Touch

by Rose Wulf

  A tear slipped down her cheek as she smiled back at him. “If I had the energy,” she said, “I’d thank you properly for that.” She pressed her lips lightly over his for another lingering moment before scooting back to her prior position with her head tucked into the groove of his throat. “But for now, this will have to do.”

  Vaughn’s lips twitched and he brushed his fingers teasingly beneath the hem of her nightshirt. “This is fine.”

  Epilogue

  Roughly Eight Months Later

  Angela started when Vaughn wound his arms entirely around her waist without warning. Before she could do more than begin to turn a raised eyebrow to the boyfriend she thought had been trapped in the kitchen with her father, he leaned down and his lips brushed the shell of her ear.

  “Can I steal you?” he murmured.

  Angela’s cheeks heated, mostly because they were being watched, but she said, “Um, sure.” She glanced to the clock on the wall. It was New Year’s Eve—for another few minutes—and so the family had gathered to celebrate.

  There was a lot to celebrate this year, one way or another. Even Uncle Nicholas was staying with them for the next handful of days. The babies, of course, had been put to bed hours earlier. For as much as that worked with infants. In addition to Kira, the family had since welcomed baby Danielle and, most recently, Logan and Clare’s son, Tyler. Named after the best friend Logan lost in his youth. Their family was growing and for that Angela was happy.

  She was also happy that they’d finally ended the elemental war.

  A second body had been found in the mess that was left of the Matthews’ home. Eventually, the identity of that body had been released to the public, but by then Angela had known who it was. And for as bad as it sounded, with confirmation that both Jacob and Eric Matthews were dead, she could finally breathe easy. It had cost them too much. It had gotten too out of hand. But at least it was done, for good. That was something to celebrate, too, in its own way.

  She pulled her attention back to the moment and smiled at Vaughn. “Are we going to miss the chance to pop party poppers in each other’s faces?”

  His lips twitched with a smirk. “Possibly.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Especially if you stall.”

  “Boy,” Clare said as she sipped at her drink. “You really are a brave man.”

  Clare had a point. Angela could hear more than one of her brothers’ voices approaching from the hall. Just because they—against all odds—approved of Vaughn didn’t mean they’d tolerate such a display.

  Angela sighed with exaggerated defeat and turned to face him. “All right, lead the way.”

  Vaughn released her enough to take her by the hand and guide her out to the family’s back deck. He slid the door quietly shut behind them.

  Ordinarily, at nearly midnight in winter, the fog would be overwhelming. But Nate had a tendency to push the fog away from his surroundings when he could get away with it, so the soft gray wisps were circling around the family’s property in a sort of semi-natural barrier. It might have been eerie if Angela hadn’t grown up with it.

  “Okay, what’s up?” she asked curiously.

  Vaughn reached out and threaded his fingers into the edges of her hair on either side of her face, standing close and holding her stare. “I love you, Angela.”

  Her heart fluttered idiotically at the words he’d said more than once in the past several months. She smiled. “I love you, too.” But he knew that. Vaughn wasn’t one for pointless statements, so what was this about?

  He leaned in and ghosted his lips over hers for a moment, not long enough to let her push to her toes, before retreating again. “You know I’m not that patient,” he started. “Once I’ve decided on something, I have a hard time not going after it.”

  A small laugh bubbled up inside her. Yeah, she knew that about him.

  “I thought about waiting longer,” he continued, his hands lowering to take hold of hers. “But … I don’t want to.” His throat worked on a swallow and, for the first time, Angela caught a flicker of nerves behind the blue in his eyes. “What I do want is to spend the rest of my life with you, Angela.”

  She sucked in a breath as Vaughn released one of her hands and lowered to a knee without breaking eye contact. She couldn’t look away and she could barely breathe. Her heart had turned into a jackhammer in her chest.

  “I know we’re young. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us,” Vaughn said. “There’s no reason we can’t go on that journey together. I can’t imagine a day without you.”

  Tears piled up behind her eyes and her throat constricted.

  “Angela Hawke, will you marry me?” At some point, he’d extracted a small, telltale box from a pocket, but Angela didn’t notice it until he flipped up the lid.

  Inside the house, cheers of “Happy New Year!” drifted through the walls. Accompanied by a short, but audible, series of pop-pops from the party poppers.

  Angela curled her fingers around Vaughn’s hand, her tears slipping free. “Yes,” she whispered breathlessly.

  He caught her in his arms a moment later, holding her close and kissing her thoroughly. The winter chill disappeared as his tongue swept into her mouth and Angela buried her fingers in his hair. She didn’t care about the tears still dripping off her cheeks, or that anyone could catch them at any moment. She only cared that Vaughn wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

  He knew enough to know her future would be hectic, but he wanted to be there with her regardless. Just the way he’d been there beside her—been there for her—all the other times she’d needed him.

  Angela eased back from his kiss with an uncontainable smile. Running her fingers along his jaw, she whispered, “I think you might be my real destiny, Vaughn Prescott.”

  He smirked, caught her hand, and pulled it from his face in order to slip the ring on her finger. “Took you long enough.”

