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)
“I don’t have sharp teeth. I can’t hurt anyone like that,” I whispered.
Light-colored eyes met mine, and even they seemed different than usual. Dimmer. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
I wouldn’t. There was no reason to let it bother me too much. Her son—if that’s what Shiloh was—had liked me, and that was enough. Kids were good judges of character. If I’d listened to Duncan like I should have, I would have been on high alert around those people who had tried to take him before things had escalated.
That was the last time I was ever going to ignore his instincts. Or anyone else I knew with a fantastic nose. Which then got me thinking….
I lifted my head to see that the door to the en suite bathroom was still closed. It was. Franklin, the elder with the glasses, who I thought had been acting kind of weird, had explained while he’d given us the tour of the second floor of the main building—or the “clubhouse” as he’d called it—that each room on the second and third floor had its own bathroom. There were five rooms in total for “guests,” and he’d stuck us in two right next to each other. They were comfortable, big enough for a king-sized bed, a nightstand on each side, a dresser, and a television across from the mattress. The bathrooms were identical with a large walk-in shower with some kind of stone tile and timeless accents that really tied in with the rustic and homey feel of the entire building. It was nice without making me nervous to damage something.
And while I would’ve rather stayed in my travel trailer, that had been one of the rules the elders had laid out during the final parts of our meeting.
We had to integrate, and apparently, my camper didn’t count, but staying in the clubhouse for the next three months did.
It was fine. We had room for activities, and it would be nice to not be cramped in the tiny shower that worked just fine too. And from the way Duncan had been so attentive, he seemed to like this place already. The elders had given him a wide berth, but I wanted to hope it wasn’t out of fear. There was a lot of new stuff going on in such a short time, and maybe they were giving him space before overwhelming him with attention. They had seemed interested enough there for a minute.
Except for….
“Matti?” I raised my voice, knowing he was listening from the bathroom.
He didn’t let me down. “Yeah?”
I had to word this right. “What do you know about that elder with the glasses? Franklin.”
My oldest friend took his time before answering. “Not much. I didn’t spend any time with him when I lived here.”
Hmm.
He kept talking. “There’s no hierarchy with them, but Henri mentioned once that they all seem to give him more of a say than anyone else. He looks the same too. I wonder what kind of skincare routine he has.”
Freaking Matti.
It was only rude to ask someone what they were to their face, there was nothing technically wrong with wondering about it behind their backs.
“Do you not know what he is then?” I asked.
“I’ve got no fucking idea,” he called out. “I bet Henri does.”
“Why?” Sienna asked.
“I might be imagining it, but I thought he was acting kind of different from everyone else,” I tried to explain.
She shrugged like she hadn’t noticed. I guess that was a good thing.
Moving along, I decided to change the topic. “What’s up with Henri?” I asked Sienna. I was rolling the dice talking about him in here in the first place, but I didn’t care enough to be discreet. I wasn’t planning on talking bad about him.
“What do you want to know?” she whispered.
There was a reason why I was asking her and not Matti. Sienna didn’t love gossip as much as he did, and I wasn’t sure if she knew about the crush I’d had on him when we’d been younger.
“Matti never talks about him, and you’ve only seen him… what? Three times in all these years? What’s he been up to?” That wasn’t the question burning a hole in my brain, but considering she and Henri barely knew each other, I was well aware she wasn’t the person to interrogate about why he wouldn’t want me living here.
I needed to ask him directly because that betrayal stung almost as much as when he’d taken Matti away without a goodbye.
“I’ve seen him for about half an hour three times in six years, Nina. Matti knows more because he’s seen him more often than I have when he’s had to come to Colorado for work and Henri’s met up with him, but all I know is that he lives here, he works for the sheriff’s department as deputy, he’s bad at texting Matti back, and”—I had to read her lips because her whisper was so low—“he doesn’t have a mate.” She raised her eyebrows.