The Things We Water

by Mariana Zapata

The ones I’d clung to until I had been old enough to process them and understand why Matti’s cousin had done what he’d done.

Wtf happend between them

Sending me straight to the green thing’s nose. The real me. All of me.

The white wolf turned its head and bit the swamp thing’s wrist so hard the creature cried out and dropped it. The instant the puppy fell, the centaur/goat child picked it up in his arms, and they, along with the boy, were out of there. They ran. Straight for me. Not away.

yummy,” the goat child sighed from my other side, sounding… did he sound dreamy? He’d moved closer without me noticing. “Yummy,” the boy in Matti’s arms agreed in a voice that was definitely sweeter than anything I could have expected.

“Can I hold your hand?” the little boy asked shyly.

“Are you a forest princess?” Up ahead, Matti tried to muffle a sound. I pretended I didn’t hear him. “I’m not, but thank you for asking.” “You look like one,” he told me in a small, timid voice.

That time though, Matti had quietly growled at her and continued doing it until she’d stopped. I forgot there was a huge brown wolf under that ’stache.

Henri didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything other than stare at me.

He stopped at my side, hooked a foot around mine, and his fingers reached for my shirt.

That stubbled jaw clenched even more somehow. Slowly, he turned to his cousin and stared at him, hard.

I slid my gaze toward Matti, who was looking real funny at his family member.

“Women who spend a lot of time around me get pregnant easily. Is that going to be a problem?”

Lmao i thought it was going to be something much cooler

My puppy growled louder, staying in his seated position. “Ah-ah,” the deep voice corrected him. “You’re safe. We’re not going to do anything to you.”

My bone structure was a mix of the heritage I highly suspected ran through my blood and a very different one that softened my nose and gave me a lighter eye color.

Wy wont she specify it this is so weird

“In a good way or…?” His eyebrow moved just a little bit. “What do you think?” he replied in that steady voice that held next to no emotion in it.

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.

“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.

That got me his attention. “Everyone here is mine.”