Little Red (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

instead, each family was shown to one of their large, luxurious royal guest suites. She’d be eternally grateful for that, although his hospitality had been given reluctantly, she’d heard it in his voice.
    If it hadn’t been for the kids, she would have turned it down in a heartbeat, but regardless of the depth of her purse, she couldn’t very well have knocked at a hotel’s door and checked in that crowd without a booking, on such short notice.
    Thankfully, the palace was pretty damn huge, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to fit the two hundred and seven wolves in her pack.
    Her pack. Her couple of hundred wolves. It was still outright overwhelming, and humbling, too.
     
    Forcing herself to look professional, she held her shoulders back and walked into the drawing room where she’d been ask to present herself after settling in her rooms.
    Chase was nowhere to be seen, so she relaxed, for a while, in any case.
    On a large, plush damask chair that could only be called a throne, sat a woman who held herself like the queen she doubtlessly was. She had Chase’s green eyes, and his imposing presence, too.
    “Your highness.”
    The woman seemed to analyze her; it was impossible to tell whether she approved or not.
    Jaya, bless her soul, had stopped by her room and brought some of her clothes, as well as most of her gold, so she was wearing pants, at least.
    “My grandson has either eaten some very interesting mushrooms, or you’re a she-wolf,” the woman stated.
    So much for pants.
    Lana shifted, destroying her trousers as her wolf burst out of her skin, and went right back to her human form.
    The Queen raised an eyebrow; she was definitely related to Chase Hunter, because no fear or disgust could be read in her eyes. More interestingly, though, there was no surprise either.
    “Hmm. Your children. They’ll be wolves, too?” the lady asked evenly.
    Unsure of where that was going, Lana nodded; amongst those who left the pack, plenty had paired up with humans, and from what she’d heard through their social media interactions, the children had been Wilderlings, too.
    “Hmm,” the Queen repeated noncommittally, before patting the chair at her right. “Sit down, child. I want to hear all about your plans. How do you like your tea?”
    “With biscuits.”
    The Queen chuckled and gave her a broad smile.
    “Here. Have you tried Tarina’s chocolate chip cookies, by any chance?”
    “Have I ever. These are just the best. How do they stay so chewie?”
    “We’ll get along just fine.”
     

     
    “And all this time, you’ve lived at our doorstep,” Chase heard Mimi muse as he joined her in her favorite study.
    He stopped long enough to recognize the wolf’s voice.
    She sounded sultry, but common rolled on her tongue as easily as her strange, sensual language.
    “For three thousand years, yes,” she replied. “There are plenty of us living across the New World and Europa, too – Denker, mainly. That might be where we’re headed. We can hope to blend in, there... But thinking of it, we might go north.”
    “You wouldn’t want to stay in your own country?”
    Mimi sounded outraged; Lana replied casually, almost indifferently, without any edge to her voice: “We have no country. Most of us aren’t registered in your censuses; as far as the world is concerned, we don’t exist.”
    Chase was done eavesdropping; he walked in, giving his two cents: “That’s quite enough of that. The world deserves to know what they can step into when they take a stroll through the wrong woods. They need to understand what kinds of monsters roam their lands.”
    He felt quite entitled for thinking – and saying – that, given the circumstances, but seeing the look both women shot him, he felt very small all of a sudden. Mimi narrowed her eyes in warning; she’d never seemed so annoyed; as for the wolf… Lana looked like she’d been kicked in the guts, and he didn’t like it. He could not quite bring himself to