Castiel: Son of Red Riding Hood (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 3)

by J. A. Armitage

  “Do you want a broken nose?” she threatened.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Sera head-butted me to get loose. I tipped my head sideways to miss the blow of her head, but instead, she used my momentum to make us both fall to the ground. I turned last moment to make Sera land on me instead of the floor.

  “Uff,” I grunted as I took her weight. “Guess that supper by Red added a bit to your weight,” I teased.

  Sera grunted and wiggled until she was turned around on me, face to face. I could feel her arms moving, and I let her. If I wanted, I could have kept her immobile the whole time. Her face was just inches from mine. Her brown eyes sparkled. I knew she thought she was getting the upper hand.

  Like lightening, Sera yanked on my arms, pinning them above my head. She grinned at me. I didn’t hesitate as I switched our position and had her pinned. I wasn’t twice her weight, but even with her Red powers that could throw a full-grown wolf several saplings, she wasn’t able to move me.

  “Give up?” I asked.

  Her grin was now a pout.

  “Just admit that my magical powers are better than yours,” I teased, wiggling my eyebrows at her. I was giving her an out without admitting defeat.

  “Fine, but it’s just your powers.”

  I laughed, and soon enough, she was laughing with me. I reached down and pulled her to her feet with me. We made our way over to get breakfast before we actually started our day.

  “Okay, fine. Truce,” she said as she took a bite of her bread.

  She chewed slowly as she thought, and we sat in silence.

  I would never admit it to her, but I was glad to have slept at home. The howls from the wolves the night before still rang in my head. The misty wall made it hard to see, and nothing came near where I was waiting, but I could hear it. Without food, the wolves would turn on each other. I knew that much. It was killing me to not be there with my friends. I couldn’t do anything from the side of the fence we were on.

  “But in all seriousness. I’m not joking around about the magic, Castiel. I do feel the magic coming off you. Can you honestly say you haven’t felt a change in yourself in the past few moons?”

  Sera caught me off guard. She wasn’t joking, and she wasn't competitive. She was being serious. This side of Sera was real, and I had to think about what she asked.

  Sure, I felt stronger, but that happened every season that passed. I had grown taller and stronger with all the training I had done. Each season was like that. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work? Everyone grew up like that. Wasn’t I supposed to get stronger and faster?

  “What do you mean?” I finally asked, confused.

  “Until a few moons ago, I could, at least, beat you in a foot race every now and then. I haven’t beat you once this past moon.”

  I had to think about that one. Yes, Sera occasionally won, but that wasn’t new. Had she really not won in one full moon cycle? I had been so caught up in the wolves; I hadn’t considered that. She had won once, but I’d let her. I guess she knew me too well.

  “And while it isn’t easy for me to admit. I think you are way stronger than I am now,” she added.

  I still stared in shock at her. Was that true too?

  “There’s also the fact that the wolf curse was broken when you came here. Red says the curse broke, and then you showed up. What if it was the other way around? What if the curse broke because you were already in the kingdom and on your way to Red?”

  Okay, that was one I couldn’t even comprehend. I would have never jumped to that conclusion, but it was something we had to consider.

  “I think you have magic, Castiel, and not because I can’t beat you. I have magic too, but it’s nothing compared to you.”

  Oh great. Sera was on the same side as Red. But this was harder because she had obviously thought about why she felt that way. And she was convincing me.

  “I think we need to head into town and see if they have the records on your adoption. Maybe Red doesn't remember something,” Sera suggested. “Someone once mentioned that the records are magical. That even if someone doesn’t fill out the papers and add their child to the record that it will be there. Even if Red doesn’t know who your parents are, the records should have known.”

  While I still wanted to do more to help the wolves, I did need to know the truth. And if my birth family was magical, maybe they were the answer. Sera was onto something.

  “If you are what brought a change to the wolves, we need to figure out how to do it again,” Sera explained as she stood up and made her way to the door.

  That was one thing I did love about Sera. She didn’t sit still long, and she didn’t let a problem stop her. I had never once seen anything actually stop her. The girl was tenacious. She was an excellent ally to have in helping the wolves.

  “Fine,” I finally replied, putting away the last of our breakfast and following her outside.

  Sera winked at me and took off at a full run. Just because I had beaten her in every race for the past moon cycle didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to beat me now. I laughed. I loved that side of her. No matter how friendly she got, she was never going to be anything less than competitive.

  I took off after her and quickly caught up. Sera was right. I was stronger lately, but I had no idea why. I wasn’t exactly sure how magic worked, but I tried thinking all sorts of things as I ran. No lightening, no water or magic balls flying around me, no color changing, or plants moving. I kept trying anything and everything I could think of while we ran, but with my strength and Sera’s newly growing Red powers, we were at Azren before I could try much more.

  No matter what Sera, Red, or Mal thought, there wasn’t a magical bone in my body. I couldn’t do a thing magic, and they all had to be crazy. But I did have to give Sera that maybe there was magic in where I came from. That would have made more sense. I might have brought some sort of magic with me when I arrived as a baby. Whoever my parents were, maybe they wanted me to be protected and save the wolves. If we could figure out who I was and where I came from, perhaps we could save them again.

