The Things We Water

The centaur child kept peeking at me as we walked. He was so gangly, it was adorable, and with his splash of freckles, huge brown eyes, and eyelashes so long they looked like extensions? I wanted to give him a hug too.

“Are you okay?” I asked him after the fifth time I caught him.

On the ground, trotting next to him, Agnes the crazy puppy followed. She had tried to bite Matti when he’d offered to take her. She was on her own now.

“Can I hold your hand?” the little boy asked shyly.

That made me miss Duncan, and it had been less than an hour since I’d left him with Sienna.

I held my hand out, and his slipped into mine. It was warm and sweaty, and it made me like him even more. “What’s your name?”

“Shiloh,” the centaur/goat child answered. “What’s your name?”

I had already given it to him, but he’d had other things to worry about. “Evangelina but everyone calls me Nina.” Not even my own parents had called me by my full name.

He squeezed my fingers before gesturing toward the adorable menace at his side. “That’s Agnes, and that’s Pascal.”

I nodded and smiled, glancing up to make sure Matti was doing fine as he carried who I now knew was Pascal in his arms as he led us through the forest. We had decided it would be faster and easier to drive us all back. I just hoped one of their pack didn’t come looking for them before we got there, thinking we were trying to kidnap them. That would be a great introduction.

Shiloh squeezed my fingers again, and I focused down on him. His eyes went so wide, so dreamy, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. It definitely wasn’t what he said next.

“Are you a forest princess?”

Up ahead, Matti tried to muffle a sound. I pretended I didn’t hear him. “I’m not, but thank you for asking.”

“You look like one,” he told me in a small, timid voice.

I jiggled his hand in mine. “Thank you.” If things worked out here, he was definitely on my Christmas list.

Shiloh kept looking at me with that innocent, curious face. “What are you?” he whispered.

It was a taboo thing to ask someone what they were. Either you offered it, or you didn’t. It was a sign of trust to tell another person your heritage if it wasn’t obvious by scent or feel. I’d been told that all werewolves smelled slightly similar, and I could confirm that they all felt a certain way, like all ogres, trolls, and other beings like that. The same way an accent would give you an idea of where someone was from. Magic was the same in its way.

But, as I knew firsthand, a lot of people were very, very protective of that information for their own reasons, and I again wondered how many of those beings sometimes just didn’t know what they were—look at me and Duncan. Regardless, asking a person’s heritage was the equivalent of someone asking what color your nipples were or how big your penis was. So, it was rare to ever have someone just ask, if they had manners.

But Shiloh, who was holding my hand like we were old friends, eyes glittering when they met mine, looked so guileless….

I’d give him my bank account numbers if he looked at me that way when he asked.

“Back there… with that… you know… you smelled like… you smelled like—” His shoulders went up and down as he struggled to express himself. “—a birthday cake.”

That was a new one.

I think I might have blushed.

“I don’t know for sure,” I whispered back, honestly. “I never met my real mom or dad.” I had some ideas, sure. One was a very, very good guess, but most of the people in my life had all agreed that it was better for me to never actually voice my guess because of superstition with saying certain names out loud. The man and the woman who I considered in every way to be my parents didn’t share DNA with me, but that didn’t mean much to anyone. Like Matti had said: werewolves didn’t care.

Big brown eyes blinked before the child frowned. “Never?”

I shook my head, grateful that this wasn’t a sensitive topic for me. It was like talking about a celebrity, in a way. Or characters I’d read about in books.

“What do you look like?” He meant in my other body, like how he could go from half goat to human.

“I don’t change. I can’t,” I answered, trying to explain it as simply as I could. “I always look like this.” I was average, medium, in almost every way. Wavy dark hair, brownish peach skin that was a clue of who I’d inherited it from, and light hazel eyes that were another clue—but a really broad one. My bone structure was a hint of my possible parentage, I thought, but the rest of me was pretty ambiguous.

From the way he blinked, the concept of not having another form was unheard of to him.

It was to the majority of people. Myths were myths to some, and legends were simply legends to others. But they weren’t.

My parents had explained it to me once when I’d been sixteen and that special thing in me had woken up and changed me. I hadn’t understood why or how I could be so different from them. From everyone in my life. Why I couldn’t turn into something too. Shift, some people called it. To me, it looked like a shimmer more than anything.

My parents had sandwiched me between them and explained that if there was something—magic—in this world that had created all those beings in mythology, that there was no reason to believe that something—that magic from a meteor—couldn’t be capable of creating all the other beings in the world that had stories and legends written about them too. That they were all intertwined for a reason.

“We’re in the same books but our stories are different, Nina,” my mom had assured me. “Why would only some be real but not the others?”

And then we had gone to our window and, through the blinds, watched our neighbor across the street: a tall, very old man with an eye patch who had two pet ravens that he tried to play off like they were wild when all the magical people in the neighborhood knew better. He was usually sitting out on his porch. I had always known on some level there was something different about him. He’d worn a bracelet most of the time, but when he didn’t? His magic had been staggering. He had been nice to Matti and me, but I remembered how much he had loved Henri. That was when my parents had mouthed to me who they thought he had been once upon a time.

They had never used the word “immortal” to describe him, but rather said “long-lived.” From an old, old pagan culture. One of the few ancient beings whose existence hadn’t faded from memory.

I would never forget that they had no sooner mouthed his four-letter name than the old man, who went by Otis, had turned his attention in the direction of our house and smiled in a way that made the hair on my arms rise.

We left for the store an hour later and bought a puzzle that I had dropped off on his doorstep.

Even now, thousands of years after magic had made its initial presence, some names, and the magic and the gifts that came with them, still evoked fear.

Nobody had called the puzzle an offering, but nobody said it wasn’t one either.

The older man had left an impression on me, but that still hadn’t been enough for me to accept who one or both of my biological parents might be. But when you’re young, all you want to do is fit in.

And when you’re older, you’ve accepted who you are, and you just want to be left alone. Funny how that worked.

