The Things We Water

“About half of the community who live in single-family homes own their own forms of transportation to get around the ranch. We don’t allow full-sized vehicles beyond the parking lot,” Henri jumped right into his explanation as we left through the door at the back of the building. It was next to the huge living room slash conference area where we had met the elders when we’d arrived.

Before the start of my tour, we had taken a quick detour after leaving the nursery and gone to check on Matti and Sienna. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave without making sure they were okay. I’d had an upset stomach more times than I could count, but they hadn’t. I’d peeked in the door, with Henri at my back, and found my friends passed out. After a quick refill of their glasses of water from the tap—Henri had explained they had an excellent filtration system for the whole building—I’d snuck back out without waking them up. They’d still looked like s-h-i-t.

Outside, there was a giant metal building directly behind the clubhouse that I hadn’t noticed yesterday. Along the front of it were three oversized garage doors, one of which was open, revealing rows of golf carts, UTVs, and I didn’t know what else. He gestured to it. “Everything in there is available to anyone who lives here, but we ask that you clean whatever you use if you get it muddy, plug it in to charge if the battery is low, and return it as soon as possible in case someone else needs to borrow it. No one will steal your belongings, but don’t leave them in the vehicles.”

I said, “All right,” since he was ahead of me and couldn’t see me nod.

“We’ll take one now so we can get around faster,” he said, entering through the opened bay.

Knowing exactly what he was doing and where everything was, he unplugged the first side-by-side two-seat all-terrain vehicle in the front row. It had a short bed in the back. From where I stood, there were multiple cables strewn across the floor, some of them connected to the sides of golf carts, but most of them were hung up on hooks along the walls.

“Are they electric?” I asked when I got to the garage door.

He kept doing what he was doing. “Some. The ones in front are. We replace them as the older UTVs stop working, and only when they’re beyond repair. Nobody likes the smell of gas, but it’s wasteful to get rid of them if they’re still running. The tanks are kept low. If you use one, you need to put gas in it. There are portable tanks along the wall in the back. We write the dates of when we fill them up so we can use the oldest ones first when needed. Keep an eye out for that.”

“All right,” I agreed again. “Where does the gas come from?”

“Someone takes them into town to fill them up every week or two,” he explained. “Leave the keys in when you return them. Back them in, if you can.”

I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge… and I lost it. I smirked. “Yes, sir.” My friend’s cousin leaned to the side of where he was by the ATV, and I gave him a little smile.

Just as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone again, setting the cord he’d been holding over one of the random hooks on the walls. “Ready?”

At the vehicle, I slid onto the bench and buckled the thick seat belt across my chest and lap. Henri did the same, then started the UTV and pulled out of the building, turning a hard right almost immediately onto one of the wide gravel paths that connected the structures in the community together.

The trees soared over us, old and majestic. I wondered what they’d look like in the fall. Some of them were bound to change color; they weren’t all pine. The air somehow seemed even fresher and more inviting than it had yesterday. I wasn’t subtle about taking in more than one big lungful of it, my skin reacting just as much as my nose did, goose bumps popping up along my arms.

But as I glanced to the side to ask Henri if the magic in the air affected him, I kept my question to myself.

He was glaring forward. The angle of his jaw was strained, and I was pretty sure the muscle between his cheek and ear was kind of bulging. His bone structure gave him a striking profile.

I had to stop checking him out sometime soon.

“You all right, Fluffy?” I asked him, noticing that his lips were pinched.

“Yes.”

I called BS on that from the way his back molars seemed clamped together at the moment, but all right. “Okay.”

He didn’t want to confide in me? That was fine. He’d made that clear in the kitchen, hadn’t he?

I focused on the homes and buildings that I’d only seen from a distance. For the most part, they were all the same size, with some slightly bigger than others. A woman standing outside of a small cabin waved as we drove by, and I was only mildly surprised when Henri greeted her back. I did too, figuring I needed to be friendly with my, hopefully, future neighbors.

Only after that did I let myself peek again at the broody-looking man to my left.

How does he feel about mating?

I looked away.

Ahead, the path we were on split. There were multiple ones that wound through the trees; none of them were paved, but they were all in good condition and free of debris. I’d lived at enough campgrounds to know how often weeds grew and overran everything. The gravel mini roads connected every building either to a main path or, in a few cases, to each other. There were even speed signs with the number 5 every hundred or so feet. While the forest was thick, plenty of sunlight snuck through, making the village seem just as unreal as it had the night before. It was adorable.

