The morning sun stretched like a lazy lover over Willowwood, stroking the mossy rooftops and warming the dirt lanes where rumor bred faster than mushrooms after rain. Red Riding Hood stepped out of the tavern, and the village was already whispering behind their tankards.

Her crimson cloak flared behind her like a kiss blown in haste, catching every eye from chimney sweep to milkmaid. The hem fluttered just high enough to suggest—never promise—scandal. Beneath it, thigh-high boots creaked with confidence, and the bottle of mulled wine in her satchel sloshed with the rhythm of her hips.

She paused just long enough in the square to lift her head and sing. One note. Velvet. Smoky. Laced with promise. A blacksmith dropped his hammer. A preacher crossed himself.

Red smirked. “Still got it.”

She was not the innocent lamb of old fireside tales. No, Red had long since hunted the stories meant to tame her and used their bones to kindle her own fire. She sang nightly in the Boar’s Horn, with a voice that curled around spines and tightened corsets. When she promised moans in a minor key, it wasn’t metaphor.

Today, she had no stage but the woods, no audience but trees and birds—and perhaps a wolf or two if they hungered enough to follow.

Her satchel was packed: One flask of Gran’s preferred cordial (which could polish silver or strip paint), one basket of cinnamon biscuits, and a bottle of mulled wine kept warm against her skin in a velvet pouch.

She adjusted her cloak, tossed her hair, and headed into the woods, boots crunching through frost and mischief.

The path narrowed past the rowan trees, where shadows grew toothy. Right on cue, the wind shifted—and with it came the scent of leather, smoke, and something darker.

A voice slid from behind a tree, low and teasing.

“Sing for me, Red ... and I’ll howl.”

She didn’t flinch. She never did. Instead, she turned, cocked her hip, and met the gaze of a man lounging like sin incarnate—the Wolf.

He was tall, lean, and draped in black leather like a promise of ruin.

Red arched an eyebrow. “Careful. My notes are sharper than your teeth.”

He stepped forward. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. But I bite in rhythm.”

She let her gaze drop—to the open collar, the belt slung low. “Maybe I’ll write you into a ballad. One verse, two thrusts, and a tragic ending.”

He laughed. “A tragedy? With you, I’d make it an opera.”

They stood a breath apart now, heat rising between them. Red smiled and whispered, “I have wine to deliver and a grandmother to scandalize. Try not to get eaten while I’m gone.”

She vanished into the woods, her cloak flicking behind her. The Wolf grinned, tongue pressed to one fang.

She didn’t get far.

A low whistle followed her—lazy, appreciative, the kind of sound a man makes when he sees something he knows he can’t quite catch but wants to chase anyway.

Red paused beneath a twisted yew, casting a glance over her shoulder.

The Wolf had followed, of course. Not directly behind—he was smarter than that—but drifting parallel, weaving through the trees like smoke through a keyhole. She could feel him watching, tasting her in the air.

She stopped by the stream, its waters chattering like tavern gossips. The air was cooler here, scented with moss and wild mint. She knelt, letting her fingers trail in the current, her cloak pooling beside her like blood spilled just for show.

“Still watching?” she called, not bothering to look.

A crunch of leaves. He emerged across the water, crouched on a boulder like a wolf about to pounce—but didn’t.

Instead, he studied her. “I was hoping you’d sing for me again.”

Red scooped a handful of water and let it spill between her fingers. “Funny. Most men beg me to stop. Something about not being able to think with their cock sobbing.”

The Wolf’s grin widened. “I like a woman who sings with teeth. But I’m not most men.”

“Ah. So you’re special.” She finally looked at him fully, lashes half-lowered. “Should I curtsey?”

He touched his chest. “Only if you do it slow. I’m a connoisseur of curves.”

Red stood, stretching like a cat who knows she’s being watched. The cloak slid from her shoulders to her elbows, revealing the low dip of her bodice—deep crimson silk that clung like a promise. She adjusted her satchel deliberately, drawing the strap across her chest.

The Wolf didn’t blink. Just licked his bottom lip.

She stepped to the edge of the stream, the distance between them now barely a leap.

“Tell me, Wolf,” she purred. “Are you the sort who follows girls through the woods because you’re hungry—or because you like the chase?”

