Little Red Riding Witch

021: Broken Compass

[Axel]

“You have no idea what you are talking about,” this elf, Evander, chuckles. He then laughs, deep and resonant like a large copper bell. “I am not an...elf.”

“LIAR!!” Conner howls, snapping his jaw, “We are not letting him near our mate! He smells disgusting!”

He did smell disgusting. All Fae do. Like a patchouli-covered pine tree f****d a fireplace--too much ashes and spice. His scent is burning my synapses. My lungs are closing up as I struggle to swallow air that isn't perfumed with his funk. If he isn’t an elf, he’s something close to it.

“Down boy,” I whisper under my breath to the both of us as I try my best to soothe my wolf, his shackles high. There is a playful gleam in this newcomer’s eyes that neither of us like, like this is all some sick game to him.

Taking a step forward, I block Rosalynd from sight. There's no way that I am going to let her leave with him. Nope. He's not pissing in my front yard. Maybe I can convince him to leave. With my fist. In his stupid smug face.

He’s interfering with wolf matters. She's mine.

“Do you know him?” Rosalynd pulls on my arm. “This is our new landlord, Evander. He was kind enough to take us both in after we were kicked out.”

“You can stay with me,” I insist. “No need to stay with…him.”

"What about Slone," she stomps her foot, pointing at her friend who is trying to ignore this while moving more boxes out onto the lawn to be packed up.

"I don't care! Bring her too," I throw my hands up in the air.

Rosalynd scoffs. “And how are we supposed to get to school? Neither of us has a reliable car and you live over an hour away!"

"Small problems" I shrug.

"For you, maybe!" she shouts at me, her face growing red.

"But you cannot trust him!" I shout. "I don't know him, personally, but I know plenty like him. He's fae!"

Rosalynd pulls away from me. "What exactly does that mean? 'like him'?"

I try to hold her hand but she yanks her arm away.

"What a, terribly judgemental, bigoted thing to say," she sounds disappointed. "I cannot believe you right now. You're judging someone you don't even know over some kind of ...bias!" Shaking her head in frustration she adds. "So what if he's whatever the heck you just called him. Elf?" She stops Slone for a moment. "Are elves even real?"

"Yup," the three of us answer, including fae-boy standing over yonder.

"Am I the only person here who didn't know?" Poor Rosalynd is looking at all of us expectantly, hoping that she is wrong.

"Sorry..." Slone offers weakly.

"Whatever," Rosalynd goes back to her original point, "Evander has never done anything to any of us. Besides," she adds. "It's not like I know you very well either." She points directly at me.

"I think we're getting to know each other very well," I insist, brushing my chest against her outstretched finger. She gasps, biting her bottom lip as I bring my mouth closer to her ear and whisper. "We even keep each other's secrets."

She pauses, creating a small space between us. "But we don't really know each other, do we?"

I reach forward to take her hands. "I am just trying to keep you safe."

She sighs, softening a bit as she places a hand on my cheek. "You cannot protect me from everything. If this is going to work between us, then you need to trust my judgment." She takes a step closer to Evander, pulling me with her. "And right now, my heart is telling me I can trust him. Do you trust me?" Her big, beautiful, grey eyes look expectantly at me, rooting for me to not give the wrong answer.

"Yes," is all I can reply because saying anything else would suggest that I didn't think she was smart enough or strong enough to make her own choices. That wouldn't be fair to her. It wouldn't be showing her the respect she deserves.

That would be a terrible way to start a new relationship. Especially with someone I hope to keep in my life.

"She's right," Conner admits, both of us feeling deflated and low. "She'll make an excellent Luna someday," he reflects proudly.

"I think you might be ahead of yourself a bit there, buddy," I argue.

"We'll see." he demures smugly.

Damn cocky wolf.

"I think you owe Evander an apology," Rosalynd insists.

"I don't..." I begin to stumble on my words.

"Don't worry about it!" Evander grins, annoyingly pleasant, overflowing with toxic positivity while his eyes shot daggers at me from over Rosalynd's head. "He might choke on a bone..."