It was so adorable.

I couldn’t help but “ooh” and “ahh.” There were so many cabins and houses tucked in the trees. Most of them were log homes, blending into the surroundings perfectly, but there were a few that seemed new, painted neutral shades, with metal siding halfway up them.

The man behind the wheel drove a whole 7 miles an hour down the road. Eventually, we slowed down when we got by a house with a fenced-in garden. In one of the beds, a little boy was kneeling, and at the sound of us approaching, he lifted his head.

It was Shiloh.

With a white T-shirt covered in multicolored handprints, his satyr legs tucked under him, my new friend had the most mournful expression on his face. It managed to get even worse when he must have realized it was us, because he looked even sadder as he lifted his arm and waved, a small shovel in his hand.

“I’m not slowing down to talk to him. Part of his punishment for running off is that he’s grounded, and that means no socializing. His family asked everyone to not come by their house until he’s not in trouble anymore.”

I winced, but I’d been grounded before. “Is Pascal in trouble too?”

“Big trouble.”

Henri and I both waved as we drove past the house, and I snuck a glance over my shoulder afterward to find Shiloh staring after us.

I waved at him again as slyly as I could, and that earned me a cute smile and a happier wave.

“He’ll be all right,” the man beside me promised, probably noticing what I’d done but not bothered too much by it.

Soon after that, Henri pointed toward a newer structure that kind of looked like a home but didn’t at the same time. There weren’t enough windows. Two satellite dishes were mounted to the metal roof. “That’s the teenagers’ building. Anyone is technically allowed in, but we try to give them their own space in there.”

The teenagers here had their own space? “That’s so nice,” I told him. “How many teenagers live here?”

We kept driving. “Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen? Eighteen.”

“Wow.”

He nodded and pointed at a discreet-looking brown building off into the distance. “We’re on a community well. Someone is usually doing something to maintain it. We try to conserve water as much as possible. Keep that in mind while you’re with us.”

While you’re with us.

Beyond all the homes, we came to a huge field with five massive greenhouses. He explained that they grew as much food as they could, that everyone was expected to participate in their upkeep, but that there were two members who worked in the greenhouses exclusively as a full-time job.

There were also several henhouses and another structure where they grew mushrooms for the community’s herbivores and omnivores.

After that, Henri drove me to a field of solar panels and told me all about how the ranch used a mix of solar, wind, and hydropower from a nearby river to provide electricity for the entire property. He also stressed the importance—again—of conservation and how much work it was to keep this place running in harmony.

Matti hadn’t exaggerated with his warning about everyone pulling their weight around here. In the distance, we spotted more vehicles that he explained were the ranch’s employees getting around to do their duties.

We had just waved at an older man peeking through his front window when Henri asked, “Is there anything you’re good at?”

Keeping my attention through the windshield, I folded my hands on my lap and made a decision. Then I peeked at him. “Making quesadillas. Kickball. I’m really good at whistling.”

The way Henri turned to look at me….

I smiled.

Another muscle in his cheek, this one higher and further away from his jaw, flexed. “Being a brat too, I see.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? I’ve never been a brat.”

He faced forward, that cheek muscle popping again. Was he trying not to smile? Because that’s kind of what it looked like to me.

“I was just trying to cheer you up, you look tense, but shouldn’t the elders have asked me about that before they agreed to let me stay? You’re trying to figure out how I can help around here, aren’t you?”

“No and yes.” He wiped his expression clean the same way he had yesterday, like that was something he was used to doing, he did it so easily. Going from being a little amused to all business that fast was a talent. Or maybe it took a lot of practice. “Everyone contributes regardless of what they’re comfortable doing.” The side of his mouth twitched. “The kids are our road maintenance crew. They keep the paths clear.”

I snorted. “Are you serious?”

He was. “They make it a game; it isn’t child labor.”

They’d thought of everything. Literally everything. This place was a well-oiled machine.

“There’s another section where we have other buildings,” he explained just as his phone rang. Henri pulled it out, took in the screen for a moment, and answered. “Henri.”

Henri now. Not Blackrock. I catalogued that for later.

He listened, and his eyes narrowed by the second. “Where?… Send me the coordinates. I’ll be there as soon as I can. … I can’t go straight there. I’m by the greenhouses, and I’ll need to stop by the clubhouse first.”

I cleared my throat, but nothing happened. I did it again, louder, in the middle of him doing a full U- turn with one hand. “Ahem,” I tried for the third time.

Nothing.

