The Things We Water

“That was eventful.”

I snorted at Sienna as I adjusted the leather toy Duncan was chewing on. We were spread out on the bed in the room that she and Matti had been assigned for “their short stay”—those had been the exact words of the elders. So they didn’t get any ideas. It wasn’t like I didn’t know this time with them was temporary. I was used to living hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from them at almost all times.

That’s just what seemed to happen to real best friends. It was like the universe knew when there was a bond so strong that nothing—not distance, time, children, or responsibilities—could come between it. So, it proved it to you.

Life couldn’t be too good all the time.

And like that saying warned, nothing good comes easy. Everything I valued in my life required work. This was just one of those things. My best friends and I had to put in effort to make our friendship still thrive after so many years. If things between us had only been one-sided, we never would have made it to this point.

“Tell me about it. That didn’t go like I’d thought it might,” I agreed with her, moving the toy from side to side as Duncan tried to lazily snap at it. If I had to guess, he was putting in about 5 percent effort. I could tell by the way his eyes drooped that he needed a nap. I dropped my voice. “I think I got a couple of gray hairs from the anticipation they made me go through thinking they were going to say no to us staying.”

Sienna fluffed the pillow under her head as she lay on her side with Dunky between us. “They dragged that out, but you know how it is. It’s an older werewolf thing. My grandparents are the same way any time they have news to share. They start off in this tone that sounds all doom and gloom, and then they tell us they’re going on vacation and can someone come by and water their plants? It’s a power play. They’re bored.”

I hummed and nodded, taking in her freshly washed face and wet hair. Did her skin color look a little off or was I imagining it?I wanted to ask if she was feeling all right but figured she had to be fine. The rooms had warm-colored light bulbs. Maybe that was it.

“Are you relieved they agreed to the trial period? Matti was telling me while I was showering that he forgot all about that part,” she kept going.

“I get why they require it.” I bit my lip and met her familiar gaze. “I’m hung up on that satyr woman this afternoon. I might be overthinking it.” Or I might not be.

My best friend said nothing as she stroked a finger down Duncan’s back. He paused lazily snapping and peeked at her over his shoulder for a moment before going back to it. “Don’t mind them. They’re herbivores. It’s instinct for them to fear anything that might hurt them.”

“I don’t have sharp teeth. I can’t hurt anyone like that,” I whispered.

Light-colored eyes met mine, and even they seemed different than usual. Dimmer. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

I wouldn’t. There was no reason to let it bother me too much. Her son—if that’s what Shiloh was—had liked me, and that was enough. Kids were good judges of character. If I’d listened to Duncan like I should have, I would have been on high alert around those people who had tried to take him before things had escalated.

That was the last time I was ever going to ignore his instincts. Or anyone else I knew with a fantastic nose. Which then got me thinking….

I lifted my head to see that the door to the en suite bathroom was still closed. It was. Franklin, the elder with the glasses, who I thought had been acting kind of weird, had explained while he’d given us the tour of the second floor of the main building—or the “clubhouse” as he’d called it—that each room on the second and third floor had its own bathroom. There were five rooms in total for “guests,” and he’d stuck us in two right next to each other. They were comfortable, big enough for a king-sized bed, a nightstand on each side, a dresser, and a television across from the mattress. The bathrooms were identical with a large walk-in shower with some kind of stone tile and timeless accents that really tied in with the rustic and homey feel of the entire building. It was nice without making me nervous to damage something.

And while I would’ve rather stayed in my travel trailer, that had been one of the rules the elders had laid out during the final parts of our meeting.

We had to integrate, and apparently, my camper didn’t count, but staying in the clubhouse for the next three months did.

It was fine. We had room for activities, and it would be nice to not be cramped in the tiny shower that worked just fine too. And from the way Duncan had been so attentive, he seemed to like this place already. The elders had given him a wide berth, but I wanted to hope it wasn’t out of fear. There was a lot of new stuff going on in such a short time, and maybe they were giving him space before overwhelming him with attention. They had seemed interested enough there for a minute.

Except for….

“Matti?” I raised my voice, knowing he was listening from the bathroom.

He didn’t let me down. “Yeah?”

I had to word this right. “What do you know about that elder with the glasses? Franklin.”

My oldest friend took his time before answering. “Not much. I didn’t spend any time with him when I lived here.”

Hmm.

He kept talking. “There’s no hierarchy with them, but Henri mentioned once that they all seem to give him more of a say than anyone else. He looks the same too. I wonder what kind of skincare routine he has.”

Freaking Matti.

It was only rude to ask someone what they were to their face, there was nothing technically wrong with wondering about it behind their backs.

“Do you not know what he is then?” I asked.

“I’ve got no fucking idea,” he called out. “I bet Henri does.”

“Why?” Sienna asked.

“I might be imagining it, but I thought he was acting kind of different from everyone else,” I tried to explain.

She shrugged like she hadn’t noticed. I guess that was a good thing.

Moving along, I decided to change the topic. “What’s up with Henri?” I asked Sienna. I was rolling the dice talking about him in here in the first place, but I didn’t care enough to be discreet. I wasn’t planning on talking bad about him.

