The Things We Water

Chapter 3 #2

“Yes,” he told me.

It was my nerves then. “I’m just a little nervous. Don’t tell anybody.” I winked at him.

“Yes,” he assured me. He pressed his nose to my chin again, and I gave him yet another hug, grateful I had someone who enjoyed them as much as I did.

He was worth everything—all the nerves, all the stomachaches, all the uncertainty. I couldn’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t do for these long ears and his big, loyal heart.

We had to make this place work.

“Might as well get out. They’re going to have a million and a half questions,” Matti warned as he opened the door.

Shiloh, the satyr, hesitated for a moment before opening the door closest to him and getting to his hooves before jumping out. Following him was the white puppy, and last went the werewolf child. I tapped Duncan’s nose to get his attention one last time.

“Be on your best behavior. I don’t want to put you in air jail,” I warned him. He waved that fluffy tail behind him. We both knew, though, that he’d done enough stuff in the past that had required that kind of prison sentence.

But I didn’t want him to know that staying here depended on him, and I definitely didn’t want him to sense any pressure if he didn’t like it and we had to figure out plan B.

That was a burden he didn’t need to shoulder. He didn’t need to know yet there wasn’t a plan B.

I pet his head before turning and climbing out with him in my arms and then setting him down on the gravel. He wouldn’t run off—I was pretty positive—but confidence was built by experiences. I had to trust him. He’d be safe here.

At least that’s what Matti had told us, and I believed him despite the Jenny Greenteeth we’d encountered. I justified it by telling myself that she had been at least a couple miles away, and she’d taken off in the opposite direction. But I should probably get my fanny pack from where I’d left it on the front seat regardless. He rarely needed his leash, and I wanted to believe he wouldn’t need it now, but… just in case.

I was thinking about that as I took a few steps around the truck after getting out of the back seat, standing close to Shiloh, who had made his way over while he spoke to Agnes beside him. Pascal was saying something to Matti and Sienna on the other side of the truck. I swept my gaze around, too focused on the smell of the woods and the magic in the air to really listen to the low, consistent sound in the distance. The sound I would have recognized—if I’d been paying attention—was a heavy body running fast over fallen leaves.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Duncan’s ears perk up, his attention pivoting toward the trees. At almost the exact same time, Shiloh did the same.

Unfortunately, I missed their reactions, and I was going to blame the enchanted forest we were in for why I didn’t sense the wrecking ball of a magical presence running like the wind through it.

And it had to be because of all those reasons that I was totally surprised when a huge black mass appeared in my peripheral vision.

It didn’t click that it was running straight for us until it was almost too late, and I stepped in front of the two kids.

An animal the size of a Clydesdale took what I would call a flying leap at me not twenty seconds after I’d gotten out of the truck.

Matti shouted. One of the boys did too. Duncan whined deep in his throat.

It all happened so fast, and I barely had time to do anything but make sure it was me and not Duncan or Shiloh it was aiming for before gigantic paws hit my shoulders and tackled me to the ground like a pop star’s bodyguard would take down a fan running on stage.

The only good part was that I didn’t have time to tense and make hitting the gravel like a watermelon from a ten-story building even worse than it already was.

But that’s what happened.

The massive black ball of fur tried to turn me into a pancake , and it wasn’t until I gasped for air in shock as I barely managed not to crack my head on the ground that I heard the “No!” Shiloh yelled after everyone else’s mix of noises. But all my lungs could do was rattle as my brain struggled to process what had just happened. It was at that point, despite my eyes watering, that I finally got to absorb the body standing over me.

Literally.

Two humongous paws were braced on either side of my head, and maybe a centimeter from my nose was a face that belonged in geographic magazines…

And the biggest wolf in the universe, who had somehow managed to survive the Ice Age or whatever time period wolves the size of the biggest horses existed, was snarling at me so deeply, so pissed , I should have been scared out of my mind.

I wasn’t.

The most intense amber gaze I’d ever seen was looking down at me. I gasped, “Freaking hell, Henri, what have you been eating? Small children? Minor deities?”

