Chapter 16 #3
It felt like he curled around me more in response, but maybe it was my imagination or wishful thinking. And after a while, after he’d ignored my comment long enough—which was all right too because what was he supposed to say? That I was welcome?—he asked, “What happened? Did the gnomes do something?”
It was probably for the best that he let my comment go, not that I would take it back anyway. He did make me feel safe, and I owed Matti even more gratitude than I already did for bringing this man, with this capacity of protectiveness, into my life. Especially now when I needed it the most. When I needed it more than I ever had before, because life didn’t revolve around me anymore.
“They didn’t do anything,” I replied. “They just confused me.”
“That all?”
He knew that wasn’t all. He had to be able to sense it. “Sad too,” I admitted.
A soft touch stroked down my bed head. “Why sad?”
I wasn’t proud of the way my inhale went in shakily through my nose. Nothing had happened. I had never been the kind of person to focus too much on ifs or coulds. But here I was clinging to Henri like someone had actually kicked me while I was down. “After you took off, I wondered if maybe they heard something, so I called out for them, and they actually came. I saw them in a knot in a tree over there.”
His pec muscles went hard, and I tried not to be impressed. “What knot?”
“I’ll show you. I don’t know how they did it.”
“What’d they say?”
“They weren’t sleeping, so they didn’t hear the ‘child,’ but as soon as I mentioned it, how it happened in a dream, they said it had to be my father or my ‘kin,’” I told him.
“Your family?” There was a delayed kind of interest in his tone. Or maybe it was wariness.
“That’s what they said, and then they told me that I’m the child the voice in the dream was calling out for, and I told them that that didn’t make any sense because whoever my biological parents are, they didn’t want me in the first place?—”
He growled.
I had faint memories of my dad—my werewolf one—growling when he’d hug me after something had made me upset. He hadn’t liked me being sad either. But it had been a long, long time since I’d experienced it so up close and personal.
It was awesome. A little chainsaw-y, but better.
I smashed my cheek against him even more. “It’s stupid to be sad over people who never wanted to know me and never gave a crap about what happened to me in the first place, especially when I ended up with a family who did, but…” I shrugged and tightened my fingers around his waist. “If it is someone I’m related to, why would they be doing this? Could it be my dad? Do I have siblings? And why now? And how, Henri? In our dreams ?
“They said….” I didn’t think I could keep what they’d suggested to myself. I found that I wanted to tell him. “They said the old ones don’t like being ignored. And something about a dreamer returning?” I whispered. “I don’t get it.”
The growl hadn’t gone anywhere while I’d talked, but it had lowered to a hum that reminded me of the volume Duncan reached when he snored, quiet and steady. “I’ve got my suspicions,” Henri murmured.
My body tensed, but I refused to let go of him. I’d been raised by the belief system that you avoided talking about the beings once called gods. About the magic in the world that was even more difficult to explain than a person turning into a four-legged being. About the magic in the world that had left such a sour taste in so many lives, that fear had guarded the gods’ secrets even more closely than anyone else’s.
“What do you think?” I asked him, gulping while I did it.
All those hard muscles, even the parts of his thighs touching mine, went solid. Then I heard and felt him take a deep breath. “Let’s sit for a minute. The twigs are annoying.”
I’d forgotten he was barefoot. Nodding, I pulled away before he sank into a cross-legged position right where we were. He set his hand on his thigh. Before I could wonder if that was the kind of invitation my brain was telling me it was, he tapped the cotton stretched tight over his legs. “Come here, Nina.”
This was… new.
“You don’t want to get a splinter,” that velvet voice warned.
I wasn’t sure I was slick enough to hide my reaction—my eyes going wide—but I tried to make it seem like it was no big deal to the best of my ability. His reasoning made sense, and did I really want a stick digging into my butt? Not so much. So, I did what he said and sank onto the inner thigh of the leg he’d patted, tucking my feet into a spot under his opposite thigh, my knees to my chest. If the position gave me a really, really good view of his bare chest, it was just a bonus. Like a triple Yahtzee.