“What do you want to know?” she whispered.

There was a reason why I was asking her and not Matti. Sienna didn’t love gossip as much as he did, and I wasn’t sure if she knew about the crush I’d had on him when we’d been younger.

“Matti never talks about him, and you’ve only seen him… what? Three times in all these years? What’s he been up to?” That wasn’t the question burning a hole in my brain, but considering she and Henri barely knew each other, I was well aware she wasn’t the person to interrogate about why he wouldn’t want me living here.

I needed to ask him directly because that betrayal stung almost as much as when he’d taken Matti away without a goodbye.

“I’ve seen him for about half an hour three times in six years, Nina. Matti knows more because he’s seen him more often than I have when he’s had to come to Colorado for work and Henri’s met up with him, but all I know is that he lives here, he works for the sheriff’s department as deputy, he’s bad at texting Matti back, and”—I had to read her lips because her whisper was so low—“he doesn’t have a mate.” She raised her eyebrows.

Hmm.

Her mouth formed a very flat smile. “You don’t remember that I know?”

“Know what?”

Her lips moved, but nothing actually came out of her mouth. “That you had a crush on him.”

I guess I had told her everything. I laughed. “When I was ten!”

She wasn’t done. “I saw you check him out.”

I rolled my eyes so hard as I laughed. “Yeah, because he’s the size of a Jeep, and I haven’t seen him in almost twenty years.” And because I couldn’t lie to her, I didn’t. “He’s really good-looking, but come on.” That wasn’t exactly a mystery, and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise and come across as even more suspicious.

“Ha!” She tapped the tip of her nose, and I knew what she was saying. She’d smelled my attraction to him.

Which meant chances were, so had he, dang it.

Unless he’d been too preoccupied, or had shut off his senses then, I could only hope.

The urge to argue that it meant nothing was on the tip of my tongue, but then I remembered exactly how I’d treated her after she’d met Matti and been all goo-goo-gah-gah over him, and I had picked on her relentlessly.

She could have this, mostly because it meant nothing. It had been a long time since I’d given her any kind of ammo to tease me with.

“Eh, he’s all right. Matti got the good looks in the family,” Sienna said after I stared at her for a minute. “He’s too intense for me. He’s kind of scary, don’t you think?”

That made me laugh some more. “Henri? Scary? Why? What do you have to be scared of?”

Her eyes went squinty. “Did you not see the size of him when he was about to rip your face off?”

“He wanted to, didn’t he?”

“Matti said he wouldn’t have, but I don’t believe him.”

“He was not going to rip your face off, Nina!” Matti hollered from inside the bathroom.

“Quit eavesdropping!” I said in a normal volume as Duncan got up and did a little circle on the bed before plopping down with his toy in his mouth. He looked so tired, it made me smile. Anyway. “Once he knew it was me, I don’t think he would have either, but when he didn’t know? Definitely.”

“I didn’t know you knew him that well,” Sienna went back to whispering. “Why does he call you Cricket?”

Before I could answer, a weird sound came from the bathroom that had all three of us turning toward the door. I raised my eyebrows at my friend, and she did it right back before calling out, “Babe? You all right?”

There was a short pause before he shouted, “Fine!”

Whatever that was hadn’t sounded fine to me, even though I couldn’t tell what it had been. It hadn’t exactly been fart-like. But Si and I shrugged at each other, and I answered her question. “I don’t know him that great. You know, he spent the summers with us, and then he moved in with them for a about a year after he graduated.” No one had ever mentioned why he’d done that. “He was always polite, and sometimes he was nice—nicer to me than Matti, but that’s probably because I’m a girl and he didn’t want to hurt my feelings,” I explained, and she nodded. “Maybe he felt bad I was adopted?”

Sienna nodded. “But why Cricket?”

I grinned. “Because I talked a lot⁠—”

“You still do!” Matti shouted, still not minding his own business.

I groaned. “Yes, yes, I still talk a lot, but back then I talked a lot. I had a chirpy little voice, and once I got going, there was no stopping me. So, Cricket was born, and it stuck.”

She grinned. “That’s cute.” She made a funny face suddenly. “I’ve never heard him call Matti anything but his name.”

“‘Dumbass’ is the only thing that comes to mind.”

She nodded slowly like she agreed. Then she shrugged. “At least you know someone here, right?”

Someone who had made me moving here a little harder, but sure. I rubbed Duncan’s soft ear.

At least I knew someone.

It was no surprise I couldn’t fall asleep after we left Matti and Sienna’s room. Neither one of them stayed up late. Under normal circumstances, they both woke up early to go running before starting their day. Duncan and I were the complete opposite; we were usually outside playing at midnight.

My mom used to tell me all about how, when I’d been a baby, I wouldn’t sleep during normal hours and how she and my dad would have to take turns every other night keeping me company. You never cried, Nina. We would find you sitting up in your crib, and later on in your toddler bed, looking out the window. Sometimes you looked so sad, we wouldn’t be able to sleep it broke our hearts, so we started staying up with you.

It made me want to choke up thinking about how good they’d been to me. I’d gotten so lucky that of all the people I could have ended up with, it had been them. Two older werewolves who had never had children of their own, with hearts bigger than the state of Alaska.

