The Things We Water

The hardest thing in the world to do is pretend you’re fine when you’re not. And I was not.

I wasn’t even close to being fine.

When the knock came late afternoon on a Friday a couple weeks later, I’d been on the verge of having a panic attack all morning. Duncan had been aware I was feeling all kinds of ways; he had nudged me more often than usual lately, pounced on my feet in a way he hadn’t done since he’d been a tiny baby, and he’d sent me so many messages of love, I had never been so confident in our bond.

But I was still so nervous.

I couldn’t help it. I’d been dreading this day since Henri had shared the news with me—Franklin confirming it the next morning. I wanted to be calm and cool and mature. I wanted to be ready to roll with whatever happened with my head held high and joy in my heart. Chances were, and I knew it in my bones, that my boy wouldn’t up and decide to leave if these people were like him and he liked them.

He loved me, and he loved the ranch and everyone at it. Some days, I’d swear I could hear him chanting from the nursery “love, love, love” alllllll day.

But there was one tiny possibility that I couldn’t ignore: that he might change his mind. I wouldn’t be able to blame him either. It was obvious how much he’d flourished here. How much more could he benefit from feeling even more included? More accepted? I’d been just fine being something different around so many werewolves, but who was I to tell him what would make him the most comfortable?

Every decision I had made, for years, was with him in mind, and I would always do whatever was best for him.

But I still willed my body not to overreact. Nothing had even happened yet.Since when did I get upset over what-ifs?

There was a sigh from the other side of the door, and I knew who it was before the voice even said, “It smells like a bakery up here, Cricket. I’m coming in.”

My hands were still pressed flat against my stomach when the door opened and Henri slipped in, closing it immediately behind him.

He’d been in here a lot lately. So much, that his phone charger was plugged in to my outlet, and there was a neatly folded undershirt of his on top of my dresser. And that had kept me from having a meltdown too. Knowing he was there. Knowing he supported me in whatever happened next.

But in that moment, the man I was very much crazy over frowned at me. He watched me even closer than I watched him, his hands going to his hips, right over where his flannel shirt met his jeans. “You’re not crying, but you smell like a cinnamon roll,” he claimed.

I frowned right back at the man I’d spent nearly all my nights with over the last two weeks. He’d been working a lot, but we saw each other when he got home every night, with the exception of three days where he’d worked the graveyard shift because a coworker was sick. When we spent time outside with the kids, we usually ended up back in my room after that, even showering in my bathroom. I had wondered if Duncan would get cautious or weird, but my puppy had his spot on the bed and didn’t seem to think twice about the werewolf staying in our room. Lucky, lucky me.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up, Fluff. I don’t want to go down there.” I made a face. “But I can’t cry because I don’t want whoever is downstairs to think I’m weak if they see me with puffy eyes, and then they won’t trust me to be able to take care of Duncan.”

Henri’s face softened. “You’re not weak,” was his first argument. “But you have to meet them. Duncan needs you.”

I nodded, knowing dang well my face and body were both giving off every kind of sign possible I was dreading this freaking meeting. I’d purposely avoided thinking about it as much as I could. The Alaskans were coming, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it—nothing I wanted to do about it—so it was up to me to deal with it.

Henri came over, stopping right in front of me, so close his shins brushed my knees. His hand clasped my chin between his thumb and index finger, tilting my face up and giving me every inch of his amber gaze. “No one is taking him away from you.” He paused. “From us. No one.”

That didn’t help in the way I thought he wanted it to. It was too sweet.“It….” It took me a second to try and get my voice steady, ignoring the way I failed and it still broke as I whispered, “It isn’t that I’m so scared someone will try and take him away. No one is taking my donut unless they want to meet their ancestors.”

His eyes moved from one of mine to the other.

I pressed my lips together and rehearsed the words in my head twice before I got them out. “I’m scared he’s going to choose to leave… and not ask me to go with him,” I whispered. We’d talked about this already, more than once, but I couldn’t help but bring it up again.

Maybe if I said it enough, it would get easier.

Or maybe if I said it out loud, it couldn’t come true.

His thumb drew a line under my chin. “He won’t. If he wants you to go, we’ll deal with it, Nina,” he promised. “I can get a job anywhere, and you can work from anywhere.” He paused and his throat bobbed. “You don’t need to work if you don’t want to. We haven’t talked about it yet, but we should.”

“Talk about what?” And had he said I didn’t need to work?

“Finances,” he explained. I wasn’t going to say he was projecting discomfort, but more… he sort of looked embarrassed? Was he sheepish? “How the property taxes get paid on this land.”

That was an instant distraction, and I squinted at him. “I did try to guess one day how much you owe yearly but…. Why are your ears turning red?”

His ears got even redder when I called them out. It was adorable. So was the expression that came over his face. “I live within my means, of what I make off my job.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

His cute ears went even more crimson, turning a color that made me think of Duncan’s eyes, and he shook his head very slowly.

“Fluffy Blackrock, are you rich?” I whispered.

“It’s complicated,” was his reply, definitely 100 percent uncomfortable. “I’ll tell you everything after we get today over with. Deal?”

I wanted to hear everything now because that sure sounded suspicious. “Am I going to give you a hard time?”

He didn’t wait to nod, his features sober, but his eyes… there was amusement there in between his ruby red ears. “There’s a trust, and I got an inheritance when I turned 21. We’ll talk about it later though, yeah?”