The snarling werewolf suddenly went so quiet it was like someone had unplugged him from a power outlet. He dropped into a sitting position almost immediately, right by my feet. Even his almost-terrifying mouth closed.

Just as quickly as his whole demeanor changed, the wolf turned its head over his furry shoulder. That’s when I caught it. The tiny growl I’d heard countless times, especially when it was within a foot of a raw meaty bone.

Leaning over, I gasped at the twelve-pound black puppy dangling in the air. Its jaws were clamped to the wolf’s tail, the one red eyeball that was visible was wide, and the flame on the tip of his tail was the palest shade of blue I had ever seen. My sweet little Duncan baby, my donut, my joy, my boy, growled even louder, and I’d swear I could see his jaws clamp down even more around the bone and fur in his mouth.

He was attacking the kaiju of wolves.

To protect me.

But even as my heart stuttered in fear and my brain told me to do something , the huge werewolf only stared. At Duncan. Not aggressively. Not in preparation to eat him. In a way that made me think that it didn’t know what was going on.

“Henri! What are you doing ?” Matti bellowed. I was pretty sure I could hear him running over my wheezing.

The legs on either side of my feet shimmered for a fraction of a moment before the body looming over me was replaced by two work boots.

Big, human feet.

And above the double-digit-sized boots, which I’d bet were really sturdy, were long, thick legs, an upper body that could’ve created its own eclipse, and a face that… that….

The man there now was looking at me with the same intense amber eyes as before, and he was… he was….

He was holding my baby up by the scruff!

Honestly, I had no idea what came over me. Instinct? Maybe I had hit my head and wasn’t thinking clearly?

I had no clue.

All I knew was that I made an unholy noise right before I rolled onto my side, grabbed the calf right there, and bit it.

“What the hell?” I heard Matti mutter just as I sank my teeth into jeans and muscle. Hard too.

I would’ve made a mama bear proud.

“The hell—” a husky male voice above me growled just as a much younger voice cut him off.

“She saved us! That’s her baby!” I was pretty sure it was Shiloh who screeched, the voice of reason in the madness because I stopped biting the calf in front of me like it was a turkey leg at the Renaissance festival the second I heard it. Above me, the big man had moved his grip on Duncan so he had hands beneath his front legs instead of at the back of his neck.

And Duncan—bless him—was growling in the face of the werewolf man who had been ready to rip my face off seconds ago. If the growling wasn’t enough, he started whipping his head and body from side to side like he was a rabid badger trying to escape. Like he was trying to help me…?

Oh, Dunky. If this man didn’t look like he ate only the best magical organ meat on the market to keep up his size, I might have cried from how proud I was. From how this act of love, of bravery, could be enough to support me through every bad moment I ever had in my life from then on out. He was so small in comparison, and it wasn’t stopping him from putting himself at risk.

For me .

“What’s this?” the man asked slowly, clearly referring to Duncan, before tipping his head down and aiming those familiar eyes back on me. He blinked. “Who’s this?” he demanded, his tone somehow a grumbled mix between confused, irritated, and caught off guard. Mostly irritated though, I’d bet. “And what are you doing here, Matti?”

Someone was speechless again. Seeing your oldest friend almost get mauled by your relative might do that.

Or maybe he’d thought I was….

“Long time no see.”

That took a second.

There was a pause of silence before Matti cleared his throat, his tone coming out almost normal next. One of us, or both of us, had scared the crap out of him. I could tell. “Can you please stop standing over Nina before she bites you again?” The laugh that came out of him sounded almost identical to the one that Shiloh had made when we’d asked him what they’d been up to in the woods, kind of high and shaky.

There was another beat of silence followed by a muffled snicker that had me leaning around the leg still on one side of my body to find Matti standing a few feet away, looking frazzled and amused at the same time.

But mostly freaked out and trying not to be. I snapped my teeth at him before smiling too, hoping to make him feel better. Poor Matti.

