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 turned and walked out of the kitchen, sidekick at my feet. Henri and Agnes followed behind us, the little girl carrying her lunch bag. The building was as empty as always. I led us down the hall and out the front door, warm fingers grazing mine on the doorknob when Henri almost beat me to it, gesturing for us to go ahead. I did, bending to pet both pups—Agnes only side-eyed me—before we kept going, through the yard and toward the familiar clearing where we’d had our snacks before.
Agnes set the insulated bag down, and I felt the tension radiating from the kids, who were used to our schedule, ready to play. We had our routine by now. It was Agnes’s idea to have popsicles afterward to cool off, and who was I to say no? Her bag kept them from melting.
I pointed at myself. “Eenie.” Next I gestured to Duncan. “Meenie.” Third was Agnes. “Miny.” Now we had a new player, and I pointed at Henri. “Mo.”
“Are we seeing who’s going to be ‘it’?” he asked.
“Shh,” I hushed him as I kept pointing at a different person with every word. “Catch a tiger by its toe. If it hollers, let it go. Eenie, meenie, miny, mo!” I hadn’t even finished pointing at Henri when the kids took off in opposite directions. Cheaters.
I made eye contact with him and winked. “You’re it, Fluff.”
That neutral face brightened just slightly, his eyebrows going up a fraction of an inch, but he knew what to do. He looked at me standing there, light-colored eyes glittering under the navy sky, and he went after Duncan.
“This one is for you, and this one is yours. Donut, give me a second and I’ll get you yours,” I said, handing popsicles out. We hadn’t played for very long, just enough for me to get out of breath.
And that was how we’d found ourselves sitting in a loose circle around Agnes’s lunch bag. I had my legs crossed, and the length of Duncan’s ribs were pressed against my thigh, while an arm-length away was Henri, with Agnes beside him.
I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t ceased to surprise me how good he was with the kids, how much he genuinely seemed to like them. It was more attractive than the biggest biceps.
Henri had been smiling too. Grinning, even, while he’d been running circles around a tree, “trying” to catch Agnes, then attempting to avoid being tagged by Duncan’s paw. I’d heard him laugh, his happiness so soft and sweet, if I’d had slightly better senses, I was sure I could have tasted it.
But it was that little, joyous smile that took him from being handsome to unbearably gorgeous. Dang it.
So what if I thought he was attractive? Who could blame me? I mean, other than Sienna. Non-magical people were all I’d ever dated before, and when I’d thought about settling down, it had always been with one. But then came all the other BS. I would have to lie, and we wouldn’t be able to have kids because I wouldn’t be able to tell my partner why his child could do the things they could do.
I’d known enough beings who had avoided having children, and it wasn’t difficult to understand why. It was a sacrifice you had to make unless you were willing to explain things that you shouldn’t. That you couldn’t. Each culture and species had their own tales about the truth going so wrong.
They were handed down every generation.
There was an old story that Matti’s mom had told us once, how her great-grandfather had married a human and they had a child. At the age of seven, the child turned into a wolf one night without warning, and when the husband had tried to explain to his wife that it was safe, that the child wasn’t evil, it had gone horribly wrong for the woman. Her heart had failed out of pure shock, or fright, probably both.
Stories along those lines could be found everywhere.
It was why keeping the truth a secret was the one universal burden that everyone could agree on. It was necessary because no one knew how to keep things to themselves, not unless their own butts were on the line.
Life was complicated, or at least it could be.
Fortunately, it wasn’t at that moment, and I was grateful for it.
I took the wrapper off Duncan’s treat, then started opening mine, holding the stick of his between my teeth. Just as I was about to lay flat on the ground to take in the stars that were brighter than usual, something in Henri’s body language changed out of my peripheral vision. Before I could begin to guess what was going on, he murmured, very, very quietly, so low I barely heard him, “Do you see them, Cricket?”