  She burst into a laugh, stepped back, and said, “Come on. Let’s brag.” She wiggled her blinged-out finger and led the way back to the house. She couldn’t wait to share the news of her engagement with their family.

  The End

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  Other Books by Rose Wulf:

  www.evernightpublishing.com/rose-wulf

  If you enjoyed this book, you may also like:

  Shadows of Truth by Tanya Jean Russell

  Raking the Ashes by Kait Gamble

  Monster’s Claim by Winter Sloane

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  BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER

  TRUE LOVE’S KISS

  Naughty Fairy Tales

  Rose Wulf

  Copyright © 2019

  Sample Chapter

  “Isn’t this beautiful?” Audra’s mother asked, sweeping another smiling gaze at the leafy green and flowery countryside around them. “It’s a wonderful day.”

  Caught somewhere between reflex and obligation, Audra glanced around again as well. It was nice, she couldn’t argue that. The national park in this area was open to the public, and on such a clear day, in weather this mild, it would have been a shame for no one to witness the beauty their surrounding natural landscape had to offer. While the three of them, Audra and her parents, were spread out in a field not unlike a meadow from some movie, trees scattered around them in all directions. They grew thickest off to the south, where the hiking trails led to a waterfall and a couple of campgrounds. It was beautiful.

  Audra turned her attention forward and managed to smile politely. The oddity was that they were out celebrating her birthday—two weeks late—and her parents had insisted on a family picnic. I turned thirty, not thirteen. She kept the ungrateful thought to herself, however, and replied, “It is, Mom. Thanks for today.”

  Her mother leaned forward and tucked a strand of her long, blonde hair behind an ear. “We’re so sorry we missed your birthday,” she said.

  “We really will try harder to see you more often this
year, Audra,” her father added with his trademark smile. The smile was neither forced nor sugary, it simply was. A perfectly friendly, casual smile. He wore it constantly, and Audra thought it was the best way to describe her father. For better or worse.

  Audra opened her mouth in an attempt to respond to her father’s promise, the one he’d made every year since her parents had tiptoed back into her life, but her mother spoke over her.

  “Stefan,” she said, “what’s that? Some sort of bird?”

  “Hmm?” He lifted his focus up in the direction his wife was pointing, out somewhere behind Audra. “I’m not … sure…”

  Curiosity piqued, Audra twisted around to see for herself. What kind of bird could look so strange? Part of the problem, she quickly realized, was that it was flying in front of the sun, making it hard to see. But whatever it was, it was getting larger, fast. Frighteningly fast. An alarm went off in her head, telling Audra it was time to go. She couldn’t explain the reaction, but she didn’t question it. Her aunts had always told her she had great instincts. She turned her back on the approaching … whatever it was, and reached for her discarded purse. “We should go,” she said hurriedly.

  An unexpected wind suddenly rushed in, swirling her hair, rustling their clothes, even crinkling the plastic from the bag of chips. A chill stole down her spine.

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” her father said with a shrug of his lean shoulders.

  Her mother seemed unconvinced. “Stefan, maybe—” She cut herself off as another, harder gust of wind ripped through. This one upended the old-fashioned wicker basket, sending several of the contents flying and tumbling across the field. Audra’s mother made a startled sound as her lightweight jacket tried to fly away with her still in it.

  Audra could hardly see now, her hair whipping her face and obscuring her vision. Somewhere across from her, her father swore, and she thought she saw him fumble in the direction of the scattered items. Her mother shouted something about leaving and Audra tightened her hold on her purse, which was struggling to escape in the seemingly endless wind.

  “Stefan! We should leave!” her mother decided, having to shout over the wind. She pushed, unsteadily, to her feet, stumbling against the gale. “This way, Audra-aahhh!”

  Audra, who had been trying to shove her hair out of her face for the sake of her sanity, snapped her head up at her mother’s sudden scream. Her blue eyes went wide as the torrent of wind sucked the air from her lungs. Her mother’s blood splattered down over the field, sprinkling the blanket, their clothes, even her face, as her body hung partially out of the mouth of a dragon.

  She sat there, stunned. Unable to move. Unable to think.

  All she could see was the impossible. A beast from legend, a creature believed to have been hunted to extinction generations ago. A massive, four-legged, black and grayish-purple-scaled dragon. Complete with glowing green eyes, smoke puffing from its nostrils, and a pair of wings on its back. It had landed now, across from them. Watching them.

  This thing, this impossible, nonexistent thing, was still chewing on her mother. As if it were taunting them.

  “Leah…” Her father’s horrified whisper drifted to Audra’s ears. She dared to glance his way as he stood on shaky legs. “Leah!”

  Audra wanted to scream at him to stop, but it was too late, and her throat wasn’t working anyway.

  He broke into a run, one fist raised as if he could single-handedly slay the beast who’d just devoured his wife.

  The first tear finally fell, mixing with the blood on her face, when Audra thought she heard the dragon laugh. Its wings straightened with a sharp snap and it shot forward. She screamed, certain she was about to watch her father be massacred. She wasn’t prepared to suddenly find herself snatched around the waist by a sharp set of giant talons and hauled toward the sky.