In that moment though, Shiloh blinked, still confused, his gaze falling to my bracelet. It wasn’t anything special. It looked like a normal bracelet, with one smooth, round obsidian bead strung to a fire obsidian and then a quartz. The pattern repeated throughout the length of it. It was the obsidian though that did all the work. It hid what I wanted to keep a secret.

“But… but the monster was scared of you,” the little boy stuttered in confusion.

But he thought I was a princess anyway? There was no point in arguing his observation. I nodded. “You aren’t scared of me, are you?”

His lips pinched together, and he shook his head. “No, you’re nice.”

“Thank you.” I squeezed his little hand. “You’re nice too.”

Shiloh, the centaur/goat child, gazed at me for a second, the question about my identity lingering in his head before he used one of his two legs—hooves?—and kicked at a small twig. “My dad says you don’t have to be the biggest to be the scariest.”

“It helps to be big, but being small and scary works too. Like a spider.” I dropped my voice. “My friend saw one and came running out of the bathroom screaming that he thought it was going to eat him. It was a tiny little spider too.”

In front, Matti slowed down and glared at me over his shoulder but kept his mouth shut. That wasn’t exactly what had happened, but I could be dramatic too. Just less often.

Shiloh’s expression went pensive. “I was scared. Agnes was too, but she tried to fight.”

“Don’t feel bad for being scared. That thing was mean. You didn’t run or cry. You stood up to it. You should be proud of yourself. I bet if you really wanted, you could have stomped on it. Broken a couple toes at least,” I suggested.

Matti snickered.

“You think so?” little Shiloh asked.

“Definitely.”

Maybe I shouldn’t put that idea into his head.

He was quiet until after we’d jumped over a fallen log—him gracefully, me not so much—and then waited for crazy Agnes to take three tries to get over it too after she’d tried biting Matti again when he tried to help her. That time though, Matti had quietly growled at her and continued doing it until she’d stopped. I forgot there was a huge brown wolf under that ’stache.

Then Shiloh asked, freckled nose wrinkling, “But why was that mean lady scared of you?”

How was I supposed to explain that to a child, especially one who was holding my hand when I’d had full-grown adults who left campgrounds when I arrived? Plus, Shiloh wasn’t a predator.

I guess I wasn’t one either.

“I don’t turn into anything like you all do, but I have magic that it doesn’t understand. You liked the way I smell, but it didn’t,” I told him as casually as possible, not wanting to alarm him or give him a reason to ask more questions I wouldn’t know how to answer.

“But—” he started to say just as we approached the visible signs of a road ahead. Matti gestured us to the left with his head, and I followed. He had to help all of us, minus the white puppy who dug a hole and belly crawled under the fence, and once we were clear, I spotted the travel trailer exactly where we’d left it.

“You’re taking us home?” Shiloh asked with another squeeze of my palm.

“Yup,” I told him. “We were going there anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m hoping your pack will let me and my pup live there.”

“You have a pup?”

“Yeah. His name is Duncan, and he’s over there with my friend, Sienna. She’s a wolf like them.”

Sienna wouldn’t care if I told her secret—not that it really was one anyway, since the little boy could probably sense the similarities between her and his pup friends.

Shiloh’s eyes widened in interest as Matti got to the spot where Sienna and Duncan had been waiting. He leaned in and kissed her, rubbing the top of my donut’s head while he did. Duncan leaned toward the boy, Pascal, and I was pretty sure they were smelling each other before my puppy gave the boy a lick. Sienna laughed and grinned before they made their way to the truck and opened the rear passenger door, loading Duncan inside first, then the child.

I squeezed my new friend’s hand again as the white werewolf reached the truck and she barked at my best friends.

“Don’t be scared,” I told Shiloh. “None of us are going to hurt you, and I promise we’re just taking you home. You’re safe.”

He gave me that spirit-soaring, dreamy smile. “I know,” he assured me as more sharp barks filled the air. Agnes the werewolf pup was on the ground, her small face tilted up to the truck where Duncan was. She was wagging her tail and snapping her teeth at him. Sienna took a step between them.

“Stop, pup,” she demanded, clearly aiming the command at the crazy one—but not that crazy because the puppy knocked it off and sat on her hind legs. That tone of voice usually had the same effect on Duncan, who hadn’t made a peep to begin with. He was picky about what he was willing to get in trouble over.

Sienna smiled sweetly, and Matti and I both gave her an impressed face. I whistled at her, and she looked up, ready to say something when her mouth dropped as we made it to the truck. “Are you a satyr?” she gasped at Shiloh with sheer joy.

A satyr. That’s what he was.

Shiloh leaned against my thigh. “Yes,” he whispered, suddenly shy. Or maybe it was because she was a new predator he didn’t know?

She squealed. “You’re so cute!”

My new friend glanced up at me, his freckled cheeks pink. “You are very cute,” I promised him. Then I focused on Duncan, who was too busy staring at Agnes to even notice I was back. “I missed you too, Dunky-Dunk,” I called out with a laugh.

Bright red eyes moved toward me a split second before that fluffy tail swept from side to side. That warmth that felt like a hug in my chest flared in sudden greeting.

“Yes.”

I blinked, trying my best to get used to this ability that had popped up when his appearance had changed. He wasn’t using it very often yet, but when he did? It was like a Christmas present. When I’d told Matti and Sienna about it, after we’d discussed the ranch, they had both looked at me like I was nuts. But I hadn’t been totally surprised when he’d done it the first time; I’d had a feeling he would someday be able to communicate with me like that.

His mom had been great at it.

Duncan focused back on Agnes, his tail swinging around.noveldrama

“What’s that smell?” Sienna asked out of nowhere. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s like sewage.”

“I think we met a Jenny Greenteeth,” Matti answered.

“A what?”we both said at the same time.

“Jenny Greenteeth.” He scratched his nose. “That’s what they call them in England.”

“What’s a Jenny Greentooth?” Sienna asked, reading my mind.

