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)
Those clear eyes moved over my face as his features gradually hardened.
He’d always been so serious. In my memories, he used to smile once in a blue moon and rarely laughed, unlike Matti whose first language was cackling. Where my best friend was a joyous handful, I remembered Henri as being the opposite: quiet, stoic, too responsible, even as a teenager.
I needed to try my best not to let his back-and-forth seriousness get under my skin.
So I smiled some more and drew my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.
“Did you go looking for the river crone?” I asked, keeping an eye on Dunky-Dunk, who hadn’t moved a muscle other than the ones in his throat as he growled like a tiny chainsaw. The barest hint of white teeth peeked out from between his lips, his little nose working overtime as he tried to smell the werewolf attempting to be friendly and nonthreatening in a subtle way.
“We did,” Henri answered, his attention still on my attack puppy.
I wasn’t sure what to think about Duncan not breaking eye contact yet. The boy had balls of steel. “No luck finding her then?”
His gaze met mine for a split second before returning to Duncan just as fast. “No. We lost her trail a half mile from where you ran into her.”
Someone sounded a little sour about that.
The defined line of his jaw flexed before he looked at me again with those sober features that I wasn’t sure how to take. “What did you do to make her leave?”
Did he sound a little accusatory, or was it my imagination?
“They’re known to be aggressive.”
She had been a little b.
I hugged my knees closer, reminding myself of the importance of honesty. Of the roots the elders had briefly mentioned that were so important here. There was a chance that despite their assurances, one day they would ask for more specifics about what I was, and then nothing would be a secret.
And that made me think about the bracelet I know I’d seen on Franklin’s wrist.
But wondering what he was made me feel like a hypocrite. If there was anything I needed to focus on, it was myself and my donut. And Henri’s careful curiosity.
He definitely didn’t know the one thing I was very careful not to bring up. The same thing Matti and Sienna and my parents also avoided like the plague. Nobody pretended anything, but we had all gotten really good at tiptoeing around the truth.
But these strangers were either going to accept me or they wouldn’t. So I answered, “Nothing much.” That wasn’t a lie.
Duncan leaned forward a little bit, getting a better smell of the man patiently balanced on the balls of his feet in front of us.
I shared a little more. “I told her to leave and not come back.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. He didn’t actually raise an eyebrow, but there was something about his features that made it seem like he had. “You talked to her?” He paused, and I’d swear I felt him scoff. “That’s all?”
He thought I was full of it.
I had an idea of what he saw when he looked at me. I wasn’t short or tall. I was a handful up top and down below. The only part of me that anyone remembered, if they did, was my face, and it wasn’t an intimidating one either. A drunk ex-boyfriend had told me once that I was “beautiful but not at the same time.” My bone structure was a mix of the heritage I highly suspected ran through my blood and a very different one that softened my nose and gave me a lighter eye color.
I was the attractive equivalent of brussels sprouts: some people were about it, and other people would rather starve.
Some people had soft faces that they could shape and make personalities for. Mine was angles and knew exactly who it was and made no apologies for it. Maybe one day I could learn from it.
“Yup,” I confirmed. “That’s all.”
He scoffed as much as a man his size was capable of, and it was rough like the rest of him. He shoved his right sleeve up his forearm. “You want me to believe that?”
That was definitely a little bit of accusation in there.
I didn’t want to take it personally, but…. “Yeah. Why would I lie about that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
“People lie about everything.”
Ouch. “You’re not wrong, but I meant what I said. I’m not going to start building bonds here based on lies.” I thought about that a little more. “And that’s such a dumb thing to make up. If I’m going to lie about something, it wouldn’t be that.”
Something flicked across the striking lines of his face, mostly in his eyes. He had thick, expressive eyebrows, his features all dark Viking. He was good at hiding what he was thinking, that was for sure, but I was excellent with body language.