From the way his dimples popped from one moment to the next, I wasn’t surprised when he snorted suddenly. “You bit him? Really?” He grinned like a fool, shaking his head.

I shrugged from the ground, eyeing Duncan still hanging there, supported by hands that had gotten bigger since the last time I’d seen them.

Henri had always been huge in my memories—people had confused him for an adult man at sixteen—but somehow, he’d kept on growing over the last almost twenty years.

From the few memories I had of him in his four-legged, magical form, he had been impressive. Now?

I peeked at him again to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

I wasn’t.

Henri didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything other than stare at me.

I almost became self-conscious, he did it so long.

Eventually, his nostrils flared, not much but enough so I noticed. He was taking me in, of course. I smelled differently than I had the last time we’d seen each other, and it had been a long, long time.

But that didn’t change the fact that maybe he didn’t remember me, even if he’d stopped when I’d said his name. I hadn’t forgotten him. He was still my best friend’s cousin.

Now, he was the adult version. The supersized one. Even more imposing than my memories did him justice.

And was that a smudge of blood on his face?

“Hi,” I told the man standing over me. Then, before I could second-guess myself, I hugged Henri’s shin and calf. Pressed my cheek against it and everything. Part of me felt just a little bit bad about biting him.

Not really though. He shouldn’t have grabbed Duncan like that, but that wasn’t how I’d planned on greeting him after so long. I’d expected a light hug or a pat on the back in a best-case scenario, maybe a nod at least, but not getting knocked off my feet and snarled at.

Or having my precious baby held up like a sacrifice.

That was where he’d screwed up, but that wasn’t his fault. Werewolves were territorial. It was part of the reason why we were here. I wanted someone who would try to rip off a stranger’s face to protect my boy.

And if that someone was a protective man with sharp teeth, what was I going to do? Complain? Say “no, thanks”?

After a one-second-long squeeze, I scooted backward and sat up, getting my legs under me and standing. It was only then, not panicking anymore, that I could finally sense the full impact of his magic. I could have swooned. He was not the strongest magical person I’d ever met—our old neighbor and Duncan’s mom were—but holy bologna. It was close.

Where in the world had this kind of presence on him come from? I’d been joking before, but… had he eaten some old gods? Maybe gnawed on the magical trees surrounding us?

The old man who had lived across the street from us had masked his magic nearly constantly with a bracelet like mine—rumor had it, he’d worn two or three of them—and if I’d ever met one of the other old ones, I hadn’t been able to tell for the same reason.

Henri, though, wasn’t trying to hide anything.

That was the part that shocked me. My body was ultra-aware of the magic living in the woods and the magic that came from every person around me, signaling that they were more than human, but where the children were candles and Matti and Sienna were steady burning campfires, Henri was a bonfire. A funeral pyre. Whatever was the biggest burning thing I could think of short of a city-destroying bomb.

I didn’t miss the way Henri’s attention followed me, watching me watch him, nostrils again flaring softly on a deeply tan face. Henri’s hair was a deep black that was the exact same shade as the glimpses of his coat I’d gotten when he’d been standing over me. He was tall and broad at the shoulders and chest. His hips were narrow in comparison but not slim. He was the epitome of a big man. And his face…

Yeahhh, no wonder I’d had a crush on him when I’d been a kid.

And that was definitely blood on him. The corner of his bottom lip was slightly swollen too. There was a tiny cut near the corner.

Hmm.

Even with the busted bottom lip, Henri’s facial features were striking and masculine. He was no pretty boy, like I enjoyed teasing Matti that he was. Henri Blackrock was all cheekbones and a big, defined jaw. In a lot of ways, he looked like the man-boy I remembered, except older and two or three times bigger. He was even more handsome than my memories recalled, that was for sure. I had pictures of my childhood, of one or two of Matti’s birthdays with his older cousin sulking in the background behind a giant steak with a candle in it—he only had cake or cupcakes when his mom brought them to school to help him fit in, and he’d always forced down a single bite before handing whatever it was off to me to polish off.