His chest grazed my arm, and I tried my best to pretend it was no big deal.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Out of nowhere, he lifted me up and adjusted me on him before sliding an arm low around my back, like he was helping prop me up. “I think you should tell me what you think first, and then I’ll go. I’ll be surprised if we aren’t both on the same page,” he tried to compromise.
Discomfort was a javelin straight into my sternum at what he was asking.
But I forgot that nothing got past Henri. “We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
I didn’t , but at the same time, sticking your head in the sand and pretending something wasn’t happening didn’t mean something wasn’t happening. Sure, I wanted to go on with my life like someone wasn’t calling out in my dreams—and Henri’s—but the truth was, this wasn’t just affecting me.
But all I could get myself to do was grunt at him.
I didn’t want him to look at me differently.
“Nina,” Henri murmured, and I could’ve sworn I heard affection in his voice, or at least amusement. “We both know at least one of your parents was someone who somewhere, at some point, was called a?—”
I put my hand over his mouth. “I don’t like that word.”
He raised an eyebrow, and it was more than a millimeter. His fingers went to my wrist, and he tugged my hand down. “I don’t like it either. Too many preconceptions, but you know what I’m talking about—an old one, does that work?”
I nodded.
His eyebrow dropped. “Then there’s no disputing that—that one of them is very old. There’s a chance both of them might be. Am I right?”
I met his eyes and found only curiosity there. I jerked my head at him once. Then I agreed to things even my parents had never wanted to admit out loud, or at least not without spelling them out instead. “I think so.” I made it sound like the dirty secret it had always felt like.
“You think so?” this man decided to tease right then.
I realized at that moment who I was talking to. The same man the gnomes had called the Great Wolf. A descendant of a wolf god. Which made him a wolf god. Probably. There was a big difference between him and Matti, and there was no hiding that. It hadn’t escaped me that not once had anyone ever brought up Henri’s parents. I still wanted to ask for details, but even for me, that felt like crossing the line with privacy.
Now I felt like a hypocrite.
“We can come back to it,” he offered. “All we’re doing is guessing anyway, aren’t we?”
I nodded, then so did he, tiptoeing right along with me.
“Someone is talking to you in your dreams, in mine—in who knows who else’s—for a reason. I’d bet there’s a list of figures that have that ability, and I bet we could narrow it down. I bet you’ve had ideas, and this incident might have narrowed them down.”
I grumbled and dipped my chin in agreement, squeezing my knees, my shirt tucked between my legs to hide my underwear.
His gaze slid to what my hands were doing before meeting mine again. His throat bobbed with a swallow, and I felt him shift his weight around below me. “There are stories that have been around for longer than I’ve been alive. Longer than the elders and their ancestors, too. My family, the ones who moved here, who made this their home and inherited this land, would tell us about how there was so much magic embedded into everything that makes this place this place . I don’t think they had a word for atoms back then, but it’s that idea…. Your hands aren’t shaking anymore, are they?” he asked suddenly.
I smiled up at his face, touched he’d remembered. “They stopped being jittery on their own a few weeks back.”
“Good. I knew it’d go away eventually.” He paused. “I’ve noticed the more magical someone is, the more strongly they experience the magic here.” His gaze flicked back toward my hands again lightning quick. He blinked. “Where was I?”
“You were saying that there’s so much magic in the land.” Something I had already reasoned for myself, but I liked hearing him talk.
He sat up straighter, bringing his chest into contact with my arm and side even more. “Right. The stories I was raised on say that this land is special. That it heightens everything that lives within it.... What are you smiling at?”
I couldn’t control my facial muscles; I was grinning so hard it sort of hurt. “You’re good at storytelling.” I squinted. “Why? You want me to stop smiling?”
“No.” He looked at me one more time, then continued on. “Everything that was born and raised here is bigger, stronger, than it is elsewhere?—”
“Is that why you’re the size you are?” I interrupted.
“Yes and no,” he answered cryptically. He moved on real quick. “I think that whoever it is doing this can communicate with more than just you because you’re here. Maybe it’s projecting into you… whatever gift it is that he’s known for.”
I gasped, already figuring out what he was implying: dreams. But, more than I wanted to know about someone I hadn’t given a crap about in decades, I wanted him to keep talking, so I snapped my mouth shut even though I was positive I was at least a tiny bit bug-eyed. What he was saying made sense.