I stuck my hand in front of his face and wiggled my fingers. That finally did it. “If this is an emergency, I can go with you.”

His eyebrows slammed down, flat.

“You’re wasting time,” I told him like he didn’t already know that. He’d mentioned the greenhouses and the clubhouse; whatever was going on was ranch business. “Let’s go.”

I could tell he was contemplating my offer from the way his eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, but so much faster than I would have expected, he nodded. “You won’t get in the way.”

Not a question but a statement, and I barely managed not to sigh or wink at him. “Yes, Fluffy. I will not get in the way, and we can pinky swear on it if you want.”

He put the phone back to his cheek and said he’d be there soon.

Then the werewolf man broke the community’s 5 mile an hour speed limit even more by 5 whole miles and took us off the path.

The smell and feel of magic got stronger and stronger with every minute we got deeper into their territory.

I felt like a superhero in the sun. Like I’d guzzled a couple of energy drinks back-to-back in a short period of time. My hands got twitchy, then full-on shaky, and I had to hold my breath like I was some kind of free diver who could do it for longer than fifteen seconds at a time. Because this place….

This had to be what a cat experienced around catnip.

I had to shove my hands between my thighs because I didn’t know what to do with them. If Henri could sense that I was going through something as we traveled, he didn’t say a word or even glance over, but that might have also been because he was driving over fallen logs and branches with one hand and holding his phone in the other while navigating using a map on the screen.

I thought of Duncan to focus on something else. I hoped he was doing okay. Making friends… the mini Benedict Arnold.

Part of me wanted to laugh at how he’d dumped me the second he could, and the other half was just a little bit still hurt over it. Little bit. Tiny bit. But this was exactly what I would have wanted if I’d had to pick. I didn’t want him to cling to me and cry and be scared. He was only a baby for now, sure, but he would grow up like every other living being on the planet, and he’d be a young adult, then an adult, and someday he would leave—nope, I couldn’t go there yet. Hard pass.

That was the worst thing I could have thought of. I needed to focus on the present. On the fact that he’d felt comfortable enough and safe enough to spend time with strangers after the things we’d been through. He seemed happy. Weren’t those all signs of emotional stability?

The side-by-side slid to a sharp stop. By the time I realized it, Henri had already unbuckled himself and jumped out. Leaving me there.

“Don’t get in the way,” he called out over his shoulder.

I sat there for a second. Then I snickered. That was more like the Henri I’d known.

Taking off my seat belt, I slid off the bench. He’d stopped us on the other side of a fallen tree trunk that had to be two feet wide. He’d already leapt over it, as well as several other similar logs covering the forest floor, those long legs really helping him gain some distance.

What is going on with me? I needed to stop creeping on him. Have some dignity.

His face might belong to a Greek god—though as far as I knew he didn’t have any of that ancestry in him—and his body might as well have been molded from an inspiration of Hercules, but—Stop, Nina.

It had to be this place doing something to me. The magic was making me horny. My hormones and I were going to need to have a serious talk later when the object of our fascination wasn’t around and couldn’t sense me getting squinty over him in fine-fitting jeans.

I wasn’t ashamed of being attracted to him, but that would only complicate things. So, I had to keep it in moderation.

Unless he started openly flirting with me.

That would be the day.

He was barely talking to me now. And he hadn’t even hesitated to leave me behind. I almost laughed.

Ahead, I could see in the distance there was a small group. Two people…? And they were…?

Were they talking to a tree?

I blinked and squinted when the tree seemed to bend in half a split second before the loudest roar I’d ever heard in my life erupted from it. It would have given a T-Rex a run for its money, I bet. It made the Jenny Greenteeth’s growls sound like a hissy fit.

That was no tree though, I decided when one of the people leaned forward right back and growled loud enough that I could recognize the very werewolf sound.

What was that thing? I wondered. I climbed over a big fallen log, a branch poking me hard in the ass. I had to stop and make sure it hadn’t torn my pants. Gaining distance from me, Henri’s movements sped up as he literally prowled forward. How in the world a body that size could move so soundlessly was beyond impressive, and I kind of wished I wasn’t so intrigued by the talking tree that I could settle for watching him in that denim.

But I was curious.

In less than twenty-four hours, I’d seen a river creature, a cyclops, and a satyr. What was the rest of my time here going to be like?The possibilities made me excited, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t occasionally met interesting beings.

I jumped and climbed over every other trunk as I tried to circle the long way around where Henri was going so I wouldn’t break my word. He was too pissed to notice I was following, I thought, since he didn’t tell me to go back. The direction of the wind helped too.