“Deal, but it doesn’t make a difference to me,” I told him with a smile that got me one right back. A nice, soft one.

“I know, Cricket,” he agreed.

I poked his forearm. “Were you trying to distract me right now?”

Henri’s eyebrows went up that infamous millimeter. “It worked for a couple minutes.” His smile eased the tension in my body. “But you need to know, Duncan’s not going to choose to leave you. I’d bet every acre of this property, he would live in a nuclear power plant for the rest of his life before he gave you up,” he said, looking me dead in the eye the entire time.

I knew he was right, but….

“The love you two have for each other is the same I smell in every close family. He isn’t going to choose strangers. Duncan thinks you’re his, the same way you think he’s yours.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t know that, but it was different hearing it from Henri. A little bit of relief eased the worst of my stomachache. Only the worst. I had to press my lips together before I said, “Okay… and if they try and take him, you’ll gouge out their eyes for us, so I don’t need to?”

Another line was drawn over my chin. “No, but I’m glad your sense of humor is back.”

I was only partially joking, but I gave him a tight smile and tried to play it off even though I was pretty sure he was well aware I wasn’t bloodthirsty under normal circumstances, but when it came to my donut, I’d become a cannibal.

For him too, I figured.

Fortunately, he didn’t quit smiling. “Come on. The faster we get it over with, the faster we can move on.” He looked at me. “Matti and Sienna get here in a few days, and your parents get here an hour later, and after that, the moon is going to be watching over us under the waterfall, and you’re going to be my mate.”

That had to be the only thing in the world able to pull me fully out of my panic. To give me hope for the future.

Whatever else happened, I’d have the rest of my life with the most handsome, wonderful man I’d ever met.

He bent his head and brushed his warm lips over mine. “Let’s get it over with.”

“I will, but I don’t want to,” I whispered.

The corner of his mouth curled. “I’ll be with you both the whole time.” He eyed my wrist. “Leave the bracelet. You’ve got nothing to hide here ever again.”

I didn’t, did I? With less nerves than ever before, I tugged it off and tossed it onto my bed. That familiar discomfort I’d lived with every time I took it off didn’t circle back to me for once.

Before I could ponder that any more, Henri extended his hand, all long, tan fingers and a broad palm. “Good. Come on.”

I took it, letting him pull me up to my feet too. He was right. The faster we got this over with, the faster we could move on.

We had plans. Important ones. Some I hadn’t been as excited over because I’d been so worried about this.

Henri held my hand as he tugged me out of the room and down the stairs. I took some deep breaths and made a few promises to the universe if it let this go well. Duncan already had his head sticking out of the door to Agnes’s room when we made it to the first floor. He came running over, crashing against my legs before turning and rubbing against Henri’s too. He knew what was happening today. I’d taken a sick day, which hadn’t turned out to be a total lie, because I was sick, but with freaking nerves.

I pet him a couple of times, kissed the top of his snout, and smiled. He knew I wasn’t all right to start with. There was no point in making it worse by opening my mouth and letting him hear it. I could do this. We had multiple plans set up, depending on how everything went.

We weren’t getting split up. No one was leaving anybody.

Henri didn’t make a peep, but his thumb rubbed against the meaty part of my hand softly as the three of us headed down the hall toward the meeting room where there were voices coming from.

“Love,” Duncan said to me before we got to the doorway.

I stopped right there to crouch and hug him, my heart in my arms. “I love you more than anything, Donut. Everything is going to be fine. I’m nervous about meeting these people. Okay? But I won’t let anything happen. I swear on my life.”

A much bigger body dropped to the same level as us, and a hand landed on Duncan’s back a moment before another one did the same to the middle of mine.

We both looked at him.

And Henri said, in that velvet voice, looking back and forth between the two of us, his hands resting on our backs, “You’re both mine, and you don’t have anything to be worried about. Understand?”

I blinked, and Duncan’s beautiful fluffy tail swayed behind us. His “yes”resonating in my head.

The hand on my back slid a couple inches higher between my shoulder blades. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his jaw went tight. “From now on, we go through everything together. All right?”

I nodded, and Duncan… Duncan put his paw on Henri’s knee.

I’d been holding it together with tape, and all of a sudden, the most intense urge to cry hit right in the back of my eyes, especially when the werewolf royalty smiled softly at not just me but my boy too. “Come on, you two. Everything is going to be fine.”

He was right.

Henri had said it—we’d go through everything together from now on.

I kissed Duncan before I stood up and kissed Henri on the cheek too, giving him a smile when I pulled back. Thank you, I mouthed.

He dipped his chin at me, his expression grave, like he was ready to go to battle.

We went inside.

In the room were Franklin and Ema, the elder female with the silver-blue hair. They were standing in front of three men, two I had never seen before, and the other one was Ilya, the Alaskan leader who had invited me to their compound. The two strangers though were much older than him. They were both thin, their hair more white than silver, their faces just as stern as Henri’s usually was.

I couldn’t sense their magic, I realized, and glanced at their wrists to see that they had familiar-ish beaded bracelets on.

Both men were already facing the doorway, their eyes glued to the gangly puppy standing front and center between Henri and me.

The men looked at each other.

“Ah, yes.” Franklin waved us over, beaming like a proud dad. Or uncle.

