The Things We Water

Chapter 13 #2

I was lying on my back in the clearing when I heard something. Not the frogs and owls that usually filled the night or the rustling sounds that made me paranoid something was going to try and crawl into my ears. These were small, creaky noises.

Sitting up slowly, I instantly spotted the single small green fire bobbing along, heading in my direction from a big tree maybe twenty feet away. On either side of the torch were two gnomes, their wrinkled faces intent and serious. Did they look like they meant business or was I imagining it?

“Greetings,” the one without the torch called out.

“Greetings,” the one with it added.

My hands were already fumbling at my fanny pack as I smiled at them. “Greetings.”

They moved so fast for how small and old they seemed, but appearances were deceiving. Honestly, I thought they looked a little mean. A little grouchy. Adorable in their own way.

“How are you?” I asked when they stopped a few feet away from where I was sitting.

There was a pause that told me they hadn’t expected my question, but the one without the torch replied, “Pleasant.”

I smiled at them, not sure what to do next. After a second, I pulled a couple pieces of dehydrated sweet potato from my fanny pack and held them out. I’d made them the day before our latest jerky batch. The gnome without the torch reached out and took the rounds, one he put in his pocket and the other he nibbled on before passing it to his friend who finished it off.

When a minute went by and nothing else happened, I cleared my throat. Now this was a little awkward. I didn’t want to put my foot in my mouth, but sitting here being stared at made me squirmy. “The… wolf you spoke to last time isn’t here right now. He’ll be back soon.”

The gnome with the torch made a short grunt. “It is not the Great Wolf we’ve come for. We are here for you, child.”

I pointed at myself.

They nodded simultaneously.

That wasn’t intimidating. This wasn’t nerve-racking at all. They wanted to talk to me? “What do you want to talk about?”

“Talking is unnecessary, we only seek to be in your presence,” the one with the torch answered with a hard stare.

Huh?

“Your obsidian hides nothing from us. We are attuned to elements of the earth,” the other gnome explained, Torch Gnome nodding.

Ohhhh. I thought I understood, at least that part. “So you… want to hang out?” I asked them, hoping not to sound too confused and insult them.

“Yes,” Torch Gnome answered. “We are the oldest in our clan. It is our duty to continue our line.”

I blinked. Just as I was about to ask if they were implying what I thought they were, the talkative gnomes kept going.

“It was a surprise to hear from our brethren in the north that your father is doing well,” Torch Gnome said almost conversationally. “We had believed he had passed on some time ago.”

“It isn’t often they send news,” the other added with a nod.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so caught off guard in my life.

And I couldn’t control how high my voice came out. “My… father?”

Both gnomes nodded in sync with each other. “The son of the night, yes.”

My blood pressure might have dropped. I might have even lost my breath for a moment. “I… I’ve never met my biological father. My dad, who raised me, has never met a gnome, as far as I know, and he’s never hid from anything or anyone, so I don’t think you’re referring to him, are you?”

They exchanged a glance.

“In this case, we speak of your true father, not the one of your heart,” one of them explained after a moment.

My stomach churned at their words, at the small clues they’d dropped in front of me in a convenient little pile that felt very, very huge all of a sudden.

“You might have me mixed up with someone else.” For a moment, I hesitated and looked down at my bracelet. Tugging it off, I set it on the ground, watching them both lean forward just a little, filling their lungs once before releasing their breath, even though they’d already implied it didn’t hide anything from them.

They knew something. I’d bet my life on it. I swallowed hard.

“Do not be frightened. There is no confusion. You are his young,” the one with the torch announced.

They sounded so sure of themselves… but it didn’t change the fact whoever my parents were had left me. Both of them. Not just one or the other. And neither of them had ever bothered to check on me. Not in a way that mattered, if they ever truly had.

When I’d been younger, I’d clung to the idea that something tragic had happened to the people I liked to think of as my DNA donors. Only once had I ever brought that up to my parents, and I could still remember the way pity shaped their faces. It hadn’t taken me long to stop believing that.

But I was older now, and I thought I’d come to terms with all the possibilities that could have led me to end up with adoptive werewolf parents. I’d been lying to myself though, I realized, because the idea that my DNA dad was somewhere out in the world, living his life, and that these gnomes could get an update on him?

I didn’t like the way it made me feel.