…or maybe he just didn’t give a crap what happened to me. Hmm.

Another one of those T-Rex-like roars blasted through the forest, and I heard Henri snarl like he had in my face the day before but ten times louder. “I’m not in the mood for your shit today.”

He was talking to the tree.

I inched closer, trying my best to avoid making more sound than I needed to. It wasn’t that I thought I was going to get away with being sneaky—Henri had exceptional hearing and sense of smell since he was what he was after all—but hopefully he’d be too distracted to pay attention for a little while. If I was lucky.

“I am not in the mood for your shit any day,” a low, inhuman voice replied. Deep voices were one thing, but this one was in a league of its own. If a mountain could talk, that’s what it would sound like.

I finally got a good shot of the talking branch.

That was no tree.

What I’d thought was bark was hair. Lots and lots of long hair. Like a Yorkie on steroids. A bigger and less gross-looking version of the river crone with brownish hair.

And that was when I gasped. It was a bigfoot. A bigfoot.

Ohhhh, I wished Duncan was here to see this!

Now that I was close enough, I could tell the two figures I’d originally spotted were a man and a woman. I was pretty sure they were both the same people from the night before, the woman the one who had growled at the bigfoot after its first roar. It was right then, that the man turned his head in the direction where I was standing. His hair was shades lighter than Henri’s, his frame closer to Matti’s leaner build.

I’d made it five seconds trying to be incognito. Dang it. I lifted my hand. No point in being discreet now.

Something in his body language changed a moment before Henri got to where they were.

My childhood sort-of friend didn’t even look tense as he took in the bigfoot like it was a child throwing a tantrum. “Oh? You’re not in a good mood?”

Was he mocking it? Was freaking Henri mocking a bigfoot that was a foot or more taller than him?

“Because,” he continued talking, “we’ve had this conversation before, and you damn well know you aren’t allowed to be in this part of the forest.”

He was mocking it. No doubt about it.

The bigfoot, who had to be around eight feet tall, was a pretty accurate replica of all the supposed sighting photos I’d ever seen of them. His dark eyes were kind of visible beneath the long hair framing its face. If he had a nose, it wasn’t noticeable, and I could only see his mouth because every single sharp tooth in it was displayed when he pulled his lips back into a loud snarl.

It was almost scary.

The bigfoot stretched out arms so long they weren’t proportional to his body, making the image even more impactful. “I am the forest⁠—”

Henri laughed. This lumberjack-looking man laughed, loud. Right then and there in the middle of the being’s spiel, in this forest that made my skin prickle and made me feel like I was a little high, he laughed. It wasn’t ha-ha-funny, but more like the way I did when I was frustrated and wanted to kill someone.

Not that I would, but I wanted to—or at least give them a little strangle.

He even shook his head, like he couldn’t believe the situation. “Your people are from the Pacific Northwest. We gave you permission to live on our land, Spencer”—No. The bigfoot’s name was Spencer? S-p-e-n-c-e-r?—“You are not the guardian of this forest, I am,” Henri told him in a strong, demanding voice that pulled at something inside of me. Something that made the goose bumps on my arms that much stronger. It had so much authority to it. “We are, and last time we talked about this, we made it clear that we weren’t going to tolerate these tantrums you throw every few months.”

“Tantrums? Do you know who you’re speaking to, Little Wolf?” Spencer the bigfoot gnashed teeth that would’ve had a great white shark doing a double take.

The man I’d known decades ago did it again, he laughed. Even louder that time. Big and bold and—and then I did too a little, more like a giggle. Because Little Wolf? Had he seen Henri in his wolf form? Not even his eyeballs were small in that body.

The bigfoot was massive, but my money would be on Henri, hands down. Calm, collected people in the face of high emotion were dangerous. They made less mistakes. They thought things through.

Every single head in the group swiveled.

I took a half step back behind the tree I’d been trying to use as camouflage.

“I’m out of the way,” I called out to Henri, because I was. There were at least fifty feet between us.

The slightest breeze picked that exact moment to carry its way through the trees, making the group downwind from me.

Crap.

I grabbed my bare wrist.

An abnormally long arm stretched forward, a long finger extending out from it. “What is that?” the bigfoot asked in a way I honestly didn’t appreciate much. I’d heard those words before. That tone too.

Nothing good ever came from it.

“None of your damn business,” Henri snapped, his amusement gone, his attention laser-focused on the giant hairball pointing right at me.

