CHAPTER THREE
STERLING
Sterling slowly stood from her crouched position and stepped out from behind a rotting, gnarled tree.
Her scarlet hood covered her short brown hair and hid the scar that slashed down her forehead to her cheek.
The reminder of what happened during the attack at her grandmother’s house was her most identifying feature.
The scar on her chest and the teeth marks on her ankle were always hidden.
If she knew where to find a sorcerer or sorceress in Bloodstorm, then she could’ve asked for a tonic to alter her appearance.
Not that she had anything worth bartering.
Wind coasted by, and the ends of the cloak billowed around Sterling. She held her breath, waiting for the shifter to slink out through two narrow trunks. This wolf wasn’t one of the prince’s close circle, though he still worshipped him. Winter was his god and that alone made him dangerous.
The bushes rustled, but not in front of her as she’d expected.
Sterling whirled to the side, grasping her bow firmly, confidently.
A large gray and brown wolf prowled forward, his razor-sharp teeth bared just before he leapt toward her.
She nocked an arrow and let it fly in one smooth motion.
It whirred with the wind, then struck perfectly through the shifter’s neck. However, he didn’t fall.
Gripping her weapon, she dodged out of the way as the wolf swiped a claw at her. She released another two arrows until the wolf slumped to the dirt, twitching, and then, finally, went still.
A minor moment passed and the wolf’s fur reeled back into the shifter’s body, the man’s limbs stretching, his face contorting. The man was perhaps forty years of age, his form bare, and clumps of white streaked his chestnut hair. Bright crimson seeped out from his wounds, pooling around him.
Sterling knelt beside the shifter and ripped the arrows from his flesh.
Even though he wasn’t one of the wolves who’d killed her grandmother, he might as well have been.
“Fuck you,” she growled between gritted teeth before spitting on his expressionless face.
He didn’t deserve a final prayer to the gods.
A collection of howls echoed in the distance, too many, and Sterling’s heart pounded—she needed to leave the forest. Over the past eight years since losing her mother and grandmother, she’d spent each day perfecting her skills with her bow.
Even so, she was only one person and her arrows weren’t limitless.
She wouldn’t make it out of the forest today if she went against an entire pack.
It was something she was unwilling to risk—not when her brother still depended on her.
She was already playing with fire by murdering wolf shifter after wolf shifter.
Tearing the cloak from her body, Sterling stuffed the thin fabric into her leather satchel and darted out from the forest. She wasn’t the only wolf hunter around, but she was the most well-known.
The Bloodstorm Court called her Red Riding Hood, and for the hefty reward the prince was offering, she would easily be handed over to the wicked royal.
But alive—since that was what he wanted.
How long she would stay that way once he received her was a good question. One she hoped to never answer.
Sterling kept her bow close and hurried down the gravel path toward her home.
Carrying a bow wouldn’t be suspicious, but having one while near a dead wolf would be.
Once she came to the edge of the small village, she threw the door open to her meager home and hid the bow along with her cloak beneath the bed before leaving for the meat shop.
The first three years of Cyan’s life had been a struggle, but after that, Sterling started selling meat to clients, then came the vegetables and herbs her brother helped grow.
When the local butcher passed away and his daughter didn’t want to run the shop, Sterling purchased it for less than what it was worth.
Thankfully, the gamble was starting to pay off a fraction.
As she approached the shop with its cracked windows, chipped paint, and dilapidated roof, she realized she didn’t believe she would ever have enough coin to repair it. But perhaps she could at least paint the building soon.
She opened the door, and the bell clanged. The scents of raw meat and herbs permeated the small space.
Cyan sat alone at the one wooden table, shaping a sheet of paper into a little boy.
Five other folded flowers lingered in front of him.
He was always making unique paper crafts.
In the past year he’d grown so much. With his copper skin and dark hair, he favored his unknown father, but his green eyes and smile were identical to their mother’s.
Sterling sank down into the chair opposite him and crossed her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Marla with chores?”
Her brother arched a brow, his gaze locked on hers. “Weren’t you supposed to come back with meat?”
Cyan was such a little nuisance with a smart mouth. She’d tried and tried to teach him how to hunt, but he wouldn’t kill an ant if his life depended on it. Besides that, he was a terrible shot and preferred sticking to the garden.
Sterling shrugged, then leaned back in her seat. “The animal slipped from my fingertips.” It wasn’t untrue—the wolf had changed back into a man, after all. Cyan didn’t know she was Red Riding Hood, but she was certain he would figure it out at some point.
She peered toward the counter, finding no one behind it. “Where’s Marla?”
Cyan finished creasing his paper figurine before answering, “She said she doesn’t get paid enough to work and watch over me, so she left.”
“Were you asking her questions again? I told you not to do that,” Sterling groaned.
Cyan endlessly asked questions from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed.
Why do we have eyelids? How far away is the sun?
How much information can a brain hold? But there was one question Sterling never minded.
What was Mama like? Either way, Marla could’ve at least waited until Sterling came to the shop before up and leaving.
Cyan blew out a breath. “Yes, but I made her a paper pigeon. I thought this one would stay,” he whispered, his small voice defeated.
Sterling’s chest clenched at his crestfallen expression.
“You know what? Fuck her. If she couldn’t handle you asking a few questions, then we don’t need her here.
” The chair’s legs scraped against the floor as she pulled it beside him.
“I know I’m not all the things our mother would’ve been to you, but I’m here for you whenever you need it, aren’t I? ”
He nodded, and a few tears gathered on his dark lashes.
