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)
Someone was speechless again. Seeing your oldest friend almost get mauled by your relative might do that.
Or maybe he’d thought I was….
“Long time no see.”
That took a second.
There was a pause of silence before Matti cleared his throat, his tone coming out almost normal next. One of us, or both of us, had scared the crap out of him. I could tell. “Can you please stop standing over Nina before she bites you again?” The laugh that came out of him sounded almost identical to the one that Shiloh had made when we’d asked him what they’d been up to in the woods, kind of high and shaky.
There was another beat of silence followed by a muffled snicker that had me leaning around the leg still on one side of my body to find Matti standing a few feet away, looking frazzled and amused at the same time.
But mostly freaked out and trying not to be. I snapped my teeth at him before smiling too, hoping to make him feel better. Poor Matti.
From the way his dimples popped from one moment to the next, I wasn’t surprised when he snorted suddenly. “You bit him? Really?” He grinned like a fool, shaking his head.
I shrugged from the ground, eyeing Duncan still hanging there, supported by hands that had gotten bigger since the last time I’d seen them.
Henri had always been huge in my memories—people had confused him for an adult man at sixteen—but somehow, he’d kept on growing over the last almost twenty years.
From the few memories I had of him in his four-legged, magical form, he had been impressive. Now?
I peeked at him again to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.
I wasn’t.
Henri didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything other than stare at me.
I almost became self-conscious, he did it so long.
Eventually, his nostrils flared, not much but enough so I noticed. He was taking me in, of course. I smelled differently than I had the last time we’d seen each other, and it had been a long, long time.
But that didn’t change the fact that maybe he didn’t remember me, even if he’d stopped when I’d said his name. I hadn’t forgotten him. He was still my best friend’s cousin.
Now, he was the adult version. The supersized one. Even more imposing than my memories did him justice.
And was that a smudge of blood on his face?
“Hi,” I told the man standing over me. Then, before I could second-guess myself, I hugged Henri’s shin and calf. Pressed my cheek against it and everything. Part of me felt just a little bit bad about biting him.
Not really though. He shouldn’t have grabbed Duncan like that, but that wasn’t how I’d planned on greeting him after so long. I’d expected a light hug or a pat on the back in a best-case scenario, maybe a nod at least, but not getting knocked off my feet and snarled at.
Or having my precious baby held up like a sacrifice.
That was where he’d screwed up, but that wasn’t his fault. Werewolves were territorial. It was part of the reason why we were here. I wanted someone who would try to rip off a stranger’s face to protect my boy.
And if that someone was a protective man with sharp teeth, what was I going to do? Complain? Say “no, thanks”?
After a one-second-long squeeze, I scooted backward and sat up, getting my legs under me and standing. It was only then, not panicking anymore, that I could finally sense the full impact of his magic. I could have swooned. He was not the strongest magical person I’d ever met—our old neighbor and Duncan’s mom were—but holy bologna. It was close.
Where in the world had this kind of presence on him come from? I’d been joking before, but… had he eaten some old gods? Maybe gnawed on the magical trees surrounding us?
The old man who had lived across the street from us had masked his magic nearly constantly with a bracelet like mine—rumor had it, he’d worn two or three of them—and if I’d ever met one of the other old ones, I hadn’t been able to tell for the same reason.
Henri, though, wasn’t trying to hide anything.
That was the part that shocked me. My body was ultra-aware of the magic living in the woods and the magic that came from every person around me, signaling that they were more than human, but where the children were candles and Matti and Sienna were steady burning campfires, Henri was a bonfire. A funeral pyre. Whatever was the biggest burning thing I could think of short of a city-destroying bomb.
I didn’t miss the way Henri’s attention followed me, watching me watch him, nostrils again flaring softly on a deeply tan face. Henri’s hair was a deep black that was the exact same shade as the glimpses of his coat I’d gotten when he’d been standing over me. He was tall and broad at the shoulders and chest. His hips were narrow in comparison but not slim. He was the epitome of a big man. And his face…