She caught the guilty flash in my eyes before I was able to turn away.
My mother preened her cloak. “As I said, we are what we are. A hood’s nature is to destroy a wolf, not seduce one. Ask yourself, why hadn’t you slept with him? It’s because, in your soul, you are repulsed by the idea. Stop trying to reclaim the shame of your forefathers. Take your fire, and your rightful place at my side as the Grand Matron-in-training.”
If I breathed deeply enough, I could taste how the magic scented the air, how it called to me to accept it in to my body. My mother was right about that much: this is what I was by birth. The power, the magic, the ability to run in time with werewolves, command silver to do my bidding, even fly if I was one of the lucky few gifted with the ability, was there for me to claim. All it would take would be my submission, and the elders of my clan calling on the ancient power that would grant me my own hood and imbue my body with the strength of my ancestors. In time, my ability, the respect and fear among both hood and wolves would equal that of my mother, maybe even surpass it.
I could think of no more horrid a fate.
“No.”
“No?” Brünhild faltered. “What do you mean, no?”
I backed toward the door. “I would have refused to kill a man whose only supposed crime was loving me. I refuse to twist the hearts and minds of good wolves to further my political standing. I refuse to be like you. I am nothing like you.”
“Oh, aren’t you?” With her power, she beckoned a silver plate sitting on the fireplace. It sailed through the air, simultaneously morphing, reforming itself through my mother’s unspoken command. When it hit her hand, what had been a simple round disc took on the form of a short sword. My mother held it up, the tip angled at my chest. “Which of us carries the greater shame from what you’ve done? You accuse me of being horrendous for simply getting your wolf to follow through on his instincts, while you spent two years drawing him away from his nature to get away from yours. Ask yourself, did you ever really love him, or did you just love the idea of doing something to piss me off?”
Even I couldn’t deny that had been part of Cody’s appeal in the beginning, but it had quickly grown into so much more than that.
“I was ready to be his wife.”
“You were ready to be his doom. A hood and a wolf can never be together. Never. Our instincts to destroy each other are too great. Marrying Cody would only have set one or both of you up for an early death.”
“At whose hands, mother? Mine, or yours?”
“They are the same hands.” She raised her sword between us, the blade tip just inches from my heart. “Now, listen to me and listen well, daughter. I have tolerated your childishness and hesitance long enough. We are going downstairs now, and your aunts and I will summon the fire so that I can bestow your rites on you. You will pass through the flames. If you do not, I will gather our clan and destroy not only your precious Cody, but the entire Paradise clan.”
The knob turned in my hand as my head lowered, eyes cast to the floor. “Yes, Matron. I will prepare for the ritual immediately.”
I knew an empty threat when I heard one. Part of the reason that my mother held such a lofty position in our society was that her actions were firmly rooted in reason. Reasoned actions delivered with a silver-plated fist, perhaps, but she knew how hard she could press her position and when to pull back.
The ultimatum had not been given by Brünhild the Grand Matron. It was by Brünhild, the mother who felt she had no other options.
She might be right when it came to Cody; the community would probably back her slaying him if we actually had been together. But the whole pack? I knew there was no reason even she could conjure that would demand such retaliation, especially given that Cody was now mated to one of his own kind.
The werewolf threat had been neutralized. The threat from within – me, the rebellious hood – remained. I wasn’t safe here anymore.
X
An old duffle bag became my impromptu suitcase. I wouldn’t need much from here; I’d spent the last three months serendipitously gathering what I would need when I moved to Chicago and putting it in a storage locker Rick owned. Earlier in the week, I’d even drained my bank account – a bank account my mother didn’t know existed – in preparation for leaving. The plan had been to skip town three days past full moon, after feuernacht, when the pull of my instincts would be on the downslide. And coincidently, two days before fall classes at the University of Southwest Chicago started.
Waiting wasn’t an option anymore. I had to go, and go now, before the aunts came to escort me to the ceremony.
I had just zipped up the duffle when a knock turned me into ice. I stuffed the bag under my blankets, hiding the bulge with my body just as the door opened and my father walked in.
“Your mother said that you’ve finally agreed to the ritual. I came to see if–”
The pride in my father’s eyes, shining as bright, died when he saw me. I saw then that he’d donned his own yellow hood, giving him away as a hood from the Casa de Amarillo. I’d always found it curious that for all my mother’s arrogance about the House of Red, she’d married a man from a different clan. Shame wrinkled the edges of my resolve. In the closet, my formal feuernacht gown hung untouched. He took one more look at me, then at it, then me again.
