The Things We Water

Adding on to my never-ending list of things in my life I would’ve never expected to encounter, I had one more to pencil in—arguing with a sasquatch about the benefits of using a filter in a showerhead.

“Do whatever you want, Spencer,” I said as we walked through the woods, the moon our only source of light. “I’m just telling you what I read.”

Beside me, I caught Henri glancing down, his face that smooth mask he usually wore around most of the ranch members, but that gleam in his eye was all Tease Henri. My Henri. The one who got a kick out of me giving a giant, pain-in-the-ass mythical creature a hard time for being stubborn.

“I will do whatever I want,” Spencer grumbled back from his spot on my other side, with several feet separating us. He sniffed, his overly long arms swinging at his sides. “I’ll consider it.”

He’d consider it. I lifted my eyes as subtly as I could and raised my eyebrows at Fluffy, who looked even more amused than he had a moment before. We could laugh about it later, in bed, like we usually did. It was the only place where we both felt comfortable talking about everything and anything that we couldn’t around the ranch without the worry of being overheard.

Not that Henri kept his thoughts and opinions to himself—he was an expert at expressing them as politely and politically as he could manage—but sometimes a man had to unload.

And so did I.

And we did it in our soundproof bedroom, where we could complain about the dumb crap members of the ranch did that we couldn’t comprehend.

And it was where we could gossip.

In this case, I had a feeling we were going to have a good laugh over pissy freaking Spencer being concerned his hair was flat—his words, not mine. He’d been trying different hair treatments and nothing was working, he claimed. Conditioner wasn’t cutting it anymore.

While we weren’t friends, and he still had a chip on his shoulder that could probably block out the sun for a minute or two, the sasquatch and I had eventually come to an understanding—sort of—after the night that he’d said whatever it was that had pissed off my DNA dad enough to threaten him. I’d bought him two more conditioner bars, and Henri and I had gone to deliver them a week later. And that had sparked our… frenemies-ship. More friends than enemies, but with his prickly personality, I had a feeling that was as good as anyone was ever going to get with him.

With one exception.

And it was enough that when Spencer sensed something out in the woods that shouldn’t be there, he now called Henri to let him know, which was exactly what had happened tonight. I’d tagged along, and the two of us had run into the sasquatch, who wanted to scope out what he’d sensed. It had turned out to be a new donsey of gnomes visiting from northwest Canada.

Word had gotten around that our gnomes had, over the last three years, had six baby gnomes—an astronomical amount in such a short period of time, they’d admitted. And they had come to visit to see what their secret was since our donsey—group of gnomes—wouldn’t admit anything incriminating through their communication system. Henri had made it real clear to them, years ago, that they needed to stop telling other people about me.

My friends the gnomes had kept their word and kept my secret as much as they could.

But every so often, a whisper got around, and a magical being showed up looking for… me.

I’d become some people’s best friends, and there were others who made sure to stay fifty feet away from me at all times, and I was all right with that.

A warm, familiar hand brushed mine, and I widened my fingers to slip them through Henri’s as he bumped me with his elbow. Going out to check on intruders had turned into one of our favorite things to do together—when he wasn’t on rotation to be on call, that was. Just last month a basilisk, this reptile-looking creature, had found its way onto the ranch. But the dummy made a very poor choice—he said he didn’t like the way I smelled and then threatened me—and Henri had tossed him into a river with more force than usual.

It had been epic.

And the second we’d gotten home and had a minute to ourselves, I’d showed Henri just how much I’d loved his gesture by pushing him against the wall in our room and taking full advantage of our soundproofed walls.

Just thinking about that night had me sighing.

But the hairy giant following along with us at that moment grunted, then suddenly did a sharp left and walked away without a word, like usual.

Like I said, we weren’t friends, but we tolerated each other.

And the man I more than tolerated squeezed my hand in his, winking at me when I tipped my head up toward him.

I beamed.

We’d talk about it at home.

“What do you think the elders are going to say about these gnomes?” I asked the adult love of my life.