“Greenteeth, baby. An old crone that lives in a river and eats….” Matti’s eyes flicked over to the truck, where the kids were. His lips and mustache went flat.

I took after Matti and scratched my nose. “I’m impressed you know that much obscure folklore, Matti.”

“My roommate junior year of college was from Lancashire and had this book I read when I took a shit.”

That explained it.

“You guys stink.” Sienna wrinkled her nose. “Some more than others.”

I didn’t think it was us that smelled. I was pretty sure it was Agnes since she was the only one who’d gotten touched, but I didn’t trust the puppy not to bite me if I talked about her. She wasn’t barking anymore as she waited at the truck, her attention still on Duncan.

She was a wary one for sure.

But she was so dang cute.

I got Shiloh’s attention. “Need help getting into the truck?”

He shook his head as he let go of my hand and jumped gracefully into the back seat, landing on the floorboards perfectly. “Come on, Agnes,” he called to his friend. The puppy gave the three of us adults a mean look before backing up and jumping in too… barely making it. Duncan’s tail waved faster, but he didn’t lean down to smell or lick her like he had the boy, Pascal. He gave Shiloh space too, I noticed.

Matti held out his hand. “I’ll drive the rest of the way, okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed. I just wanted to give my boy a hug now. What if that child-eating asshole had found him instead?

He could have lit her on fire, but that was beside the point. I only wanted him to light things on fire that he wanted to light on fire—and that was a thought I didn’t think I would ever have. This whole situation was one I never would’ve imagined either.

“I’ll sit in the back with them if you want to ride shotgun,” I offered to Sienna, who nodded.

It only took a second for me to get in and shut the door. Duncan settled into my lap and licked my cheek. “Hi, Donut.”

His “yes”was soft and gentle. His form of hi. We were both still learning his gift. His voice was nowhere near as clear or strong as his mom’s had been, and I wondered what it would sound like when he was older.

“Is that fire on his tail?” Shiloh whispered.

Pascal, who was leaning over, gawked. “Why are his eyes red?”

“The same reason why yours are gold. You got them from someone in your family,” I answered him.

The boy seemed to think about that for a moment. “He smells like you, but he doesn’t smell like you,” Pascal the wolf boy argued. “You’re not his mom.”

Duncan licked my cheek in a way that felt like an argument against that claim. It sure felt like I was his mom, even if I’d never used the word out loud.

“He didn’t come from my body, but he is my pup,” I tried to explain, gently.

“He wasn’t in your stomach?”

“Nope.”

“Was he in his dad’s stomach? Because my mom said that she wished my dad could have babies, and Dad said that seahorses do. And that maybe other animals do too, but not wolves,” the boy rambled on out of nowhere before making an expectant face.

He actually expected me to answer that?

Sienna turned all the way around in her seat as Matti pulled us back onto the road. Pinching her index finger and thumb together, she dragged them across her lips. Freaking coward.

“I… I really don’t think his dad carried him in his stomach either. I’m pretty sure it was his biological mom.”

“What’s biological?”

This kid hadn’t said a word to Matti during the walk to the car, but now he had a million of them.

I wasn’t exactly qualified to have this conversation. Duncan was the only child I’d spent significant time with since I’d been a kid, and he didn’t argue with me or ask questions. He could push my buttons playfully sometimes, but that was different. He was an angel on four legs. And I just had to peek down at him, finding those big, sweet eyes, to know it was true. He was one of those puppies that looked like he was smiling.

Butno one else seemed to want to answer the boy’s question, so I guessed it was up to me. “Uh…” I started fidgeting. “That means….”

There were coughs from the front seat that sounded deceptively like laughs.

I guess I couldn’t expect any backup from Matti or Sienna on this.

I cleared my throat. “To have a baby, the baby has parts from the mom and the dad. Like maybe you have your dad’s eyes but you’re funny like your mom? Because most beings can’t have babies without someone else sharing part of their… bodies?”

Pascal frowned at me like I didn’t make sense, and let’s be real, it didn’t really, but how did you explain biology and cells to what looked like a seven-year-old? I sure didn’t know. I wouldn’t even know how to explain the birds and the bees using the birds and the bees analogy. I hadn’t understood the concept when I was thirteen, and I still didn’t understand it now in my early thirties.

And I was not going to be the one to explain a daddy’s pee-pee going into a mommy’s privates. I would throw myself out of the truck first. “But Duncan is my pup. I take care of him, he takes care of me, and I love him,” I told them before they could nitpick my BS explanation.

“Does he love you?” the werewolf child asked in a way that kind of sounded innocent but also pretty judgy.

I glanced at Duncan, who still had his attention on me, and smiled. “He does.” I didn’t doubt it for a second.

“My aunt says that moms and dads are great but other people are just as good as they are,” my friend Shiloh butted in, wise beyond his years.

“Your aunt is a genius. As long as someone loves you, it doesn’t matter.” I paused and thought about something. “Do you want to call your parents?”

I’d never seen anyone go from being okay to looking like they wanted to throw up so fast.

Agnes decided right then to start growling again, and Shiloh had to scold her, which then led to the three of them arguing about whatever it was they were arguing over. Getting in trouble? Getting busted? The boys were talking over each other so much it was hard to tell what each one of them was trying to say while the white wolf pitched in her own thoughts through low grumbles that made me want to giggle from how adorable they were.

I guess nobody wanted to call their parents. If we weren’t so close to the ranch, I would’ve insisted but…

I focused on Duncan then, grateful that he didn’t talk a lot. Those red eyes were bright and attentive. I had already told him multiple times what we were doing and where we were going, and my gut said he understood, but I lowered my voice and palmed his back. “Do you remember where we’re going? I’ll be with you the whole time. Nothing is going to happen. This place smells so good, and I think you’re going to like it. If you hate it, it’s okay. You just have to tell me, all right?”

His “yes” was a touch to my soul. I could eat his telepathy with tortilla chips, I loved it so much.