With my chin held high and, hopefully, all the rest of my emotions carefully hidden, I walked over to the group, with Duncan so close he stepped on my ankle a couple of times. I didn’t smile, mostly because the strangers didn’t either, and I wasn’t sure if that was normal or if it was a bad thing. The older men had their brown eyes glued to Duncan, and Ilya was looking back and forth between Henri and me, a smug expression on his face.

I lifted my fingers at him before holding out my hand to one of the older men; the man flinched a little when he seemed to finally notice me. “Hello there,” he said, glancing at his companions before taking my hand with an unexpected gentleness. Out of nowhere, he grinned before turning to the leader of the community, every inch of his serious face disappearing like I’d imagined it.

Ilya, the Alaskan leader, shrugged. “Told you.”

The older man focused back on me, his grin still in place while he murmured in a surprisingly kind voice, “You’re the pup’s guardian?”

Duncan leaned against my lower leg, sending me a dose of “love.”

“Yes?” I replied. He seemed amused. What had Ilya told him?“I’m Nina. Thank you for coming all the way here,” I went on, not sure what was going on. When he let go of my hand, I aimed for the other older man and took his too.

He was smirking by that point too.

Did they know who my father was?

I didn’t have time to worry about that though. If they knew, they knew. I gestured toward my boy, watching the strangers closely when I did. “This is Duncan,” I told them.

Duncan plopped on his butt and aimed those bright red eyes at each man. His tail was straight in the air, attentive and watchful. His nostrils flared as he smelled them better. With all he’d grown, his ears didn’t look so massive on his head anymore. I’d looked up pictures of adolescent bloodhounds, and Duncan’s body—with the exception of his tail and coloring—was identical to them. Big ol’ ears, intelligent eyes, long and lean, and still growing.

No one reacted; no one said a single word.

The two strange men continued inspecting Duncan, and he looked at them right back. His tail had stopped swishing and was standing straight up, motionless. I made myself stay relaxed, kept my breathing even, my hands loose.

I hadn’t thought about it until then, but if they were the same as Duncan, could they speak telepathically too?

A silent minute later, one of the older men turned to the other, and they both smiled much bigger than I ever would have imagined from how emotionless their faces had seemed when we’d first walked in.

“He’s perfect,” a voice I didn’t recognize said in my head.

I froze and caught the eye of the first older man who winked at me.

It was Ilya who ordered in that tone that was very close to Henri’s Great Wolf one, “Tell them how you found him.”

Beside me, Henri grunted. “What did I tell you about demanding anything from mine?”

Not making a smug face was almost impossible.

The other leader sighed before narrowing his eyes in irritation. “Can you please tell them how you found the pup, Nina?” he asked pretty sarcastically.

Fluffy looked at me and nodded an encouragement.

This man would always have my back, and I loved him so much. And so, I exhaled slowly, then I told the strangers the story. All of it.

The men from Alaska didn’t say a word until I was done.

There were more looks, followed by an overbearing silence that even Franklin and Ema seemed uncertain over. It was obvious from their body language. We were all being weird.

I rocked on my heels, hoping someone could just say something.

I waited and I waited and I⁠—

“Love,” Duncan told me.

His entire attention was focused on me. And I smiled so hard I felt it in my chest. Love you too, I mouthed to him.

Ilya noticed. “What did he say?”

I tugged my donut’s ear gently. “He told me he loved me.”

The two older men shared yet another look, and I had to tap into my inner Henri to keep from making a face, because that was getting annoying. Did they find what they were looking for in him? Was he whatever they thought he was?

Couldn’t they just tell me?

“Duncan, would you come here?” the winking older man asked, and I appreciated it because I was dang near certain he could’ve asked him telepathically instead.

If Duncan answered, it was only to him, but a moment later, my boy trotted over. With a lot more agility than I would have expected, both men kneeled to pet him, touching his ears, checking his teeth, even rubbing their fingers over his tail in a way that said they had no fear of his magical fire.

They smiled the entire time, and I didn’t imagine the wistfulness when one of them sighed and said, “We’ve thought for so long that we were the last of our kind.”

I swallowed hard at what that implied.

The other one tickled him beneath the chin, and Duncan wagged, earning an even wider grin from the man. “You’re a good-looking young man, little brother.”

That… that didn’t mean biologically that was the case… but… but could it be?

“We haven’t seen our mother in sixty years,” the winking man explained, his attention still on my donut. “We weren’t sure….”

The question was poised on my tongue, ready. Two of them actually.

“Is he?” Franklin was the one who asked, his voice slightly high.

Was he what?

“Without a doubt.” The winking man chuckled with delight when Duncan leaned his head into his hand. “He is utterly and completely a hellhound.”

My donut was a hellhound?

The fact he’d answered just like that… it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he’d said hellhound, and my mouth had dropped open, and a part of me couldn’t believe it, but a bigger part of me could. That had been on my list of beings I’d thought were a possibility. But there hadn’t been enough information about them to know for sure, and this man had just said without a doubt.

Duncan was a hellhound.

From the little I had read about them, there were stories in which hellhounds were legends that guarded the underworld. I could have sworn I might have read that in other folklore, they were rumored to be protectors of women. But the one idea I could remember to be the most common myth about hellhounds, was that they were highly feared, epic beings.

But there wasn’t a single scary thing about my boy.

The closest thing to hell he knew was getting a bath.

I couldn’t believe it. My Duncan donut was a hellhound.

And said hellhound turned to me over his shoulder, and he winked. “Yes,” he told me.

