at how protective I felt about Lou, and how willing I’d been to jump into the fray last night. It was probably just because I hated wolf packs. I didn’t need to read any further into it than that.

“I can’t stop you, and I wouldn’t ever let it come between our friendship, but it’s not a good idea for you to get involved with her,” Nate gritted out, his voice a little too rough to be completely human.

“For mysterious reasons you’re not going to explain to us?” I deadpanned.

“Lou said she didn’t want to talk about it,” Nate snapped. “All you need to know is that there’s something about her that tests my control. I’m worried she’ll test your control too.”

“And you’re jealous,” I snorted. Nate downed his beer in one go, giving me a death glare the whole time. “That sounded like approval to me though,” I added with a shrug.

Not that it really mattered. It was Lou’s approval we needed.

“Tests your control…” Gabriel mused, mulling over the words.

“I’m done here. I need to run,” Nate grunted. “My brother is going to meet me at Lou’s house so he can catch their scents.”

He slipped out of the kitchen as silent as a shadow and I had no doubt we wouldn’t see him again for hours. Maybe even a couple of days. For all his ‘it’s a bad idea to date her’ talk, he trusted us to look after Lou while he self-flagellated and undoubtedly chased Frank around town on his own.

Gabriel moved around the kitchen, gathering up the ingredients Lou had pulled out for dinner like he was going to pick up where she left off.

“You’re going to give us all food poisoning,” I chuckled, grabbing us beers from the fridge since Nate rudely hadn’t offered us any.

“Shut up,” Gabriel murmured, examining the fish. “How hard can it be? Though maybe… maybe not fish. I don’t know how to cook fish.”

“You don’t know how to cook anything,” I countered. He could grill, but this rental didn’t have a grill and I’d never seen him cook anything in a pan.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d attempted eggs once, but we had to throw the pan away afterwards.

Gabriel hunted through the fridge, shoving the fish back in and emerging triumphantly with a pack of steaks in his hand. “Steak, I can do. Maybe if I make them smell good enough, I can entice Lou out of the bedroom, because I’m not sure she’ll be coming out otherwise.”

I grimaced in agreement. She’d been furious when she walked out, and it was a testament to her inner strength that Nate’s cougar hadn’t risen up when she’d snapped at him like he was a naughty kid. Unless Nate had done something that both the man and the animal were ashamed of…

“What do you think Nate meant about testing his control?” I asked Gabriel, sitting down at the dining table. I wasn’t even going to pretend to help him. If it couldn’t be microwaved, I wasn’t interested.

Gabriel glanced back at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. “My guess is that his cougar made himself known somehow, or tried to. Which is… unusual, since Nate has excellent control.”

“Do you think it’s something we need to worry about?”

Gabriel shrugged, but the movement wasn’t as relaxed as he thought it was. “My jaguar is aggravated that there is a threat to her, but I’m not concerned that I’ll shift in front of her or anything. Are you?”

I gave the question some serious thought, because my wolf and I weren’t as in sync as Nate was with his cougar or Gabriel with his jaguar. I’d spent years resenting my wolf side because it was why I’d grown up in a pack, and the pack was the cause of all my worst memories. As a kid, I’d wanted nothing more than to be human.

My wolf didn’t seem to get agitated when I was around Lou though. Just curious, if anything. It was more of a reaction than he gave most human women, but nothing to get alarmed about.

“No, I don’t think it’s an issue,” I said eventually.

“Then I vote we get to know Lou if she’s open to it and see what happens,” Gabriel replied easily before wincing. “If we can convince her to speak to us ever again.”

* * *

While Gabriel was inside, trying to sweet talk Lou into joining us for dinner to no avail—probably because his steaks smelled like crisp-yet-rubbery garbage—I decided to take a walk around the outskirts of the cabin to check for any unusual scents and try to call my sister again.

I wasn’t surprised that Bea hadn’t been picking up. She was a decade younger than me—just a kid when I’d left the pack—and was a Gold Star Pack Member who valued all the things that I despised. We couldn’t be more opposite.