Henri made a slight face. “Ema will probably pitch a fit that they need to meet them, and then she and Franklin will get into it. It’s our gnomes these new ones will need to worry about. These mines around here have been theirs for a couple of centuries.” His fingertips toyed with the bare skin at my wrist. “You’re probably going to need to talk to them about it.”

It wasn’t an official title or anything, but I was known as the Gnome Liaison, at least to Henri and my uncle.

I thought it was because they were grateful for their children that they came whenever I called for them. And maybe a little because they appreciated the treats I offered them whenever we met. We didn’t see them often, but traces of their existence could be found every once in a while. Just a month ago, the most beautiful amethyst geode had been left on our front porch. A few months before that, a silver bracelet that happened to fit me perfectly had sat on our mat.

They were very generous with me.

And if it came down to a gnome fight, my money was on our gnomes, and so was my loyalty.

“I’ll see if I can get their attention tomorrow, as long as they don’t get into gang fights tonight,” I told him, angling my face up again. Looking at him was one of my favorite things in the whole world. “I was hoping for some one-on-one time with my favorite mate.”

A rough thumb stroked the inside of my palm, those amber eyes I knew so well now flaring. “Your only one. The rest are meeting the bottom of the river.”

I grinned, and my favorite mate dipped his head down to rub his cheek against my neck and the side of my face, marking me with his scent, like he loved doing. And I loved getting. When his lips skimmed my throat, I shivered.

And not for the first time, I thanked Matti for what he’d done, bringing us here. For giving me the opportunity to know Henri. I loved him, down to my bones and to the magic that lived mostly quietly in my body; I was sure it had to be embedded into my DNA by this point.

My Great Wolf was loving and possessive, protective and obsessive. He believed in me. Trusted in me.

He was the best mate that anyone could have given me… if there was someone in charge of that kind of thing—Fate or Love.

I was nuts about him in every way.

It was a fact that I couldn’t keep my hands off him. Just that morning, before he’d gone to work, he’d rolled me over onto my hands and knees and done some riding himself that had me gasping into my pillow and clutching our sheets for dear life. Before him, I thought I’d had a pretty normal sex drive, but since we’d become mated, it had hit another level. For both of us, we’d agreed. Maybe it was my fault, or maybe it was just our chemistry. I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t going to ask questions either. No one would ever be able to convince me it wasn’t a great problem to have.

We weren’t the only ones suffering either, it seemed.

Everyone around the ranch had been getting it on, and there had been results from it.

Maggie had been the second victim of my magic, having a little boy that had stunned the crap out of every single one of us. Shiloh had a beautiful baby brother that we both swore was going to be an ogre when the time came. Pascal’s parents had a little girl a few months ago who screamed so loud, I was considering getting another job at the ranch when she was old enough to be one of the kids I took care of after school.

In total, there had been twelve births at the ranch in the last few years—another record, Henri had explained.

And now, I peeked at my mate again, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the hard curves of those powerful, thick muscles, and I thought about how much I loved running my hands up and down them. Maybe before we went to bed….

Henri suddenly stopped walking, his head swiveling toward me. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, eyebrow already rising.

“You know what.”

Those arms, that I loved being in, wrapped around me, drawing me in to a chest I’d set my head on countless times by that point. His voice was rough, and I’d swear he was flexing against me as he murmured, “Cricket….”

His ringtone decided right then to explode from his pocket. As always, at the wrong moment. But it was his personal phone, not the ranch cell, and I was the one who slipped my hand into his pocket—squeezing his leg in the process—and pulled it out to hand it to him. He frowned at the screen before showing it to me.

Franklin’s name was on it—or as I fondly called him, Uncle Frankie, which he loved and tried to act like he hated, but now even Agnes called him that. Henri referred to him that way, but only in our room when we were cracking up.

Swiping at the screen twice, he held the phone between us, saying, “What’s wrong?”

My uncle’s voice was clear through the speaker. “Are you… almost back?”