I stared at him. “Did you know what you are?” I wanted to think I sounded calm, but there was probably zero chance that was the actual case. I might as well have sucked a helium balloon dry.

Those ridiculously cute eyelashes covered Dunky’s ruby eyes, his ears twitching. “Love” was the answer he decided to go with.

I laughed in freaking awe. “That’s not a yes or a no, Duncan.”

The tail that had gotten us into this new stage of our life swayed. “Yes.”

Yes!

Before I could ask anything else, or celebrate this absolute miracle of a discovery, three different phones went off at the same time, and Ema, Franklin, and Henri pulled theirs out. The three of them frowned at whatever was on the screen. I’d learned that they, along with the ranch’s security, all had access to the cameras at the gate, and they were notified when someone was there.

Franklin lifted his head first, his normally sneaky face formed into this super irritated one that he aimed at the Alaskan leader.

Ilya, the firebreather according to Henri, crossed his arms over his chest and raised a dark eyebrow. “Is he at the gate?” he asked Franklin in a flat, unamused tone.

My biological uncle glared. “You brought him with you?” he spat out so out of character that even Ema looked at him strangely.

Beside me, Henri tipped his phone to give me a view of it. On the screen, the camera angle showed a man in maybe his fifties, partially hanging out of a driver side door, jabbing at the intercom keypad over and over again. There was nothing that special about him; he looked like a normal man in a T-shirt, being obnoxious with the way he kept pressing the keypad aggressively, like he didn’t understand why it wasn’t working.

“Is that who I think it is?” Henri asked from above my head.

Who did….

No.

My head snapped up.

“He wasn’t invited,” Ilya was quick to explain with a sneer. “He was on the same flight and wouldn’t say a word about where he was going, like we couldn’t piece his plans together.”

My uncle let out a curse I was surprised he knew in the first place.

Ilya raised an eyebrow but basically shrugged with his eyes. “There’s not much I’m unwilling to do, but I’m not arguing with him. He’s gotten more stubborn every year.”

I blinked and met my favorite set of amber eyes.

Henri’s forehead was furrowed. “I’m getting real sick of people showing up without an invitation,” he growled. I pointed at myself, and his expression instantly changed. “Not you, Cricket.”

I smiled, then I wiped it off in a way that he’d be proud of. We had business to get to. “Is that your brother?” I straight-up asked Franklin.

The dream god had already stuffed his phone back into the little case at his hip, and based off the energy he was radiating, this was the angriest I’d ever seen him. “It is.” His eyes narrowed from behind his glasses. “I didn’t invite him, Nina.”

I believed him and said that.

“He’s seemed real melancholic since your visit, Franklin,” one of the hellhound men admitted, the one who didn’t wink. “He’s constantly pacing. It’s quite irritating.”

“He overheard me talking to my second about the daughter of a fertility goddess mating with the Great Wolf,” Ilya said casually in a way that didn’t come across as all that apologetic. Especially when he knew he was my DNA donor. Did he have to stir shit up?

“A truck is pulling in behind his. They’re getting out and talking…. I think it might be Dominic? He’s… he’s punching in the code to open the gate,” Ema told us, the only one still paying attention to the camera. “Who is this? Where are Ani and Randall? Why would Dominic allow a stranger in? He knows he doesn’t have that authority! Where is security?”

“Ani is in town, and Randall is off along the western fence right now. There’s no way he can get back in time.” Henri’s entire body, all Viking and warrior pedigree, turned to me. His face though, had Murder Henri written all over it. “I’ll deal with Dominic, but what do you want to do about our visitor, Nina?”

What did I want to do about it?

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, wondering what in the world Dom was thinking letting a total stranger onto the ranch. It was one thing for Fluff to have allowed the bogeymen to come and go, but even I knew how important their hierarchy was around here. And you didn’t let a stranger in unless the right person said so. Buttttt I was going to let Henri handle it. Him dealing with that asshole seemed past due to me, honestly.

Plus, I had bigger fish to worry about. A box jellyfish to be specific. “I want to tell him to screw off,” I told him, “but at the same time, I don’t really want to put in the effort either.”

But I thought about what Ilya had mentioned. How he wasn’t willing to argue with him. I didn’t see the hellhound brothers lining up to do it either, not at their ages. Franklin probably would, but….

Maybe it wasn’t official yet, but the people here were my people. At least the kids and some of the adults. Since the incident at the river with Shiloh and Pascal, the parents at the nursery had totally changed their behavior. Phoebe and her husband had brought me little things every chance they could, like fresh loaves of bread, jelly that she’d made, and even though I’d only seen him in passing after school before he was herded back to Ema’s house with Pascal where they were busy being grounded, I’d been blessed with more thank-you cards from my favorite satyr.

Every one of Pascal’s family members had either gifted me something directly or they’d left it in the kitchen. A scarf, a beautiful pendant, a painting of the village, candy…. The parents of the rest of the kids had started inviting me to their houses, offered to take Duncan. It had only taken risking my life, but it was all right. I didn’t mind.

And it was them I thought of in that moment.

If it was up to anyone to deal with an aggravated death god, it was me.

Setting my shoulders, I looked up at Henri. “Let’s go with option A. Someone needs to tell him to fuck off.”

There were two, maybe three, distinct choking sounds. At least one of them was from one of the adult hellhounds, the second may have been from Ilya, and the third was definitely from my brand-new uncle. Ema slapped him on the back, he was choking so hard.