I stroked the fur between his head and the base of his tail, then I did it again, trying to keep my thoughts on him. If I didn’t focus on how this meeting was actually about to happen—how our future hinged on how it went—my body wouldn’t react to the worry that came with it, and the exceptional noses in the truck would never notice I was ramping myself up.

Regardless of whatever happened, we were going to be fine. Duncan and I would figure it out. Matti had said something about Alaska, hadn’t he?

The truck slowing down brought me back to the moment as Matti turned the wheel a hard left. Through the rear passenger window, the only things visible were massive trees and a fence taller than the one we’d jumped. The difference now was that there was an imposing iron gate ahead. Multiple signs were posted, claiming PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING, NO SOLICITING, NO POACHING, YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW, and YOU ARE UNDER VIDEO SURVEILLANCE.

They weren’t screwing around. Good.

We slowed to a stop, and the driver’s side window rolled down. There was an intercom-looking thing to the left. Leaning out of the window, Matti pressed a button on the keypad. It beeped. “Hello?”

Nothing.

He glanced at Sienna, who shrugged, before he leaned out the window one more time, making the intercom beep again. “Hello? This is Matti. I used to live here….”

Nothing.

The side mirror reflected his frown.

He did whatever he did to make the intercom beep for the third time. His mustache was flat across his upper lip. “It’s still Matti. My cousin is Henri Blackrock. I found three of your children and have them with me—oh, the gate is opening now,” he muttered in a voice that cracked with irritation.

On my lap, Duncan leaned to the side to peek out the window. I had already talked to him about how careful he needed to be around them. I didn’t want to scare him or be so strict, but it was a necessary evil. I rolled the window down a crack. His shiny nose started twitching, taking in the air that somehow felt even more magical than before. Against my hand, his little heart started beating faster, so I stroked his chest. Did he sense the same thing I had when I’d gotten out of the truck? Nobody else seemed to be reacting to it, but….

Slowly, the gates finished opening, and Matti drove forward, giving me a close-up view of the black ironwork. Part of me had expected to see the outline of a wolf on them or something kind of catchy like that, but the only decoration on the iron was a half-moon on each side, which formed a whole one when closed. A full moon.

Duncan’s nose kept twitching, twitching, twitching.

I glanced over at the kids and found Shiloh looking nervous. He was wringing his little hands. “Are you okay?” I asked.

Huge brown eyes blinked in the least convincing way ever.

“What were you all doing running away from home?” Matti asked from the front seat.

Those adorable eyes almost bulged out of his head as the most nervous laugh I’d ever heard came out of his body. “We weren’t running away! We were going to look for⁠—”

“Shh!” the werewolf boy hissed, putting his index finger up to his lips.

Shiloh gritted his teeth before offering almost glumly, “Stuff?”

That sounded real believable.

Sienna turned around in the seat as much as she could. “Were all of you born on the ranch?”

“No,” the werewolf boy answered at the same time as Shiloh said, “Me, yeah. Agnes, no. Her mom⁠—”

From the floor, the white puppy barked.

The satyr stopped talking.

I was learning real quick he might be sweet but couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. I think I loved him already.

It was Pascal who leaned forward so his head would have gone between the seats if he was bigger and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. “Are you really Henri’s cousin?”

In the rearview mirror, Matti’s face brightened. “He’s my older cousin.” He paused. “I’m his only cousin.”

I wasn’t sure Matti even knew the technicalities of their relationship, but I wasn’t going to bring it up. If it had never mattered to him, why would it to me? I knew next to nothing about his dad’s side of the family, and that was all right. If he’d wanted to talk about it, he would have by now.

“The one who used to pee his bed?”

My mouth dropped, and I leaned forward too, my head over Pascal’s to get a good look at Matti’s profile in person. He was focused on the road, but he wasn’t beaming anymore. “What?”

“Henri said you used to pee your bed because you were scared,” the boy explained.

“You were fourteen when you moved here….” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I started cracking up.

“No!” Matti shook his head. “I never⁠—”

“He said you did it all the time.”

Sienna reached back to blindly grab my hand, and then we were both cackling.

“No.” Matti’s face…. “Why would he…?”

“All the time,” the werewolf pup insisted, just in case we hadn’t heard him. “Lots of pee.”

Sienna and I were too busy trying to breathe to make a single comment.

Why would he make that up about Matti?

I couldn’t stop laughing. Henri had said that? The teenage boy I remembered would not—would not—have said something like that. Ever. That made it even funnier.

“I don’t pee the bed, and you both know it,” he argued, way too defensively. We were still busy gasping for breath when the truck slowed down again just as Matti whistled, back to ignoring our BS. “This place has changed.”

Wiping away my tears and saving the moment for later, I sat up and peered through the windshield, the laughter leaving my body almost immediately.

The ranch, the part of it I could see, wasn’t what I’d expected.

There was no cozy farmhouse set on a desolate and dusty parcel of land. There were no pens of horses, or a riding rink surrounded by cowboys. There wasn’t a single cow or steer in sight either, like most of the ranches I’d driven by.

In front of us was what seemed like a giant gravel parking lot that could have belonged at a sports stadium. Across from it was a building that was so large it resembled an old courthouse or a mansion… or basically a billionaire’s gigantic cabin that was visited once a year. The walls were made of some of the most impressive logs I’d ever seen.

There were UTVs parked next to each other in between the lot and the building. To the sides and behind it, the woods cleared and opened a bit to show small homes in the distance. Most of them were also cabin-looking, but some of them were more traditional homes with muted neutral colors. There were multiple paths that branched out toward the dwellings from the huge building.

From the way it was all set up and the small number of cars parked in the lot in front of the main structure, it seemed like you had to leave your car there to get around.

“They didn’t have this back then,” Matti said, like he could read my mind. “The parking lot was here but not that building.”

I opened my mouth to ask about the parking situation when a nudge at my chin had me tipping it down to find Duncan’s pupils slightly dilated. “Everything is going to be okay,” I promised him with a stroke of his soft, floppy ears. He didn’t look all that worried, or even a little bit worried. Was it me? Was I giving off anxious vibes or something? “I’m fine.”