He straightened, slow and sinuous. “Who says I can’t have both?”

For a moment, the woods held its breath. Red’s fingers brushed the edge of her cloak. His gaze dropped, just for a second. She smiled.

“I’ll give you one verse,” she said. “But only because I’m in a generous mood.”

She closed her eyes and sang, voice low and velvet-rich, curling through the branches like silk on bare skin:

“One taste of red and you’ll howl at the sky,
Your teeth will go dull, and your throat will run dry.
But chase her too close, and you’ll bleed where you tread—
The sweetest of fruits leaves you wrecked in her bed.”

The Wolf inhaled, visibly. Like her voice was a spell and he the willing victim.

Then she winked. “That’s all you get. Want an encore? You’ll have to earn it.”

With that, she turned and walked away again—slower this time, hips swaying with unhurried arrogance. A rustle behind her told her he was pacing her again, just far enough not to spook her.

The game had begun.

The forest changed as Red moved deeper—less snarl, more cadence. The trees stood wider apart here, their trunks thick as wine barrels, and the air smelled of sap and slow-burning fire.

She heard him before she saw him.

Thunk.

Pause.

Thunk.

The sound of an axe splitting wood in clean, practiced swings. The kind of sound that made a woman picture shoulders.

And sure enough, there he was.

Standing in a sun-drenched clearing, sweat gleaming on his bare chest, was a man cut from tree and myth. His shirt hung from a branch like it had misbehaved. His hands, broad and calloused, gripped the axe like it was an extension of his desire. A tidy stack of firewood rose beside him, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to stop.

Red leaned against a pine, letting her voice carry just enough to stir the air between them.

“If I say I’m lost, do I get rescued ... or ravished?”

The axe paused mid-swing. He looked up—and grinned. A slow, crooked thing that hit her low and sweet.

“Well, I don’t do rescue on an empty stomach,” he said. “But ravishing? That I can manage.”

Red laughed, stepping into the clearing. “Good to know. I’ve got biscuits ... and questionable judgment.”

His gaze dropped to the basket, then lower. “And legs that could lead a man to sin.”

She tilted her head. “You’re Wynn, right? The woodsman?”

“That’s what the barkeep calls me.”

“Any particular reason?”

He stepped forward, setting the axe against the stump. Up close, he smelled like cedar smoke and ambition. His eyes were a mossy green, warm and slow-burning.

“I split what needs splitting. Wood, wolves, occasionally a heart or two.” He wiped his hand on his trousers and extended it. “And you’re Red. The one with the voice that makes men forget hymns.”

She took his hand. Held it a beat too long. “Guilty.”

Their fingers didn’t part immediately.

“Where’re you headed, Red?” he asked, voice low, the heat of it brushing her collarbone.

“To Granny’s. She’s dying, of course.”

“Of what?”

“Boredom. Mostly. I bring wine and scandal to keep her going.”

Wynn chuckled, gaze slipping to the bottle tucked against her side. “You planning to share?”

She leaned in. “Depends. You planning to deserve it?”

There was something different here. Less circling, more grounding. If the Wolf was a flickering flame, Wynn was a bed of coals—steady, patient, waiting for the right spark to burn.

A breeze stirred her cloak. Their faces were close now, breath mingling.

“Careful,” he murmured. “You keep looking at me like that, and I’ll start thinking I’m the prize.”

Red raised a brow. “You’re not?”

His answer came in the form of a wink that landed somewhere below her waist.

They stood there, toe to toe, heat rising like midsummer stormclouds. The forest was quiet—except for one faint, unmistakable sound in the distance:

A howl, long and low.

Wynn didn’t flinch. “That a friend of yours?”

Red sighed. “Persistent admirer.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Only if you’re not planning to give me a reason to forget him.”

He reached for the basket. “Come on then. Let’s walk you to Granny’s. I can carry your ... sins.”

She laughed, letting him take the handle. “You might regret that.”

He glanced down at her, eyes glinting. “Sweetheart, regret’s for people who pull out early.”

Red almost tripped on a root, laughing.

And so they walked on—Wynn beside her, carrying her wine and warming her pulse, while somewhere behind them, the Wolf followed, licking his teeth.

The Wolf watched them from the shadows, crouched high in the fork of an oak like a sin waiting to be confessed.