Henri ignored them and smiled his Teasing Henri smile. “I can do that.” Right in front of my eyes, Teasing Henri turned into Great Wolf Henri. “He and I are past due for a conversation too.”

I raised my eyebrows at Mr. Protective. “Sure, but not alone. We go together,” I clarified.

That smile got slightly bigger, but he nodded.

Duncan, who had been standing with the older men, turned to us, kicked one leg back, then the other, yawning so wide.

Had I just seen a little flash of red in his mouth? It was there and gone so fast, I might have imagined it.

“Yes,”my puppy said.

“You’re coming too, Dunky?” I asked, not exactly surprised.

“Yes,” he confirmed, trotting over, setting a paw on my foot.

Henri glanced back and forth between us and said, “Let’s go.” Everyone else got a “We’ll be back.”

Franklin hustled over, fidgeting with his belt. “I have a few words for him as well,” he claimed, still looking so aggravated over the situation.

I guess we were all going. I raised my eyebrows at Henri, who seemed just as surprised as I did.

The hellhound men were smiling, even more amused than we were, from the looks of it. But they knew him from their settlement. It was Ema who was frowning in confusion. She didn’t know anything about anything, and she wasn’t going to find out right then either.

“Take your time,” the winking hellhound said as the four of us hustled out of the room, Franklin leading the way, with Henri behind him, then me and Duncan.

We were going to confront my DNA dad—a very old being who had just pitched a fit trying to get into the ranch before one of ours had let him drive on in.

This wasn’t where I thought my life would take me, but… we were here.

“When I pictured having kids, I always wished for a son I could rely on,” Henri said over his shoulder when we were in the hallway.

I glanced at my sidekick, and he looked up at me. I blew him a kiss.

“And when I wanted a partner, I thought I’d want one I could rely on,” Fluffy added.

“Seems to me you got both,” I told his back.

“Seems to me, I did,” he agreed as we made it to the front door. “A strong mate and a strong son who would come with me to face two pains in my ass.” Henri made a soft sound. “I wish you could sense how lucky I feel right now.”

“Yeah, you are,” I cheered him on, my heart almost bursting. He had a point. Here I was with my mate, my boy, and my uncle. “Just like we’re lucky to have you charging ahead with us too. Right, Dunky?”

“Yes.”

Ahead of Henri, Franklin glanced over his shoulder, a pleased expression on his face.

I caught the silhouette of Henri’s smile as he held the door for us. Shades of black and gray and blue filled the night, shadowing everything in its path. A car door slammed shut in the near distance.

“He’s close,” Henri murmured beside me. “Still near the gate for some reason.”

“Too close,” Franklin agreed, a pissy expression back on his features.

Henri’s hand took mine as we reached the edge of the parking lot.

That’s when he slowed down and stared toward the rows of cars just as I sensed werewolf magic approaching from the same direction he was focused in. Henri didn’t look at me as he lifted my hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, murmuring, “Give me one minute to deal with this once and for all.”

“We’ll wait,” I promised as he released my fingers right as a blond man appeared, heading straight and fast in the direction of the clubhouse. Someone was in a rush.

But he knew we were there, and his attention turned to us even as he kept moving, calling out, “Just here to get my shit, I’m not going to talk to your precious princess, Henri.” Dom’s tone was sarcastic. “I’m only here to⁠—”

Henri moved like a lightning bolt.

He was beside me one moment, and in the next—faster than my eyes could follow—he was slamming up against Dominic’s chest, hand reaching for the other man’s throat, and Henri Blackrock lifted him up with a single hand so high, so fluidly, his booted feet dangled.

Duncan plopped down between my feet, and I didn’t need to see his face to know we were both gaping at the sheer unbelievable strength of the newest member of our family.

I’d known he was strong. Visually, it was obvious. And I’d seen him use a log as a javelin, and Dom had to be somewhere in the two-hundred-pound range, but Henri was holding him up like he was a stuffed animal.

His head was tipped up, Dom was that high off the ground, and Henri let out a snarl louder and more intimidating than anything I could have ever imagined.

Franklin whistled beside me.

“I forgave you for giving up Agnes. I tried to brush off you choosing to fight me over taking control of the ranch. I tried to forget about you trying to take something else that was mine.” Fluff’s voice was deep. “I might have been able to forgive you for being rude to her and your daughter. I would’ve eventually gotten over you leaving your responsibilities without a goddamn warning,” Henri sneered, lifting him up another inch or two higher as Dom finally started sputtering, like it had taken his body a second to realize what was going on. His fingers went to the ones wrapped around his throat, like he was trying to peel them off.

He gasped.

But Henri wasn’t even close to being done as his upper arm flexed, and I would’ve sworn he was squeezing his throat tighter. “But you just violated the one rule I can’t brush off. You put us at harm and let a stranger onto our land⁠—”

“He’s… Ni… Nina…,” Dom gasped, still trying to pry Henri’s fingers off.

“I don’t give a shit who he is!” Henri roared. “You know the rules! And you’re lucky I have other things to deal with right now or I’d make you regret every bullshit word that’s ever come out of your mouth.”

“Hen… Henri!” the blond gasped even more faintly, slapping now, his eyes watering.

And Franklin, Dunky, and I stood there and watched.

Henri though, shook his hand like my boy shook his stuffed toys in his mouth, and said, “You think you could fight me? You think you would live afterward?” Henri didn’t laugh, but there was something dark in his voice…

Something I liked a lot.