“Yes,”he told me.

It was my nerves then. “I’m just a little nervous. Don’t tell anybody.” I winked at him.

“Yes,”he assured me. He pressed his nose to my chin again, and I gave him yet another hug, grateful I had someone who enjoyed them as much as I did.

He was worth everything—all the nerves, all the stomachaches, all the uncertainty. I couldn’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t do for these long ears and his big, loyal heart.

We had to make this place work.

“Might as well get out. They’re going to have a million and a half questions,” Matti warned as he opened the door.

Shiloh, the satyr, hesitated for a moment before opening the door closest to him and getting to his hooves before jumping out. Following him was the white puppy, and last went the werewolf child. I tapped Duncan’s nose to get his attention one last time.

“Be on your best behavior. I don’t want to put you in air jail,” I warned him. He waved that fluffy tail behind him. We both knew, though, that he’d done enough stuff in the past that had required that kind of prison sentence.

But I didn’t want him to know that staying here depended on him, and I definitely didn’t want him to sense any pressure if he didn’t like it and we had to figure out plan B.

That was a burden he didn’t need to shoulder. He didn’t need to know yet there wasn’t a plan B.

I pet his head before turning and climbing out with him in my arms and then setting him down on the gravel. He wouldn’t run off—I was pretty positive—but confidence was built by experiences. I had to trust him. He’d be safe here.

At least that’s what Matti had told us, and I believed him despite the Jenny Greenteeth we’d encountered. I justified it by telling myself that she had been at least a couple miles away, and she’d taken off in the opposite direction. But I should probably get my fanny pack from where I’d left it on the front seat regardless. He rarely needed his leash, and I wanted to believe he wouldn’t need it now, but… just in case.

I was thinking about that as I took a few steps around the truck after getting out of the back seat, standing close to Shiloh, who had made his way over while he spoke to Agnes beside him. Pascal was saying something to Matti and Sienna on the other side of the truck. I swept my gaze around, too focused on the smell of the woods and the magic in the air to really listen to the low, consistent sound in the distance. The sound I would have recognized—if I’d been paying attention—was a heavy body running fast over fallen leaves.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Duncan’s ears perk up, his attention pivoting toward the trees. At almost the exact same time, Shiloh did the same.

Unfortunately, I missed their reactions, and I was going to blame the enchanted forest we were in for why I didn’t sense the wrecking ball of a magical presence running like the wind through it.

And it had to be because of all those reasons that I was totally surprised when a huge black mass appeared in my peripheral vision.

It didn’t click that it was running straight for us until it was almost too late, and I stepped in front of the two kids.

An animal the size of a Clydesdale took what I would call a flying leap at me not twenty seconds after I’d gotten out of the truck.

Matti shouted. One of the boys did too. Duncan whined deep in his throat.

It all happened so fast, and I barely had time to do anything but make sure it was me and not Duncan or Shiloh it was aiming for before gigantic paws hit my shoulders and tackled me to the ground like a pop star’s bodyguard would take down a fan running on stage.

The only good part was that I didn’t have time to tense and make hitting the gravel like a watermelon from a ten-story building even worse than it already was.

But that’s what happened.

The massive black ball of fur tried to turn me into a pancake, and it wasn’t until I gasped for air in shock as I barely managed not to crack my head on the ground that I heard the “No!” Shiloh yelled after everyone else’s mix of noises. But all my lungs could do was rattle as my brain struggled to process what had just happened. It was at that point, despite my eyes watering, that I finally got to absorb the body standing over me.

Literally.

Two humongous paws were braced on either side of my head, and maybe a centimeter from my nose was a face that belonged in geographic magazines…

And the biggest wolf in the universe, who had somehow managed to survive the Ice Age or whatever time period wolves the size of the biggest horses existed, was snarling at me so deeply, so pissed, I should have been scared out of my mind.

I wasn’t.

The most intense amber gaze I’d ever seen was looking down at me. I gasped, “Freaking hell, Henri, what have you been eating? Small children? Minor deities?”

The snarling werewolf suddenly went so quiet it was like someone had unplugged him from a power outlet. He dropped into a sitting position almost immediately, right by my feet. Even his almost-terrifying mouth closed.

Just as quickly as his whole demeanor changed, the wolf turned its head over his furry shoulder. That’s when I caught it. The tiny growl I’d heard countless times, especially when it was within a foot of a raw meaty bone.

Leaning over, I gasped at the twelve-pound black puppy dangling in the air. Its jaws were clamped to the wolf’s tail, the one red eyeball that was visible was wide, and the flame on the tip of his tail was the palest shade of blue I had ever seen. My sweet little Duncan baby, my donut, my joy, my boy, growled even louder, and I’d swear I could see his jaws clamp down even more around the bone and fur in his mouth.

He was attacking the kaiju of wolves.

To protect me.

But even as my heart stuttered in fear and my brain told me to do something, the huge werewolf only stared. At Duncan. Not aggressively. Not in preparation to eat him. In a way that made me think that it didn’t know what was going on.

“Henri! What are you doing?”Matti bellowed. I was pretty sure I could hear him running over my wheezing.

The legs on either side of my feet shimmered for a fraction of a moment before the body looming over me was replaced by two work boots.

Big, human feet.

And above the double-digit-sized boots, which I’d bet were really sturdy, were long, thick legs, an upper body that could’ve created its own eclipse, and a face that… that….

The man there now was looking at me with the same intense amber eyes as before, and he was… he was….

He was holding my baby up by the scruff!

Honestly, I had no idea what came over me. Instinct? Maybe I had hit my head and wasn’t thinking clearly?

I had no clue.

All I knew was that I made an unholy noise right before I rolled onto my side, grabbed the calf right there, and bit it.

“What the hell?” I heard Matti mutter just as I sank my teeth into jeans and muscle. Hard too.

I would’ve made a mama bear proud.

