Little Red (Twisted Dark, #4)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Choice to Make

I looked over the giant piece of oak I had bought for the bar top, it had been expensive to get a hold of but as it was for Red, I hadn't cared. It was two inches thick and over twenty feet long. I was struggling a little bit to move it around with my lack of strength but I ignored it. The last thing I needed to do was remind myself that I had majorly pissed Red off. I knew she told me to leave and she fucking meant it this time but I wasn't going to leave. I had made my decision and I would take the only choice I had been given to stay with her. She was my breeder, whether or not we had babes, she was.

I adjusted the brush in my hand as I carefully wiped at the thick stain I had chosen for the bar top. It had a bit of a red colour to it and I figured it was fitting for Red's Line. I glanced up at the bar sign I had painted last week, the lettering was sharp against the black background. I had been fixing up the bar enough that it was actually being noticed by the regulars and people in the rather decent sized town. We were getting more patrons than usual. It made a burst of pride roll through my chest.

I had never really belonged anywhere. Not in the Compound and not even with Jaxton. I had gone with him because he was my twin and I loved him, but my cabin out in the Northern Forests had never felt like home. It had just been a place where I had slept on occasion. There had been nothing tying me to it. It was different here. The little apartment over top of the bar had felt more like home than any other place I had spent over my life. I knew that had to do with Red. She was my home now.

It was why I was doing as I was. I wanted to stay with her and I refused to let my Instinct dictate my life to me, especially when it came to her. I loved her. It wasn't the soft and sweet love like Jax and Violet had. I didn't think I was capable of that kind of love. It was brutal, passionate, heated, and occasionally violent, but it was ours. It fit us. I didn't think there could ever be anyone who could fit me as perfectly as Red did. She understood me in a way that no one else could, not even Jax. She could see my inner workings and who I was and she not only accepted it but she matched it.

We fought. A lot. I was hard headed and tended to push her but she was just as stubborn and could push me just as hard back. It was always a fight, never balanced and I loved it all the more. I knew we wouldn't fall into a slump, we wouldn't grow bored. We fought, yes, but there was just enough times where we would laugh and tease and play that I could never expect what each day would bring. And even our fighting was never truly serious and acted more like foreplay, something I would never truly get tired of. I liked being bruised and scratched up. I liked carrying marks from Red, it let everyone know I was hers and she was mine.

I let out a sigh as I finished up the staining and set my brush down before wiping away the excess. The bartop would need another coating of stain before I sealed it but it was looking more than nice. I knew Red had gotten used to her cracked and curved bartop and so had the regulars but I had an idea of how to keep the spirit of that intact. I was going to tilt the top slightly. Enough that it would cause bottles to slide off of it still but it would be strong enough to withstand someone jumping on it.

I had decided to change it after Red had jumped up on it to get over the bar to jump on an asshole and the cracked bar had cracked a bit further, making the curve more pronounced. I wasn't going to allow her to get hurt when I could make it safer for her. So that was what I was doing, making it safer for my breeder. It was all I could do. That was what all werewolves did for their breeders.

Breeder.

I did understand a bit of Red's apprehension about the term. Despite what my Instinct had screamed at me before I started drowning it out. Babes weren't everything. They really weren't. Breeder implied that was all I wanted her for, that she was simply a vessel for my future line, that her only purpose was to breed me a dozen children. I didn't need or want to have babes with her to love her like I did. That wasn't what she was for me.