I didn’t like the thoughts it put into my head.

And I had to take a ragged breath in through my nose and shove the magic stirring in my sternum into the pocket where I usually kept it.

“We meant no harm,” one of them murmured. “We appreciate your offering, child.”

The urge to ask for more information, for a name was on the tip of my tongue, but no.

No.

What did it matter? What did it change? Nothing. That’s what.

The gnomes had already started to retreat before I thought of something I wanted to know. “Wait!” I called out and watched as they stopped. “Why can I understand you but my friend the wolf, the Great Wolf, said he couldn’t?”

Smiles crept over their lips.

And I had to try not to flinch because in their mouths were sharp, needlelike teeth. I’d always thought they were herbivores….

“You may be your father’s daughter, but you are also your mother’s daughter. Our brethren to the south lived among her people for a time,” they answered.

I wanted them to elaborate so bad, but that was all I was going to get when the gnomes deemed our conversation over and marched in the direction of the tree they had come from. The light from their torch gradually disappeared into the darkness in a way that made no sense because the trunk didn’t look deep enough.

I stared at that tree. I stared at it for a long time. Until twigs snapped and leaves crackled in the distance. Until red eyes and a blue flame came running straight at me from a distance.

And that—he—was the only thing in the world that could have made me smile when my nose felt funny and my fingers tingled over the conversation I’d just had.

Duncan charged over, leading the way with Agnes at his heels, Pascal behind her, his tongue hanging out. The adult wolves were further back, loping gracefully through the trees without the urgency that my donut had.

I held out my arms, and Duncan jumped into them, knocking the wind out of me when he landed.

“Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.”

He was real. He mattered. He?—

“Dunky, why is your face wet? ” I cried out as he licked my cheek, hoping to the freaking universe that he’d found a creek and that it wasn’t bodily fluids that had his snout soaked. “Oh,” I whimpered, not moving an inch or trying to stop him from licking me but fully aware I was rolling the dice letting him rub all over me like this.

He kept licking, and it was a warm nose nudging at my right hand and the feel of fur at my other that distracted me from what could be water, blood, or worse. Pascal was sniffing my fingers, and Agnes… I didn’t know what Agnes was doing, but I thought I had felt something brush my leg.

“Oh, fine,” I laughed, giving up. Dewormers and antibiotics existed for a reason. There was soap and water, and clothes could be replaced.

“Love, Love, Love, Love, Love.”

Duncan licked and licked my chin and temple, his tail a flutter of emotion and happiness as he jumped and pounced. Little paws pressed down on sensitive places of my body, but it didn’t matter. If joy caused some bruises, it was a small price I was more than willing to pay. And then Pascal must have joined in because someone was pressing a bigger body against my back and sides, and I opened my arms and hugged the puppy bodies that were… yeah, they were both wet and I still really hoped they’d found a creek in the last hour.

“YES, LOVE, YES, LOVE, YES, YES, YES, LOVE, LOVE,” Duncan pretty much shouted, he was that pumped.

“Did you have the time of your life?” I asked, still laughing, soaking up his excitement.

I scruffed up their sides. I hugged them. One body then another. Then I did it again, affection and happiness making me smile. No wonder these puppies were raised by everyone. How could you not love their love?

And I kept on smiling as a reddish-brown wolf trotted over, his snout nudging one pup, then another, Agnes—who at that point was hanging out off to the side—getting one too. Familiar eyes met mine, and I squinted, “Randall?” I asked.

One of its ears twitched, and I grinned.

There was a low woof as a dark wolf lumbered over on ridiculously long legs, and I watched Randall edge away. Wolf Henri’s amber gaze was bright and glowing as he came up to us, a skyscraper in a village. His head dipped, and that long snout nudged at my arm.

“You want a scratch?” I asked slowly, surprised.

A face that would have made Little Red Riding Hood wet her pants stretched close until his warm nose grazed my cheek in the gentlest brush.

I didn’t move. “Yes?” I asked, making sure.

That soft, warm nose edged back toward me, going right for my neck. He was snuffling. Soft puffs of breath had me almost shivering as he smelled me.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I warned him.

Wolf Henri’s nose grazed my neck a little more, and it wasn’t fear that made me tense up exactly, but it was one thing to let human Henri smell one of the vulnerable spots on my body, and it was a different thing to let His Royal Wolfiness do it. For one, because I’d seen his teeth. I had survived Duncan’s teething stage, but just barely. I could only imagine what adult wolf teeth could do. Then there was the other reason—it tickled.