Continuing to love others in the way that they had shown me by example was the most important thing I had learned from them. It was the best way I could honor their thousands of sacrifices. By raising Duncan.

And that’s why, when the screen on my phone said it was eleven thirty, and I could sense my pup starting to get restless as he rolled onto his back on top of the bed of the room we were assigned to, I figured maybe now we could restart our nightly routine. We hadn’t been able to do it since his physical changes. The risk of getting caught had been way too high.

I gently pulled his tail as his legs and paws stretched toward the ceiling of the room that was an exact replica of the one my friends were in. Duncan had crawled under the bed and checked everything out under there when we’d come in.

“Wanna go outside for a little while?” I asked.

A black head rolled toward me, his bright eyes so intelligent. “Yes.”

It didn’t take long to slip him into his harness, put my fanny pack on, and grab a leash I rarely needed. I helped him off the bed. As quietly as possible, I opened the door and went out first with Dunky-Dunk right on my heels, nightlights set up along the hallway at every outlet lit up the unfamiliar space.

Fortunately, as big as the building slash clubhouse was, the layout was mostly easy. It had seemed intimidating when we’d first walked in, but whoever had designed it had set it up to make a lot of sense considering its size. Franklin, or as I had called him in my head “Glasses,” had given us a brief tour after we’d left the meeting. On the first floor, he’d gestured one direction and explained that the kitchen was there, along with other bedrooms—he didn’t say whose. If you went the opposite way, there was a nursery and offices, along with a laundry room and supply closets.

Apart from the five spacious guest bedrooms on the second floor, with us taking up two of them, the uptight elder had explained that some of the community members lived on the third floor, but he didn’t take us up to it or explain who those people were either.

At the staircase, I picked up Duncan again and went down them, taking in even more nightlights. He was still just slightly too small to take stairs easily. The front doors were down the hall, and we crept out, the building so silent.

I thought it was a little strange that they trusted us enough to let us stay on their property without supervision so soon after meeting us. I hadn’t seen a single camera inside, and I wondered if there were any around the perimeter. There wasn’t an alarm system set up either, I’d noticed when the four of us had gone to get our things from my truck. They must be really confident in who they allowed around here. That or maybe they had more faith since Matti had lived here in the past.

That had to be a good thing, I decided, as I cracked the door and Duncan snuck out first.

My donut waited as I closed the door. His head was tipped back. The moon was full tonight. I took a deep, deep breath.

My lungs expanded like I’d gotten a hit of that good oxygen casinos pumped through their systems.

My skin tingled.

The forest and village around us were mostly silent, other than an owl hooting nearby and a cool breeze moving through the trees.

It felt so good here.

What was it about this forest that felt like this? I wondered as Duncan backed up enough so that his butt settled on my foot, and for a few, quiet, calm moments, we took in the sweetness in the air that shouldn’t have been so noticeable to me considering I didn’t have a good nose. But that seemed to be the magnitude of this place.

Trees rustled.

Something big howled in the distance.

And my little donut gave me a loaded look over his shoulder right before he took off running into the evergreens.

“How are you so fast?” I panted a while later, lying on my back in the middle of some trees to the side of the clubhouse building. You’d figure I’d be used to running after him since it had been our daily game before his change, but I wasn’t. We’d had to replace outside time with indoor mental stimulation for weeks, and my lungs weren’t used to anything harder than a speed walk at this point.

I wheezed as he threw himself across my stomach, belly to belly, chewing on a stick he’d found at some point that was stripped of bark.

“I’m going to have to buy you a treadmill, man.” I gasped some more, reaching blindly for him so I could run my fingers through his coat.

He was breathing normally. Show-off.

“I think I pulled my hamstring jumping over that log back there,” I told him in between trying to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm down. Maybe I needed the treadmill too. Two treadmills. I might have to start doing some weightlifting because it seemed like we were going to get to the point soon where carrying him around was going to be impossible at the rate he was growing.

His tail swished through the air, resembling a shooting star.

I ran my fingers through his coat again, admiring its softness.

“Donut,” I told him, letting my eyes settle on the full pie of a moon still visible through a gap in the towering trees surrounding us. “If you don’t like it here, tell me, okay? I’m serious. I want you to be happy.”

“Love,”he told me, and it hit me the same way it had from the first time he’d projected that emotion. It choked me up.

“I love you too. With my whole heart. You know that, don’t you?”

Duncan stopped chewing. A second later, he dragged his body the rest of the way over mine and jumped over my shoulder to stand beside my head, his ears so long they almost grazed the ground. My little black hound that was no puppy. He licked my cheek.

“Yes,” he answered.

I framed his face with my hands and kissed his nose, knowing we were on the same page. Just as I let go, his body suddenly tensed and he spun around, a tiny growl erupting from his throat. I jackknifed into a sitting position. I hadn’t heard anything, but I trusted him enough to know that he sensed something.

Duncan’s tail stuck straight up in the dark just as a low voice murmured, “All is good, pup.”

He sat, but his frame was rigid, and a long, low growl rumbled in his throat.