He took the dress down, carried it over to me before gently attempting to hand the garment over. “Quickly. Your aunts are already building the fire.”
I may have summoned the guts to lie to my mother, but I didn’t hold enough animosity for my father to repeat the deception.
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” His brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand. What’s going on? What happened?”
“Did you know?” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, afraid what I might see. “About what she was going to do to Cody?”
My father’s brow wrinkled. True concern shown in his features. “What happened to Cody?”
“Ask your wife, it’s an engaging story.” I peeled back the blankets, grabbed my bag, and flung it over my shoulder. “I’ll be in Chicago; I’m not sure where. I’ll call when I figure things out, but don’t expect me to come here again.”
“Chicago? Cariño, you can’t be serious. You’re a hood. How will you survive in such a big city, and with nothing but your innate abilities?”
“I guess the way everyone else does. Like a human.”
POSTLUDE
Pietro Kline observed his wife’s hooded silhouette against the massive, riving bonfire. He’d known a number of bloodline matrons in his life, first in his own clan in his native Argentina, then others as he migrated north when circumstances forced him from his homeland. When he’d caught a red hood’s eye, one in line to lead her clan, it had been a shock, not only to himself, but to his mother and father as well. Yellow hoods had a reputation of being gentler with the wolves under their command, of preferring negotiation and diplomacy to solve problems and only resorting to the hunt when all other routes had been exhausted. The reds...
No other bloodline’s cloak better matched their nature.
Their daughter had always embraced the extremes of their contradictory natures. He’d anticipated high expectations for any offspring wrought of their union... But how high sometimes took him aback. Pietro walked a fine line, between being his child’s champion, being his wife’s partner, and being the matron’s second.
Brünhild glanced back momentarily over her shoulder, before returning her eyes and her concentration to the fire. “When will she be down?”
He side-eyed the nearby members of the clan gathered to observe the sacred rites, and stepped closer, leaning in over his wife’s shoulder from behind. “Never.”
Each of Brünhild’s knuckles popped in sequence, but her voice remained a smooth plateau of emotion. “She’s running.”
“What did you think would happen if you backed her into a corner? You know who—and what—she is.” Pietro heard the chastisement
creep into his voice and aimed to soften it. “Our daughter hasn’t changed. She’s as unwavering and as unmovable as you. You won’t hear from her again, Brünhild. Not until she decides it’s time.”
Brünhild clicked her tongue. “She can run from us, but she cannot run from her nature. It’s welling up inside her, Pietro. I feel it. She feels it. Her destiny is calling to her, and its voice is getting louder. She will come to the fire soon enough. And if she does not, the fire will come for her.”
Follow Geri's attempts to live the life human in Red Hood Chronicles - Book One: Reluctant Hood
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ABOUT KENDRAI MEEKS
Kendrai Meeks was deported from the American Midwest after graduating college, and held against her will since in California. She really hates sarcasm. She first published in 2011, and has since put out books in romance and science fiction. In 2017, she decided to return to her first love, urban fantasy. She is the founder of the Bay Area Allied Indie Authors group. She has also been a featured speaker on a number of conference and industry panels on topics ranging from Fanfiction, to Audiobooks, to Serialized Fiction. She is a world music devotee and loves to travel (just hates to fly – a conflict, for certain). She enjoys twisting the extant into the exceptional, often basing her work on historical themes or legendary folk tales and mythology.
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REQUITED HOOD has gone through several layers of editing. If you found a typographical, grammatical, or other error which impacted your enjoyment of the book, we offer our apologies and ask that you let us know so we can fix it for future readers. To do so, click here. In appreciation, you will be entered into a monthly drawing for a $10 gift card.
© 2017, 2019 TULIPE NOIRE Press
Kendrai Meeks
Requited Hood
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any license permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Published by: Kendrai Meeks
Text Design by: The Last TK, with compliments to the resources made available from Draft2Digital.
Cover Design by: The Last TK
Edited by: Rebecca Hodgkins
Also by Kendrai Meeks
Red Hood Chronicles
Reluctant Hood
Relinquished Hood
Ravening Hood
Rebellious Hood
Red Hood Origins
Beauty & the Betrayer
Coming Spring 2019: The Wolf & the Watcher
The Cinderella Matrix
Court of Discontent
City of Cinders
Like romantic reads?
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Book 3: Hex Goddess
Book 4: When Spell Freezes Over
Requited Hood Page 4