A slightly stronger breeze blew through, going in the same direction as the last, and I took a second to get another hit of the rich, rich scent that seemed embedded in every part of this place. It was so much stronger here.I had to stick my hands in my pockets, it made me so twitchy.

But Spencer wasn’t paying attention to Henri because I was the lucky winner. Then the bigfoot said it, the tips of his sharp teeth appearing as he did, “That smells like an abomination.”

That? First of all, was I or was I not over here minding my own business? Sure, maybe I shouldn’t have laughed when Henri had, but it was funny. I wasn’t laughing at him but what he’d said.

But now?

A low growl crept through the spaces between the trees, and it was not coming from the bigfoot. “Watch what you say next,” Henri threatened slowly.

I glanced at him for a split second, touched that he would stand up for me.

The hairy being took a step forward, drawing my gaze back to him. “Show yourself, demon!” it bellowed.

Of all the words in the world he could have picked, that term got under my skin like nothing else—and I mean nothing else. It triggered something in me that I wanted to think I was better than, after so many years. There were a whole lot of words that would never bother me again. Sometimes, people sucked. Abomination was mean without a doubt, but demon….

That thing that lived invisibly in my body, side by side with my soul and my organs, flexed, reminding me it was there.

That it was always there and always would be. Whether I understood it or not. Whether I wanted it or not.

But I was going to keep my promise to Henri, so all I allowed myself to do was lean clear around the tree so the mean bigfoot could get a good look at me. He already knew I was here. I might be a fraction of his size and didn’t have his physical attributes, but I didn’t need either to defend myself.

And that’s why I let my anger and hurt get the best of me, and I yelled the first thing that popped into my head. “The only abomination here is your dry-ass hair, Fabio!”

You could get a lot done without stooping to words like “evil” or “asshole.” If you made an insult personal enough, it could be almost as hurtful as something really nasty.

It worked.

“You dare tell me that myhair isdry?”the big jerk hollered back.

“Being insulted isn’t very nice, is it?” I yelled again, focusing on the hairy being as I took a step back until I was a little more behind the tree. I didn’t want to totally go back on my word.

“My hair isn’t dry!” Spencer roared.

Some people couldn’t take their own medicine. He could call me a demon, but I couldn’t talk about his hair? The Jenny Greenteeth from yesterday wasn’t the only little b around here.

“Do you have any idea what that is?” the hairy mythical being demanded, aiming the question toward the group.

I made the mistake of peeking at Henri again, but that time, his attention was centered on me. Just me. His eyebrows were a hard line on his tan forehead, and his expression….

Maybe I should’ve stayed in the golf cart.noveldrama

The bigfoot let out a roar even louder than the ones before. The only person who reacted was Henri, who took a couple of steps so he stood directly in the path Spencer had to where I was. Was he blocking him from seeing me?

“You’ve allowed a curse onto this land,” Spencer the Asshole spat, and I could literally see the muscles under Henri’s flannel shirt tense.

Did he call me a curse? That was a new one.

“The only curse here are your split ends,” I muttered, insulted all over again.

If the log that randomly landed a good distance to my right meant anything, I was pretty sure he’d heard me.

What a jerk!

It had barely landed when Henri bent over, picked up a log—not a small one, not one that he should have been able to lift singlehandedly or much less barehanded—and hoisted it onto his shoulder. In one fluid movement, he threw the log like a javelin. It landed several feet to the side of Spencer. I guess I wasn’t the only person who thought Spencer may have just tried to hurt me.

“Enough!” Henri’s dominant voice echoed through the forest.

I’d swear on my life that even the birds stopped singing at the sound of it. The wind might have stopped blowing too. Everything in our vicinity seemed to freeze for a moment. I was pretty sure the only thing I heard was Henri taking a deep breath before speaking again.

“If you have a problem with the agreement we’ve made, leave. This is getting old. Do this again, and I will escort you off this land. Threaten my people again, verbally or physically, and I’ll still do it, but it’ll be with two broken legs.” The growl he let out was a freaking menace. “Am I making myself clear?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

In that moment, I didn’t think I’d ever been so attracted to anyone in my life.

A strong breeze made the younger trees sway and sent dust motes swirling around us like a dream. I saw the moment the bigfoot really got a good sample of my scent. He must have had a crappy sense of smell if it had taken him that long to go from throwing around ugly words to looking uneasy.

I needed to ask about my bracelet.

Henri took a step toward the mythical being. “Are we on the same page?”

