Red and the Wolf: A Sci-Fi Romance Fairy Tale

By Kate Rudolph

Plants are easy. Men? Not so much.
Red Wallace loves getting her hands dirty in the soil of the Martian colony where she lives. She can list off the right nitrogen content to get anything growing. But talking to Wood, the hottest man on Mars, has her roots all tangled up.

 

Is it really so hard to live her simple life and kiss the guy of her dreams?

 

But Wood is hiding a secret and it's tied to Wolf, a sinister man who seems to be lurking around every corner. He's predatory, creepy, and unwilling to leave her alone.

 

Is Wood strong enough to protect her from Wolf's sharp teeth or will she be devoured whole?

 

Red and the Wolf is a science fiction retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Rudolph
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386917908

Kate Rudolph

Kate Rudolph never knows when to stop. Whether it’s riding her bike down the busy streets of Austin, Texas, fixing computers, or shooting off answers to trivia quizzes, she is doing something. She began writing at a young age and now has a stack of projects as tall as her. When she was a child, she visited a wolf sanctuary and became fascinated by the animals. She is concerned with animal conservation and protection. Kate has published one complete series, Stealing the Alpha, and several stand alones. Want to know when she releases a new book? Sign up to her mailing list to receive notifications of new releases and deals. The link can be found here: http://katerudolph.net/index.php/subscribe You can also find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katerudolphauthor Her website is www.KateRudolph.net

Book preview

Chapter One

MY, MY, WHAT BIG PETALS you have, Red murmured as she noted the newest growth in the flower grove of greenhouse three. She was on Mandela Colony, one of the four Martian colonies humans had established in the last century. As a botanist, it was her responsibility to ensure that the plants were growing within expected parameters so that oxygen levels remained acceptable and all citizens had enough food to eat. The potatoes, carrots, and green vegetables were the most important part of her duties, but Red loved the flowers best. They’d been her pet project when she moved here out of college, a little spot of beauty in an otherwise supremely functional installation.

Few head botanists would have allowed the indulgence, but Red had special connections and she wasn’t afraid to use them.

The flowers were delicate beasts and a constant reminder that she wasn’t on Earth anymore. It was far too easy to kill them, and strangely easy to make them into monsters that could suck up all the nutrients of the dirt around them.

Are they supposed to be that large? The rumbly voice did interesting things to her insides and Red had to suppress a shiver.

Wood was a relative newcomer to Mandela Colony. With only a thousand people in the installation, it meant that everyone knew everyone else. Despite that, the giant man was still a mystery. He’d been on planet for a little more than a month and Red had spent more time with him than anyone else had. She knew what his sultry mouth and full lips looked like when they tipped up in a smile. She could create his masculine scent through a combination of herbs and flowers growing in the greenhouses, and she knew his eyes sometimes caught the light and reflected it strangely. He had a wicked sense of humor and dripped sex and sin.

But he was the consummate gentleman. They’d spent plenty of time alone and he’d neither kissed her nor touched her. It was driving Red crazy and if he didn’t make a move soon she was going to need to take matters into her own hands. He was the most attractive single man in the colony and if she wasn’t quick someone else would scoop him up. She’d seen the Henderson twins eyeing him every time they were all in the main cafeteria together. If one of them made a move, she didn’t stand a chance.

Not that Red was hideous, but more often than not her light brown hair was smudged with dirt from the greenhouse and her skin was ruddy from the warm environment. She spent all her days around the plants and could talk at length about the nitrogen content of various soils, but when it came to people, well, Redding Rider Wallace took after her grandmother in that regard. Plants made sense. If you treated them right, they’d grow and flourish. Deprive them of sun or nutrients and they shriveled up.

People didn’t always work like that. They had different needs, and sometimes no matter how great things appeared, they floundered. Usually they didn’t seem worth the effort to get to know.

But Wood wasn’t any normal person.

Sure. Red came back to herself, remembering that Wood had asked her a question. He never seemed to get annoyed when she took too long to answer. Guys she’d hung out with in the past had thought she was slow or that she had some sort of speech impediment. But really she was just too involved with the root systems around her and it took a few moments to untangle it all to get a conversation started. Haven’t you ever seen nasturtiums before?

She’d chosen the bright orange flowers for their ease of growth and the fact that they were edible. It hadn’t seemed wise to grow something beautiful but toxic so close to the food. Besides, if she was going to use the space for something pretty, it also needed to be useful. Space was limited in the greenhouses and though her grandma trusted her with her projects, she couldn’t take advantage and be wasteful.

Wood reached out and stroked a long fingered hand softly along the edge of one of the petals. Red had to bite her lip to keep from making a pathetic noise as she imagined what it would feel like if he touched her like that. They’re beautiful. He looked up as he said it and their eyes locked.

Red had to swallow hard to keep from saying something that would make her seem foolish. She hadn’t scared Wood away yet, but they’d barely known each other a few weeks. He didn’t know how bad she could get. Who would have known that comparing the lines on a man’s hand to the root system of a weed could be taken poorly? Or telling him his eyes looked like the most fertile soil she’d ever seen? Yeah, her track record with past lovers wasn’t exactly great, which was why she was on her best behavior. She hadn’t sent Wood running and she was determined not to.

Not until she knew what his lips tasted like. They were so red that she almost thought he used some sort of product on them, but as close as she’d studied him, she was sure it was his natural color. His hair was a deep gold, and he had those same fertile soil brown eyes that she wouldn’t tell him about. Like hers, his skin was a bit ruddy, but it only made him look healthy, like he’d just run a few miles and his blood was pumping strong and true in his veins. When he smiled at her she sometimes caught a glimpse of his teeth. His canines were sharper than any she’d seen on another person and combined with his towering height and those flashing eyes, she almost wondered if he was enhanced in some way, not completely human. But Red didn’t ask. They were still barely more than acquaintances. Even she knew where the line was drawn there.

She plucked one of the flowers and offered it to Wood. He stared at it for several moments before reaching out and grasping it delicately between two fingers. Their hands brushed and Red couldn’t suppress this shiver. She pulled her hand back quickly, as if that could hide her response. But Wood grinned at her, a sudden predatory glint in his eye that set her instincts warring inside of her. A part of her wanted to run, wanted to find a safe place to hide from the beast that she feared lived inside of this man. Another part, stronger and mature enough to crave the dark, wanted to get closer to him, hide behind him and let him protect her from all of the things that hid in the shadows.

But Red did neither of those things. She stayed where she was and watched, enraptured, as Wood studied the flower she’d given him before he carefully laced it through a button hole on his jacket.

She’d marked him. It was nothing permanent, but something primal settled within her at the thought of him wearing her flower throughout the colony. Everyone would know that it had come from her, know that