Matti had sworn we were safe here. There were tall layers of fencing closer in to the clubhouse. Plus, the scent of big predators should have marked this entire territory off.

But we were out at night, in an unfamiliar place, with strangers who held no allegiance to either of us. Anticipation and nerves came to life in my body as I caught sight of three figures moving through the trees toward us. Two were men and the other was a woman still a hundred feet away, their movements dead quiet as they crossed the ground.

No wonder I hadn’t seen or heard them until the last second, they practically hugged the shadows and walked on air.

My puppy growled louder, staying in his seated position.

“Ah-ah,” the deep voice corrected him. “You’re safe. We’re not going to do anything to you.”

It was Henri, I realized, setting my hand on the bristling hairs of Duncan’s back. That husky, bossy voice could only belong to him. “It’s okay, but good job sensing them, Donut,” I praised him.

His tail swished back and forth once, his whole frame tense and focused on the strangers approaching so dang silently. It was kind of impressive considering the fact that I’d put Henri at around six foot five or six, his build stocky and muscular. The man to one side of him was shorter and also well-built. The woman trailing behind them wasn’t exactly small in comparison to either of them.

How long had they been creeping through the woods? They weren’t exactly walking fast.

I’d tripped over a branch a little while ago—not that I cared if anyone saw me bust my ass playing with my pint-sized partner in crime, but I was kind of glad they hadn’t arrived three minutes earlier, when I’d been on my back moaning and clutching my leg.

“Why are you bleeding?” the familiar-ish voice asked, somehow sounding even more gruff in the dark… and confirming that chances were, they’d witnessed my very fine moment.

Too bad for me. “My shin got assaulted by that branch you just walked by,” I called out. It was the same leg Matti had kicked earlier too. When I’d rolled up my pant leg to see why it had hurt so much, there’d been a pretty good scratch there.

Matti’s cousin slipped through the trees, clear, bright moonlight occasionally illuminating the shape of his frame as it moved through them in a way someone half his size shouldn’t have been capable of.

But it was more than that, I thought, that kept my gaze riveted to him—stealth aside.

How was he so huge? I wouldn’t call him burly exactly, but it was close. Thick neck, thick chest. Biceps? Thick. Thighs? Thick. He was….

My pride kept the gulp from climbing all the way up my throat.

Some women were attracted to six-packs made up of strict diets and three-hour gym sessions.

I’d always had a thing for a brawny, muscular build. In my imagination, the more I could grab onto, the better. The thicker the thighs, the better the prize—andddd that was nothing I needed to focus on.

If I wanted a big, beefy guy to ogle, I could pick a football game to watch. Or a rugby match. Not the man I used to call Fluffy who didn’t exactly seem all that pleased to have me here, even if he had the exact body type that would’ve caught my attention in a crowded room.

“You injured?”

I knew he could see me, so I shook my head. “The only thing hurting right now is my ego if you saw me bust my ass.” The words “help me, I’m dying” had come out of my mouth, mostly because I liked Duncan’s attention as he climbed all over me, making sure I was fine… and because it had stung like an SOB.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be running around in the dark, Cricket,” he suggested, even closer now.

So we were back to “Cricket” again, huh?

And was that a joke?

I snickered, not sure how I felt exactly about this hot-cold thing we had going on. He had going on. I’d offered a hug. Offered to let him smell me up close. I was trying. Sure, he was teasing me now, but he’d thrown me under the bus hours ago.

I needed to talk to him about that.The sooner the better.

“I can see in the dark just fine,” I told him; there was no point in keeping that a secret. “I stepped on my shoelace, it’s my fault.”

Henri kept coming, not commenting on my explanation. But the man beside him made a sudden rough sound. He stopped, and I watched him take a deep breath.

Henri hadn’t given me back my bracelet after the meeting.

I touched the spot on my wrist where it usually sat, missing its weight. Missing what it meant. It’d been almost two decades since I’d begun wearing it full-time.

Henri gave the man a sharp look for some reason; it drew his eyebrows down flat. “Both of you can go home. We’ll search again in the morning.”

The small group whispered to each other, and the man and the woman changed direction when their chitchat was over. They headed toward the homes behind the main building. So many of them still had light coming through their windows, making the whole place even dreamier than during the day. It reminded me of something out of a postcard. The moonlight, the woods, the houses… all it needed was snow covering the ground. I bet it looked surreal during the winter.

I hoped we were here long enough to find out.

Unlike the two strangers, Henri kept coming toward us, stopping when he was a few feet away, so close his amber eyes reflected when he crouched.

He didn’t look very happy. He didn’t look very anything if I was going to be honest. I smelled different, but I was still the same person, just bigger and a little more mature most of the time.

I smiled at him. “Nice to see you again, Fluffy.”

The only reaction he had to the childhood nickname was the slightest flick of his left eyebrow. He didn’t say a word, which also meant he didn’t tell me not to call him that either.

It also reminded me that he and I needed to talk. “Sorry I bit you,” I apologized, hoping he could sense my sincerity. It seemed like a good place to start. The obsidian Duncan and I wore only helped keep our magic a secret; it didn’t do anything against feelings or facial expressions.