Spencer’s beady black eyes flicked from where I was to the semicircle of werewolves he was surrounded by. He was silent for longer than I would’ve expected. “Yes,” the bigfoot grunted.

It was kind of amazing how well he blended into his surroundings as he retreated one step at a time. How the color of his hair—coat?—matched the trees like natural camouflage. He never turned his back on us.

When he’d finally disappeared into the trees, the man who had been my first childhood crush slowly turned to face me.

I threw up both my hands. “I stayed out of the way.”

He didn’t say anything.

“He insulted me first.”

Henri kept looking at me, and I kind of expected him to rip me a new one, or at least scold me—he had that bossy vibe going on after all—but all he did was stand there. Not glaring. Not staring. Just looking calm, cool, and neutral as I stood there in shorts and a big T-shirt that said South Dakota in cursive orange letters on it.

Dang it.

I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have reminded anyone that there was something in me that would scare a Jenny Greenteeth and make a bigfoot flustered. I needed to blend in.I knew that better than anyone. But….

“He hurt my feelings,” I tried to explain, not that I expected them to understand that I was sensitive over his insults, but it was the truth. You could make fun of just about any other part of me or my body, but demon, evil, and abomination were my trigger words.

I wasn’t proud of who I became when I heard them, but I also figured I could react a lot worse than I had.

Henri pressed dark pink lips together, and after a second, he lifted a hand, crooking his finger in a “come here” gesture.

That took me back to when I’d been a kid and he’d catch Matti and me doing something we shouldn’t have been up to. He’d been bossing people around ever since then, hadn’t he?

I pressed my lips together right back. I took my time getting over fallen trees and sharp branches. By the time I made it over to where they stood—Henri, the man, and the woman—Henri’s face was still mostly clear.

I dropped my shoulders and tipped my face up at him. “Yes?”

His eyebrow shot up a millimeter, the gesture so small I almost missed it, his Adam’s apple bobbing at the same time. His face was so grave, if I hadn’t known him as a teenager, I would’ve thought he practiced it in the mirror, but he’d been good at it back then. He was just better at it now.

And why did he have to be this good-looking?

Those amber eyes bounced from one of mine to the other.

I smiled at him cautiously.

“You made fun of his hair?” His question was slow, like he hadn’t been standing right there the whole time. Or maybe he thought he’d misheard?

I lifted my hands, palms up, at my sides and dropped them.

Henri Blackrock blinked.

The leader of this community, the sword and the gavel for its residents, stared down at me.

And it was so easy to picture him at that moment with a battle-ax in one hand and a sword in his other, a thick beard on his jaw, as he made his Scandinavian ancestors proud.

Had I screwed up already?

Was he that mad?

Out of nowhere, when I least expected it, the corner of his mouth hitched up and those eyes I hadn’t been able to get over—orangey light brown irises weren’t something you came across any ol’ day of the week—glittered.

I was confused.

A dry, rough chuckle rumbled out of his chest, slow and steady, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man and the woman suddenly grin.

Henri wasn’t mad?

“We were seconds away from a confrontation, and you told a five-hundred-pound sasquatch he had split ends.” His smile grew bigger by the second, and he even squinted at me. “You lost your goddamn mind?”

He thought this was funny.

He thought this was funny.

Right in front of me, Henri swiped a palm down his face, cupping his mouth while he shook his head.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen or heard him be this amused.

But I liked it.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and then shrugged. “Little bit, I guess. He hurt my feelings, and I wanted to hurt his back.” I thought about that for a second. “Was it too much? Maybe I crossed the line.”

Those intense irises met mine, his smile and amusement wiping away in a second once more. His expression resetting to that familiar, no-nonsense one that had handled everything that had happened yesterday like a professional. “He deserved it. He insults everyone. That’s why he isn’t allowed close to the community. We have a yeti that’s a welcome member, but sasquatches are notorious assholes that are difficult to live with.”

What was the difference between a yeti and a sasquatch? I was going to need to ask someone. In the meantime, I settled for nodding at him, like this whole situation wasn’t mindboggling in the first place.

But that was two random mythical creatures in the woods in less than twenty-four hours. Two!

In my old life, I wasn’t a stranger to running into magical beings from time to time. I’d run into a kitsune or two—a revered nine-tailed fox that went by many names in many cultures. I knew to expect aquatic-based beings when I was on the coast. There was a town in Maine that was full of selkies. But I could also go months in between coming across other magical people, so this was wild.

