by Schow, Ryan
Ryker didn’t have to think about it. He simply said, “If they need us, we’ll go. Those of us who aren’t expecting kids, anyway.”
Felicity smiled, touched her stomach, then tucked her body closer into Clay’s and said, “If Clay needs to go, then the baby and I will be coming with him.”
This got a few laughs around the fire.
For a long while Logan thought hard about Texas. Privately he knew he would go if asked, but while no one was asking, he decided to make the most of his time with Harper, and to maybe work on a baby of their own. On the one occasion that he asked Harper about children, she had said, “I think it would be easier to go to Texas than to push that special little someone out of me.”
“It’s your choice,” he laughed.
“Maybe,” she replied, leaving her answer out there a long time. She then followed up by saying, “Unless you want to surprise me.”
After everyone turned in for the night, including Clay and Felicity—who were now sleeping on a mattress under a hundred pounds of blankets in the “guest bed” in the barn—Harper turned to Logan and said, “Shall we put out the fire?”
Logan glanced over at Ryker and Skylar. Skylar was almost asleep in Ryker’s arms, and he could hardly hold his head up.
“Are you ready?” Harper asked the couple, a little louder than normal.
“Yeah,” Skylar said, sitting up.
“I got this,” Logan said.
The two of them said good night to Logan and Harper, then Logan picked up the bucket of dirt and went to smother the fire. When the last embers faded out, darkness settled over the land. It was so quiet that night, like a hush had fallen over the forest. Harper found his hand in the darkness and they walked up the hill together. A few minutes later, he tucked Harper in to bed.
Crawling in beside her, he cozied up against her warm body and said, “Family dinner is the best.”
“I miss them,” she said.
“Who?”
“All of them.”
“I do, too,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like a dream, and other times, it doesn’t feel so bright.”
“The other night,” she said, almost hesitantly, “I felt like there was something in here with us, someone maybe.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, turning to her in the darkness, taking in her smells, feeling the reassuring weight of her body pressed against his.
“I…I think maybe…I think maybe I saw Orbey. Not like full flesh, but just…etheric, you know? Like, maybe angelic? I don’t know, maybe I was seeing things.”
He thought he’d seen her, too. A few weeks back. He wasn’t sure, though. He’d just convinced himself it was a dream. Now, upon hearing this, he felt that last little something unwinding inside him, that final piece of a puzzle slipping into place. Was she their guardian angel? Perhaps. He wanted to think so. And so he did, and with that, a long, magnificent peace not only washed over him, but wandered through him as well, settling into the deepest parts of his soul.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked, taking his hand in hers.
“No,” he said. “I think you’re perfect.”
End of Book 5
Afterword
Thank you so much for taking this wild ride with me into a new kind of apocalypse! I hope you liked reading this story as much as I loved writing it! If so, please consider leaving a quick review when prompted by Amazon, or at the link on the next page. Also, if you haven’t done so already, please head over and join the Private Facebook Group (CLICK OR TAP HERE), the VIP email list (CLICK OR TAP HERE), and/or click the yellow +FOLLOW button below my photo on my Amazon page (CLICK OR TAP HERE). And for a sneak peek at the first book in the new series, titled THE TEARS OF ODESSA, (CLICK OR TAP HERE), or continue on for a detailed description. But first…
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The Tears of Odessa: A Look Ahead
Dark Secrets. An Unexpected Assassin. A New Worldwide Conspiracy.
Former SWAT Commander, Atlas Hargrove, made the biggest mistake of his life, one that will cost him everything. But the end of one life heralds the beginning of another, an emerging life where friends just might be your enemies and surrendering to your more primal instincts is tantamount to survival.
Odessa, Ukraine not only has the most beautiful women in the world, the port city has emerged as a high-society hotspot. With enough money, you can partake of the most unthinkable delights, but that knife cuts both ways. Everything has its price. To Halden Barnes’s horror, his young daughter, Kaylee, is that price.
Operating off the grid, seduced by an irresistible offer, Atlas finds himself in Ukraine. In a world where the lines between right and wrong are blurry, and at times invisible, Atlas and a cagey young assassin named Kiera descend into Odessa’s murky underworld looking for a child that may already be dead, only to uncover a conspiracy more nefarious than even they could have imagined.
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The Last War
The Zero Hour
The Ophidian Horde
The Infernal Regions
The Killing Fields
The Barbarous Road
The Terminal Run
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The Complete Last War Series
The Complete Age of the Embers Series
The Complete Swann Series (Urban Fantasy)