His eyes swept toward Duncan, who was watching him like a hawk, his small body still on edge. He had tried to take this man down for me. He had risked his life. I was going to need a private moment so I could cry over that at some point soon, I decided. He was going to get whatever he wanted for the rest of his life, dang it.

For now, I focused on Henri. “Sorry if it hurt,” I added.

That got him to snicker. “I’ve had stubbed toes that hurt more than that.”

Was that another joke? I guess I’d expected him to pretend he hadn’t heard me. But I could work with this. I’d rather have a joking Henri than a Mr. Rules and Regulations Henri. And that’s why I said, “All right. Next time I know to bite harder.”

That got me his undivided attention. “Excuse me?” he asked in that rumbly, commanding voice that I needed to get used to.

I laughed. “You heard me.” Did he expect me not to mess with him back?

Those clear eyes moved over my face as his features gradually hardened.

He’d always been so serious. In my memories, he used to smile once in a blue moon and rarely laughed, unlike Matti whose first language was cackling. Where my best friend was a joyous handful, I remembered Henri as being the opposite: quiet, stoic, too responsible, even as a teenager.

I needed to try my best not to let his back-and-forth seriousness get under my skin.

So I smiled some more and drew my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

“Did you go looking for the river crone?” I asked, keeping an eye on Dunky-Dunk, who hadn’t moved a muscle other than the ones in his throat as he growled like a tiny chainsaw. The barest hint of white teeth peeked out from between his lips, his little nose working overtime as he tried to smell the werewolf attempting to be friendly and nonthreatening in a subtle way.

“We did,” Henri answered, his attention still on my attack puppy.

I wasn’t sure what to think about Duncan not breaking eye contact yet. The boy had balls of steel. “No luck finding her then?”

His gaze met mine for a split second before returning to Duncan just as fast. “No. We lost her trail a half mile from where you ran into her.”

Someone sounded a little sour about that.

The defined line of his jaw flexed before he looked at me again with those sober features that I wasn’t sure how to take. “What did you do to make her leave?”

Did he sound a little accusatory, or was it my imagination?

“They’re known to be aggressive.”

She had been a little b.

I hugged my knees closer, reminding myself of the importance of honesty. Of the roots the elders had briefly mentioned that were so important here. There was a chance that despite their assurances, one day they would ask for more specifics about what I was, and then nothing would be a secret.

And that made me think about the bracelet I know I’d seen on Franklin’s wrist.

But wondering what he was made me feel like a hypocrite. If there was anything I needed to focus on, it was myself and my donut. And Henri’s careful curiosity.

He definitely didn’t know the one thing I was very careful not to bring up. The same thing Matti and Sienna and my parents also avoided like the plague. Nobody pretended anything, but we had all gotten really good at tiptoeing around the truth.

But these strangers were either going to accept me or they wouldn’t. So I answered, “Nothing much.” That wasn’t a lie.

Duncan leaned forward a little bit, getting a better smell of the man patiently balanced on the balls of his feet in front of us.

I shared a little more. “I told her to leave and not come back.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. He didn’t actually raise an eyebrow, but there was something about his features that made it seem like he had. “You talked to her?” He paused, and I’d swear I felt him scoff. “That’s all?”

He thought I was full of it.

I had an idea of what he saw when he looked at me. I wasn’t short or tall. I was a handful up top and down below. The only part of me that anyone remembered, if they did, was my face, and it wasn’t an intimidating one either. A drunk ex-boyfriend had told me once that I was “beautiful but not at the same time.” My bone structure was a mix of the heritage I highly suspected ran through my blood and a very different one that softened my nose and gave me a lighter eye color.

I was the attractive equivalent of brussels sprouts: some people were about it, and other people would rather starve.

Some people had soft faces that they could shape and make personalities for. Mine was angles and knew exactly who it was and made no apologies for it. Maybe one day I could learn from it.

“Yup,” I confirmed. “That’s all.”

He scoffed as much as a man his size was capable of, and it was rough like the rest of him. He shoved his right sleeve up his forearm. “You want me to believe that?”

That was definitely a little bit of accusation in there.

I didn’t want to take it personally, but…. “Yeah. Why would I lie about that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

“People lie about everything.”

Ouch. “You’re not wrong, but I meant what I said. I’m not going to start building bonds here based on lies.” I thought about that a little more. “And that’s such a dumb thing to make up. If I’m going to lie about something, it wouldn’t be that.”noveldrama

Something flicked across the striking lines of his face, mostly in his eyes. He had thick, expressive eyebrows, his features all dark Viking. He was good at hiding what he was thinking, that was for sure, but I was excellent with body language.

I scrunched up my nose, taking in the scruff along his jaw and cheeks that had grown in from when we’d first seen each other. He’d stuck around the whole meeting, but right as the elder had offered to take us for a tour, his phone had rung and Henri had disappeared.

“Matti and I showed up, I volunteered to handle the situation so he wouldn’t have to fight it in front of the kids⁠—”

“He agreed to let you handle the situation?”

Did he have to sound so suspicious?

Yes, he did. He had no idea what one, or both, of my parents had passed along in their DNA. Henri didn’t know who I was. Neither did I, exactly, but I had more information on the matter than he did. So I nodded. “Yes, I would’ve been fine, and he knows that.”