She’d for sure know who Frank Ashford was. She’d probably already looked into him as potential mate material.

Brooks:

Call me back, baby sis.

I knew I’d get a response from her after that. Bea couldn’t stand any implication that she was lesser in any way, even if just in years we’d both been on the planet. It was a little absurd, but that kind of thinking was a hallmark of pack life and exactly why I’d left.

My phone rang and I immediately answered it with a grin, even though she couldn’t see my face. “Bea!”

“Brooks,” she replied flatly. “I assume you want something.”

“Couldn’t I just be checking in with my favorite little sister?” I teased.

“You never have before.” Ouch. I always called on her birthday and holidays. It was more contact than I had with anyone else in my family.

“Harsh. Okay, fine. I did have a question for you. Does the name ‘Frank Ashford’ mean anything to you?”

Bea scoffed. “Obviously. Everyone knows who he is. Even you, apparently. Why?”

“A, uh, friend of mine has caught his attention. Just a regular girl, you know?”

I did not take chances talking about shifters on the phone. What if the Government was listening? I traveled too much to be on a watchlist.

“Big yikes,” Bea breathed, sounding more animated than I’d ever heard her. “That’s not great, Brooks. Not unusual for Frank, but not great for your friend.”

“Why?” I demanded, stopping my pacing. “What do you mean by not unusual?”

“Frank keeps a bunch of regular girls. A harem of sorts, except I’m not sure they all know about each other. It’s a strongman thing, you know? He thinks it impresses people.” Bea made a noise of disgust. “One of his own was kicked out of New York and joined us in Colorado. He was more than happy to spill the beans on his old… boss.”

“So, Frank what, takes these women?” I asked, my brain running through a hundred human trafficking scenarios, imagining Red with terrified eyes and duct tape over her mouth.

“No,” Bea replied slowly. “He doesn’t need to, you know? He’s a rich guy and he finds plenty of willing participants, though he often looks for women who are already vulnerable. It’s all part of the power trip for him.”

“But?”

There was a long pause, and I forced myself to be patient, waiting for Bea’s response.

“Look, he may collect them or whatever, but he in no way thinks of regular girls as equal to himself. He’s not great at taking no for an answer, because he doesn’t believe they’re worthy of saying no to him, if that makes sense. Everything has to happen on his terms, in his timing.”

Not good. Definitely not good.

“Even his wife is a regular girl—some wealthy heiress he’s sucked the life out of over the years—but he won’t have kids with her because, you know.”

Because the kids might not be able to shift. The perks of being a dude, I guess. He could just go mate with and knock up some 20-year-old wolf shifter when he was 70, with wrinkly but still functional balls.

“You’re not involved with this, are you?” Bea asked, sounding unusually worried about me.

“Define involved.”

“Brooks, seriously. Frank Ashford is no joke. Especially with others like him. Like us. Don’t get on his bad side, okay? Is some girl really worth it?”

I thought of Lou cooped up in some fancy glass cage in the city, her wings clipped so she could be just another pretty toy in that psycho’s collection, and had to physically stop myself from shifting.

My wolf wouldn’t stand for it. I wouldn’t stand for it.

“She’s worth it,’ I said firmly. Here was me, thinking that I was the Big Bad Wolf to her Little Red Riding Hood, but it turned out there was a real Big Bad Wolf on her trail, and there was nothing cute or funny about it.

“Idiot,” Bea replied affectionately. “Let me know if you’re going to make a move. Maybe I’ll make a play to be the new Wolf of Wall Street.”

She hung up and I chuckled to myself, half wondering if my sister was actually crazy enough to try to become Alpha of the New York pack.

Probably.

I pulled out my phone, messaging the group chat with Nate and Gabriel so they knew more about Frank’s motives. Nate was my brother from another mother, and I’d have his back through anything, but faking a relationship with Lou to get Frank off her back had been like throwing chum at a shark.

And we couldn’t even tell her why.