I blinked, and then so did Henri. It wasn’t every day a being, who had lived so many lifetimes he wasn’t sure how old he really was, sounded rattled. “Yes, is there an emergency?”

Even I heard the man who had taken his time getting to know me, who I had taken my time to get to know in return, gulp. “I wouldn’t refer to it as an emergency, but the two of you should get back here as soon as you can.”

“If there’s an issue, tell me now,” my bossy Great Wolf responded, taking my hand again as we started walking, faster now, heading straight for our house. “Is it the kids?”

“It’s….” My uncle cleared his throat. “The children are fine. You’ll see when you get here.” The line clicked, and I almost laughed at getting hung up on.

“What was that?” I asked, trying to think and only coming up with one solution. “Do you think his brother randomly showed up again?”

His brother. My DNA dad. The man who I didn’t have anywhere near the relationship with that I had with Uncle Frankie, but… he’d spent the last couple of years trying his best to win us over in his own way, to give him credit.

A death god could be just as annoying and stubborn as you would think since he was used to getting his way.

Henri shook his head. “No, I don’t sense him out here.” He suddenly frowned, and his nostrils flared on and off, his expression never leaving. “There is something different in the air.”

“Does it smell like fire? Because I knew Matti shouldn’t have told them that story about us trying to start a campfire and burning our eyebrows off.”

The concern cleared for a moment as he chuckled down at me. “It doesn’t smell like fire,” he assured me, slowing down a moment before he lowered his head. He kissed me soft and sweet, his tongue licking at the seam of my lips, before slanting his mouth and kissing me a little deeper.

I groaned.

He groaned.

He never messed around when he kissed me, that was for sure.

Those comforting arms slid around me one more time and pulled me up against his chest. His cheek rubbed the side of my neck, the breath from his nostrils the best kind of tickle. “We’re going to finish that conversation in a little bit.”

I smiled and kissed his shoulder, then his throat. He smelled even better now than he had years ago. “You’re dang right we will.”

The look he gave me said he wasn’t going to forget. I wouldn’t let him anyway.

We were almost to the house when Henri sniffed again. “I smell Pascal, but it’s not recent.”

“He was over earlier. He brought me some sunflowers and told me I looked pretty.” I smiled. “I think you’re going to need to go growl at him.”

Henri snickered. “That little fucker.”

I batted my eyelashes.

“He hasn’t forgotten he owes you his life… how many times now? Ten?”

It had to be more than that, but who was keeping track? Maybe everyone other than him. Pascal was a handful—the biggest handful of them all. But he was just as likable as he’d always been, and it made up for all the gray hairs he was responsible for on so many people—mostly his parents and me. Henri would be in fourth place.

He was lucky he was cute.

But not as lucky as I was, I thought again, just looking at Henri.

We had tied our lives together on the first full moon right after my three-month period, under a bright starry sky, right beside the sacred, magical waterfall washed with pink and purple. I’d held Duncan in my arms for the majority of the ceremony that had taken place in front of the elders, my parents, the hellhounds, Matti, Sienna, Agnes, Randall, Ani, and her mate. My parents, the hellhounds, and Sienna had been required to swear an oath never to speak of the waterfall again; something they had all been more than willing to do, fortunately.

That night had been the most beautiful night of my life and the official beginning to something I hadn’t even known I’d needed—a bigger family. But that was exactly what had happened. Afterward, Henri, Duncan, and I had approached Agnes and asked if she wanted to live with us. Her initial answer had been a no, but a week later, she’d changed her mind.

Little did she know, we had already set up a room for her.

And that had just been the start of our new family.

Our oldest member was Franklin, followed by our surprise additions as of a year and a half ago—the hellhound brothers, who had come to visit three times before leaving their lives in Alaska behind to move here, closer to their “baby brother.” It had taken several discussions among the elders and a lot of pointing out gray areas in the community’s guidelines before the brothers had gotten the green light to move, but it had worked out.