But I was too busy watching this and regretting not having popcorn while I did it.

That hand holding up Dom, a six-foot-tall-plus man, went up another inch or two higher. “I let you hit me,” Henri told him. “That wasn’t a sucker punch, you piece of shit. I let you strike me. I let you say every word you wanted to because I’ve got nothing to fucking prove to you, but that shit is over now. Your time here is done. Every connection to the ranch is severed. We don’t exist to you from this moment forward, and you will never think, speak, or write about anyone here ever again, or I will find you.”

Dom’s face was so red, and his eyes so bulging and shiny, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the position he was in or because he was literally being excommunicated right then and there.

Taking his time, and showing off that insane strength again, Henri lowered him to the ground, but he kept his fingers where they were, wrapped around his throat.

I’d swear I saw him squeeze them before the Great Wolf 2.0—Murder Henri lurking in there, strongly—pulled Dominic toward him until their faces were inches apart. “You breathe because I let you breathe,” Henri informed him through clenched teeth. “You live because I let you live. Do you understand?”

I didn’t know if Dominic did, but my entire reproductive system understood.

Dom sucked in a breath so ragged, his eyes tearing up even more, I almost didn’t understand his “Yes.” But he repeated himself, the hostility, his arrogance, extinguished. Those blue eyes just like Agnes’s didn’t even swing around the second Henri’s finger must have loosened. Dom looked at Henri, and I meant really looked at him. Like he had ripped a veil off his existence and showed him that everything he’d ever known was a lie.

And I didn’t even waste my time following Dom when he took off the way he’d come.

Franklin didn’t either, because out of my peripheral vision, we both just stared at Henri.

And then my biological uncle let out the most amused sound I’d ever heard leave his body, and he jerked so hard, it was like that surprised him too. “Well, I was wondering when you would finally put him in his place. That went on for too long, Henri.”

“I was hoping he’d learn,” the man I was set to mate soon grumbled, before meeting my eyes and being very unapologetic about everything.

I beamed at him as Franklin huffed. “People like that never learn on their own. I know from experience.”

We all turned at the same time as we felt a strong presence make its way closer to where we were.

Where I’d thought Duncan’s mom’s magic had been enormous, this other one seemed to be on the same level.

It felt both very similar to Franklin’s and very different at the same time. There was a smoothness to both of theirs, where a werewolf’s was wild, but that was the only major likeness between them. The one coming toward us felt dark and bottomless. The same way an ocean would feel at night, I figured.

If this was what other people sensed around me, I understood now.

“Child,” the figure called out as he cut in between a row of cars.

He must have parked in the back.

“Don’t you ‘child’her, you imbecile,” Franklin was the one who snapped, so at odds with his khaki pants and the sweater vest layered over a button-down shirt. “What are you doing here?”

The figure’s steps faltered. “Imbecile! I’m here to see my daughter!” the man shouted, stepping right up into using his outdoor voice.

“Now she’s your daughter?” my apparent champion, Uncle Franklin over here, shot back without missing a beat.

Henri peeked at me, and we blinked at each other.

This might have been in the top five most surreal moments in my life. Standing in a magical forest with a hellhound, a wolf god, and a god of dreams. My baby, my future mate, and my uncle. And the man who thought he was my father—a death god.

And the two oldest were bickering?

“She has always been my daughter!” the other man exclaimed, honestly sounding insulted. He even sniffed before raising his voice again. “Your resemblance to your mother is uncanny.”

He was talking to me now?

Henri must have not liked that much either because I heard him grumble from deep in his chest, but honestly… honestly… I wasn’t worked up about this. Not at all. About any of this. It caught me off guard, if anything. Waiting around for the Alaskan people had been gut-wrenching and nerve-racking, and this had nothing on that.

I had no control over other people’s actions, but in this case, I didn’t have anything to lose.

My life was whole and complete, and this person coming into it wouldn’t change anything. Not for the better, and I wouldn’t let him for the worse. And neither would the men standing around me, it seemed.

That’s why they were here.

Fierce protectiveness rose up inside of me one more time, even stronger than before, reminding me that of all of us here, maybe Franklin might have the most power in his body, but I had this man’s magic in me.

There was going to be no bowing tonight. Not thanking the gods that this MFer was here, paying attention to me. There would be no altars or rejoicing.

Maybe I’d give him a tiny bit of credit for coming, but I didn’t owe him shit.

“I wouldn’t know if I look like her. I never met her either,” I told him in a flat, casual voice.

I still couldn’t see my DNA dad’s face even though he wasn’t that far away. The lighting just happened to hit his features in the perfect way to obscure them. His body, on the other hand, was visible.

And he was clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “It was a mutual decision that we allowed others to raise you. You are the only child we conceived together, and the only child either of us had in centuries. You might very well be the last for both of us,” the man explained, a weird inflection to his words.

“Because you’re a useless old bastard!” Franklin threw out, surprising me again.

My mouth twitched, and I squinted, trying really hard to see more than just his silhouette.

“It was not a decision we took lightly,” my biological father tried to argue as he took a few more steps, finally getting into a spot where his features were visible.

I would’ve walked right by him in public.

He was a handsome-looking man in maybe his fifties, younger than Franklin, I thought. He looked like he should have been an actor with his pale skin, classic bone structure, and deep black hair. But the most striking of all was his presence. It was some of the purest magic I had ever felt, like Duncan’s mom, my old neighbor, my uncle, and the pink waterfall.