* * *

I woke up snuggled up to Gabriel, which wasn’t all that surprising because he was warm and comfortable, if not a little more muscular and hairy than I preferred my bed partners.

“Get off, irmão,” he grunted, shoving me into the wall that the double bed was pushed up against.

“You need to work on your pillow talk,” I laughed, sitting up and climbing out the end of the bed, deliberately pulling all the blankets off with me.

“Brooks,” Gabriel snapped, hauling them back up before rolling onto his side again. “Fuck off and let me sleep.”

Gabriel seemed all suave and cool on the outside, but on the inside he was a surly teenager when the sun came up each morning. I grabbed some clean clothes, not making much of an attempt to be quiet, before heading out of the room to go shower. I’d been so busy annoying Gabriel that I hadn’t heard Lou moving around, and we both startled when she emerged from the bathroom in dark pink yoga pants and an oversized gray sweater, her damp red hair sticking to her face.

I’d barely seen her in days. Well, two days. She moved through the house like a ghost. Though after Gabriel’s sad attempt at steak and vegetables, she’d snuck into the kitchen yesterday while Gabriel and I were running in our fur outside and made turkey chilli for all of us, which made me feel extra shitty.

If it weren’t for the fact that she’d posted maybe the sexiest pic I’d ever seen—because I’d obviously followed her account straight away—I’d be seriously worried. As it was, I’d been fighting the urge to hunt Nate down, wherever he was, and show him the boudoir-style photos Lou was taking on his bed, just to see what his reaction would be.

“Hey Red,” I said cheerfully, leaning against the wall at the end of the hallway so I didn’t crowd her.

“Brooks,” she drawled, mimicking my posture.

“Have you been avoiding us?” I teased, already knowing the answer. Since when did beautiful women not want to hang out with me? Never! I was kryptonite to beautiful women.

“I have absolutely been avoiding you,” Lou replied, raising an eyebrow at me.

Argh. Besides the fact that I wanted to get in her pants more than I’d ever wanted to get into anyone else’s, she was cool as hell, and funny on the rare occasions she’d deigned to speak to me.

“Cool, no hard feelings. What are we doing today?” I asked.

I was determined. I was going to hang out with her today. I’d taken roughly a million photos recently and edited the ones Gabriel liked the best to accompany the articles that he was working on. The photos he wasn’t using I would edit and sell, but I could take a few hours off for a beautiful, intriguing woman. If she’d have me.

“We?” she asked drily.

“We,” I agreed. “See, there’s this ridiculously beautiful woman who kicked me out of my room—”

“I did not!” she gasped.

“—and now I have to snuggle Gabriel all night. And this woman is funny and sarcastic and interesting, and totally impervious to my charms, which is honestly unheard of—”

“Mm, poor you,” Lou said with mock sympathy.

“—and today is the day all of that changes, and I prove to her what an exceptionally excellent person I am,” I finished with a bow. “After all, we’re friends, are we not?”

“Friends,” Lou deadpanned, trying to hide her smile. “I’m sure that’s all you want.”

“Red, you wound me,” I accused, clasping my chest. “All the greatest love stories start from friendships.”

“First of all,” Lou began, holding up a finger and giving me an appraising look. “This is not a love story. Second of all,” she continued, holding up another finger. “That’s not even true. Romeo and Juliet weren’t friends. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy weren’t friends. Antony and Cleopatra weren’t friends.”

She paused for a moment, frowning to herself. “Actually, all the greatest love stories started out as enemies.”

“Damn it, you’re going to fall in love with Nate then, aren’t you?” I teased, enjoying the way she flushed as red as her hair.

“Absolutely not,” she replied, shaking her head. “Like… never. No, just no.”

Curious. I was assuming whatever had gone wrong between them had involved sex, and usually Nate’s partners had no complaints. He’d said she tested his control, but that could mean anything. Did he get a little too excited? Didn’t get her over the finish line? Butt stuff on the first date? Options. So many options.

“The more you protest, the less I believe you,” I laughed. “So, anyway. What are we doing today?”