And maybe it did a little more than tickle.

Fortunately, Wolf Henri moved his face, touching his nose to my ear very gently at the same time one of those massive paws nudged my leg.

I reached up, still surprised at him instigating this, and stroked my hand over his shoulder, sneaking my fingers in as deep as I could, not able to reach his undercoat, and followed that up by scratching a spot on his ear that none of the wolves I’d met before had ever complained about having touched. A low rumble worked through his throat, so, so close to my face.

He smelled good even like this.

I scratched him and scratched him, until Duncan jumped onto my legs and almost licked my eyeball, and I cracked up too hard to do anything else. “Okay, okay,” I laughed, opening my eyes to find that all the adults were back in their human bodies. Duncan dropped onto my feet, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. He was so happy.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him happier.

“I’m so glad you had fun,” I told him, feeling so right, like all my worries and insecurities over this huge step had been worth it for this moment. For this reaction from him.

“We’re going inside for a snack,” Henri called out. “You coming?” he asked over his shoulder, with a human Randall next to him.

“Sure,” I answered.

Did they not sense the gnomes? Maybe I’d wait and bring it up to Henri in private later.

I gave Duncan a kiss on the top of his forehead before freezing. I touched my mouth and nothing colorful came off. It wasn’t blood, just sweat… I thought. I sniffed my fingers; they didn’t smell like pee….

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Agnes take off, catching up to Henri and Randall, then continuing on ahead to the clubhouse. We followed the group inside, but instead of going to the kitchen, everyone headed to the living room. Three charcuterie boards of meats were already on the table waiting—pepperoni, salami, carved chicken, and more pieces of meat that I couldn’t totally distinguish. Who had brought it, I had no idea, but no one acted like it was out of the ordinary.

For once in my life, I wasn’t hungry—I could thank the gnomes for that—so I hung back as the pups rushed over, devouring the food that Ani handed out while they sat; unlike the adults, they hadn’t changed back to human form. Less than ten minutes later, three full puppies were piled together on the hardwood floor, passed out and full.

I snorted at the same time Ani did. “So freaking cute.”

Pascal, the biggest of the three, was in the middle. I could already see Duncan’s mouth beginning to open, his signature move before his chainsaw snoring took over. Agnes had her back lined up to Pascal’s, and my donut was tucked up to the other boy’s chest. I took my phone out and took about ten pictures.

Gratitude I could barely handle made me so happy… so thankful that we’d found this place. That Duncan had not one but about a dozen other puppies who were so good to him, despite their age differences. I loved each and every one of them.

“You want something to drink?” Randall asked just as two ringtones went off.

Both Henri and Pascal’s dad pulled their phones out. The other man didn’t hesitate to answer his, but Henri stared at his screen for a moment before walking out of the room, turning left to go toward the front of the house with a barked, “Blackrock.” I’d learned already that was how he answered when someone from work was calling. If it was someone from the ranch, he answered with his first name.

By the time both men had left the room, Randall was holding up two different bottles. “We’ve got beer.”

I eyed the pile of puppies on the floor and pointed at his left hand. He popped the lid and held it out with his friendly, but not too friendly, smile. He’d never asked again about smelling me, and I hadn’t brought it up either. Randall was very, very nice, but it hadn’t escaped me how fine of a line he walked with me. Unlike Ani and the puppies who were very handsy and touched me all the time, he kept his hands to himself, and his body at a solid three feet away almost constantly.

I’d marked him off my imaginary list of potential mates already because of it.

I eyed the silent blond man sprawled on one of the couches, legs extended out in front of him, as I took the bottle from Randall. I’d purposely been ignoring him. He had his own bottle already in hand, and like before, he wasn’t being discreet about the way his gaze followed me across the room.

Why did he look familiar?

Another cell phone started ringing, and that time Randall pulled his out. “Randall… Yes… yes… we’ll be there soon… yes, I’ll bring help.” He chuckled, then ended the call. “Constance fell and needs help. Ani, will you come with me? She needs to get dressed and doesn’t want me to see her naked.”