“The hell—” a husky male voice above me growled just as a much younger voice cut him off.

“She saved us! That’s her baby!” I was pretty sure it was Shiloh who screeched, the voice of reason in the madness because I stopped biting the calf in front of me like it was a turkey leg at the Renaissance festival the second I heard it. Above me, the big man had moved his grip on Duncan so he had hands beneath his front legs instead of at the back of his neck.

And Duncan—bless him—was growling in the face of the werewolf man who had been ready to rip my face off seconds ago. If the growling wasn’t enough, he started whipping his head and body from side to side like he was a rabid badger trying to escape. Like he was trying to help me…?

Oh, Dunky. If this man didn’t look like he ate only the best magical organ meat on the market to keep up his size, I might have cried from how proud I was. From how this act of love, of bravery, could be enough to support me through every bad moment I ever had in my life from then on out. He was so small in comparison, and it wasn’t stopping him from putting himself at risk.

For me.

“What’s this?” the man asked slowly, clearly referring to Duncan, before tipping his head down and aiming those familiar eyes back on me. He blinked. “Who’s this?” he demanded, his tone somehow a grumbled mix between confused, irritated, and caught off guard. Mostly irritated though, I’d bet. “And what are you doing here, Matti?”

Someone was speechless again. Seeing your oldest friend almost get mauled by your relative might do that.

Or maybe he’d thought I was….

“Long time no see.”

That took a second.

There was a pause of silence before Matti cleared his throat, his tone coming out almost normal next. One of us, or both of us, had scared the crap out of him. I could tell. “Can you please stop standing over Nina before she bites you again?” The laugh that came out of him sounded almost identical to the one that Shiloh had made when we’d asked him what they’d been up to in the woods, kind of high and shaky.

There was another beat of silence followed by a muffled snicker that had me leaning around the leg still on one side of my body to find Matti standing a few feet away, looking frazzled and amused at the same time.

But mostly freaked out and trying not to be. I snapped my teeth at him before smiling too, hoping to make him feel better. Poor Matti.

From the way his dimples popped from one moment to the next, I wasn’t surprised when he snorted suddenly. “You bit him? Really?” He grinned like a fool, shaking his head.

I shrugged from the ground, eyeing Duncan still hanging there, supported by hands that had gotten bigger since the last time I’d seen them.

Henri had always been huge in my memories—people had confused him for an adult man at sixteen—but somehow, he’d kept on growing over the last almost twenty years.

From the few memories I had of him in his four-legged, magical form, he had been impressive. Now?

I peeked at him again to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

I wasn’t.

Henri didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything other than stare at me.

I almost became self-conscious, he did it so long.

Eventually, his nostrils flared, not much but enough so I noticed. He was taking me in, of course. I smelled differently than I had the last time we’d seen each other, and it had been a long, long time.

But that didn’t change the fact that maybe he didn’t remember me, even if he’d stopped when I’d said his name. I hadn’t forgotten him. He was still my best friend’s cousin.

Now, he was the adult version. The supersized one. Even more imposing than my memories did him justice.

And was that a smudge of blood on his face?

“Hi,” I told the man standing over me. Then, before I could second-guess myself, I hugged Henri’s shin and calf. Pressed my cheek against it and everything. Part of me felt just a little bit bad about biting him.

Not really though. He shouldn’t have grabbed Duncan like that, but that wasn’t how I’d planned on greeting him after so long. I’d expected a light hug or a pat on the back in a best-case scenario, maybe a nod at least, but not getting knocked off my feet and snarled at.

Or having my precious baby held up like a sacrifice.

That was where he’d screwed up, but that wasn’t his fault. Werewolves were territorial. It was part of the reason why we were here. I wanted someone who would try to rip off a stranger’s face to protect my boy.

And if that someone was a protective man with sharp teeth, what was I going to do? Complain? Say “no, thanks”?

After a one-second-long squeeze, I scooted backward and sat up, getting my legs under me and standing. It was only then, not panicking anymore, that I could finally sense the full impact of his magic. I could have swooned. He was not the strongest magical person I’d ever met—our old neighbor and Duncan’s mom were—but holy bologna. It was close.

Where in the world had this kind of presence on him come from? I’d been joking before, but… had he eaten some old gods? Maybe gnawed on the magical trees surrounding us?

The old man who had lived across the street from us had masked his magic nearly constantly with a bracelet like mine—rumor had it, he’d worn two or three of them—and if I’d ever met one of the other old ones, I hadn’t been able to tell for the same reason.

Henri, though, wasn’t trying to hide anything.

That was the part that shocked me. My body was ultra-aware of the magic living in the woods and the magic that came from every person around me, signaling that they were more than human, but where the children were candles and Matti and Sienna were steady burning campfires, Henri was a bonfire. A funeral pyre. Whatever was the biggest burning thing I could think of short of a city-destroying bomb.

I didn’t miss the way Henri’s attention followed me, watching me watch him, nostrils again flaring softly on a deeply tan face. Henri’s hair was a deep black that was the exact same shade as the glimpses of his coat I’d gotten when he’d been standing over me. He was tall and broad at the shoulders and chest. His hips were narrow in comparison but not slim. He was the epitome of a big man. And his face…

Yeahhh, no wonder I’d had a crush on him when I’d been a kid.

And that was definitely blood on him. The corner of his bottom lip was slightly swollen too. There was a tiny cut near the corner.

Hmm.

Even with the busted bottom lip, Henri’s facial features were striking and masculine. He was no pretty boy, like I enjoyed teasing Matti that he was. Henri Blackrock was all cheekbones and a big, defined jaw. In a lot of ways, he looked like the man-boy I remembered, except older and two or three times bigger. He was even more handsome than my memories recalled, that was for sure. I had pictures of my childhood, of one or two of Matti’s birthdays with his older cousin sulking in the background behind a giant steak with a candle in it—he only had cake or cupcakes when his mom brought them to school to help him fit in, and he’d always forced down a single bite before handing whatever it was off to me to polish off.

