Deliciously Deadly: a Red Riding Hood retelling

Chapter 14

Lottie's newfound fear about the Den and all these weeks of pent-up fury and frustration stirred up a storm that propelled her to her feet and stride right up to Cain.

"You left me." She jabbed his chest with an accusing finger. "You said you wouldn't leave me, then you"—jab—"left"—jab—"me," she ended with the sharpest jab yet.

"Lottie..." Cain's towering figure did not budge an inch from any of those jabs, yet his voice was strained and croaky, as if his throat had rusted from disuse.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, feeling assertive for the first time she could remember, and oh, how empowering it felt to finally speak her mind, to voice the unfairness levelled against her. "I don't know anyone. I don't know this place!"

Lottie waved her arms about to make her point, but Cain's gaze was pinned intently on hers, unmoving as he allowed her to release her torrent of bitter indignation.

"You brought me here while I was sick and left me. Just like that. Then you came back here all bloody, so bloody that I thought you were dead. And before you explained any of it, you left me again. And tonight... tonight..." Her voice cracked as she heard the wounded man's screams in her head and recalled the palpable fear that had consumed her. "I saw them drag a man... with his arm cut off, and there was blood again. So much blood..."

She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head as she attempted to dislodge the gruesome sight that had imprinted itself into her mind.

"Is that what you did, Cain?" Lottie removed her hands so she could look into his eyes and search them for honesty. "Is that why you were covered in blood?"

Cain remained still for a moment longer, his attention drawn to a droplet of water that fell from her wet hair, and followed its trail as it glided over the gentle curve of her breast, the ugly ribs visible beneath her skin, all the way down to her hips before he seemed to catch himself.

His eyes flicked back up to hers, and the fire in them made her cheeks burn, though she did not understand what it could mean. She should probably dress, but venting her distress was the priority, and he was interested in men, so it shouldn't matter, should it?

"I'm sorry, Lottie. I tried to listen. I really did," he said, earnestly and somewhat sheepishly. Then he went over to the wooden chest at the foot of the bed and fished out one of her linen dresses. "Here," he said, holding the dress out to her with his eyes averted.

Lottie didn't know what she'd expected from interrogating her husband while unclothed, but it certainly wasn't this: being asked to cover up because her body was too unsightly to behold. Head down in shame, she pulled the dress over her head, just in time to see the door swing open.

The newcomer sauntered into the room with a swagger, then paused, wrinkling her nose as if she sniffed the awkwardness in the air. "What's going on here?"

"I will... I will come back," Cain muttered before he sidestepped Dawn and made his escape from the room.

Dawn looked to the door, then Lottie, then back to the door, as if she couldn't quite decide whether to pursue Cain or suffocate in this room with Lottie. At last, she asked, eyeing the door again, "What was that?"

"He can't stand me," Lottie said sullenly.

"He what?"

Lottie shuffled over to the bed and sat down at its edge, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She did not know Dawn, not really. But in this moment, after weeks of being deprived of any real company, she couldn't help but let the dam burst.

"I know I'm ugly. I know he..." He likes men, she almost said, but she couldn't go around blurting out Cain's private secrets like that. "He doesn't feel the same way about me. I'm fine with it, I really am. But I just... I miss him. I miss when I got to see him every day."