Henri might not have been a fixture in my life like Matti had been, but he had still made an impact in his own way—mostly on my hormones and in my daydreams.

Right then, his nostrils flared some more, and I figured he was still trying to get a whiff of me, except he couldn’t. He could smell my skin and hair, but not the parts of me that made me magical too. Only in a different way.

Tough.

Thick, dark eyebrows scrunched together on his ruggedly cut face. His voice sounded like rumpled velvet when he asked slowly, drawing every word out in a way that emphasized how confusing my presence had to be, “What are you?”

I smiled up at him. “A Pisces. You?”

Someone made a sound, and there was no way it was anyone other than Sienna.

Adult Henri’s head jerked back at my answer. His forehead furrowed before that yellowish-orange-ish gaze raked my face again. “ Cricket? ”

I burst out laughing. “Wow. I haven’t heard that in forever.” Cricket. I grinned, so pleased he hadn’t forgotten me after all. “Hi, Fluffy,” I greeted him. “How have you been? Can I have my boy back?”

Henri Blackrock, the biggest wolf and man I had ever seen, blinked at me. He’d said my nickname, but it was like he still couldn’t wrap his head around it from the way the lines at his forehead got even deeper. Even his nostrils flared a little more.

And on second glance, his clothing was a little dirty too. Too dusty for it to be casual. He looked how I did when I got done rolling around with Duncan.

What was up with that?

Henri’s gaze took me in like he had no idea what he was seeing, his eyes roaming my face, then sweeping lower, then lower….

Two back-to-back choking sounds that I would have bet money were courtesy of Matti and Sienna were the cue his body needed to instantly tense even more than it already had been, and in the next moment, he held Duncan out.

“Thank you.” My palms and fingers glided over the backs of his as I took my boy and pulled him into my chest, meeting Henri’s intense gaze afterward. I smiled at him some more.

Short, dark lashes fell over incredible amber eyes. He was looking at me. Really freaking watching me.

It had to be driving him nuts not being able to smell my magic. Werewolves were very scent-sual creatures, after all.

Scent-sual… I needed to whisper that one to Sienna later. She’d get a kick out of it.

Chances were, he was trying to reconcile the girl he’d last known with the person I’d grown into. Even Matti had done a double take the first time he’d seen me after my magic presented itself. Except all he’d done to verify my identity was peel back my eyelid, then say, “ Let me smell your fart .”

I hadn’t—farted that was—but I did smack him in the gut with the back of my hand, and that had done the trick.

“I almost had a heart attack, if anyone cares,” Matti shared before literally sliding between us, facing his older cousin. “How’s it going, bro?” he said, his tone dry like this whole scene hadn’t just been a shit show. “Thanks for not calling me back.”

Off to the side, Sienna caught my attention while she stood by the kids, her face paler than usual. She mouthed, “ You okay?”

Physically? I’d been better, considering it had taken everything in me not to groan when I’d gotten up, and I’d almost blacked out with rage at thinking Duncan was in danger, but otherwise? I gave her a thumbs-up before taking a step away from Matti’s back to get a better angle of the two men standing a foot apart, taking in their similarities and differences since it had been so long since the last time I’d seen them together. Not since the funeral.

Matti wasn’t short at six foot three, but Henri was taller by a couple inches minimum. Other than that, where Matti’s skin tone was a tan slightly darker than mine, Henri’s was a perfect mix of two very different ancestries—a heavily indigenous side that I assumed had to be Amarok based off his size and family connection to Matti, while the other was descended from Scandinavia... if my memory served me correctly.

Their hair color wasn’t all that similar. Matti’s was a dark brown, and Henri’s was a distinct shade of black that might have a touch of gray in it, but I couldn’t confirm because of our height difference.

The truth was, there wasn’t much I knew about the man my best friend was related to. He was a decade older than us. When we were children, they hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together, considering the age difference. Henri would come and visit for the summers before he’d moved in with Matti’s family for almost a year after he’d graduated high school.