“Yup.” Ani slid a look toward the other man, their eye contact lingering, communicating something I wasn’t sure of. She turned to me with a smile that almost seemed brittle. “We’ll be back in a little bit, Nina.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

She winked. Then she glanced at the man one more time and made a face that didn’t put me at ease.

He glared at her right back, taking a long pull of his beer before Ani and Randall left, turning right to go out the back, the door slamming shut behind them.

I managed to take one single sip of the nearly frozen bottle before an unfamiliar voice asked, “What the fuck are you?”

I almost wanted to snicker at the predictability. People, people, people.

Instead of answering him or wasting my time giving him any attention, I took another sip that I didn’t enjoy half as much as I should have.

Unfortunately for me, he didn’t take the hint.

“Did you hear what I asked?” the blond man tried one more time.

I thought about ignoring him some more, but my gut said that wasn’t going to have the effect I wanted it to. So, without looking at him, I replied, “I heard you.”

“So?” he asked in one of the most annoyingly entitled tones I’d ever heard in my life. One of those voices that had the ability to instantly get under my skin by how demanding it was. There was bossy and then there was passive-aggressive.

I wanted people to like me. I wanted to fit in. But at what cost?

Since we’d gotten here, no one had asked me what I was—other than the kids—and no one had visibly shunned me. It had been nice.

But this was the exact reaction I’d been dreading when we got here.

And he wasn’t going to drop it.

“You listening? I have a right to know,” the werewolf claimed.

He had a point, to an extent, but I still wasn’t ready to answer his question, regardless of how much he believed he wanted to know the truth.

He didn’t.

He just didn’t know that yet.

And that realization was what I was trying to avoid.

Which meant I had to put my polite face on while I said, “I’m not anything you need to worry about,” even though he was being so rude. Plus, my bracelet was on, it wasn’t like he could smell me in the first place.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to hold on to my patience. Tried to hold on to my understanding. “It doesn’t, but what you’re asking is personal and rude,” I told him, trying my hardest to be polite. I even looked at my instant serotonin boost—Duncan—lying there, sleeping, to remind myself why we had to make this place work.

It helped, but not enough.

Especially not when the man scoffed.

I took another sip of my beer and tried again, for Duncan. “Look, your elders said I didn’t have to share that information with anyone, and I hope you can respect my wishes.” See how nice I could be?

Not nice enough though.

“If you have nothing to hide, then why can’t you tell anybody?”

I focused on the bottle in my hand, trying not to let frustration get the best of me. I didn’t like being ambushed. Confrontation wasn’t my thing either, at least not when I was having a perfectly good day. It was one thing for Spencer to call me something that hurt my feelings, and it was another to deal with someone annoying… very annoying.

“Folks hide things when they have a reason to,” the blond kept on.

I should’ve seen that coming.

He wasn’t wrong. At the same time, I thought about the elder with the bracelet that I knew I hadn’t imagined. Did he give Franklin shit about it? I doubted it. But just thinking about the elder rekindled my curiosity about his magical nature. “I understand why you think you should know,” I tried to reason. “I’m not like you. I’m not going to pretend like I am, but I hope you understand that you can trust me. I’m here for the same reason everyone else is. I just want to raise my boy in a nice, quiet community where he can be safe.”

The man’s expression went dark, and I did not like that . “I don’t know you. I don’t need to trust you,” he just about spit.

My magic fluttered in my chest. “No offense, but I don’t know you either, and I have no reason to trust you. And what you’re doing is the same as me asking how big your balls are, the only difference is that I don’t care because I don’t want to see them, the same way my ancestry doesn’t affect you either,” I replied, clenching my teeth almost the whole time.

The man’s ears started turning pink. “You’re going to have to marry one of us. Whoever it is, is gonna have to know.”

“He will, sure, but not everyone else needs to, and that includes you.”

His eyes went squinty, his mouth almost pouty, and it sure seemed like he gritted his teeth.

If he thought I was going to cower, he was out of freaking luck. Was this what Phoebe had meant about being nervous around werewolves? If some of them acted like this, it was no wonder. This guy wasn’t just being pushy, he was being a dick.

And I really didn’t like bullies.

The man leaned over, elbows going to his knees, his whole face, his energy, so aggressive. “You don’t get to tell me what I should know and what I shouldn’t.”

I wasn’t going to win this argument. I knew it. I couldn’t. Not when this MFer was this hardheaded.