Too much sense really.
He noticed. “I don’t know, Cricket. I might be wrong about it all. The gnomes might be too, but at the same time, why not? Why now? They sensed you. The elders might not want to face it, but they didn’t come back here for no reason.” Henri looked me dead in the eye. “They made that comment to you. Maybe they want to reproduce. They brought up your biological mother too.”
“I did wonder about that….” I trailed off.
“Why not?” He repeated it like this wasn’t an unreal conversation that included old, magical beings and gnomes who wanted to have kids.
And now, I was even more confused.
My shoulders slumped at how much I knew, how much I could guess, and how much could be a sheer matter of luck and coincidence.
“When you were small, everyone called you ‘Honey Bun’ because you smelled so sweet,” Henri told me quietly, surprising me with bringing it up out of nowhere. “Now….”
“Now I’m like cilantro. Some people love it, some people hate it.” From the way his eyes lit up, I was pretty sure he hadn’t expected that. Part of me wanted to joke and ask if he liked cilantro… but my mind went blank when our eyes met. I bit the inside of my cheek as some invisible force landed smack in the middle of my chest.
I could’ve sworn my ears started ringing, but that couldn’t have been true because his voice was clear a moment later.
“Part of me still can’t believe that you and Matti didn’t end up together,” he admitted.
The comment wasn’t exactly a bucket of ice water, more like tepid water, and it made me snicker.
“When he told me he was mating Sienna, I tried to talk him out of it,” he said.
My whole body jerked. “No! You didn’t!”
“I did. You two were always drawn together, and he’d mention that you were still friends….” Henri was watching me closely.
I shook my head. “I think my parents thought the same thing for a while, but there was never a chance. To me, he always felt like my twin in another body.” I shrugged. “Sienna is my right hand, and Matti is my left. I love them. They love me. All three of us have worked hard to stay close.”
“I didn’t understand until I saw the three of you together now, in the present.” His voice went a little funny. “You don’t love him other than as a friend.”
“No. I’d give him a kidney if he needed it or find a way to get him one. I know he’s not ugly, and I’ll be the second person to argue with someone if they said he was, but it’s not like that.” I smiled at him, taking in the rough structure of his masculine face. He was so handsome to me. And the way he smelled, the way he felt….
The tiniest little growl built up in his throat a moment before his features twisted into something between a scowl and a frown. A scrown. A frowl.
Crap. There was no hiding anything from him. Not when we were this close. Not when what I felt was so strong.
So I did what I had to do, and that was own what my body had just done to betray me. “I’m sorry, you’re attractive, but it doesn’t mean anything.” My voice went a little high, and I had to fight the urge to nervous laugh. “I know we’re only friends. You’re just… you’re gorgeous, and you’re nice, but I’m sure everyone thinks that about you, so… please ignore it and take it as a compliment, all right, Fluff?”
Henri Blackrock, law enforcement officer, werewolf, protector of this land, leaned back. It wasn’t much, but he definitely tilted his upper body away from me. But before I could get offended or worry I’d screwed up by being so honest, he blinked. Then he let out a huff through his nose that counted as a laugh.
“What?” I narrowed my eyes.
“You,” was all he said.
“I’m just trying to ease the tension,” I told him warily. “No need to make it weird.”
There was that frowl again. “ I’m making it weird?”
Did he sound offended? “You laughed. Your tone just now. All you needed to do was say ‘okay’ or ‘that works for me,’ and we’d both move on and pretend you didn’t just smell me thinking that you’re a good-looking person when I’m sitting on your thigh and we both have less clothes on that usual.” I raised my eyebrows. “Be uglier. There. Problem solved.”
He made another one of those huff-laughs from his nose, that one a little louder than before. It was adorable.
“I’m trying to let you off the hook. You don’t need to embarrass me.” I eyed him. “I already have to work so hard to keep what I can to myself, thanks.”
He made another huff-laugh! “ I’m trying to embarrass you ? Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re laughing at me.” I pointed. “Right in my face.”
He started full-on chuckling, and I didn’t know how I’d missed the glimmer in his eyes, but it was there.
