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)
But then Dom said what really made me choke. What had Henri making a hoarse sound in his throat and palming my lower back. The man who had stood nose to nose with me nights ago—and not in a good way—said, “I’ll mate with you.”
“You all good?”
I didn’t need my eyes to know it was Henri talking. I’d heard the front door open and close. Sensed the bright flame of his magic. On top of that, I’d caught Agnes’s smile when she’d done all those things too.
So far, there was only one person worthy enough of that reaction from her, and I’d seen her get picked up by almost every parent with a child at the nursery. She didn’t growl at them or anything, but there had definitely never been elation on her face. Not anything close to the kind of expressions she made for Henri every time she saw him.
Plus, there was no hiding the sound of his weight crunching over grass, pine needles, and tiny twigs… unless he’d wanted to. But Henri hadn’t been attempting to be stealthy as he made his way to where the three of us were lying. We’d just finished our popsicles, and we were on our backs, staring at the stars, soaking up the sounds of all the life surrounding us. The magic in the air wasn’t as strong as it could get, but it still felt like a gift to the senses.
It had been easy to cast aside the real-life TV show that had gone down in the kitchen hours ago.
It almost made me want to laugh, if I wasn’t still in shock, which I figured was exactly what Henri was asking about.
“I’m all right,” I answered him… and then I finally freaking broke. I propped my elbow under me to sit up and found him directly to my right. “What was that in there?” I gasped, cracking up.
A part of me expected him to smile, but he seemed about as amused as he’d been earlier, which wasn’t amused at all. If anything, he was cranky, from the way his jaw was clenched and his eyebrows were all flat and sober. Even his reply bordered on monotone. “A bunch of fucking idiots being idiots.”
He’d been quieter than normal during dinner. Twice, his phone had rung, and he’d peered at the screen with a scowl, then shoved it back into his pocket, which was something I’d never seen him do before. I’d heard all about him not answering Matti’s calls and taking forever to text him back, but I figured it wasn’t him because of the time of day. He usually only had time to talk around lunch time or midnight unless he was traveling.
Before that, Henri had stood in the kitchen after Dominic had made his unhinged declaration, which had surprised the hell out of me and made the men start talking over each other, and said in that commanding werewolf voice, “No.”
No. That was all that came out of his mouth. No.
His palm had then cupped the back of my neck, and when none of the strangers moved an inch, he’d raised his voice, “Everyone other than Randall needs to go home.”
I had stood there and taken in the tension in the room, those men I’d never seen before all exhaled deeply before, one after the other, they drifted out of the kitchen almost immediately. The only person who said anything else was Dominic, who on the way out, had one last thing to suggest, “Think about it,” before he’d disappeared.
Fortunately, being raised around werewolves had taught me they were all nuts. Every single one of them. It didn’t matter how reasonable or wonderful they were, or could be, they were, at their baser nature, nuts, and they followed their instincts more than anyone else I’d ever met. And once they got mad? Forget about reason.
And I needed to marry one of them. At least chances were, that’s who it would be. I was fairly certain every man that had been in the kitchen tonight was some kind of wolf.
After they’d left, there had been an awkward tension in the room as we helped Randall cook. Only when we’d sat down did he tell Henri that he’d spoken to Franklin and that the elder was on his way home. All the while, I’d sat there, half listening and halfway trying to remember what the men who had come into the kitchen looked like.
As sneakily as I could, I’d taken my phone out and jotted down some notes while I was at it, feeling like I was doing something illegal.
I wasn’t dumb. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out why they had shown up. Did I know for sure? No. But I could put most of the puzzle pieces together, especially after Dominic’s super-romantic offer.