A Tale of Red Riding: Rise of the Alpha Huntress (The Alpha Huntress Series Book 1) by Neo Edmund Page A

for you to wear any one of them.” Grenda left the room and closed the door behind her.
    Red’s heart raced with delight as she browsed through the dresses in the wardrobe. She pulled out a magnificent blue ball gown and held it up to herself. As she looked into a full-length mirror, a dazzling smile overtook her face. She saw herself as the shining image of her mother.
    “I’m going to make you proud of me. I promise.”

Chapter 10
    Red paced around on the porch of Granny’s house in nervous anticipation. It should have been the most exciting night of her young life, but she was consumed with dreadful anxiety. Her stomach was twisted in knots and the deep breathing Dote had coached her into trying wasn’t helping one bit.
    Her only comfort was that she was wearing the most beautiful blue ball gown she had ever seen. Grenda had spent the better part of an hour braiding her hair with little flowers and ribbons. Red had never dreamed that she could actually look like a princess, though it was impossible to deny the reality of the moment as she stood there in all her glory.
    “At least I’ll look good when I faint in front of everybody,” Red said.
    “Don’t be silly,” Dote said. “We’re about to have the most fun ever.”
    Dote stood by Red’s side wearing the most ridiculous bright orange flower patterned dress anybody had ever seen. Dote’s mother had made it for a harvest dance that Dote was to attend, but she never got a chance to wear it because her date had backed out at the last minute.
    Red was fairly certain that showing up in that dress would have brought Dote more ridicule than being dumped by her date. Now poor Dote was going to the premier event of Wayward in the same ridiculous dress.
    “We both look so pretty,” Dote said with a gleaming smile. “I bet everybody at the ball will be staring at us all night.”
    “Oh, I have no doubt about that.”
    Red had offered to loan Dote something from her mother’s wardrobe, but Dote was set on her orange dress. She insisted that it matched her eyes. This made not a bit of sense, considering that her eyes were hazel.
    “Do you think they’ll have ice cream?” Dote asked.
    “I don’t know how balls work, so I can’t say either way,” Red said.
    “I sure hope they’ll have chocolate mint cake. That’s our favorite.”
    It felt odd for Red to be with somebody who knew her so well and yet she knew so little about. She hoped that the memories of their time together as children would soon return. Until then, she took comfort in knowing they would have a lifetime to get to know one another again.
    “As long as we’re together, I don’t care what happens,” Red said.
    “I still can’t believe you invited me. I mean considering that my family and the Seethers aren’t on the best of terms,” Dote said.
    “Do I even want to ask why that is?” In Red’s haste to invite Dote, she had not considered the idea that it might be a problem.
    “It’s a long, weird story. Most of it happened before we were even born.”
    “As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with that boy who fell off a cliff.”
    Dote gave a nervous laugh. “What would make you think such a silly thing like that?”
    “Dote, I was only joking. Tell me the boy that our mothers were fighting over wasn’t a member of the Seether family.”
    “Of course he wasn’t.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    “I mean not in a way that anybody could ever prove.”
    “What exactly does that mean, Dote?”
    “It was mostly just rumors, Red, so don’t take this too seriously. There were some people who thought maybe the boy, who I think was named Hamelin, was like an unofficial member of the Seether family.”
    “How can somebody be an unofficial member of a family?” Red asked.
    Dote fidgeted, a little nervous. “You know, when somebody who’s married to one person goes off and has a baby with another person, but doesn’t want anybody to know for whatever reason.”
    Red nodded