What did he have to be so amused over? Me admitting he was a hunk of a man out loud? Really? “It’s a compliment, you know,” I muttered.
His body sobered slowly as his gaze moved around my face some more and he sat up, bringing his chest back in touch with my arm and side. “Thank you for the compliment.” His mouth twitched just a little like he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the dumb shit coming out of your mouth. That’s what’s funny.”
Was he teasing me again? “I don’t say dumb shit.”
“I think you just proved a minute ago that you do sometimes.”
I blinked. “You looking to get bit again?”
His eyes lit up, and Henri leaned in to me. “You threatening me?”
I took in the rough bones of his face, the signs of humor in his eyes, in his body language. “Not very well if you’re smiling.” It was my turn to smile too. I couldn’t help it. Not when he was being this Henri. Dreamboat Henri. Half naked and playful and protective and everything anyone could ask for.
“The first bite was a freebie,” he warned. “The next one, you’ll be getting one right back, and I know exactly where it’ll go.”
I almost fell out of his lap.
The way my voice came out strangled and more excited than it had any business being would probably haunt me for the rest of my life but too bad . “Excuse me?” I howled, eating up his playfulness, boxing it up and planning on eating some more of it as a snack later.
Somehow, he leaned in a little closer. “Try me, Nina. Find out,” he seemed to tease me… threaten me… or maybe it was a goad.
Was it?
I wasn’t sure, but my nipples were hard.
I thought there might have been a good chance a part of me might have gone a little slick, a little wet, at what my brain was trying to interpret at this mythical-like specimen of a man flirting with me.
I needed to think about something else. Needed to talk to him about anything else. But… I was my own worst enemy.
“Are you going to tell me why you were laughing at me, or am I supposed to figure it out on my own?” I asked instead as I absorbed even more of the tiny details of his face that I’d never been close enough to notice before. A small scar below his lip that was slightly paler than the rest of his skin. One of his eyes was slightly darker in color than the other. How hadn’t I seen that before?
Had his bottom lip always been that full too?
“I don’t know if you want to know,” he said carefully.
“Cut me some slack, Fluff. You can keep most of your secrets to yourself. I’d like to know,” I tried.
“Sure about that?”
I nodded.
His eyes narrowed just slightly. “I keep forgetting your nose is the only thing not special about you.”
He wasn’t helping me not like him.
Henri didn’t wait for me to croak something, because that would have been the best I was capable of when he was being like this, touching me like this. “It’s funny to me,” he started to say in a rough, quiet voice, “that you would think?—”
He stopped talking, his head turning in the direction of the clubhouse a moment before a high-pitched voice called out, “Henri?”
It was Agnes.
She was on the porch in bubblegum pink pajamas, looking ruffled and sleepy.
A small, small part of me deflated on the spot as disappointment ran through my veins because she couldn’t have waited ten more seconds to wander outside. What had he been about to say? And had he been flirting with me? It felt like it. Where was Sienna when I needed her?
I didn’t wait for him to gesture that he needed to get up, I stood with a gulp and held out my hand.
Henri met my gaze before taking it, his long fingers curling around mine, and I helped him stand too, as much as I could, considering he outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds.
“Everything is all right,” his voice carried to the little girl, sounding more than a little different, hoarser than it’d been a minute ago. “I’m coming, Ladybug.”
I had never really asked for more than I had or more than I needed. I knew in some way that I’d always had more than most people could or would. The things I might have wanted, I knew to an extent could never really be mine.
But all of a sudden, right then, I thought about one more thing that I wished I could have. One more thing I wanted. So, so much.
This stunning, strong-willed, teasing man.
Amber irises didn’t leave mine even when he towered over me. His face sober. His smile gone.
I tried to muster one up for him, but I didn’t think my effort was that convincing. He had to be able to see right through it. He could probably see right into me—the longing, how much I’d just enjoyed the moment. How a part of me wished he would’ve finished saying what he’d been in the middle of.
And more.
But it had ended and everything was back to normal, and I knew in my heart that I was never going to hear the end of his sentence. More than that, I was never going to get what I wanted either. Even if I really wished I could.