After that, it had become even rarer to see him. He’d joined something—the military, maybe? Or had he just moved away? I couldn’t remember, and it wasn’t as if Matti talked about him. I had only learned that he eventually lived on a special ranch after Henri had come around and become Matti’s guardian.

Irises a color I hadn’t seen on anyone else other than him flicked back in my direction over his cousin’s shoulder, then landed on the puppy in my arms who was still growling like the tiniest chainsaw in the universe. The notch between Henri’s eyebrows went nowhere. If anything, it got even deeper as the line of his jaw went even more defined, like he was suddenly gritting his teeth. His chest—very noticeably muscular under the dusty long-sleeved white T-shirt he had on with the sleeves shoved up his thick forearms—rose and fell as he watched us before returning his attention to Matti.

He had a wound on his elbow that was bleeding too, I noticed with interest.

There was no way he’d gotten that tackling me.

Look at me being observant. Sienna was going to have to start calling me Nina Holmes.

“What are you doing here?” the big man asked, his tone not exactly what I’d call welcoming.

That didn’t bother Matti. “Hi, Matti. Missed you too,” my friend mocked in a deeper voice than usual before holding his arms out wide.

The other man hesitated before raising his arms as well and wrapping them around his not-so-little cousin. One Henri cheek met a Matti cheek as they thumped each other on the back. They were so cute.

Just as quickly as the hug started, Henri pretty much shoved him away. “Why are you here?”

“Hi, Sienna.” Matti chose to ignore him again, talking in that different voice, gesturing toward where his wife stood, still on alert.

Henri didn’t look over, but he did raise his voice to call out, “Hi, Sienna.”

Kind of rude, I thought, but Sienna didn’t exactly seem all that disappointed not to give him a hug. “Hi, Henri,” she greeted him in return. She was smoothing her hands up and down the front of her bell bottoms, one of her nervous gestures.

Matti hiked his thumb over his shoulder. “And you remember Big Jaws—Nina—and Mini Jaws is—” A scream tore through the air, cutting Matti off.

All of us turned to find a body that had two long, brown, slender legs and an upper torso that was very much a woman with a tank top running through the woods by the homes on the other side of the main building.

“Uh-oh,” Shiloh muttered loudly.

“Pascal!” another voice, a male one, bellowed from another direction. It was a man in jeans tearing through the woods, heading over too.

I glanced at Pascal and watched his already small body deflate.

But only for a second.

His hands formed fists, and out of nowhere, he started speed walking… right on over to me.

Me?

He stopped at my side, hooked a foot around mine, and his fingers reached for my shirt.

Did he expect me to protect him?

When I tried to get Sienna or Matti’s attention so they could see what was happening, I caught Henri’s instead. His gaze swung to Pascal. Big Henri Blackrock frowned even more.

“What happened?” he asked slowly to no one in particular.

There was so much authority in his tone that even I felt the need to answer him. How did he do that? Was it practice or was it magic?

“You’re going to be grounded for the rest of your life!” the satyr woman shouted at the top of her lungs while running.

“Not just this life but the next one too, Pascal!” the man on the opposite side of the woods called out, also not slowing down.

“What. Happened?” Henri demanded again, louder that time, voice even gruffer, his frown morphing once more to a scowl.

Time had been good to him, I noted. Real, real good, I confirmed, really taking him in. Henri looked like a mountain man now if I’d ever seen one. His massive size, all those muscles, his clothes….

He was the complete opposite of his cousin in his khakis.

I could admit it already: he was unbelievably handsome.

Was he married?

The tiny chainsaw in my arms got louder all of a sudden.

Stroking my hand down Duncan’s side, I whispered, “It’s fine, Donut. It’s okay. Thank you for protecting me. I know you could’ve messed him up if you wanted to?—”

Amber eyes caught mine, and I shut my mouth.

Sensitive hearing, right.

“I cannot believe you, Shiloh!” the satyr woman was still shouting as she got within twenty feet of us, her steps finally slowing down as she fumed. “What were you thinking , honey? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Somebody needs to tell me what’s going on. Now ,” Henri demanded.