All of them spent a ton of time at our house, one of the closest to the clubhouse, which made sense to me considering how much everyone relied on Henri even with him working less hours as a deputy and around the ranch. I helped out as much as I could, tagging along every time I wasn’t working or with the kids.

There wasn’t a single thing I would have traded the last three years for.

To top it all off, I was going to be an aunt soon! Sienna was pregnant, and Matti was losing his mind. We still saw each other as often as we had before, it just took more work for them to come, or for me to leave for a couple of days to visit them in Chicago.

My precious donut had graduated into being a full-on bear claw, he was sodang big. And that reminded me… “Still smell the different thing?” On the ranch, that could mean anything.

Henri didn’t look concerned, just baffled. “Yeah, let’s see what it is.”

I tucked my hand into the back of his pants and let him finish leading us into our house.

Henri came to a sudden stop just as I’d closed the door behind us. “What is that smell?” he asked.

Standing in the living room was Franklin. In his arms was a sleeping seven-month-old, drooling away. Our Nicolas, named after my dad’s middle name. In a playpen in the corner was a sprawled-out two-year-old clutching a stuffed wolf. Shima, or as most of us called her, Shim-Shim. She was named after the woman who had raised Henri—his older brother’s wife, who was also Matti’s grandma. They were our two youngest. A perfect blend of both of us with their dark hair and tan skin. They were happy, sweet babies, and we were all crazy about them. Not just Henri and me, but everyone on the ranch.

There was something beautiful about seeing the future, holding it in my arms. I already wondered about what all the kids would do in the future. If Duncan would ever try to look for his biological mom. If Agnes would go to school far away. What Shima and Nicolas would grow up to be.

Mostly though, I wondered if they’d choose to be the protectors of the ranch when they were older, or if they’d want a more managerial role like Henri. Or maybe they would go off and become big city boys and girls like their uncle Matti had done.

The only thing I did know somehow was that whatever happened, the burden of this place wouldn’t just weigh down one set of shoulders, like it had for Henri, but hopefully be spread out over several. Because I had a feeling, at the rate we were going, we’d probably end up with another four, on top of the four we already had. Just that morning, I thought I’d seen that ultra possessive glint that brewed in Henri’s irises right before we’d gotten pregnant the last two times.

Who knew though? Just wondering over it filled me with an unbelievable sense of joy. The future had never seemed like such a beautiful place.

I loved it here. I loved it with my whole heart. The way it smelled, the way the trees cast different shadows on the community throughout the year. The way the people worked together to keep this place going, just a little nook of safety in the world.

I had told Henri once that something in the air here told me that I was home. That the land tried to whisper in my ear that I belonged, its message mixed in the breezes that swept through. And I thought that the children held me down here with their little hands, tying me even more to this place than I already was.

And Henri had looked me dead in the eye and told me that I was supposed to be here, and everything and everyone around me knew it.

Including the best babysitter on the ranch, Franklin.

My uncle gestured in the direction of the bedrooms down the hall, his face tight. “See for yourself,” he warned Henri, his eyes a little wild for him.

That was… cryptic.

And as much as I wanted to smell the babies and their brand-newness, I could tell he meant business.

So we did go see, shooting each other confused glances as we leaned over the playpen to smile down at a snoring Shima. We stopped at Agnes’s room first. He cracked the door, and I shoved my head underneath his arm to peek in too. My mini wolf had sprouted up too over the years, and her blonde hair was spilled over her pillow as she slept surrounded by anime posters and merchandise.

He closed the door, and I followed him down the hall to the other room, but just as we got to it, it opened on its own, very, very slowly. Which wasn’t unheard of. We had tied a rope to the handle so Duncan could get out easily if it closed. He had outgrown the hellhound door he’d had when we’d first moved in. But instead of a sixty-pound, five-year-old pup who came out… a little boy stood in the doorway. In underwear and a T-shirt that was a little too big for him because I’d made sure to leave clothes in a dresser on the off chance he might ever need them. I’d guessed on a size when I bought it a year ago.