  Sera stopped just inside the tree line and peeked out up to the village. I wasn’t prepared to see it so vacant. The people had spent the best part of the past decade moving to the ground, and it was now a ghost village. Not one person was left below the trees. Buildings were empty, and the lights were off. Not a sound came from the town at the base of the tree, and it was almost like even in the trees it was quieter.

  Sera stepped out of the trees slowly and waved up to the guard tower that had been unmanned for most of my childhood. Four men stood there and waved back down to Sera. I could see the glint of metal as one man moved. They had guns.

  I followed behind Sera as one of the elevators was lowered for us to go into the trees. As soon as it touched the ground, Sera yanked me into it, and it began to rise before I caught my balance.

  “New rule is that it can come down, but once it touches the ground, it rises again,” Sera explained.

  Okay, mental note to myself. Get on elevators fast. Were the tree people that worried? Mal had caged the wolves; they were safe for now.

  When the elevator opened at the top of the tree, two guards stood there waiting. Both of them nodded to Sera and I and walked back to their station.

  “And they have to confirm every person that enters or leave the trees,” Sera continued to explain. “Red made it law that no one can enter or leave without being checked. They are still not completely okay with the wolves, even though they are behind the wall. Some of the people have suggested that it would be a great time to hunt the wolves since they can shoot and not have to get close to them. You know, the normal hotheads that are causing trouble. When I’m Red they’ll find they can’t talk crap like that. Red is too easy on them if you ask me.”

  And she would be. Sera was tougher than my mother, but then again, being a diplomat meant you couldn’t just boss people around. It was likely Sera would change with time too.


  Sera shrugged and led the way on the wooden pathways between the trees. To someone who hadn’t grown up here, I was sure they would be fascinated by the trees. It had taken decades, but the people of Azren had perfected living off the ground. They had running water pumped up to the trees. All the modern conveniences, and you didn’t have to worry about a wolf attack.

  “To the records building?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Sera in a challenge.

  She grinned back at me. “Race you there?”

  She grabbed the nearest branch and pulled herself up into the layer of branches above the houses and buildings. When we were kids, we found you could race in the treetops much better than on the bridges that connected all the buildings. You still couldn’t do a straight shot to where you were going as you had to go on branches you could run on, but it was better than the village below. Our competitiveness got us into trouble more than once, but after we moved up a level, we got in trouble a lot less. It might have been that not as many people got caught in our races, but it was still better in the treetops.

  I grabbed the same branch behind her and pulled myself up.

  “Ready to lose?” I asked her. “Magical being here, after all.” I grinned at her, and she smiled back, undeterred by my taunting.

  “You’ve forgotten one thing all-magical being,” Sera replied. “When we last did this game five winters ago, you weren’t a hulking monster.” Sera didn’t wait for me to understand what she said as she took off on the branch that she was standing on.

  I didn’t wait to figure it out either and took off after her. Soon enough, I was being hit left and right by the branches above us. I watched as Sera made it further away from me into the trees. Her smaller stature made it easy for her to run, but not for me. This wasn’t going to be a fair run at all. Sera gave one last look behind her at me and gave me a small wave before she jumped to the next branch and kept running. She had the advantage.

  I slowed down rather than keeping up with her pace on a branch I wasn’t sure would support my weight. I knew perfectly well what it felt like to fall from the trees. We both did. That might have been why we were told we couldn’t tree top race by Red as she had to fix us both up. Too bad, we were both adults and grown-up. Red couldn’t stop us now. But the darn branches were stopping me.

  The nearest trunk rose up another level, and I scrambled up it to get a better view. While we didn’t have to follow the bridges between the trees when we treetop raced, we still have to go between branches that supported our combined weight and the pounding of our feet as we ran. As I stared forward, I could see the spire at the top of the records building. It was a straight shot from where I stood. Running below wasn’t going to happen, and the branches nearby weren’t going to support my weight to run on them at the same time as Sera, but maybe they could support me hanging alone.

  I took the nearest branch and bent it down to me. I pulled a little harder, and it didn’t break. I had an idea and couldn’t help but smile. I took ahold at the branch I was standing on and swung around it. As my momentum carried me forward, I reached for the tree nearest to me. I grabbed that branch as I let go with my one hand. I smiled as I saw the pathway to the record tree was much more direct if I wasn’t running. Without any hesitation, I swung to the next branch and the next and the next. With each swing I could feel my body moving faster and my arc becoming longer as I let go of one branch and took the next.

  Luckily, as I swung between branches, no one could see me. They would have thought some sort of monster was in the trees. I had to look like a deranged animal as I swung. I was sure Red would be waiting for me to scold me for scaring the whole city if that happened. The records building came up fast as I made an almost direct route to it. Wasting no time, I climbed down to the door and leaned against it to wait.

  I wouldn’t have much time to catch my breath, and I tried not to laugh out loud. It felt so freeing to fly through the branches, like I was meant to be soaring in the skies. I didn’t believe Sera that I could have magic, but maybe she could be a little right that I brought magic with me that stopped the curse last time. Perhaps the people that left me could fly. I could have lived with that.

