Little Red's Riding

Ruined?

Dahlia hurried home, slipping upstairs quietly although she was quite certain that even if she had stomped her feet the entire way her mother wouldn't say a single word. It had long been part of both her mother and father's parenting policies to ignore any problems that they felt that Dahlia was having, hoping that the problems would go away if they concentrated on ignoring them hard enough. If that didn't work they turned to shaming her, throwing in vivid descriptions of her likely future being burned as a witch at the stake, here and there for good measure.

Dahlia locked her bedroom door before walking to the window and staring at the forest for a long moment. It was completely and utterly ordinary. "What did you expect to see?" she asked out loud. "His eyes staring back at you?"

Sighing, she flopped onto her bed. Her stomach ached, but she couldn't tell if it was because she had hardly eaten all day, or if it was still upset from Archer's unexpected kiss. The kiss, she reminded herself, wasn't entirely unexpected. It was just that she'd been so certain it was Silas, until the moment that she'd realized that it wasn't.

"And now he's ruined me for other men." she whispered the words out loud, bringing her fingertips up to touch her lips. If one kiss with someone as handsome as Archer Dubois caused her to get sick to her stomach after a single night of running through the forest when nothing had really even happened with this wolf-man, who claimed to be her mate, then unless something drastically changed, she was effectively ruined for all other men.

Grabbing the red ribbon she had used to tie up her hair, she let it cascade down around her shoulders, before she sat up to remove her stockings.

A knock on the door caused her to freeze, as she remembered her sister's words. There was only one person who it could be. Her mother was the only other person in the house. Had Dahlia's earlier questions tipped her off that something was going on? Would they lead to an interrogation? Or worse. Would she send Dahlia's father to visit her grandmother to find out why she was acting oddly and asking all the wrong questions.

"Come in." Dahlia called, trying to force her voice to sound as normal as she possibly could.

The door opened slowly, and standing there, much to her surprise, was Archer Dubois. He ducked his handsome golden head to fit under the frame of the door and glanced around her room wide eyed as if he couldn't believe his luck in being allowed into her most private sanctuary.

"Archer," she gasped, curling her legs up under her body. While still fully clothes she felt quite exposed having a man in her room. "How did you get up here?"

He rolled his eyes at her question as he walked over and looked out the window before coming to sit on the edge of the far side of her bed.

"I came to see you and your mother sent me up. She said she'd heard you come in a little bit ago and that it would be fine if I was to come up to check on you, and if we were to have our visit up here. I told her that you'd seemed ill when I saw you in town a little while ago and that I only wanted to make sure that you were alright." He tugged at the blue flannel of his sleeves nervously as he met her eyes.

"That was nice of you Archer. As you can see I made it home fine. I was just about to lay down to rest." Reaching over Dahlia grabbed the quilt that lay at the end of the bed and pulled it across her legs, suddenly feeling as if she should cover herself.

What is happening to me, she thought, passing her hand quickly across her forehead, as the change in her behavior came as a shock even to Dahlia. She was acting exactly as her mother had always wished she would. The only problem was that the focus of her attention was on someone who apparently her family would never accept.