Henri might not have been a fixture in my life like Matti had been, but he had still made an impact in his own way—mostly on my hormones and in my daydreams.

Right then, his nostrils flared some more, and I figured he was still trying to get a whiff of me, except he couldn’t. He could smell my skin and hair, but not the parts of me that made me magical too. Only in a different way.

Tough.

Thick, dark eyebrows scrunched together on his ruggedly cut face. His voice sounded like rumpled velvet when he asked slowly, drawing every word out in a way that emphasized how confusing my presence had to be, “What are you?”

I smiled up at him. “A Pisces. You?”

Someone made a sound, and there was no way it was anyone other than Sienna.

Adult Henri’s head jerked back at my answer. His forehead furrowed before that yellowish-orange-ish gaze raked my face again. “Cricket?”

I burst out laughing. “Wow. I haven’t heard that in forever.” Cricket. I grinned, so pleased he hadn’t forgotten me after all. “Hi, Fluffy,” I greeted him. “How have you been? Can I have my boy back?”

Henri Blackrock, the biggest wolf and man I had ever seen, blinked at me. He’d said my nickname, but it was like he still couldn’t wrap his head around it from the way the lines at his forehead got even deeper. Even his nostrils flared a little more.

And on second glance, his clothing was a little dirty too. Too dusty for it to be casual. He looked how I did when I got done rolling around with Duncan.

What was up with that?

Henri’s gaze took me in like he had no idea what he was seeing, his eyes roaming my face, then sweeping lower, then lower….

Two back-to-back choking sounds that I would have bet money were courtesy of Matti and Sienna were the cue his body needed to instantly tense even more than it already had been, and in the next moment, he held Duncan out.

“Thank you.” My palms and fingers glided over the backs of his as I took my boy and pulled him into my chest, meeting Henri’s intense gaze afterward. I smiled at him some more.

Short, dark lashes fell over incredible amber eyes. He was looking at me. Really freaking watching me.

It had to be driving him nuts not being able to smell my magic.Werewolves were very scent-sual creatures, after all.

Scent-sual… I needed to whisper that one to Sienna later. She’d get a kick out of it.

Chances were, he was trying to reconcile the girl he’d last known with the person I’d grown into. Even Matti had done a double take the first time he’d seen me after my magic presented itself. Except all he’d done to verify my identity was peel back my eyelid, then say, “Let me smell your fart.”

I hadn’t—farted that was—but I did smack him in the gut with the back of my hand, and that had done the trick.

“I almost had a heart attack, if anyone cares,” Matti shared before literally sliding between us, facing his older cousin. “How’s it going, bro?” he said, his tone dry like this whole scene hadn’t just been a shit show. “Thanks for not calling me back.”

Off to the side, Sienna caught my attention while she stood by the kids, her face paler than usual. She mouthed, “You okay?”

Physically? I’d been better, considering it had taken everything in me not to groan when I’d gotten up, and I’d almost blacked out with rage at thinking Duncan was in danger, but otherwise? I gave her a thumbs-up before taking a step away from Matti’s back to get a better angle of the two men standing a foot apart, taking in their similarities and differences since it had been so long since the last time I’d seen them together. Not since the funeral.

Matti wasn’t short at six foot three, but Henri was taller by a couple inches minimum. Other than that, where Matti’s skin tone was a tan slightly darker than mine, Henri’s was a perfect mix of two very different ancestries—a heavily indigenous side that I assumed had to be Amarok based off his size and family connection to Matti, while the other was descended from Scandinavia… if my memory served me correctly.

Their hair color wasn’t all that similar. Matti’s was a dark brown, and Henri’s was a distinct shade of black that might have a touch of gray in it, but I couldn’t confirm because of our height difference.

The truth was, there wasn’t much I knew about the man my best friend was related to. He was a decade older than us. When we were children, they hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together, considering the age difference. Henri would come and visit for the summers before he’d moved in with Matti’s family for almost a year after he’d graduated high school.

After that, it had become even rarer to see him. He’d joined something—the military, maybe? Or had he just moved away? I couldn’t remember, and it wasn’t as if Matti talked about him. I had only learned that he eventually lived on a special ranch after Henri had come around and become Matti’s guardian.

Irises a color I hadn’t seen on anyone else other than him flicked back in my direction over his cousin’s shoulder, then landed on the puppy in my arms who was still growling like the tiniest chainsaw in the universe. The notch between Henri’s eyebrows went nowhere. If anything, it got even deeper as the line of his jaw went even more defined, like he was suddenly gritting his teeth. His chest—very noticeably muscular under the dusty long-sleeved white T-shirt he had on with the sleeves shoved up his thick forearms—rose and fell as he watched us before returning his attention to Matti.

He had a wound on his elbow that was bleeding too, I noticed with interest.

There was no way he’d gotten that tackling me.

Look at me being observant. Sienna was going to have to start calling me Nina Holmes.

“What are you doing here?” the big man asked, his tone not exactly what I’d call welcoming.

That didn’t bother Matti. “Hi, Matti. Missed you too,” my friend mocked in a deeper voice than usual before holding his arms out wide.

The other man hesitated before raising his arms as well and wrapping them around his not-so-little cousin. One Henri cheek met a Matti cheek as they thumped each other on the back. They were so cute.

Just as quickly as the hug started, Henri pretty much shoved him away. “Why are you here?”

“Hi, Sienna.” Matti chose to ignore him again, talking in that different voice, gesturing toward where his wife stood, still on alert.

Henri didn’t look over, but he did raise his voice to call out, “Hi, Sienna.”

Kind of rude, I thought, but Sienna didn’t exactly seem all that disappointed not to give him a hug. “Hi, Henri,” she greeted him in return. She was smoothing her hands up and down the front of her bell bottoms, one of her nervous gestures.

Matti hiked his thumb over his shoulder. “And you remember Big Jaws—Nina—and Mini Jaws is—” A scream tore through the air, cutting Matti off.