A low growl begins to rumble in my chest as Slone remarks, "Bone? But we ate pizza for lunch."

"My mistake," the fae looked down at his fingers.

Rosalynd looks back and forth between the two of us.

"He knows," she mouths to me silently.

I nod. Of course, he knows I'm a wolf.

She hides her finger behind her palm as she points towards Slone.

I shake my head, then point to my nose. "Smell," I reply barely above a whisper. Her eyes go wide.

"Okay, now that we got that all settled," Evander claps. "Let's get this moving party going!" He then looks directly at me and asks, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name."

"Axel," I grunt.

"Great! Axel, can you be a good boy and fetch some of those boxes while I help the girls with the couch? I've got plenty of room in the van for most of their stuff. Your truck won't be necessary." He looks me up and down, dismissively.

"I'll take the larger boxes," I insist. "Your van looks..." I return his smug expression with a smirk of my own, "...small."

Rosalynd comes out and hugs me. "That's a great idea, Axel!" she beams. "Maybe we can take the first load up while they get the rest of the smaller boxes."

"You'll need this," he pulls a key from around his neck and hands it to Rosalynd. It doesn't look like a typical housekey, but something older. "Here's the skeleton key. It'll open all the doors you need to open."

"All the doors you need to open," I mock internally, "What the f**k is that supposed to mean?"

"Thank you," she gratefully takes the key, lifting the long chain over her head and securing the key down her blouse. I hate the idea of anything he has touched touching her. I try not to let my disgust show on my face.

I fail.

"What is it?" she asks as I lift the first box easily into the back of my truck.

"Nothing, I'm just..."

"Axel..." she prods.

"It's nothing, honest. I'm just... I don't know I'm just..."

She smirks, then kisses me on the cheek.

I continue to load boxes as I try not to watch Rosalynd getting to know her new roommate. Yeah, she told me AFTER I started helping that he wasn't just her landlord, he would also be staying in the house with them.

Awesome. Swell.

Determined to get away from him as quickly as possible, and get Rosalynd out of here for a romantic dinner date, I focus on loading the back of my truck as swiftly and efficiently as possible without alerting the neighbors that there wasn't one, but two supernatural beings assisting in a simple college student move. It took all my effort not to chuck their belongings from the front porch to the back of my truck, but if I started lifting heavy boxes and tossing them like they were made of feathers and air, someone would likely film it, blog, and watch it go viral.

Thankfully I'm alpha enough to control my impulses.

Mostly.

Evander hands Rosalynd a scrap of yellow paper and she hops up the stairs to the street level, the house having been carved into a hillside, had a sunken yard meaning that every box brought out had to be taken down two steps and then up another four.

It also meant I got to watch Rosalynd's unbound breasts bounce beautifully.

"Here's the address!" she hands the piece of paper to me.

"I've never heard of this street before," I look at this address dubiously. "Are you sure this place actually exists?"

"Just put it into your GPS. I've been there so I know it'll be fine."

"Do you know how to get there then?"

"Not exactly," she shrugs. "walked home through the forest that day, so I didn't get to see any street turns."

The address shows up on my phone's map but the destination seems wrong. "This can't be right," I question.

"Does it have directions?"

"Yes, but it has us ending in the middle of the community forest. There's no way you walked from there. It says it'll take us 45 minutes."

"Hmmm, strange," she grabs my phone. "I don't remember walking that far."

"Maybe you found a more direct route," I guess as I start the truck,"We'll just have to see where this takes us."

As we pull away from the house Evander waves at me, his eyes flashing briefly with a cold, green gleam.

"Try not to get lost," he calls out to us. I grip the wheel tightly.

I ignore him.

We pull onto the road and head to the freeway entrance. The directions then have us take a sharp right and lead us down a long, meandering road that takes us up the hillside. I've never been on this road before, and I've been driving around Arcata since I was 16. It continues for longer than I expect before my phone directs me to take a sudden left turn.

"WATCH OUT!!!" Rosalynd screams.

I stomp on the breaks just inches away from a tall stone wall.