  Sera dropped down in front of me. She was a tiny bit winded from her run.

  “How did you….?” She stared at me in shock.

  I smiled and shrugged. I wasn’t giving away my secret. She’d either use it against me or perfect doing it herself. I wasn’t going to chance it either.

  “Let’s get to looking,” I suggested before she could ask more.

  Sera sputtered a bit more but didn’t say anything as she knocked on the door to the records. A little old lady, whose name I couldn’t remember, opened the door. She was at least a head shorter than Sera, but her gray hair piled on her head made her almost as tall.

  “Hi, Doreen, we need to access the birth records,” Sera said with her authority. Doreen nodded and unlocked the door to let us in.

  “Thank you,” Sera said, giving the older woman a nod as we walked into the large records building that wove around one of the most massive trees in the village.

  I had only been inside the hall of records a couple of times with Red when I was growing up. I really thought there was nothing there for me, rooms and rooms filled from floor to ceiling with books. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read; it just didn’t interest me. I knew Sera had been there tons of times. It was all part of her training to take over as Red. I didn’t need to know or care about all those boring details.

  The walls were lined with books of every shape, color, and size, and the hall itself was several stories tall. Sera weaved her way through the tightly fitted shelves, and I followed, trying not to knock anything over. There was so much history in those books. I wasn’t sure any one person had time to read them all, but I knew Sera had read a lot of them.

  “I’ve already checked for records on the curse. There was nothing there,” Sera explained as she took another corner and climbed a tight spiral staircase.

  I followed behind her, having to turn my shoulders at more than one point since I wouldn’t fit otherwise. This building wasn’t made for people my size. I knew I was larger than the average tree person, but it was a little ridiculous how tightly packed the building was.

  The upper level of the record hall had a few more windows that let the light illuminate all the dust in the air. It seemed it had been some time since anyone had climbed so high.

  “They are in order by winters, but you know someone always puts things back wrong, so it might take a few moments to find it,” Sera explained.

  I went to walk with her to the shelf she was going for, but she stopped and gave me the Sera look. It said, why the heck are you following me. Guess I wasn’t really needed to help carry a book.

  “I’ll just wait over there.” I pointed to the one waist-tall table in the room by the staircase. There might have been more stands, but I wasn’t finding them any time soon since I barely fit in the room.

  It didn’t take Sera long to come back with a large book. She set it carefully on the stand next to me and began to page through it. The pages were yellowed with age, and beautiful writing filled the inside of it.

  “You should be listed here in the first group,” Sera explained. “Since you arrived in the winter. These are all the recorded winter births.”

  “Would that even have me since I was adopted?”

  Sera nodded. “Adopted or born to their parents, every single person that was born here is added. It doesn’t matter. This book should say that you belong to Red, and you are her responsibility to raise. She would have put it in the book, but if not, it should have automatically been added.”

  Sera pointed to the list and began to read through the names. She huffed as she turned the page and went through the next list of names. Again, she had to turn the page. After several pages, Sera seemed as frustrated as I felt at all of this. She went back to the beginning of the book and paged through again, slower this time.

&nbs
p; “You’re not in here,” she declared, moving back to the front of the book and looking again. “How can you not be in here? That makes no sense. This is the official record of all the children in town. How would you not be here?”

  I nodded to her and made my way back to the stairs. I had no idea why I wasn’t in the book. Again, our search led to nothing. I had hoped we could get an answer, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. My life was never that easy.

  7

  17th March

  The next day, I spent with Sera in the musty old building of records. We had the winter right, so I knew we had the right book. She was convinced maybe it was the wrong book. After searching for additional books, we went through all of those also. While I was ready to move on and explore other options, Sera wasn’t.

  She was determined to find something, whether it was an adoption or a birth record that I existed. I honestly had no idea what to think of all of it. Maybe it was because Red was the leader that no one questioned her, or maybe it was just that the curse was gone and they didn’t care. But book after book gave us nothing. I wasn’t officially a citizen of Elder. While I felt like I didn’t belong before, now I knew I didn’t. Both my mother and the magic that governed Azren records refused to acknowledge I existed.

  While Sera wanted to spend more time in the books, I was finished. There was nothing there to find. Sera needed to give it up. We had to look for other clues and search in other directions. It wasn’t like this was our first dead end.

  The next morning, Red left to go south to the farms, while Sera dragged me back to the records hall. It seemed like life had to go on in the kingdom even if the wolves couldn’t move on with their lives. I slightly resented Red for being able to just put them aside for something else. Did she only care about half her people?

  It wasn’t fair of me to blame Red. She wanted everyone to be safe and to get along as much as anyone. I just wanted someone to blame. Who I really should have accused was whoever cast the dark magic over Elder’s shifters to begin with. Since the curse was hundreds of winters old, I was pretty sure the person who cast it was long gone, but what if it was like the Red. What if there was something evil keeping the curse going just like the magic that made Red keep going in each new generation?