I could see that it was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Matti knew that, but he didn’t.

I kept going with my story before he asked more questions. “I went and talked to the river bully… Jenny Greenteeth. She wasn’t nice. All I did was take off my bracelet, and that settled that.”

His jaw did that flexing thing again. “You took off your bracelet?”

Couldn’t he sense I wasn’t lying? “You can ask the kids. Shiloh paid attention. He saw the whole thing.”

Right there, without the slightest effort in being discreet, he took another whiff of me. A crease formed between those dark, full eyebrows. A muscle at his cheek went stiff as he processed whatever his senses and brain were both telling him.

He had more questions, that was obvious. Ones I wasn’t really ready to answer unless I absolutely had to. But I didn’t want to be put into the position of laying all my cards out this soon, not when he was being like this already, expecting the worst from me, or at least being so wary.

There were other things we needed to talk about.

As much as part of me wanted to let this go and pretend like he wasn’t being all over the place with his behavior toward me, I couldn’t. Henri was important here, and if he wasn’t comfortable with my presence, then we had to figure this out. And it sure didn’t seem like he was going to initiate it.

So I went straight for it. “Do you not want me to be here?” I blurted out.

Those light-colored eyes narrowed so much that they were basically slits on his striking face.

That wasn’t a great nonanswer. “If you aren’t, it’s all right, but I’d like to know why.” I lifted my shoulders. “I know it was a long time ago, but I promise I’m still the same Nina.”

That didn’t get me anything.

I tried again, hoping he wasn’t preparing some speech on why he didn’t want us to move here. “Is it what I turned out to be? Or is it something else?” My eyes slid toward Duncan, who was still going at his low, baby growling, implying with that look exactly what that “something else” was.

My precious, droopy-eared boy.

Henri’s frown found a way to get even deeper. “I haven’t seen you in almost twenty years,” he answered in that husky voice, nothing about his tone giving anything away.

He had a point, but for whatever reason, I would have still trusted him. Trusted whoever he turned out to be. Because I might not remember a ton, but I did have clear memories of Henri making Matti and me snacks after school when he was the only one home, peeling and cutting an apple for me specifically because I hadn’t liked the skin back then. Of him running off older kids who had picked on us. I had one particular memory of him giving me advice for riding my bike while I’d been learning.

I had thought a lot of young, teenage Henri.

Mid-twenty-something Henri, I had wanted to kick in the balls after what he’d done… even though I could look at his actions as an adult now and understood why he’d handled the situation the way he had.

But forty-ish Henri? I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I could believe in him, especially after watching him interact with the kids after they’d done something really stupid and communicating with their parents afterward. There had been genuine respect in those adults’ faces, and those kids hadn’t been scared of him. I didn’t take that lightly.

“I have no problem with you.” His gaze moved toward Duncan for a microsecond before returning to me. “Either of you.”

“You sure about that?” I wanted to make it real clear that I couldn’t sense lies the same way he could, but I wasn’t unobservant. Body language said a whole lot where words wouldn’t.

He frowned even more. “We have to be consistent with the rules in place,” he started to explain, his tone somewhere between cool and polite. “Rules are bent before they’re broken. What we do for you, regardless of your connection to Matti or me, can’t be different than what we would do for anyone else.”

I couldn’t ask for special privileges, he was saying.

“It doesn’t matter how much magic you have or who you’re descended from. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It’s nothing personal.”

He always did have a stick up his butt about rules, I remembered then.

And now he was a cop or something.

I wondered how well his uniform fit. I was pretty sure deputies had different types of clothing than police officers did. Hmm.

Both my eyebrows went up a moment later. “It doesn’t matter what I look like?” I echoed.

There was no coyness on his face when he said, matter-of-factly, “Your face has changed a lot.”

It had, but I still didn’t expect him to make a comment about it. But at the same time, I had to fight the urge to stand up straighter. Was that a backward compliment?

I should leave it alone and not pry at the comment, and I dang well knew it, but when did I ever leave things alone? So I asked, drawing my words out, “In a good way or…?”

His eyebrow moved just a little bit. “What do you think?” he replied in that steady voice that held next to no emotion in it.

I blinked, shocked at his bluntness. “Thank you?” It didn’t exactly sound like a compliment. Or an insult, for that matter. I wasn’t sure what it was, but an invitation wasn’t it either.

His gaze swept over me, and I could tell he gritted his teeth. I guess we were done talking about physical appearances. Fine by me. We could’ve been talking about a boring movie for all the emotion he was putting out talking about appearances.

Of all the things I’d inherited from my DNA parents, I would have given them all back except for my good health.

“Are you sure then? That you’re fine with us being here?” I asked. “Because if you don’t want us to join, all you have to do is say the word and we’ll figure out another option. We won’t stay where we aren’t wanted, and that includes you, Henri. I would understand.” It would hurt my feelings, and I might not want to see him for another two decades, but I would take it into consideration.

I wouldn’t beg if it was him who didn’t want us here.

“Understand what?”