Lou sighed. “I had all these ambitious plans for remodeling my house, but all the weirdness with Frank has put me off. Now I just kind of want to get it sold. I was going to head over there today and clear out the kitchen cupboards, get rid of shit and be done with it. You know?”

Not specifically, home ownership had never been something that particularly interested me. But I definitely understood the desire to just pack up and leave.

“Hell yes, Red. Let’s go.”

* * *

We grabbed coffee on the way to Lou’s place and I kept an easy smile on my face even as we approached her house and my wolf started getting agitated from the lingering smell of foreign wolf piss. Even now that had faded, I could scent the other shifters who’d been stopping by to keep an eye on things, and their scents so close to Lou’s home bothered me too.

“Nothing weird has happened since the other night,” Lou announced, parking in her garage and climbing out of the driver’s side. “I really think I should just stay at my house now. It’s kind of weird to crash with you guys, you know?”

“I strongly disagree,” I told her, hoping the grin would throw her off, because I really didn’t like that idea. “Besides, you’ve fed us now. Chilli. It was glorious. We can never let you leave.”

“I’m going to teach you to cook,” Lou scoffed, leading me into the house. “You should really be ashamed of yourself.”

“Not even a little,” I chuckled. “In fairness, a lot of the time we’re not staying in places with decent cooking facilities. And when the local food is so good, it seems ridiculous to stay in and make ramen.”

Also, when we were lazy we just shifted into our fur and dined al fresco.

I followed her through the house, impressed at the work she’d put in already in painting the entryway and living room. Had she seriously planned on staying here throughout? My sensitive nose burned from the smell of drying paint, and I almost sighed in gratitude when she opened some windows to air the place out.

“Where was your favorite place to visit for the food?” Lou asked, leading me into the galley kitchen and standing with her hands on her hips, looking up at the cupboards like she could just will the job to be done with her eyes.

I frowned to myself, considering my answer. I liked all food. That would be like asking someone to choose which of their children they liked best. I assumed. I didn’t know shit about kids, but maybe people had favorites.

Actually, my parents definitely had a favorite. Bad metaphor.

“You look like I just asked you to solve an impossible riddle,” Lou laughed, leaving the room and returning with a dining chair to stand on so she could reach the top cupboards.

“Hey, that was a hard question,” I replied defensively. “I love all food everywhere. I remember on my first trip to France, I got some bread and cheese at a gas station for lunch and it was the best bread and cheese I’d ever had in my life. France doesn’t fuck around with good food. That was kind of a game changer.”

Lou smiled a little wistfully as she began emptying the cupboards, handing me things to put on the counter. God, when she smiled it was like seeing the sun after being in the dark for too long. It was soft and radiant and I wanted more of it.

“France is definitely on my list,” Lou told me, a longing note to her voice. I’d teased her about going to Phuket together when we both left Fairbanks, but I was suddenly struck by this urgent need to make that a reality. I wanted to see the look on her face when she finally got to see the places that she’d been dreaming about in person. To hear the excitement in her voice and remember what it was like to feel that rush of experiencing something new. That pinch yourself moment when you question if you’re really here and is this real life and how the fuck did you ever get lucky enough to experience this?

“Anyway, Brooks. Tell me more about yourself,” Lou said, breaking me out of my fantastical daydream as she stretched on her tippy toes to reach the items on the top shelf. Huh. Sometimes Lou did this voice—I couldn’t explain it. It was a combination of phone sex operator and customer service representative. Considering her usual voice was sort of dry and vaguely unimpressed with everything, I found it a little unsettling.

“What do you want to know?” Please ask me about my rippling muscles and not my childhood.

“Where are you from?” she asked. Okay. Easy enough.

“Originally? Colorado. I left when I was a teenager, never been back.” She definitely could have asked some follow-up questions, but she just nodded like my answer was totally normal as she handed me an ugly lime green platter.

“And obviously you travel a lot.”

