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)
His chest grazed my arm, and I tried my best to pretend it was no big deal.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Out of nowhere, he lifted me up and adjusted me on him before sliding an arm low around my back, like he was helping prop me up. “I think you should tell me what you think first, and then I’ll go. I’ll be surprised if we aren’t both on the same page,” he tried to compromise.
Discomfort was a javelin straight into my sternum at what he was asking.
But I forgot that nothing got past Henri. “We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
I didn’t, but at the same time, sticking your head in the sand and pretending something wasn’t happening didn’t mean something wasn’t happening. Sure, I wanted to go on with my life like someone wasn’t calling out in my dreams—and Henri’s—but the truth was, this wasn’t just affecting me.
But all I could get myself to do was grunt at him.
I didn’t want him to look at me differently.
“Nina,” Henri murmured, and I could’ve sworn I heard affection in his voice, or at least amusement. “We both know at least one of your parents was someone who somewhere, at some point, was called a—”
I put my hand over his mouth. “I don’t like that word.”
He raised an eyebrow, and it was more than a millimeter. His fingers went to my wrist, and he tugged my hand down. “I don’t like it either. Too many preconceptions, but you know what I’m talking about—an old one, does that work?”
I nodded.
His eyebrow dropped. “Then there’s no disputing that—that one of them is very old. There’s a chance both of them might be. Am I right?”
I met his eyes and found only curiosity there. I jerked my head at him once. Then I agreed to things even my parents had never wanted to admit out loud, or at least not without spelling them out instead. “I think so.” I made it sound like the dirty secret it had always felt like.
“You think so?” this man decided to tease right then.
I realized at that moment who I was talking to. The same man the gnomes had called the Great Wolf. A descendant of a wolf god. Which made him a wolf god. Probably. There was a big difference between him and Matti, and there was no hiding that. It hadn’t escaped me that not once had anyone ever brought up Henri’s parents. I still wanted to ask for details, but even for me, that felt like crossing the line with privacy.
Now I felt like a hypocrite.
“We can come back to it,” he offered. “All we’re doing is guessing anyway, aren’t we?”
I nodded, then so did he, tiptoeing right along with me.
“Someone is talking to you in your dreams, in mine—in who knows who else’s—for a reason. I’d bet there’s a list of figures that have that ability, and I bet we could narrow it down. I bet you’ve had ideas, and this incident might have narrowed them down.”
I grumbled and dipped my chin in agreement, squeezing my knees, my shirt tucked between my legs to hide my underwear.
His gaze slid to what my hands were doing before meeting mine again. His throat bobbed with a swallow, and I felt him shift his weight around below me. “There are stories that have been around for longer than I’ve been alive. Longer than the elders and their ancestors, too. My family, the ones who moved here, who made this their home and inherited this land, would tell us about how there was so much magic embedded into everything that makes this place this place. I don’t think they had a word for atoms back then, but it’s that idea…. Your hands aren’t shaking anymore, are they?” he asked suddenly.
I smiled up at his face, touched he’d remembered. “They stopped being jittery on their own a few weeks back.”
“Good. I knew it’d go away eventually.” He paused. “I’ve noticed the more magical someone is, the more strongly they experience the magic here.” His gaze flicked back toward my hands again lightning quick. He blinked. “Where was I?”
“You were saying that there’s so much magic in the land.” Something I had already reasoned for myself, but I liked hearing him talk.
He sat up straighter, bringing his chest into contact with my arm and side even more. “Right. The stories I was raised on say that this land is special. That it heightens everything that lives within it.... What are you smiling at?”
I couldn’t control my facial muscles; I was grinning so hard it sort of hurt. “You’re good at storytelling.” I squinted. “Why? You want me to stop smiling?”
“No.” He looked at me one more time, then continued on. “Everything that was born and raised here is bigger, stronger, than it is elsewhere—”