Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Hopefully only two months longer.
I couldn’t expect Henri to have time for us. He had a lot of other people that relied on him. Take a number, right?
Rolling down to lie flat on my back, I stared up at the sky as Duncan relaxed enough to trample over me, paws going places that had me huffing and puffing and groaning until he settled, lying across me, still having access to my hand. The stars were crazy bright, brighter than any other night so far. The Big Dipper was there, as well as the little one, the Milky Way a line of sparkles that split one part of the sky from another.
I’d always loved looking at them. If I could take a spaceship, I would, I used to think. Now, the thought of leaving my boy was unfathomable, and I was okay with that. The weight of him on me was a reminder that things might be changing, but he still needed me, and I was going to drain that well dry until he didn’t.
My one hope was that it was decades from now.
Two shooting stars later, when Duncan finished his popsicle, he wedged his way between my arm and the side of my body, rolling onto his back so he could look too. I could hear Agnes and Henri moving around too, and from the way the leaves crackled, I figured they were doing the same.
What had to be a comet, it was so bright, shot across the sky. “Did you see that one?” I asked the puppy tucked in next to me.
“Yes,” he told me.
I reached for his back leg and wrapped my hand around his paw. “Love, love, love” filled my heart.
As much as I liked the gnomes, they better not even side-eye Duncan if they knew what was good for them. And that thought led me to another one. A less stressful one. “Henri,” I called out. “Why did the gnomes call you Great Wolf?”
He didn’t reply, and I slowly sat up. He was already looking at me with a deceptively blank expression that I knew was BS.
“You know who I was raised by,” I reminded him, knowing he was aware that my parents had been descended from nahuales—shapeshifters. “And they taught me allll about wolf mythology. I know what that means, Mr. Wolf God,” I whispered as a grin took over my face.
The tale of the Great Wolf was one handed down throughout North America, of a monstruous but noble wolf who roamed the plains. A protector. A shield for the weaker. There were stories of great battles it faced in centuries past, against epic thunderbirds, who it ripped from the skies, and giant pumas who preyed upon villagers at night, to name a few.
The Great Wolf was a hero and a legend.
And I couldn’t help but grin with freaking glee at the fact I was sitting inches away from the man recognized with that title.
Henri’s jaw ticked to the right instantly. He even blinked twice. “I knew you were going to give me shit for it the second they called me that.”
Was he blushing?
I laughed. “I didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty.”
He groaned and looked away, which made me laugh harder.
That was definitely a blush on those cheeks. Too bad for him, it was adorable.
“I’ll keep that in mind when addressing you from now on, sir,” I joked, watching as he shook his head… but there was a slight, slight smile on his face. Feeling generous, I decided to give him a break for now. “Was that an ancestor of yours?”
The way he shrugged bordered on embarrassed… but he nodded.
I smiled and laid back down, pleased and surprised and… a thought came out of nowhere. “Wait, does Matti know about that?”
“Does Matti know that he’s related to him? Yes, he does.”
And that son of a turd had never hinted at it before? It hadn’t occurred to me that Matti could be related to him too. I guess I had automatically assumed that the Great Wolf would be on the other side of Henri’s family, not the shared one.
Like he could sense my outrage, Henri added, “It’s not something we advertise. Matti never met the… original one, and I think his dad might have met him only once.”
That made me slightly feel better, but I was still going to give him shit about it the second I had the chance. I couldn’t believe he’d never even dropped a hint. But maybe it’s because that is actually a big secret and not something most people should know.
Hmm.
His voice rumbled unexpectedly through the dark. “You really don’t know anything about your birth parents?” The question was so delicately laid out, it was like he’d set it on eggshells. Was he trying not to hurt my feelings?