All of us turned to find a body that had two long, brown, slender legs and an upper torso that was very much a woman with a tank top running through the woods by the homes on the other side of the main building.

“Uh-oh,” Shiloh muttered loudly.

“Pascal!” another voice, a male one, bellowed from another direction. It was a man in jeans tearing through the woods, heading over too.

I glanced at Pascal and watched his already small body deflate.

But only for a second.

His hands formed fists, and out of nowhere, he started speed walking… right on over to me.

Me?

He stopped at my side, hooked a foot around mine, and his fingers reached for my shirt.

Did he expect me to protect him?

When I tried to get Sienna or Matti’s attention so they could see what was happening, I caught Henri’s instead. His gaze swung to Pascal. Big Henri Blackrock frowned even more.

“What happened?” he asked slowly to no one in particular.

There was so much authority in his tone that even I felt the need to answer him. How did he do that? Was it practice or was it magic?

“You’re going to be grounded for the rest of your life!” the satyr woman shouted at the top of her lungs while running.

“Not just this life but the next one too, Pascal!” the man on the opposite side of the woods called out, also not slowing down.

“What. Happened?” Henri demanded again, louder that time, voice even gruffer, his frown morphing once more to a scowl.

Time had been good to him, I noted. Real, real good, I confirmed, really taking him in. Henri looked like a mountain man now if I’d ever seen one. His massive size, all those muscles, his clothes….

He was the complete opposite of his cousin in his khakis.

I could admit it already: he was unbelievably handsome.

Was he married?

The tiny chainsaw in my arms got louder all of a sudden.

Stroking my hand down Duncan’s side, I whispered, “It’s fine, Donut. It’s okay. Thank you for protecting me. I know you could’ve messed him up if you wanted to⁠—”

Amber eyes caught mine, and I shut my mouth.

Sensitive hearing, right.

“I cannot believe you, Shiloh!” the satyr woman was still shouting as she got within twenty feet of us, her steps finally slowing down as she fumed. “What were you thinking, honey? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Somebody needs to tell me what’s going on. Now,” Henri demanded.

Somebody was bossy.

“They snuck off,” the man who was approaching answered. “We’ve been looking for them. The elders called saying someone brought them back.”

One glance down confirmed Pascal, the wolf boy, had his cheek pressed against my hip. I didn’t need a good nose to tell he was nervous. I set my hand on top of his head, not sure whether to comfort him or peel him off me. If Duncan had pulled this crap….

I’d swear Henri stood up even straighter, and he was already crazy tall. “Again?”

I winced. It was going from bad to worse. Again?

“Again,” the woman confirmed as she got to us, her face pale and strained. She was worked up for sure.

And wow, the bottom half of her was goatlike. She was shorter than she’d seemed at a distance. At most, the top of her head reached my shoulder. She suddenly blinked, her brown irises flicking in my direction, her nose twitching noticeably.

I lifted my hand at her.

The best approach when meeting possibly skittish strangers was to give the initial impression that you were harmless.

Because sometimes the absence of my scent also made people upset. They thought I was trying to hide something, which I was,but not in a way anyone needed to worry about, unless they meant me or my loved ones harm. And even then, I had hesitated to do what needed to be done before. Not once but twice. They weren’t my finest moments.

Earlier with the swamp thing… it had been a step in the right direction, but….

“She’s nice, Mom,” Shiloh said softly, apparently reading the room. “Nina saved us.”

The adult satyr didn’t look convinced, but for once in my life, I felt about ten feet tall.

I had a child I barely knew clinging to me, and two defending me—one a stranger and the other my greatest treasure. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so special before. Actually, I was sure I hadn’t.

A warm nose nudged at my neck, and I stroked Duncan’s side some more.

“Saved you from what?” the man who had been hollering at Pascal asked, his eyes darting around the group standing in the lot. His nostrils quivered, and I watched him glance at me, look away, and then look again.

His eyebrows went up. He took another sniff. His expression was a curious one. I raised my hand at him too and got a wave right back.

“We aren’t completely sure,” Matti spoke up, drawing my attention back to him, “but it might have been a Jenny Greenteeth.”

“A what?” It was the man who threw out the question.

I couldn’t believe Matti knew what it was, and I didn’t, but I had never really looked into English mythology much. I was going to need to brush up on it some time.

“A river crone,” Henri answered, the big frown still on his face. “You saw one here? On our land?”

He had a nice voice, mad and all, I decided. It kind of reminded me of a lion somehow, the way he managed to bellow and project.

The satyr woman stepped back, and he must have noticed because he wiped the frown off his face and replaced it with a neutral expression instantly.

Matti nodded. “She knew she was trespassing. I didn’t ask her what she was, but she was tall and looked like half a Ninja Turtle. Smelled like shit too. She threatened all of them.”

The thick line of Henri’s brow furrowed, replacing the almost serene expression he’d worn for all of ten seconds. “What happened to the Jenny Greenteeth?”

Matti smiled. “Nina happened.”

Every word that had come out of his mouth was the truth, and yet he’d managed to keep a lot a secret too. I loved how sneaky he could be.

“She went east, if you want to look for her,” my friend added.

Pascal’s maybe-dad and Henri both visibly tensed, growls vibrating from their chests simultaneously. The other man was around Matti’s height, his eyes light colored, his hair around the same shade. He was definitely magical; he felt a little wild, like all werewolves did.

“I don’t think she’ll be back, but—” He shrugged. “—we couldn’t put the kids at risk.”

Against my leg, the wolf boy poked at me. “She farted she was so scared.”

Every adult looked at the boy who, by that point, was half hidden behind me.

The man, who I hadn’t seen in forever, let his gaze roam the circle around him, locking on every single person, man, woman, and child. The muscle in his jaw tightened in the process. Then he said, using that impressive, demanding voice he seemed to have a master’s degree in using, “Everyone”—those amber eyes again swept from person to person, landing on me for what I felt was a microsecond longer than everyone else—“has some explaining to do.”