Butttt I needed to play nice. I didn’t want an enemy, no matter how rude he was. This is for Duncan. Who had just had the time of his life. Who was thriving here. Who needed this place.

When people said being a parent was hard, they never brought up the little things like having to be the better person. Marrying a stranger was nothing compared to having to suck crap up.

Forcing my best impression of Henri’s neutral face, I focused all my attention on the blond. I knew I’d seen him somewhere. He was handsome in his way. He was fit, had more facial hair than Henri, but there was a mean glint in his eye that was very, very obvious.

There was no hiding it: he was definitely an asshole.

“What’s your name?” I had to ask.

“Dominic.”

I wasn’t sure I managed not to flinch. That’s why he looked familiar. It was the same man from the diner. The thorn in Henri’s ass… paw. No wonder. I didn’t even need to know his name to not like him on principle.

Phoebe’s reaction to him explained a lot.

If he could get under Henri’s skin, no wonder he could do it to other people.

“So?” the guy who had punched Henri weeks and weeks ago asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “They say you smell sweet. You a gingerbread woman or something?”

I deserved a medal for not rolling my eyes. “No, I’m not a gingerbread woman.” Was he going to ask me if Pinocchio was real next?

I swear I could feel the condescension radiating off him.

“You a bogeyman?” Dominic goaded after a minute, with a nasty little sneer. “’Cause that’s what everyone thinks.”

He was mocking me, saying “bogeyman” like he was convinced there was no way that was possible. I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted to smile smugly so bad ever before in my life. But I didn’t. Instead, all I said was, “I’m too old to care what anyone thinks.”

His sneer became even worse. “Henri had us running around like dumbasses looking for that river monster, and you conveniently show up the same day. Nobody knows anything about you, and they’re letting you move in? How does that make any damn sense? You’re going to be helping raise our kids. How do we know it isn’t them that need protection from you?”

I wasn’t about to let anyone make me do something I didn’t want to, especially not this asshole.

Not like this.

As much as I might want him to tolerate me and might want everyone else here to do the same, I wasn’t going to bend over backward to get that to happen. I decided that right then.

I would do anything for Duncan, but I wasn’t going to let some dickhead be rude to me for no reason.

I looked him dead in the eye and blurted out one of the last things I probably should have said, “I’d never do anything to the kids. But people who hurt them? Who hurt me? I can’t say the same for them.”

If his face had been pink before, it was bordering on coral by the time I finished talking. “You threatening me?”

“I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you.” There was a big, big difference.

And I should’ve shut up or walked out of the room when he’d started, I knew that then, but it was too late, so now I had to ride this out.

Across the room, he rose out of his seat. Six four to my five six, I guessed. He had to have at least fifty pounds on me.

“That sounded like a threat to me,” he argued as he stopped a couple feet away from where I was standing.

Maybe it was, but he needed to get out of my face. “I don’t need to threaten anyone.”

He took another step, and there was no way I was going to be breaking eye contact now.

I knew I was daring him. He was an agitated werewolf with an attitude problem. For most people, this whole situation would be a terrible idea.

But if he was this pushy and rude with me, how would he be with other people? Did he try and bulldoze them too? Something told me this wasn’t anything new. He was too good at it.

Dominic took another step closer. “Do you know who the fuck you’re talking to?”

I had my head tipped back to keep making eye contact. Anger pulsed deep in my stomach, and my magic flared again in me, reminding me of the part of it that was always there. You don’t need to take this shit , Matti would have told me.

There was nothing I needed to prove. Not to anyone. Especially not to him.

But despite knowing all that, I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t turn off how much I disliked a bully.

And I dropped my voice to say, “The problem here is that you don’t know who you’re talking to, precious.”

Something funny crossed his face as he stared down at me. I’d surprised him. Shocked him, maybe.

“What’s going on?” Henri’s voice cut through the room like a battle-ax.

I almost stepped back, but I refused to risk having Dominic think I was doing it because of him. In front of me, his forehead furrowed. He was still angry, but there was something else there too in his eyes. Something that hadn’t been there before.

“Dom was trying to intimidate Nina,” Pascal’s dad answered from the back of the room.

When had he come back? How long had he been here? I hadn’t noticed or heard him.

“And you’re just standing there?” Henri shot back as he stormed into the room.