The man I had called Fluffy when I’d been too young for him to tell me to stop focused on me for another long moment before he turned to the two people who had been silent until then. “Randall, Ani, this is Nina. Nina, Randall and Ani are members of the community who handle our security issues. Randall lives in the clubhouse too.”

I smiled at them, feeling my hands twitch with the magic high still coursing through me and the adrenaline from having a log thrown in my direction from a bigfoot, and I shoved my hand out first toward the tall, muscular blonde woman, then the strawberry-blond man. We shook. “Nice to meet you,” I told them both. “I’m not usually that mean toward strangers, forgive me. Please let me know if I can help with anything.”

Instead of judgy eyes, I got a smile from the woman. “He had it coming. Welcome to the ranch,” Ani said, her eyes flicking toward her palm.

She didn’t seem scared or concerned or uncomfortable, and the smallest amount of hope bloomed in my chest. “Thank you.”

Her gaze moved from my face and across the rest of me, the same kind of curiosity I usually came across in werewolves radiating from her. A little notch formed between her eyebrows.

I only kind of braced my feelings.

“How do you get your skin to glow like that?” was what she decided to ask.

I blinked. Then I smiled. “Snail moisturizer, but I think it’s mostly my genes.” I wasn’t going to say they were good genes because that was debatable, but they weren’t totally awful.

This woman who had biceps the size of calf muscles groaned. “Do you use vitamin C?”

I shook my head.

She pursed her lips together. “Exfoliate?”

“What’s that?”

Her lips parted, and I grinned.

“I’m just messing with you. Twice a week, every week,” I shared.

Ani’s laugh made me smile. It was loud and free, and I liked it. You could tell a lot about a person based on their laugh, and the freedom in hers said a whole lot. She had the same golden-brown eyes as so many werewolves I’d known. She had to be five ten minimum, I guessed. Everything about her seemed capable, and looking at her made me feel safer. No wonder she was part of the security team.

The man took a step forward. He had a short beard a shade darker than the strawberry-colored hair on his head. “Can I…?” He lifted his hand and tapped his neck.

He wanted to smell me the way I’d offered to let Henri do the same yesterday. I nodded, and he didn’t need to be told twice, he stepped forward and started to lean in⁠—

A hand landed on the redhead’s forehead and shoved his face back. “No,” Henri snapped.

I opened my mouth to tell him it was fine, that I was used to it, but he moved on from the topic too quickly to give me a chance, and the guy didn’t argue with him over it.

“I’m going to guess, since I haven’t heard from either of you until now, that you didn’t find the trespasser?” he asked.

“No.” Ani was the one who answered. “Nothing fresh. She has to be long gone by now. We would have found her if she was nearby.”

“Good. We’ll move on and deal with her if she comes back.” There was an odd beat of silence. “Something tells me that won’t happen.”

I scratched behind my ear.

“I did some research on them last night. There isn’t a whole lot of information available. They go by different names in different places, yadda, yadda, but they all seem to be aggressive….” The man, Randall, trailed off, his gaze sliding back toward me.

He was cute, I thought, and I was on a one-way mission. A very important one. I couldn’t help but try and peek at his left hand, but it was on the side of his body I didn’t have direct access to. I’d try and check again some other time, I decided, rocking back and forth on my heels as I listened to them.

I had to keep my options open here. Unless….

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Henri said. There was a pause. “Either of you seen Dominic today?”

Where had I heard that name before?

The man made a snickering sound. “Not up close, but I saw his black eye from a distance.”

The guy who split his lip!

“He needs to be glad I only gave him one.” Henri’s voice was low. “If he doesn’t show up for his patrol tonight, let me know. I need to get going and finish this before my shift starts,” Henri told them. “Be safe.”

That was my sign to quit playing dumb. I smiled at them. “It was nice meeting you both. If I can help with anything, please let me know. I’m staying in the clubhouse.”

The Ani woman grinned again, and the Randall guy nodded. I was pretty sure I noticed his nose twitching discreetly. I’d let him smell me some other time, if he still wanted to. I didn’t get why Henri had gotten so defensive. It wasn’t rude to ask someone to smell them; it was only rude to ask them what they were.

“I’ll take you up on that offer. See you around,” Ani said. “Be safe, Henri. Dom’s a dumbass.”

Henri and I made eye contact, and I took that as my cue to get walking back to the UTV. He caught up to me almost immediately, and when his hand landed on the back of my neck, I got a little excited… until he steered me to the right instead of the direction I’d been going. I lifted my head at him and smiled.

He dropped his hand.