“I do,” I replied with a grin. “Gabriel and I are almost always together for work. We’re freelancers, but we collaborate a lot. Nate pretends he can stay away, but he can’t.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” Lou gave me an indecipherable look, pursing her lips like she was struggling not to say something and I grinned at her.

“Spit it out, Red.”

“Okay, fine,” she sighed like I was being totally unreasonable. “You asked for it. Do you guys fuck each other?”

I choked on my own spit. Fuck me, no wonder this woman wasn’t falling for my charms. I had no charms around her.

“Ah, no. I mean, I get why you’d think that, but we are all strictly Team Pussy.” Why was I so un-suave right now? “Which brings us back to your little revelation from the other night.”

Lou went as still as a statue, pausing halfway to handing me a floral-printed gravy boat that I would bet money she’d never used. “Did I make any revelations about my pussy?” she asked, genuinely thoughtful.

This woman would be the death of me. I might give anything to hear Lou talking about her pussy in a sexy way. While naked. Specifically in relation to my cock and how awesome it was making said pussy feel.

Concentrate.

“I was referring to your admission that you’re more of a cat person than a dog person. But if you want to talk about your pussy, I’m a very good listener.” I winked and she gave me a withering look.

“I’ve talked about my pussy enough to last several lifetimes,” she said drily, taking me off-guard. “Though I’m sure Nate told you all about that.”

“No,” I replied slowly, sensing I was on dangerous ground. “Nate would never kiss and tell.”

“Interesting. He’s marginally less of an asshole than I previously thought then.”

I frowned to myself as I stacked up serving platters. Nate was one of the best guys I knew, but I wasn’t about to argue with Lou—she obviously had her reasons for feeling the way she did, but it was weird that she still disliked him so much after Nate had moved her in to keep her safe from her ex. He must have really pissed her off.

“So, your ex hasn’t messaged you at all since he’s been in town?” I asked casually.

Lou scoffed. “He messaged me on Instagram, but I blocked him, and I blocked his number before he even got here. And he’s not really my ex.”

“Oh?” I asked, not at all about to explode into my fur with jealousy and rub myself all over Lou and everything she owned.

“It was an… arrangement.” She waved her hand absently, like the unpleasant memory was a fly that she was swatting away.

“Like a fuck buddy arrangement?” I asked, taking a sudden interest in the formica countertop. Why was I asking this? Did I actually want this knowledge? No. No, I did not.

“Like a he-paid-me arrangement,” Lou said, twisting to properly see me, an assessing look on her face, like she was waiting for me to be disgusted or something. She stared at me and I stared back, lips twitching.

Honestly, it was pretty impressive that she was staring me down, being a human and all. Lou was a ballsy little thing.

“I mean, I’m jealous,” I said eventually. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I’m also jealous about whatever you had with Nate and that you called Gabriel for a date, not me.”

Lou’s eyes narrowed like she didn’t believe me. “Usually I just did stuff on camera, by myself. Frank I made an in-person exception for, which obviously worked out swell for me.”

The idea of Lou getting herself all worked up, pleasuring herself, and knowing exactly what got her motor running, was a massive fucking turn on. Fortunately I was wearing a loose hoodie that was long enough to disguise any evidence of my feelings, because I didn’t want her to think I was a total fucking creep.

“I was a sex worker,” Lou reiterated, like I hadn’t understood. There was a defensiveness to her tone that I hated. I didn’t want her to feel like I was going to be an asshole about it.

“Alright.” I shrugged. “I follow Gabriel around, taking photos of stuff. It’s just my job, not who I am. Same for you, right?”

I mean, photography was a little harder than that, but I was aiming for a pep talk.

Shit, I really hoped her beef with Nate wasn’t to do with this. Had he found out and said something dickish about it? That didn’t seem like him, he was generally pretty good at not pissing people off. Out of the three of us, he was the only one who actually required a decent amount of social skills for work.

“You’re alright, Brooks. Did you know that?” Lou said with a small smile, eyes softening slightly. It was a rare hint of vulnerability, and she shut it down instantly. “Now help me clean my house.”