“That you aren’t comfortable.” Around us, I explained silently. Or just me. Or just Duncan. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t have self-esteem issues with those kinds of thoughts.

Those amber irises remained level on me. “There’s nothing about either of you that could make me uncomfortable.”

He said that now.

I pressed my lips together, trying to get a read on his careful expression. “Are you positive? Because I don’t care if you hurt my feelings right now, but if you change your mind in six months, it isn’t going to just be me that will be affected by your decision.” I let the implication of who else could be hurt hang in the air between us.

His nod was slow. “I’m sure.”

It sounded sincere, but… I still wasn’t sure I totally believed it. I was going to have to take him at his word. There wasn’t much else to do. “All right.”

Duncan’s growls suddenly got a little louder. He hadn’t moved from his spot at my side, a mohawk lined his back, and those small, sharp white teeth were still very visible. Was he scared of him after what had happened?

“It’s okay, Duncan.” I reached out and pet his back. This was something else we needed to tackle. “This is Henri. He’s Matti’s cousin. He used to be my friend.” I peeked at my old “friend,” but his attention was on my puppy. “I know he was big and scary earlier, but he’s not going to hurt us.” That time when I turned to him, Henri’s eyes were on me. “Right, Fluffy?”

“Right,” he agreed.

Duncan wasn’t buying it. This man had held him up like a ritual sacrifice earlier. I stroked my donut’s back a little more, but convinced, he was not.

“It’s fine,” I tried again, stretching out with my other hand. I set it on Henri’s arm, and what a forearm it was. My fingers couldn’t wrap around it fully, not that I tried, but it was obvious. There were prominent veins along it. For being a man who could turn into a wolf, he was surprisingly not crazy hairy. “Henri’s a friend.”

Those bright red irises flicked toward me, and I took another turn petting his soft back.

“See?” I skimmed my palm up Henri’s arm toward his shoulder, over bulging biceps, and then swept it back down to his hand, cupping my fingers over them and doing it all over again. He was warm, and the rest of his muscles were just as hard as I would have imagined. He could have been a modern-day Paul Bunyan with a handsome face, if I didn’t know the truth. “It’s okay, Duncan.”

My boy’s growling got a little better, but not much.

“I’m a friend, pup,” Henri tried to assure him too, staying very, very still as I basically felt him up. “I’m not going to hurt you or your mom.”

The knot in my throat at him calling me Duncan’s mom….

Henri kept talking. “Watch,” he told him before reaching very slowly out toward me—my boy’s little growl revving up once more, but Henri ignored it—and setting his hand on top of my head. Taking his time, Henri swept it down the side of my skull, over my ear, and did it again.

Henri Blackrock was petting me.

“It’s all right,” I started talking again, scooting a little closer to Henri’s frame and putting my palm back on that thick, corded forearm. “He’s not hurting me. See? That feels really nice actually.”

Duncan still wasn’t convinced, and I met Henri’s light-colored gaze and raised my eyebrows at him, not sure what else I could do to show Duncan we were safe with him. He’d never been this defensive… other than those two times.

But Henri seemed to know what to do from the way he gestured me closer.

I scooted over until my knee touched his thigh. Henri’s arms opened, and in the span of a breath, he set one around me. He pulled me over to him. Then, in a fluid movement with the palm of his other hand, he drew my face to that notch between his shoulder and neck.

I got it. He was showing Duncan that he trusted me enough to get into such a close and vulnerable position with me. A parent might do it with a child, or possibly family members or close friends. I was honored, but I was even more surprised.

It almost made up for his BS with the trial-period situation earlier.

“Friends,” Henri claimed.

“Friends,” I agreed in the cheeriest voice I could muster. All the while, one of my arms was pinned between our bodies while he hugged me.

I would’ve climbed into his lap if he let me.

Cut it out, Nina.

Was I that hard up that a hug from a near-stranger, who just happened to be good-looking and my favorite body type, could turn me into a perv? My hormones needed to stop this crap immediately.

I needed to remember that everyone here more than likely had exceptional senses. I’d gotten lazy living around normal people for so long. It had been nice, having secrets, not being so vulnerable and honest all the time.

Plus, Sienna had already caught my attraction to him earlier.

If I acted weird now, that was going to send the wrong message to everyone. Plus, I would die of shame if my body did something it shouldn’t be doing around not just someone I barely knew but my best friend’s family member. Someone who might be a neighbor if things worked out in my favor.

I hope he hasn’t opened his senses. Wolves didn’t walk around smelling everything all day, every day, after all. I knew for a fact that Matti only opened his up when he was at home, or in situations where he was uncertain about other people and wanted to feel them out.

Fortunately, it appeared Henri’s nose wasn’t working overtime, and after a moment, he sat back, gaze staying on Duncan as his palm went to my face.

He wasn’t done proving a point, and apparently he wanted to demonstrate that I was just as comfortable around him too.

Henri tipped my chin back—and I let him, like a doll—and the man wasted no time pressing his forehead to my neck. His movements were slow. The angle changed so his nose drew a line up the side to just beneath my ear. Finally smelling me from the soft puffs of breath that touched my collarbone afterward from his nose… some from his mouth….

If his senses hadn’t been open before, they were now.