I wondered though, at that moment, why in the world Dominic would have let him into the community when he’d reacted so poorly to me? Had he had a bracelet on before and he’d taken it off? I could wonder about it later.

There were other things to focus on at the moment. Like how his voice wasn’t a total shock to my ears. But standing there, looking at the man I had wondered over from time to time throughout my life… I didn’t feel anything for him. Not happiness. Not relief.

I didn’t feel any more complete than I had ten minutes ago.

And that acknowledgment gave me a strength of its own.

If anything, it made it real, real easy to draw on my inner brat.

“Have you always been good at making excuses, or is that something new?” I asked.

Franklin’s head swiveled toward me.

The man claiming to be my father took another step forward, jabbing his finger… at me?

That had gotten under his skin? Mr. Big Bad Death didn’t like being told he made up excuses? What a surprise.

“Do you understand who you are disrespecting? I’ve been known by many names, been feared by thousands! Civilizations erected altars in my memory! They worshipped at my feet!” He was getting wound up right in front of our eyes, taking another step forward. “I am a god! And you are my offspring. You owe me your very life.”

Henri’s body tensed beside mine.

But it was a deep, resonant howl that made me flinch.

Then it made my eyes go wider than they ever had before.

Because it wasn’t Henri who made it.

The howl, a different pitch from any other werewolf I’d ever met, pierced through the air, leaden and great, and it was coming from Duncan.

My mouth could have hit the floor from shock.

And then my boy almost had me falling to my ass, but I managed just to stumble into Henri instead.

Because there was a flame erupting from my donut’s throat as his head arched upward to the sky and he “awooed” like he had never “awooed” before.

It was as ponderous as the pines around us, as magical as the moon itself, with a depth that seemed so at odds with his size.

I’d never heard a war cry, but for whatever reason that was the first thought that came into my head when I heard it.

And it was so freaking beautiful.

“Holy magical shhhhh….” I whispered, in pure amazement.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I heard Henri’s whoosh of an exhale at my ear.

As the howl came to an end, my puppy posed there standing, looking so dang majestic, so ethereal, it choked me up.

He was straight out of a millennia-old tale in that moment.

I squeaked.

“Where did that come from, Donut?” I cried before dropping to my knees and stroking from his head down his spine. I forgot all about where we were and who was in front of us and everything that was happening and everything that was going to happen. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard!” No offense to Henri.

“Yes,” my donut agreed, his whole focus still out on the man who stood frozen in the middle of his spiel. “Love.”

“I love you too,” I promised, giving him another long pet. “That was incredible!”

He’d had fire coming out of his throat! Nobody said anything about that! I hugged him so tight.

Fire! From his throat!

I lifted my head. “Henri, did you see that?”

He was already grinning, his eyes wide and bright, as he nodded. “That was great, Duncan.”

He deserved another hug, and I gave it to him.

“This is the child you mentioned, my brother?” my DNA dad decided to ask in a voice that didn’t sound so angry anymore. It actually sounded… intrigued? “My child bonded with a hellhound? And you didn’t think to tell me that’s why you were poking around with the brothers?”

I wasn’t going to bother acknowledging him calling me his child again, and apparently neither was everyone else.

“I don’t need to tell you anything,” Franklin replied tersely.

My biological father huffed, and I watched his body language change as I got back to my feet. He seemed to relax? “I see.” His huff was a little lighter. “I supposed I would like to hear this story in the future, how you came about giving me a hellhound grandchild.”

I wasn’t sure if I stumbled into Henri or he stumbled into me.

Hellhound grandchild? Was this man who I had never actually met before already referring to my Dunky as his grandchild? This wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be.

But then he ruined it again. “Is this the man I’ve heard is attempting to taint my bloodline?” he went on, literally digging himself into the world’s deepest hole.

Henri and I made eye contact, his lip curled with a snarl.

I didn’t need to fight his battles. He’d cemented that by shaking Dom like a rag doll. I bowed and flipped my hand, palm up, to give him the floor. Something told me he wanted it.

And this flirty, funny man hidden beneath layer after layer of responsibility and duty, with the strength of how many men I had no idea, winked at me. But only me. Because when he faced the direction of my father, all that affection was wiped clean and His Fluffy Highness was out. Jaw line rigid, chin high, his glare on point.

He was unbelievable.

“The only person assuming anything here is you,” the Great Wolf growled, an absolute menace. “This is my forest, and you’re trespassing.”

My DNA dad’s scoff echoed. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?” my father asked, his tone back to that one that couldn’t mean anything good. “She is my daughter.”

A laugh rumbled out of Henri’s chest, and it wasn’t an amused one. It was honestly sort of scary. I liked it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed even Franklin turned to him like he was surprised he had that in him. But I guess it was one thing to know you were stronger than a normal werewolf, and another thing to instigate a death god. Then again, Henri wasn’t just any old wolf.

“Everything you see here is mine. She is mine.” His magic—bright and more intense than ever, like he’d had it hidden within him—carried through the night on swift wings, covering everything in its path with possession. “And I’ll remove your bowels and shove them down your throat if you think you have any say in our future,” Henri snarled, the muscles of his back flexing visibly through his shirt.

