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)
Now, without distractions, I’d swear there was something different about the trees. The barks wrapped around the trunks had a texture I’d never seen before, almost iridescent at a distance. They also seemed bigger and greener than any others I’d ever seen. In a way, they reminded me of the redwood forests I’d stayed by several times—there was something epic and timeless about them.
Rumor and folklore claimed that there were places in the world where magic was stronger. Where it was embedded more deeply in the environment than in other places. Those stories told that it was where parts of the Great Meteor—the unknown mass that had supposedly been responsible for bringing magic to Earth, according to ancient civilizations across the globe—had landed and subsequently turned normal people into what they became: legends and mythological entities.
I’d heard arguments that there was a chance we had always been around and someone in the past had made up stories to better explain how magic was possible, and maybe that was true. Maybe there had been a meteor filled with something special that changed the very essence of the humans it had come into contact with and made them something different. Or maybe those magical beings had always been around, and people needed some way to explain it. Without a time machine, who would ever know the truth?
Maybe the very old ones, like my neighbor was supposed to have been.
Regardless, this place made me wonder if the meteor theory was true and fragments had landed here thousands of years ago.
Or I just needed something to help me understand how this may or may not be a real-life magical forest with mythical creatures running around in it. Which then got me wondering… did authors and screenwriters come up with enchanted forests after visiting places like this? Were they based off reality? Why had I never thought of that before?
“You coming?” Sienna set her palm between my shoulder blades, forcing me to shelve my questions for later.
I nodded.
We went along, going straight for the front of the main building where my friend held one of the doors open. Henri was waiting inside. Duncan stuck his neck out while his nose continued twitching, taking in all the scents. The foyer we walked into had two connected hallways, one to the left and right, another straight across from the front door, leading toward the back of the building.
“Follow me,” Henri instructed after Matti closed the door, heading down the hall that led to the rear.
We did, the silence so loud within the quiet, plain walls. There wasn’t artwork, a clock, or anything decorative. Not really a surprise. Every werewolf home I’d ever been in had been the same. Even Matti and Sienna, as bougie as they could be and with the exception of their clothing, were pretty minimalist. Now ogres? They loved their little treasures.
“How have you been?” Matti asked his cousin from all the way at the end of our line. I wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow, I’d ended up directly behind Henri. Duncan had his head stretched forward, trying to smell him discreetly without being noticed. With his floppy ears, it was so cute because it wasn’t sneaky at all.
“Fine,” Henri answered him in a clipped tone. “Busy.”
That was informative.
Matti thought the same thing. “I figured that when you’d barely respond to my texts the last six months.”
“I replied,” Henri answered with a grumble that might have held a touch of guilt to it. “There’s been a lot going on. We finished expanding parts of the ranch last month, and I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime.”
“Still working at the sheriff’s office then?”
“Still.” Henri Blackrock was a sheriff? Or a deputy? “Still doing aviation consulting?”
My friend answered, “Still.” There was a pause. “You get into a fight before we got here, or did you punch yourself in the face?”
The self-control it took me not to snicker….
That must have caught Henri off guard too because his pace slowed for a second. “It was more of a disagreement than a fight,” he answered cryptically, and I didn’t even know him and could tell he was being weird.
Mr. Curious wasn’t letting it go. “With?”
“Dominic” was the one and only answer he provided.
There was another pause “Over?”
Nothing.
“Leadership?”
Henri’s reply was a single low grunt.
How long was this hall? I wondered as we passed a smaller hallway, then another that branched out from the one we were on. This place was even bigger on the inside than it had seemed from the exterior. Peeking around Henri’s frame, I found that we were almost to the back of the building, and with a few more steps, he turned suddenly to the right, through a doorway and directly into a room.
In it was the biggest living area I’d ever seen. Multiple couches surrounded a television, there was a small bar area with stools in front of it, and a table that belonged in a conference room. At it were older adults whose magic felt very contained and low. One of them had a single eye… in the middle of his forehead.