Red, laughing, her crimson cloak a flame against the green. The woodsman beside her, all solid muscle and easy charm, carrying her basket like he knew what came next.

The Wolf’s teeth itched.

He hadn’t followed her just for the chase. He liked the chase, sure—but it was her voice that haunted him. That one verse, slinking into his ribs like heat from a brand. The way she sang “The sweetest of fruits leaves you wrecked in her bed.” Damn woman had no idea how close to the truth she was.

He should’ve let her go. Plenty of game in the woods. Plenty of thighs to press, necks to bite, willing mouths panting for attention.

But she was different.

Red didn’t flinch. She teased, taunted, and left scent trails like a goddess of mischief with no altar to kneel at. She made his cock ache and his pride bristle, and she walked like every step dared the world to try and tame her.

And now she had a woodsman on her arm.

The Wolf scowled and dropped from the tree, landing silent as a rumor.

“Fine,” he muttered, brushing a pine needle from his sleeve. “She wants a story? I’ll give her one worth singing.”

He knew the woods better than she did. Better than anyone. There were paths no one else remembered—ways to slip through bramble and shadow and come out exactly where you meant to.

He headed off the trail, taking the stream upstream, leaping stones, slipping through the hush of hanging moss and birdsong.

The cottage wasn’t far.

He’d been there before, once. Long ago. Granny wasn’t the helpless old crone she pretended to be. The woman brewed potions stronger than the tavern’s top shelf and once hexed a merchant for trying to short her a copper. But she liked him—sort of. Thought he was “dangerous in all the wrong ways.”

He could work with that.

As the thatched roof came into view, the Wolf pulled his shirt closed, tugged his hair back, and summoned his smile. The slow one. The one that made strangers forget to ask questions and lovers forget their names.

He knocked.

Inside, something clinked. Then a voice—gravel and mischief, edged with liquor.

“If you’re here to sell herbal salves again, turn around. I’ve still got the rash from last time.”

The Wolf opened the door and stepped inside, all swagger and shadow.

“Granny,” he purred, “you wound me.”

The old woman looked up from a steaming mug and rolled her eyes. “You again. What is it this time?”

“I’ve come to discuss dessert.”

She raised a brow. “For Red?”

“For me,” he said, sliding onto the stool beside her, flashing teeth. “But I’m willing to share.”

Granny cackled. “You’d better bring a damn good bottle of wine.”

He pulled the flask from his coat—stronger than Red’s, brewed for sin not ceremony. He poured two glasses.

Outside, the wind shifted, carrying the scent of cinnamon, firewood, and Red’s laugh.

The Wolf smiled, sipping slow. The game had moved to a new board.

Granny’s cottage smelled like roasted herbs, singed parchment, and sin left to simmer. The fireplace snapped with lavender logs, and jars of curious things lined the shelves—preserved roots, serpent tongues, a small bottle labeled “Regret (Distilled)”.

The Wolf lounged in a chair too small for his arrogance, legs spread, wine glass in hand. He watched Granny with wary amusement as she poured a drop of something amber and probably illegal into her tea.

“You know,” she said, stirring with a clawed fingernail, “when Red said she was done with wolves, I didn’t think you’d take it as a personal challenge.”

“She likes the chase,” the Wolf replied. “But she also likes to win. That’s where you come in.”

Granny snorted. “Oh, I’ve raised her better than to fall for leather and a sharp jawline.”

He grinned. “Good. Then I’ll just have to work harder.”

She eyed him over the rim of her mug. “What exactly are you proposing, pup?”

The Wolf leaned forward, dropping his voice like silk over skin. “A little theatre. You play the part of the frail old dear. I play the part of the savage beast. Red walks in, all cocky and flushed from kissing lumber, and finds me in your bed.”

“Mm.” Granny tipped back her tea. “And then?”

“I let her save you.”

Granny arched a brow. “From what? Your charm?”

He shrugged. “The illusion of danger. A little growl, a little fang. She bests me, ropes me, pins me down.”

Granny chuckled. “Kinky.”

“She wins,” he continued, “and I learn a lesson. Maybe one that ends with my mouth between her thighs.”

Granny wheezed. “You’re lucky I like you.”

He raised his glass. “I’m very lucky. So is Red. She gets to be the heroine and the beast-tamer.”