The boy had black hair so dark it was almost blue, eyes a shade of striking brown. His skin was pale. His body long and lanky.

I had never seen him before, and at the same time, I knew his face as well as I knew Henri’s. As well as I knew my own. It was small, and a little elfish….noveldrama

I grabbed Henri’s hand in absolute fucking shock.

“Mom?” a croaky voice whispered, like he was trying out words for the first time… because he was.

HOLY MAGICAL SHIT.

I might have said it out loud, I might’ve not.

I barely managed to throw my arms out wide just in time to catch Duncan launching himself at me. The tallest five-year-old I’d ever seen. Those scrawny arms wrapped around my neck, and he hugged me with a strength that was too much for his age.

“Donut,” I gasped, hugging him so close, so tight. “What happened?”

He tucked his cheek against my shoulder, smelling every bit like the boy I’d spent the last five years of my life with. My ride or die, still. My sweet, even-tempered boy who had grown to communicate with me telepathically in sentences over the last couple of years. Every once in a while, Henri and Agnes had both mentioned they’d understood a “yes” or a “no” from time to time, but that had been the extent of his abilities with everyone else, other than his brothers.

I couldn’t believe it was him.

“I was sleeping,” he told me in that crackling, brand-new voice, “and I felt funny. I woke up, and I looked like you,” Duncan said, taking his time with every word. “I was coming to get you.”

I hugged him and hugged him, and I hugged him even more. He was talking! He was walking!

It wasn’t that I had ever given up hope that he’d turn into a two-legged boy—I didn’t care if he ever did. I had always just known how much easier his life would be if he did, without that crippling fear of being found out, of being able to live without the possibility of a stranger taking him looming constantly over our heads. This place had been a safe haven, and I’d never worried that anything would happen to him while he was here since everyone was so protective of the kids, but now….

I grabbed his cheeks. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered softly, his eyes sparkling. “I wasn’t scared.”

Beside us, Henri dropped to a knee, his eyes a little glassy, his smile a little funny. He mouthed wow,and I mouthed it right back, reaching out with my arm to clutch him.

And Duncan leaned away from me a little and looked at Henri too.

His smile… I would remember his smile forever. Would remember his words, this moment, everything from the way it smelled to the paint on the walls, the same way I would the night of our mating ceremony.

My Duncan Donut looked at Henri and whispered, “Hi, Dad.”

I fell back on my butt a moment before Henri scooted in even closer, one of those brawny arms capturing both of us in them. I’d heard his voice so many times by now, I could tell when something minor was bothering him, when he was trying not to laugh… but I wasn’t expecting the watery chuckle that came before a “Hi, son,” that had me sensing Duncan’s absolute joy in my own chest.

An explosion of “love” I knew better than almost anything.

Henri’s hand came up to cup Duncan’s head as he leaned toward him, and my boy and my mate touched their foreheads together. His voice was so throaty and thick. “How do you look just like your mom, huh?”

Their bond had grown slowly and organically over time, and it had become one of the greatest blessings in my life, one of those things I could have only hoped for. And if I’d had dreams, their relationship being what it was now, would have been one of them.

He was a real boy, and I couldn’t believe it.

A gasp had us all turning our heads to find Agnes in the hall. Her mouth was open in a way that made me think she’d learned it from me. “Duncan?” she squeaked.

Henri didn’t even get a chance to invite his Ladybug over.

Agnes Blackrock, the girl who a year ago would have still hesitated at a pile of hugs, threw herself at us. She was the greatest big sister to her siblings, and by example, Duncan had become the best big brother. It had been natural to them to love Shima and Nicolas, not just a little bit, but so fiercely, it took my breath away every time I saw them together.

They reminded me that love didn’t know the word DNA.

And the little girl who had been left by the people who should have been there for her at the start of her life, who didn’t trust easily, didn’t love easily, didn’t believe easily, hugged us just as tight as Henri did.