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)
None of my questions or points fazed Henri even a little bit. “I grieved my brother and his wife when they died. They were both much older than me. They were who raised me. Matti’s dad was their son, and he was my older brother in every way that mattered, but we always knew he was going to leave. This land didn’t call to him the way it did to my brother and me. He invited me to go with him when I was old enough,” he explained gently. “We called Matti my cousin because he and I are closer in age than his dad and I were, and that term was easier to explain.”
Before I could say I was sorry, or ask about them, or bring up the fact that he wasn’t actually Matti’s cousin, he moved on.
“The whole purpose of the elders was supposed to be for them to help those in my family run the ranch. Every generation of my father’s descendants had less and less children. Until I was born, my brother had been an only child, and Matti’s dad was an only child. Things were fine when my brother handled everything with the help of the elders. They were who took care of things when I left for New Mexico and went away to school. Everyone knew I wasn’t leaving forever.
“It was my decision to take on so much when I got back. Matti is his dad’s son, and there was no way I could’ve ever guilt-tripped him into staying here,” he admitted. “I have a hard time delegating work or asking for help. It’s my fault things got out of hand, but I never had a reason to want more time for myself until now,” Henri went on to explain.
I blinked.
And if everything that had come out of his mouth hadn’t been enough, he dropped yet another secret on me.
“My mother was once known as Fenrir.”
Fenrir? The Fenrir? The Norse monster wolf? Maybe it was no wonder he didn’t talk about his family. We could come back to all this some other time.
“My father is the original Amarok—the Great Wolf, like the gnomes eventually came to call him. That’s how I’m related to everyone here. All the Amarok are descendants of his descendants, but I’m his direct flesh and blood,” he explained without even blinking. “He doesn’t live here and neither does my mother. They used to check in once every few years—time means something different to them.”
My lips parted in awe. “Are they together?”
“No. I think their relationship is an arrangement I don’t want to begin to understand. I’m not the first child they’ve had together, but it’s been centuries since. My brother raised me, and his brother raised him. None of us shared a mom.”
Just when I thought that my DNA parents were out of their minds….
“I was told that our father has sons and daughters so that they can care for the land. In the past, every thirty to fifty years, a baby will show up, and his last child will raise it. It’s been the cycle since he found this place. But I haven’t seen or heard from him in almost a decade. No one knows where he is. I might be the last of his kids, or in a few years, he might show up with a baby he wants us to raise.”
Us.
Henri leaned forward then. “Does that bother you?”
I frowned. “Why would that bother me?”
The face he made was just short of smug. “That’s what I thought, but I needed to make sure. We have to stop assuming things about each other.”
“That’s dumb. You know I wouldn’t care.” I dropped my shoulders, vulnerability piercing my sternum. I wanted to pick apart him already signing me up to raise a child with him in the future, but really, there were so many other important things I wanted to discuss. I would do anything with him, and I was pretty sure we were both aware of that. A child would be a given. “But what about what Franklin said? My DNA dad can kill people. It was one thing when we guessed who he was, but it’s a totally different thing to know exactly who he is. To know… that they didn’t want me.”
“I don’t give a fuck who your biological anyone is,” he argued gently. “And I’m never going to.”
His words made me release a sharp breath.
“You are a good person,” Henri went on. “And I want you enough for both of them. For all of them.”
Cupid might as well have shot me in the heart. “But you didn’t act that way, not until now,” I reminded him, trying so hard not to say that shakily.
“Nina.” He made a sound in his throat, and one of his thumbs did another circle over my skin that I had to try really hard to ignore. “We’re supposed to wait for the three-month period.”