Somebody was bossy.

“They snuck off,” the man who was approaching answered. “We’ve been looking for them. The elders called saying someone brought them back.”

One glance down confirmed Pascal, the wolf boy, had his cheek pressed against my hip. I didn’t need a good nose to tell he was nervous. I set my hand on top of his head, not sure whether to comfort him or peel him off me. If Duncan had pulled this crap….

I’d swear Henri stood up even straighter, and he was already crazy tall. “Again?”

I winced. It was going from bad to worse. Again?

“Again,” the woman confirmed as she got to us, her face pale and strained. She was worked up for sure.

And wow, the bottom half of her was goatlike. She was shorter than she’d seemed at a distance. At most, the top of her head reached my shoulder. She suddenly blinked, her brown irises flicking in my direction, her nose twitching noticeably.

I lifted my hand at her.

The best approach when meeting possibly skittish strangers was to give the initial impression that you were harmless.

Because sometimes the absence of my scent also made people upset. They thought I was trying to hide something, which I was , but not in a way anyone needed to worry about, unless they meant me or my loved ones harm. And even then, I had hesitated to do what needed to be done before. Not once but twice. They weren’t my finest moments.

Earlier with the swamp thing… it had been a step in the right direction, but….

“She’s nice, Mom,” Shiloh said softly, apparently reading the room. “Nina saved us.”

The adult satyr didn’t look convinced, but for once in my life, I felt about ten feet tall.

I had a child I barely knew clinging to me, and two defending me—one a stranger and the other my greatest treasure. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so special before. Actually, I was sure I hadn’t.

A warm nose nudged at my neck, and I stroked Duncan’s side some more.

“Saved you from what?” the man who had been hollering at Pascal asked, his eyes darting around the group standing in the lot. His nostrils quivered, and I watched him glance at me, look away, and then look again.

His eyebrows went up. He took another sniff. His expression was a curious one. I raised my hand at him too and got a wave right back.

“We aren’t completely sure,” Matti spoke up, drawing my attention back to him, “but it might have been a Jenny Greenteeth.”

“A what?” It was the man who threw out the question.

I couldn’t believe Matti knew what it was, and I didn’t, but I had never really looked into English mythology much. I was going to need to brush up on it some time.

“A river crone,” Henri answered, the big frown still on his face. “You saw one here? On our land ?”

He had a nice voice, mad and all, I decided. It kind of reminded me of a lion somehow, the way he managed to bellow and project.

The satyr woman stepped back, and he must have noticed because he wiped the frown off his face and replaced it with a neutral expression instantly.

Matti nodded. “She knew she was trespassing. I didn’t ask her what she was, but she was tall and looked like half a Ninja Turtle. Smelled like shit too. She threatened all of them.”

The thick line of Henri’s brow furrowed, replacing the almost serene expression he’d worn for all of ten seconds. “What happened to the Jenny Greenteeth?”

Matti smiled. “Nina happened.”

Every word that had come out of his mouth was the truth, and yet he’d managed to keep a lot a secret too. I loved how sneaky he could be.

“She went east, if you want to look for her,” my friend added.

Pascal’s maybe-dad and Henri both visibly tensed, growls vibrating from their chests simultaneously. The other man was around Matti’s height, his eyes light colored, his hair around the same shade. He was definitely magical; he felt a little wild, like all werewolves did.

“I don’t think she’ll be back, but—” He shrugged. “—we couldn’t put the kids at risk.”

Against my leg, the wolf boy poked at me. “She farted she was so scared.”

Every adult looked at the boy who, by that point, was half hidden behind me.

The man, who I hadn’t seen in forever, let his gaze roam the circle around him, locking on every single person, man, woman, and child. The muscle in his jaw tightened in the process. Then he said, using that impressive, demanding voice he seemed to have a master’s degree in using, “Everyone”—those amber eyes again swept from person to person, landing on me for what I felt was a microsecond longer than everyone else—“has some explaining to do.”