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)
Something I liked a lot.
But I was too busy watching this and regretting not having popcorn while I did it.
That hand holding up Dom, a six-foot-tall-plus man, went up another inch or two higher. “I let you hit me,” Henri told him. “That wasn’t a sucker punch, you piece of shit. I let you strike me. I let you say every word you wanted to because I’ve got nothing to fucking prove to you, but that shit is over now. Your time here is done. Every connection to the ranch is severed. We don’t exist to you from this moment forward, and you will never think, speak, or write about anyone here ever again, or I will find you.”
Dom’s face was so red, and his eyes so bulging and shiny, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the position he was in or because he was literally being excommunicated right then and there.
Taking his time, and showing off that insane strength again, Henri lowered him to the ground, but he kept his fingers where they were, wrapped around his throat.
I’d swear I saw him squeeze them before the Great Wolf 2.0—Murder Henri lurking in there, strongly—pulled Dominic toward him until their faces were inches apart. “You breathe because I let you breathe,” Henri informed him through clenched teeth. “You live because I let you live. Do you understand?”
I didn’t know if Dominic did, but my entire reproductive system understood.
Dom sucked in a breath so ragged, his eyes tearing up even more, I almost didn’t understand his “Yes.” But he repeated himself, the hostility, his arrogance, extinguished. Those blue eyes just like Agnes’s didn’t even swing around the second Henri’s finger must have loosened. Dom looked at Henri, and I meant really looked at him. Like he had ripped a veil off his existence and showed him that everything he’d ever known was a lie.
And I didn’t even waste my time following Dom when he took off the way he’d come.
Franklin didn’t either, because out of my peripheral vision, we both just stared at Henri.
And then my biological uncle let out the most amused sound I’d ever heard leave his body, and he jerked so hard, it was like that surprised him too. “Well, I was wondering when you would finally put him in his place. That went on for too long, Henri.”
“I was hoping he’d learn,” the man I was set to mate soon grumbled, before meeting my eyes and being very unapologetic about everything.
I beamed at him as Franklin huffed. “People like that never learn on their own. I know from experience.”
We all turned at the same time as we felt a strong presence make its way closer to where we were.
Where I’d thought Duncan’s mom’s magic had been enormous, this other one seemed to be on the same level.
It felt both very similar to Franklin’s and very different at the same time. There was a smoothness to both of theirs, where a werewolf’s was wild, but that was the only major likeness between them. The one coming toward us felt dark and bottomless. The same way an ocean would feel at night, I figured.
If this was what other people sensed around me, I understood now.
“Child,” the figure called out as he cut in between a row of cars.
He must have parked in the back.
“Don’t you ‘child’ her, you imbecile,” Franklin was the one who snapped, so at odds with his khaki pants and the sweater vest layered over a button-down shirt. “What are you doing here?”
The figure’s steps faltered. “Imbecile! I’m here to see my daughter!” the man shouted, stepping right up into using his outdoor voice.
“Now she’s your daughter?” my apparent champion, Uncle Franklin over here, shot back without missing a beat.
Henri peeked at me, and we blinked at each other.
This might have been in the top five most surreal moments in my life. Standing in a magical forest with a hellhound, a wolf god, and a god of dreams. My baby, my future mate, and my uncle. And the man who thought he was my father—a death god.
And the two oldest were bickering?
“She has always been my daughter!” the other man exclaimed, honestly sounding insulted. He even sniffed before raising his voice again. “Your resemblance to your mother is uncanny.”
He was talking to me now?
Henri must have not liked that much either because I heard him grumble from deep in his chest, but honestly… honestly… I wasn’t worked up about this. Not at all. About any of this. It caught me off guard, if anything. Waiting around for the Alaskan people had been gut-wrenching and nerve-racking, and this had nothing on that.
I had no control over other people’s actions, but in this case, I didn’t have anything to lose.
My life was whole and complete, and this person coming into it wouldn’t change anything. Not for the better, and I wouldn’t let him for the worse. And neither would the men standing around me, it seemed.