Red by Alyxandra Harvey Read Free Book Online Page B

you might want to run over less nails. Just a tip. Because the next busted tire is coming out of your pay.”
    The boots were too big for me, but they kept the worst of the dew off. It crackled underfoot, clinging to leaves and stones like lace. I pulled my sweater tighter and crossed a lawn roughly the size of a football field. It was bordered by the cut-down stalks of harvested corn and the remains of a vegetable garden. There was only a pumpkin patch left, trailing green vines and massive leaves I could have used as an umbrella. A loon called from the lake.
    The orchard was small, but the trees looked old and well cared for. There were apples rotting on the ground, making honeybees and wasps buzz drunkenly around my ankles. I picked my way carefully through them, trying to find a low branch that wasn’t already bare. I wasn’t about to climb the rickety ladder leaning against a wooden farm fence covered in moss and lichen. I filled my pockets with red apples until my sweater stretched to my knees.
    It was still strange to wander around in the half light without worrying about who might be hiding in an alley. Dad was paranoid about me walking around the city after dark, convinced I’d be a magnet for every junkie and psycho out there. He’d instilled a healthy wariness of shadows into me, not to mention several self-defense and kickboxing classes. But I’d assumed there would be nothing to worry about beyond a serious lack of Manic Panic hair dye at the village drugstore. Clearly, I was wrong.
    There was something else going on under the rural castle estate life. There were too many quick silencing glances, too many rules, too many strange artifacts and weapons hung like decoration. I didn’t know what questions to ask yet, only that they were there waiting to be asked.
    I wandered farther into the forest. Pine trees towered over me, and needles were soft and red under my boots. It looked like something out of a painting.
    Until I came up against a barbed-wire fence winding between the trunks. It was fairly industrial, like the stuff they used in the city when they were serious about keeping people out.
    Something howled mournfully. It was a cross between an animal in pain and someone singing. The hairs on my arms lifted instinctively. Both Abby and Ethan had mentioned wolves. I wondered if that was what the fence was for. The howl shivered through the trees again, followed by a loud rustling. The back of my neck prickled painfully. “Nope,” I said, spinning on my heel, intent on getting the hell out of the woods. I wasn’t going to stand around waiting to be eaten by wolves. I broke into a run because I didn’t know if I was hearing my own startled breathing or something else. A growl. A twig snapping.
    My hands burned, and I thought I smelled smoke, but there was no spark, no warning flame. Just another shadow in the woods.
    I couldn’t see his face right away—the light struck him in such a way that he was a silhouette, a gleam of eyes and teeth. Habit had me reaching for my house keys to use as a weapon, but there were only apples in my pocket. Dad would be annoyed I wasn’t prepared. But I wasn’t on a city street…and I realized, as the shadows shifted, that there was nothing to worry about, because it was only Ethan anyway. I tried to stop gasping as if I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid. I had fire. Of course, not when I actually needed it.
    Ethan was wearing nothing but mud-streaked jeans. I had to remind myself that it didn’t matter if I was walking around in flannel pajama bottoms tucked into black rubber boots that were way too big for me. I wasn’t interested in impressing Ethan Blackwood—he was entirely too impressed with himself already.
    His chest was bare and there were leaves in his perfect hair, now mussed. He had remarkably lean, distracting muscles, and he had to know it, being shirtless in this weather.
    I was catching him on a walk of shame. I wondered if Justine was sneaking off as