I couldn’t shiver. I absolutely couldn’t. This was a werewolf thing, through and through. It was what I’d invited him to do hours ago when he’d turned me down. Sort of. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever had their arm around me while they’d done it before. Nor had anyone ever done it so slowly.

“He’s just getting to know me again, Dunky,” I explained, fighting for my life to keep my voice even as Henri’s face switched sides. His breaths were there again. His cheek. His nose. All of it like a brand. I had to keep it together. I had to keep it together, and I did that the only way I knew how. I started blabbering. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time. Back then, I didn’t smell the same way I do now,” I explained just as he finally withdrew, his face only inches away from mine when he did.

Henri’s lids were low. His lips slightly parted. He had a strong jaw. A little cleft in his chin. Deep-set eyes framed by those heavy eyebrows that hugged his striking facial bones.

I winked at him, and before he could say anything else, leaned forward and wedged my face into the same place it’d been in before. Between his shoulder and throat. A spot that wasn’t just warm but smelled like rain and something woodsy like cedar.

Good, so freaking good.

And I didn’t want Henri to know that. Not if I had the choice. “See, Donut? Friends,” I told my puppy, inhaling as discreetly as I could a little more.

When I pulled back, Henri was watching me, his eyelids still lower, but his mouth was pressed tight.

“He stopped,” the man so close to me said.

I hadn’t noticed. I pulled all the way back and smiled again, hoping it didn’t look as tight as it felt. “You’re sure you’re fine with us being here?”

The face I hadn’t seen in over a decade hovered there, and after a moment, he nodded tightly.

A low ring exploded from the direction of Henri’s pants. He stood up and dug into the back pocket of his jeans. He started talking as he read whatever was on the screen. “Breakfast is at nine. Be careful with the branches. Our physician’s assistant isn’t here right now, and the nearest hospital is over an hour away.”

“Okay.”

Henri hesitated for a second. It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed he’d changed out of the dusty white shirt he’d had on earlier. His lip was healed too.

He gave me a long look. “I don’t need to worry about you, do I?”

We both knew what he was referring to.

I was and I wasn’t like them, and I didn’t want to let myself take it personally. I had once asked my dad why we lived across the street from our neighbor if they were scared of him, and he’d said, “For that reason, Nina. His presence keeps the things we love safer than we’d be anywhere else.”

“How?”

He had patted my head. “We’re not the only ones scared of him.”

I understood now what he’d meant. There was fear and there was respect, and there was a gray area in between. And there was a reason why the only little pig who survived had hidden in the brick house.

I shook my head. “No, you don’t need to worry.” I lifted my hand, my fingers formed in a V-shape. “I come in peace.”

For the second time that day, no one laughed at my joke.

His phone rang again, but he ignored it. “Just making sure.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry I knocked you down earlier,” he claimed in that low voice, shooting me another expression I couldn’t recognize, before swiping his thumb across the screen and bringing it up to his ear as he started walking toward the house with a barked, “Blackrock.”

“Sleep well,” I wished him anyway, not sure how exactly I felt about that interaction. About him in general, to be honest.

To Matti and Sienna, I was always Nina. They knew every single good and bad thing I’d ever done, and they loved me anyway. I thought they always would.

There were other people who liked what they did know about me. We could have a good laugh. We could talk. But I kept them at a distance, I filtered what their knowledge of me was because of my concern over how they could or would react to things that didn’t need to be worried about. Wearing my bracelet around other magical beings had always made me feel like I wore a constant filter—like some people only got to see part of me, which was true.

A tipsy mermaid could tell me some of the darkest things she’d ever done, but I’d never been forthcoming enough to do the same.

And to Henri? In the span of just a few hours, I’d been Cricket, the girl he’d known, and Nina, the adult he didn’t understand and was struggling not to judge too hard—at least it seemed that way to me. His fluctuation between those two people had already been evident. There wasn’t much I could do about that other than just show him who I was, and I needed time for that.

On top of that, there was my attraction to him. Not just a little attraction, but more than I would’ve wished, if I had a choice. I didn’t think I’d ever met someone I would describe as a hunk before, but now that I’d seen him, I understood how that word could be used.

In the middle of thinking about all that, Duncan climbed into my lap, his attention on the figure walking away from us. I set my nose into the crown of his head and watched too, the low murmur of Henri’s voice reaching us despite the distance; it was one of the good and the bad things about being out in the middle of nowhere: you could hear everything. The front door opened and closed soon after.

Only then did Duncan’s nose move to the spot where Henri had rubbed his cheek. He sniffed it. He didn’t get a mohawk when he did it, which I thought was a good thing.

Maybe Henri wasn’t going to bend the rules for us, but he wasn’t going to work against us either, it seemed. I needed to take that for the win it was. And maybe he could help me with getting to know some of the men here. Because I was going to need to work on that too: finding a mate.

Unless he was an option? I’d ponder that later. We had to get through the next three months first.

For the time being, we needed to focus on settling in.

Getting people to like us.

Not scare anyone along the way.

And hopefully get Henri firmly on our side at some point.

But for Duncan, I would do anything, and now I had to prove it.