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)
The Ani woman grinned again, and the Randall guy nodded. I was pretty sure I noticed his nose twitching discreetly. I’d let him smell me some other time, if he still wanted to. I didn’t get why Henri had gotten so defensive. It wasn’t rude to ask someone to smell them; it was only rude to ask them what they were.
“I’ll take you up on that offer. See you around,” Ani said. “Be safe, Henri. Dom’s a dumbass.”
Henri and I made eye contact, and I took that as my cue to get walking back to the UTV. He caught up to me almost immediately, and when his hand landed on the back of my neck, I got a little excited… until he steered me to the right instead of the direction I’d been going. I lifted my head at him and smiled.
He dropped his hand.
Ten minutes ago, he’d been defending me to a bigfoot. Now, I had cooties. Life was confusing.
Once we made it back to the off-road vehicle, we buckled in. I waited until we got a short distance away before saying, “Fluff? Thank you for standing up for me. I appreciate it.”
His attention was still forward as he replied, “Sure.” Like it was no big deal that he’d put himself between me and a giant, angry creature, then thrown an enormous log in retaliation.
“We can call it even now,” I let him know.
“Even?” There was a pause. “For what?”
“I spent ten years telling myself that if I ever saw you again, I was going to punch you in the gut.”
There was another beat of silence before he drew out, “Why?”
I had always figured he’d had no idea just how much his actions had hurt me. As I’d gotten older, I’d begun to understand why he’d done what he’d done, but I’d still been dead set on that punch. I would’ve settled for tripping him. “For taking Matti the way you did. That wrecked me back then, how you just left without letting us say bye. He was mine just as much as he was yours,” I explained. “But you don’t need to worry about that now. Like I said, we’re even. You might have saved my life a little bit.”
Those amber irises flicked in my direction again. He looked genuinely surprised. “Cricket, I… why are your hands shaking?” He let off the accelerator with a frown. “You don’t smell scared.”
I hadn’t even realized they were back to doing it again. I balled them up into fists. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world to bring up that stage in our lives. I should probably drop it. “I wanted to ask you about that actually.”
“Your face is red,” he said, deciding to change the subject, thankfully.
I pressed my cheeks with the pads of my fingers. They were hot. “I don’t feel sick. But since we got here, I’ve felt… wired? Like I’ve chugged a few energy drinks back-to-back.” I had done that once, and it was a miracle I hadn’t had a heart attack. I’d scared the crap out of Sienna so bad she made me promise never to drink even a single one again. “The magic here is intense, but I asked Sienna about it, and she didn’t seem to be affected by it.”
He slowed the UTV down some more. Big hands flexed on the steering wheel. Henri made a little grunt in his throat.
“It doesn’t feel bad, but it reminds me of a high,” I told him, struggling to explain it.
“Some people who come to live here are more sensitive to it than others.”
“Really?”
He nodded, attention on the scenery through the windshield. “The more exposure you get outside, the more it’ll help. You’ll be fine in a month.”
Hmm. I stored that food for thought. “It doesn’t bother you?” I asked.
“No, but I’ve spent most of my life here. I love everything about this land.”
His comment made me smile. Then I asked, “Do you have problems with other creatures regularly? Creatures that aren’t members of the community?”
“Not often, but it happens more than I’d like.”
“Do you think it’s because of how powerful the magic here is? That they’re drawn to it in a way?”
He steered the vehicle to the side, going around an incredibly thick log that had been sawn in half. “There isn’t science behind it, but sure, I think so. The closer you get to this area, the more beings start to sense it. It’s a magnet in a way for some. It’s worse around a full moon.”
“That must make it really hard to keep the people here safe and keep the land to yourselves.” The more I thought about it, the more complicated it got in my head. How many creatures wouldn’t come across this place and decide they wanted to be a part of it? Or wanted it all to themselves? And why were some of us and not everyone affected by it? For the same reason that some people liked the smell of lavender and other people thought it was gross?