Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are looking good
You're everything
A big, bad wolf
Could want
The crunch of every leaf and twig under Lydia's feet seemed to echo throughout the empty forest. Her eyes were only focused on the path ahead, never wandering or searching her surroundings. The only thing that seemed to have any effect on her was the howling of a lone wolf in the distance. Every time she heard that horrible noise, Lydia would pull at the edges of the red cloak that was draped over her delicate shoulders. And on she marched, her bare feet growing colder and more numb by the second and her breath was coming out passed her lips like miniature clouds. Another howl, this one much closer. Lydia had stopped walking without realizing it, her eyes darting to the left. She heard the crunch of the fallen leaves behind her as someone walked on them with large, heavy boots. Whoever was behind her cleared their throat and Lydia found herself slowly turning around, her own curiosity growing the better of her. What she saw was a man who stood about a foot taller than her, in a black, leather trench coat. He wore heavy-looking black boots and his hair was a knotted mess on the top of his head, with bits of dead leaves and dirt scattered in it. He watched Lydia with glowing red eyes, hands placed politely behind his back.
"You look cold." he noted, looking up and down Lydia's shivering frame. "You know, tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year, you shouldn't be out here all by yourself."
Lydia straighten herself up and said with more confidence then she felt, "I'm not six, I don't need someone to hold my hand. I can take care of myself."
The man took a step towards her anyway. He could hear her heartbeat, she wasn't only shivering because it was cold. "Are you afraid of me?"
"I've always been told to never talk to strangers, maybe I fear the unknown." Lydia wanted to step back, but there was something holding her in place. Or it could be possible her feet had finally frozen.
He took another step forward, "If I told you my name, would we be strangers anymore? Would you still fear me?"
Lydia broke eye contact and looked down at the forest floor, unable to answer the question. He seemed to materialize in front of her without a sound. He pressed two fingers underneath her chin and a thumb on one side to support it. Then he gently tilted her head upwards so he could look into her eyes again.
"Peter." he whispered to Lydia, his warm breath fanning over her face. "Now will you tell me your name, red?"
Lydia blinked, not quite sure about what she should say. His- Peter's breath had put her in a daze, it was warm, yet it smelled like rainstorms on dried leaves and old hickory logs. He smelled like the woods around her and she couldn't help but want more of it.
Peter's hand had moved from her chin and was now gripping her hand, pulling her along with him as he walked backwards. He had noticed how muddy her pretty white dress had gotten and the scratches she had on her arms and legs. "Did a wolf do that?" he questioned, nodding towards the marks.
"Maybe." Lydia had stopped moving, confusion crossing her face, "But that's not possible, there are no wolves in..." Lydia stopped talking and fell forward into Peter's arms, who gracefully caught her before she hit the ground. He picked her up gingerly and cradled her like a small child, "You still haven't told me your name, red." He brushed a few locks of the said color of hair out of Lydia's face and sighed, "Look at you, you're freezing. You know, you're no good to me dead."
Lydia's eyes fluttered shut for a second as she leaned into Peter's chest, inhaling as much of his sent as she could. Peter sat down on the stump of an old tree and repositioned Lydia so she was sitting up on his lap, her head still resting on his chest.
Lydia's eyes opened slowly as she sat content in this comfortable position, if only it wasn't so cold, or silent. Why was it so quiet? She was leaning up against Peter's chest, shouldn't she at least hear a heartbeat?
"Precious," Peter began, taking Lydia's face and cradling it in his hands and turning her head so she was looking into his eyes again, "I still need your name."
His eyes are so red, they look like blood stains. Why are they so red?
Lydia's own eyes grew wide with recognition, "You."
It was a whisper, but Peter still heard it. He stood up quickly and placed both his hands on Lydia's waist to keep her from falling over. One hand flew up to the clasps of her red cloak that hung at her neck. He unhooked it and let the red fabric fall to the ground. With the same hand, he brushed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear. One hand was still at her waist to prevent her from running.
"Sweetheart, I need your name." Each word was spoken with deliberate force in as close as Peter could get to his Alpha tone of voice.
Lydia looked up into his eyes as a gloss coated her own. Her lips parted and she tried to form syllables, but no sound was coming out. Peter pulled her closer, straining his ears to hear anything, but Lydia had fallen silent again as she fell shivering to the hard ground. Peter crouched down next to her and placed the back of his hand against her cheek. Cold as death. He took off his own coat and draped it over her knowing it wouldn't keep in very much heat, but at least it was better than her short, sleeveless, white dress.
Lydia's lips trembled as she searched around the ground for the red cloak she'd been wearing, but it seemed to have vanished. She could feel the weight of Peter's coat on her shoulders, but it wasn't doing much at preventing her from freezing. Why did he want her name so badly? Those red eyes, they haunt her in her nightmares. They were the last thing she had seen before blacking out on the lacrosse field.
Peter was still crouched down at eye level, staring deep into Lydia's green eyes. "I see intelligences in your eyes, red. You're smarter than this, and you are definitely stronger than a little cold breeze. All I need is your name."
Lydia blinked but was unable to look away from his eyes. She was strong and she was much more intelligent than anyone knew she was. It shouldn't be so hard to say one name, her own name in fact.
Never breaking eye contact, Lydia took a deep breath and spoke her name barely above a whisper. The corner of Peter's mouth twitched slightly as he spoke her name himself, enjoying the way it rolled off his tongue.
"Now see princess, that wasn't so hard." Peter stood up again so he was towering above Lydia, a smirk back in its usual place on his face. "I don't know if I'm sorry to say it or not, but this is not the last you've seen of me." He bent back down towards her, his fingernails growing into claws, "Keep the coat, I never liked that thing anyway. You might want to put it on, in fact. You didn't come here fully clothed." He stretched his fingers before placing each nail at a certain spot on the back of her neck.
"Go back to sleep, Lydia." Oh how he loved that name. He smiled when he said it, as all five fingernails dug into her neck, removing the memory of this encounter and causing her beautiful green eyes to shut at the same time.