“Now. Wipe your tears away.” Sterling sighed. “There are things in life we don’t like to do, but sometimes we must do them anyway. I’m not going to make you slaughter animals. I know how you feel about that, but I really need you to help with the meat. You can’t simply watch.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Can’t we just sell the things from my garden?”
“We’re working on that, expanding our wares little by little.
But for now, we make the most money from selling meat and the hide.
I want to make certain you’re taken care of if anything ever happens to me.
” Sterling thought about her revenge tactics over the years with the wolf shifters.
At times, she’d wanted to stop, but her grandmother’s mangled face came to mind and she selfishly couldn’t.
Wolves constantly hurt humans, so she gladly returned the favor.
“You’re not going away like Mama or Grandmother, are you?” he gasped, his lower lip wobbling.
Sterling never watered the truth down. Her brother always needed to know that at any minute, of any day, what was most important to someone could be ripped away. “I’m not planning to, but in this court, anything can happen.”
Cyan patted the dagger at his hip that she’d given him.
She knew he’d let himself die before stabbing someone, but it made her feel better that he carried it.
He wrapped his gangly arms around Sterling and squeezed her tight.
She held him back, still finding it hard after all these years to open her heart fully to him, for fear he would be yanked away from her too. But she would continue to protect him.
The bell clanged as the shop’s door opened. Sterling glanced over her shoulder to find her friend, Nareth, carrying an empty crate. Chestnut hair skated across his forehead, and life danced in his brown eyes.
After escaping Prince Winter years ago, Sterling had run back to her mother’s cottage with her tail between her legs.
She’d had no idea how to survive, not when there was a new baby brother in tow.
But Nareth was the son of a barmaid her mother had known, and he’d helped sneak goat’s milk to Cyan while teaching her how to properly use her bow.
He’d been the only one she’d ever told about what Prince Winter had done, and she’d sworn him to secrecy.
“Marla left,” Cyan told him immediately.
Nareth raked a hand through his hair. “Already?”
Sterling rolled her eyes and stood from her chair. She clucked her tongue, then patted Nareth on the shoulder. “Looks as though you’ll be working here temporarily.”
“Not again,” he grumbled.
“Please.” She blinked all doe-eyed while clasping her hands. “You know I can’t have Cyan run the shop by himself.”
Nareth studied her a long moment, then gave in as usual.
“Since I’m between trades right now, I think it’s a fine idea.
” He was always between trades, quitting his job as a bodyguard at the brothel, then going back to it.
A place where Winter would frequent, even though he loathed humans…
Apparently, hatred didn’t put fucking the harlots off limits.
“Thank you. Can you be here first thing in the morning? There’s a hanging in the town’s center I want to attend.” One she didn’t want to miss.
He cocked his head. “I’ll be here as soon as the sun rises, but do they have to make it so public?”
“Do they have to hang anyone at all?” Cyan huffed. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?”
“No,” Sterling snapped, recalling how the prince so easily allowed his wolves to tear their grandmother to pieces.
How the wolves pierced her wrinkled flesh with their teeth as though she were nothing.
None of them deserved a second chance. “Not everyone. These wolves disobeyed the royals, and it’s the prince’s decision.
Winter has been the acting king for nearly three weeks while his father’s health improves.
” If the king got better from the hunter attack, that was.
She would easily wager that, to make it look natural, Winter was slowly poisoning his own father to gain the crown instead of outright slaughtering him.
“May I go to the bakery for a little while?” Cyan asked. “Archie wanted to play marbles with me there, and I want to give him the craft I made him.”
Sterling bit her lip and frowned. It was only two shops down, not on the other side of the court, though she couldn’t help worrying. “Go, but be back here before the sun sets.”
Cyan beamed, his smile bright. “I promise.” He plucked the craft of the boy, abandoning the other paper flowers at the table, and squeezed her with another hug before running outside.
“So,” Nareth drawled once the door shut behind her brother. “You look a little stressed.”
“Always. Come with me. I need to show you a few things for tomorrow.” She didn’t wait for his answer and walked through the door behind the counter to the back. Before she could grasp the apron from the hook on the wall, Nareth’s fingers gently grasped her wrist.
“You need to relax.” By his hard stare, he knew she’d murdered another wolf even though they’d never discussed what she’d been doing.
“I’m not in the mood to fuck.” She sighed.
“Perhaps later.” Nareth was her closest friend, and they would find relief in one another at times, had taught each other how to please the opposite sex.
She hadn’t taken any other lovers because of Cyan, nor had she chosen to go down the same path her mother had gone even though she could’ve made coin faster by working at the brothel.
The thought of having to please Prince Winter made her skin crawl.
Nareth cast his gaze away. “About that… I think it’s better we stop. I met someone…”
Sterling’s eyes widened as he caught her off guard. “Oh! It’s fine.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks flushed red, appearing shy as he never had before. “Are you all right with it? Our friendship comes first for me, and I don’t want to lose that.”
A grin spread across her cheeks—he deserved this. “Of course. I know how to pleasure myself. She just better not break your heart, or I’ll put an arrow in hers.” Sterling tossed him an apron and handed him a butcher’s knife. “I’m not teasing either. Now tell me about her while we work.”
“I will, but first, I want you to be careful tomorrow.” His gaze fastened onto her scar, his voice low.
For the first time he admitted aloud what she’d been doing within the court.
“It won’t be hard for Winter to figure out you’re Red Riding Hood if you keep creeping closer to him. Perhaps you should leave things alone.”
“If only I could.” As she brought a cleaver down on the dried meat, she imagined it was the prince’s wicked face.