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)
The hallway was empty as we headed out the front door. In the same clearing where we sat every night to look up at the stars, which were dim at that moment with the full moon shining so brightly, were a handful of adults with not one but two young wolves.
Where was everyone else?
Duncan glanced up at me, and I gave him a nod before he took off, running straight for the white wolf and the slightly bigger and darker one that I had a feeling was Pascal from the color of his coat. I hadn’t seen him in his pup form since the incident with the Jenny Greenteeth. He hip-checked my boy when he got there, and it made me smile as I went toward them, recognizing Henri, the tallest adult of the group. Randall was by him, Ani to the side, Pascal’s dad, and another man who looked a little familiar. He was younger than Henri, not as tall, a dirty blond and—
Glaring in my direction?
All right, maybe I wasn’t going to be making a new friend tonight.
Sticking my hands in my pockets, I was halfway to the group when Ani glanced over. I waved. “Hi, Ani.”
The woman who I’d spent some time with in passing when I’d run into her at the UTV warehouse beamed. “How’s it going, Nina?” She greeted me with genuine kindness. I’d learned she was forty-two, had two children, and was married to a Mexican wolf.
“Pretty good, how are you?” I asked as I came to a stop in a gap between her and Randall. “Hi, Randall. Hi, Pascal’s dad.” We had never done more than politely greet each other with nods and smiles at the nursery. Pascal had whispered to me that his mommy got jealous, so I didn’t take his distance personally. Now when his mom came to get him? That was a different story, and I could see where Pascal got his personality from.
Even though I didn’t want to, I aimed my attention at the stranger. I didn’t hold out my hand though. “Hi. I’m Nina.”
His hand stayed right where it was, just as unfriendly as I’d expected. “Hi,” the stranger muttered, his posture stiff, his glare definitely intense, maybe even a little confrontational.
With a sinking feeling in my chest, I turned to Henri. Him, I couldn’t help but smile at. “Thank you for taking Duncan out.”
There was something about Henri’s expression right then. This wasn’t the joking man who had rubbed his face all over me for protection days ago. This was bossy wolf Henri. Great Wolf Henri with his coolness and neutrality. That Henri dipped his head like we were strangers. “I’ll talk to him, walk him through what we’re going to do, and then we’ll get going. We’ll be gone about an hour.”
I nodded.
Henri approached the kids, crouching a few feet away from my puppy, and I could see his lips moving as he talked to them.
“It’s easier to keep track of the pups in a smaller group, so it’s only going to be us. The rest of the pack is meeting later,” Randall explained beside me. “We’ll keep an eye on him. We do this every time one of the pups hits a certain age.”
“Thanks,” I told him, trying to ignore the man who was burning a hole into the side of my face. He wasn’t trying to hide it either. But no one else seemed worried about his mood, so chances were, he had very good control of his emotions and maybe I was overthinking his body language since I was hyperaware of it. Henri looked serious almost constantly. Maybe resting bitch face was this man’s normal.
A moment later, Henri called out, “It’s time.”
Taking a few steps back, a wave of magic tickled my skin as the group went from five adult humans to five big wolves standing in their place.
Duncan pressed up against my leg, a small, uncertain “love” grabbing my attention.
Was he worried? “You’re fine, buddy.” I bent over as he lifted his head and met my eyes. “You know Henri and Randall. Agnes and Pascal are your friends.”
He pressed closer, the strip of hair between his tail and the base of his neck rising up.
Moving somewhere new hadn’t made him nervous, but this was? My donut.
“This is your pack, Dunky,” I promised him and the universe. “Henri won’t let anything happen to you. He’s been really nice to you since we got here, hasn’t he?”
Duncan looked at me, and it touched some huge part of me when I felt his “yes.”
A soft howl had me focusing on the biggest of all the werewolves standing with the kids. The rest of them looked like huskies in comparison to the black wolf. It made so much sense right then that the gnomes would call him Great Wolf. Under the moonlight, surrounded by the towering trees with their magical bark, circled by other wolves of every size, Wolf Henri, with his thick, dark coat and regal head and build, was something out of a fantasy novel… or a romance novel.