  “No … Leah!”

  Her father’s broken, sobbing plea drew her scattered, still half-numb attention and Audra craned her neck as best she could. She could hardly breathe, let alone see, but it seemed the dragon had grabbed him, too. Whether that was good or bad, she really wasn’t sure.

  She tried to look ahead, as if somehow seeing where they were going would help, but they were moving so fast all she could tell was that they were probably above the trees. Assuming the trees were the rapidly-shifting streaks of green below her. But she couldn’t keep any breath in her lungs. No matter how hard she tried, unconsciousness quickly overtook her.

  Her father’s sobs were the last things she heard over the roaring wind.

  ****

  “Audra…” The voice was faint, male, and familiar, but she could hardly think. Her head hurt. No, her whole body hurt. “Audra.”

  She was pretty sure she needed to wake up, though. Not just because of the pestering voice but because something was wrong. The more her mind cleared, the more certain of that she became.

  “Audra!” This time the voice was joined by a hand—she assumed it was a hand—bumping awkwardly into her shoulder. The rough greeting helped to jostle some of her senses back into place even as the hand turned until he had a proper hold of her shoulder and could shake her bodily. “Audra! Wake up!”

  It was her father.

  She groaned and shifted until she could slap his hand away. “Stop, I’m awake,” she said. Or slurred. Close enough. She’d opened her eyes, she thought, but wherever they were was so dark she could barely see a thing. Only then did she finally become aware of the cold, possibly damp, rock-like ground beneath her feet and hands. The ground she’d been almost completely face-down on seconds earlier. “What happened…?”

  The question was barely past her lips before the answer sprang to the forefront of her memory.

  A dragon had appeared out of nowhere during her awkward family picnic. It had grabbed her and her father after… Mom.

  She clapped a hand to her mouth in an effort to keep from vomiting. Her mother had been eaten. Literally over her head. Oh, gods. Did she still have her mother’s blood on her face? It had rained down, all over everything. Her mother had barely had a chance to scream.

  “Leah,” her father said with a sob somewhere behind her, drawing her attention.

  Audra carefully turned, still able to see next to nothing. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the darkness of what she could only assume was a cave of some sort, she realized there were sporadic glimpses of light, or reflections of water surrounding them. Nothing enough to be helpful. If anything, they were more distracting. But she tried using them to determine shapes, or the locations of walls. Although she wasn’t brave enough to stand up yet.

  “Dad?” she asked, cautiously extending her arm in the direction his earlier touch had come from. She found him—his arm, specifically—after a second. “Dad, that’s you, right?”

  He drew a ragged breath and a hand settled over hers. “Yes, Audra, it’s me,” he said. Her heart clenched. He sounded devastated. If she could see him, she realized, he wouldn’t be smiling. “Honey, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  A lump formed in her throat and she tried to move closer to him. Who knew how large the cave was, or if they were alone. Or if they would be left alone to slowly starve to death. “I think I’m okay,” she said, although the answer felt like acid on her tongue. She didn’t feel injured, just a little sore and a lot disoriented, but she was pretty damned far from okay.

  “Thank goodness,” Stefan said with obvious relief. He tightened his hold on her hand. “You weren’t responding and, after… I was worried.”

  “Dad,” Audra started, wrapping her other hand around his as well and leaning into him. “I’m so, so sorry.” She wanted to add more, but in the space it took her to think of what she should say, she heard something moving in the distance. The sound of pebbles rolling, shifting over larger rocks. Then footsteps.

  “No,” her father whispered, fear heavy in his voice. “No, no, no.” He gathered her hands and suddenly stood, pulling her unceremoniously to her feet. For a skinny man, h
e was stronger than she’d anticipated. “Listen to me, Audra,” he said in an urgent, hushed voice. “You need to get out of here.”

  What? “No, Dad, I can’t—where would I go? I can’t even see!” To say nothing of the fact that she would not even consider leaving him behind.

  “Little humans,” an unfamiliar, mocking, male voice echoed toward them. “I can hear your hearts hammering in your chests.”

  Considering how hard her heart was doing exactly that, Audra wasn’t particularly impressed. But she was no less terrified with each approaching footstep. The dragon, who apparently spoke English, was taunting them.

  Stefan removed one hand from hers, reaching out, past her, flailing around. Only because he was leaning so close could she hear his mumbled words. “Wall, wall, there has to be a wall!”

  Escape.

  She refused to abandon her father, but he wasn’t wrong in wanting to flee. It sure as hell beat standing around, waiting to die. Audra kept hold of his hand with one of her own and turned, her other arm also extended, reaching for something solid. He was right, if they were in a cave, there had to be a wall somewhere. She could barely hear anything now over her own thundering heartbeat as she floundered in search of a guide in the dark.

  Her nails caught on stone. Wall!

  The dragon’s steps were closer now. “Are you trying something stupid?”

  Audra held tighter to her father’s hand. She didn’t dare speak, so she took a brave step forward and tugged urgently. Her palm curved over indented rock. A small speck of a victory.