I had to throw my hand over my heart because I had freaking known it! He would disembowel someone for me! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

I must have made a sound because he glanced over his shoulder.

The expression on my face must have said I was in love with him because his lit up, a smile spreading across his face, which had been so pissed a second ago. His eyebrow went up that millimeter. “You didn’t even smile that much when we agreed to mate.”

“Violence might be my love language.” I still had my hand over my heart. “I knew you would do some shady stuff to protect me. I just knew it, Fluff.”

He reached back, and his hand nudged mine.

I took it.

“Always,” Henri claimed, his own voice a hoarse promise in the night.

“All the bowels?”

“Slowly and painfully,” he promised.

My nose tickled, and a weight hit my calf, and I peeked down to find Duncan leaning against me, though his attention was still aimed at my biological father. The fire in his throat was gone and his tail was normal-looking, by his standards.

Steeling my spine, I gripped Henri’s hand tighter and faced my DNA dad with him. He had moved a little closer, and it was really easy to see all of his features now. Good. Now there’d be no mistaking my intent. “This isn’t your bloodline, it’s mine, and if my future children turn out to be the size of a miniature pony when they’re toddlers, you don’t have a say in it,” I let him know.

For whatever reason, that piqued his attention, and my biological father took two steps forward. “What’s your surname?” he demanded.

“Is he talking to me or you?” I whispered to Henri.

“I don’t know.”

“I know your surname, child!” my DNA dad bellowed. “The werewolf!”

Duncan growled.

“Why does he want to know your last name?” I asked him as I bent to comfort my boy, even though it might be worth seeing magical fire come out of his throat. I still couldn’t believe he’d done that. I had to ask the hellhound brothers what was up with that. “It’s okay, Donut. He wasn’t a good dad; I’m not surprised he isn’t a good granddad, yelling like that.”

“He isn’t good at anything,” Franklin chimed in, his attention still on his brother.

“He’s asking so he can guess my ancestry,” Henri answered me before bellowing, “I’m a Blackrock and a Nyberg.”

My biological father narrowed his eyes. “Your mother was⁠—”

“Yes,” Henri didn’t bother letting him finish his question.

“I see.” He blinked again, even slower.

I guess he knew Henri’s mom.

Duncan let out a quiet, long “awoo” that had us all looking at him. “Yes.” His tail wagged, the blue so bright in the night. His eyes like two red coals against his coat. He was beautiful.

The other man stirred. “I have no problem with it, my grandson,” my biological father said, taking another step closer, answering a question I hadn’t heard.

He kept coming, closer and closer until he was about ten feet away, and Henri side-stepped so that a small part of his body blocked me from my DNA dad. I wrapped my arms around his forearm and rested the side of my head against his triceps, waiting.

“Agnes,” Henri called out as a white puppy bounded over, and she came to a stand on the other side of Duncan.

The little white wolf snapped her jaws at my father like the fearless menace—gnomes not counting—she was.

My biological father’s expression turn amused before he met my eyes with dark, nearly black eyes. “I was only aware of one child,” he noted.

“She’s ours too,” I claimed, Henri’s fingers jerking in mine.

“So many allies, I see. The sasquatch with the anger problem wasn’t particularly friendly, either.”

Spencer? An ally? Since when?

“I allowed him his disrespect when he met me at my car on the way in, but only to an extent. I made it clear what would happen if he continued, and he went back home. Their kind isn’t known for their loyalty. I’m surprised it went as far as it did,” my father explained with a frown. So that was what had made him take so long getting here during the Dom incident. “Your gnomes even had the nerve to ignore my calls when I asked for them.”noveldrama

My little buddies did what?

“You’re upset with me, and I can understand why you might feel that way,” my father started to say, and I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually been upset with him—I hadn’t cared enough or thought enough about him or my biological mom to feel most things—but I managed to keep my mouth closed. “You have several reasons to not be thrilled with my presence because of it.”

More than several, but I didn’t say it out loud either.

“You may very well be my last child, and I would like to make amends for the dishonor I did you by not being a part of your life,” he continued with his soliloquy.

I blinked, and I think I might have even heard Henri and Duncan do the same.

“I would like to get to know you and the rest of our family.” My DNA dad sounded like he finally finished.

The rest of our family?

His eyes darted to Henri and Duncan.

I narrowed mine at him.

His intentions sounded nice. But intentions and actions were two totally different things, and I didn’t know him. Didn’t trust him.

Maybe he felt bad now for his choices. But….

The sound of a throat clearing had me turning to my uncle who was still glaring. His voice was very low as he asked, “You have no interest?”

I shrugged. “Honestly… not right now.”

His answering nod was resolute, and I was pretty sure I saw pleasure flash across his features briefly. What followed was the sharp sound of something heavy hitting the ground like a couple sacks of potatoes from a two-story building. But it wasn’t any kind of potato that met the gravel.

It was my DNA dad sprawled on the ground.

“He’ll be asleep for some time. Would one of you help me drag him out of the way so he isn’t run over? His people can deal with him later,” Franklin just about chirped with more glee than I’d heard out of him yet, his hands going to his hips.

Henri squeezed my fingers at the same time as I blinked.

The man who was responsible for the great and terrible magic in me was out cold.

My uncle cleared his throat again. “He’s sleeping. I didn’t kill him.”

I wasn’t sure that was ever a sentence I’d imagined hearing, but… this was my life now.

And maybe I should’ve been irritated, but it was pretty freaking awesome.