Ten minutes ago, he’d been defending me to a bigfoot. Now, I had cooties. Life was confusing.

Once we made it back to the off-road vehicle, we buckled in. I waited until we got a short distance away before saying, “Fluff? Thank you for standing up for me. I appreciate it.”

His attention was still forward as he replied, “Sure.” Like it was no big deal that he’d put himself between me and a giant, angry creature, then thrown an enormous log in retaliation.

“We can call it even now,” I let him know.

“Even?” There was a pause. “For what?”

“I spent ten years telling myself that if I ever saw you again, I was going to punch you in the gut.”

There was another beat of silence before he drew out, “Why?”

I had always figured he’d had no idea just how much his actions had hurt me. As I’d gotten older, I’d begun to understand why he’d done what he’d done, but I’d still been dead set on that punch. I would’ve settled for tripping him. “For taking Matti the way you did. That wrecked me back then, how you just left without letting us say bye. He was mine just as much as he was yours,” I explained. “But you don’t need to worry about that now. Like I said, we’re even. You might have saved my life a little bit.”

Those amber irises flicked in my direction again. He looked genuinely surprised. “Cricket, I… why are your hands shaking?” He let off the accelerator with a frown. “You don’t smell scared.”

I hadn’t even realized they were back to doing it again. I balled them up into fists. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world to bring up that stage in our lives. I should probably drop it. “I wanted to ask you about that actually.”

“Your face is red,” he said, deciding to change the subject, thankfully.

I pressed my cheeks with the pads of my fingers. They were hot. “I don’t feel sick. But since we got here, I’ve felt… wired? Like I’ve chugged a few energy drinks back-to-back.” I had done that once, and it was a miracle I hadn’t had a heart attack. I’d scared the crap out of Sienna so bad she made me promise never to drink even a single one again. “The magic here is intense, but I asked Sienna about it, and she didn’t seem to be affected by it.”

He slowed the UTV down some more. Big hands flexed on the steering wheel. Henri made a little grunt in his throat.

“It doesn’t feel bad, but it reminds me of a high,” I told him, struggling to explain it.

“Some people who come to live here are more sensitive to it than others.”

“Really?”

He nodded, attention on the scenery through the windshield. “The more exposure you get outside, the more it’ll help. You’ll be fine in a month.”

Hmm. I stored that food for thought. “It doesn’t bother you?” I asked.

“No, but I’ve spent most of my life here. I love everything about this land.”

His comment made me smile. Then I asked, “Do you have problems with other creatures regularly? Creatures that aren’t members of the community?”

“Not often, but it happens more than I’d like.”

“Do you think it’s because of how powerful the magic here is? That they’re drawn to it in a way?”

He steered the vehicle to the side, going around an incredibly thick log that had been sawn in half. “There isn’t science behind it, but sure, I think so. The closer you get to this area, the more beings start to sense it. It’s a magnet in a way for some. It’s worse around a full moon.”

“That must make it really hard to keep the people here safe and keep the land to yourselves.” The more I thought about it, the more complicated it got in my head. How many creatures wouldn’t come across this place and decide they wanted to be a part of it? Or wanted it all to themselves? And why were some of us and not everyone affected by it? For the same reason that some people liked the smell of lavender and other people thought it was gross?

“We take measures to prevent it from happening, but it’s never-ending. We might go weeks without an issue, sometimes longer, and one day, the kids are running off, a river crone tries to eat them, and a sasquatch decides it wants to pick a fight because it’s lonely and angry.”

And that got me. “That bigfoot is lonely?”

The side of his mouth went tight. “They aren’t a fan of that title.”

I winced. Who was I to tell someone what could hurt their feelings and what couldn’t? I’d been ready to shave his head after he’d called me those ugly names, but…. “He’s still a jerk, but now I kind of feel bad.”

It was more than that. I felt ashamed of myself. He’d gone for my emotional jugular, and I might have done the same thing. I’d wanted to hurt him because he’d hurt me, and maybe that made me as much of a mean person as it made him.

My soul wilted at the idea.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not really hurt them at least.

His hands did that thing on the steering wheel again. “He chooses to be that way,” Henri said carefully. “I wouldn’t feel too bad for him.”

I felt bad anyway. Because I had forgotten, when I knew better. Some people were assholes just because they could be, but most people had deep, deep reasons why they behaved the way they did. You never knew what someone else was going through or what they’d gone through to make them that way.

On a separate note, who was Dominic and why had Henri given him a black eye?

And here I’d thought campgrounds were dramatic.