As they watched, the dust faded away to nothing, leaving only a very confused group of people and a hurt Allison in its wake.
“What the hell just happened?” Matt asked.
“I don’t know,” Brayden said, “but right now we need to get Ally to the hospital.” Even as he said it, his coin heated, and he knew what to do.
He took it off his neck and carefully lifted her head and put the cord around her neck. Her eyes widened as a gold dusting covered her body like a slow wave cascading along her. The skin around her cuts stitched themselves together then faded away. The gold dust seeped into her skin and she lay there as his Allison—fresh and whole.
“What did you do?” she asked. “That was yours!”
“Now it’s yours.”
“But…I don’t understand anything that just happened.”
“I don’t either, but we’ll talk about it later. I just need to get you home.”
Home. Their home.
“But, Bray, this was yours.” She fingered the coin at her neck, but he watched only her even as he heard his brothers surveying the diner dealing with the practical things like the broken door and curious people.
“You’re my luck, Ally-mine.”
He leaned down and kissed her, knowing his luck had nothing to do with the coin but everything to do with the woman in his arms.
Chapter 11
“For honor and country!” Cameron yelled as he jumped on Brayden’s back, bringing him to the floor.
Brayden rolled, making sure he landed on the bottom so he didn’t hurt Cameron. “You’ll never get me!” he yelled back then grunted as Lacy dove into his side.
“I’ll protect you, Daddy,” she squealed, and Brayden choked, letting Cameron pummel his fists into his side.
Daddy.
That was the second time she’d called him that, and each time a little part of him fell that much more in love with her. Cam and Aiden hadn’t called him dad yet, but he was okay with that. It’d been only two days since the Malones had come to town and threatened his family. Everyone was still shaken about what they’d seen and the power the coin held. But, Allison still wore it around her neck to her chagrin and his insistence.
They were making themselves a family…though he hadn’t even proposed to Ally yet. Something he’d have to fix soon.
He looked over Cam’s and Lacy’s heads at Allison. She smiled at him, tears in her eyes and her arm around Aiden’s shoulder.
Aid gave him a thumbs-up then ran to help Justin man the grill. Brayden rolled around with the other two for a few more minutes before getting to his knees, his hands up.
“Okay, you win.”
“Yes!” Cam pumped his fist then high-fived Lacy.
Lacy wrapped her arms around Brayden’s neck and kissed his cheek before whispering in his ear, “I was working on both sides, but I love you more.”
Touched beyond all measure, he tugged Lacy close to him and inhaled that sweet, little-girl scent that made him want to protect her from all the bad things in life…as well as any boys that might dare come near her in the future.
Apparently that’s what being a father felt like.
Oh, he liked it.
A lot.
Aiden came running back in, and Allison pulled him close. Brayden stayed on his knees, one arm wrapped around Cam’s shoulders, the other holding Lacy to him. He knew it was past time… no, the perfect time to do this.
“Allison?”
The use of her full name had her staring at him as though he were crazy. “Yes?”
“I know I should probably wait until we’re alone…but this is about more than just the two of us. So I’m asking all of you.
Her eyes filled with tears as he noticed the rest of his family coming around them, smiles on their faces.
“Allison, Aiden, Cameron, and Lacy, will you marry me and make me the happiest—and luckiest—man I could be? Please say yes.”
“Yes!” Lacy answered and kissed his cheek again.
He laughed, and his family joined him. Cameron hugged his other side, and Aiden tugged his mother toward Brayden.
“Ally?” he asked, a little bit of fear creeping in because she wasn’t saying anything.
“Oh, yes, Brayden. Yes, yes, yes.” She fell to her knees, Aiden coming with her, and she hugged him. The five of them wrapped their arms around each other, tears running down all their faces. Eventually, the rest of the Coopers joined them on the floor, and they laughed and congratulated them.
“It’s about freaking time,” Justin teased.
He looked up as Allison brushed the coin around her neck, a smile on her face. “I love you,” she whispered. “This coin? It’s ours. Not yours. Not mine. Ours.”
“I’m the luckiest guy on earth, and I’d take all the time in the world to keep my luck and our life.”
Allison kissed him hard, and he knew all was right. After all, since he didn’t have the coin around his neck, he’d just have to make his own luck from now on. Or maybe he could just borrow a little bit from his new wife.
About the Author
Carrie Ann Ryan is a bestselling paranormal and contemporary romance author. After spending too much time behind a lab bench, she decided to dive into the romance world and find her werewolf mate - even if it’s just in her books. Happy endings are always near - even if you have to get over the challenges of falling in love first.
Carrie Ann’s Redwood Pack series is a bestselling series that has made the shifter world even more real to her and has allowed the Dante’s Circle and Holiday, Montana series to be born. She’s also an avid reader and lover of romance and fiction novels. She loves meeting new authors and new worlds. Any recommendations you have are appreciated. Carrie Ann lives in New England with her husband and two kittens.
Also from this Author
Now Available:
Redwood Pack Series:
An Alpha’s Path
A Taste for a Mate
Trinity Bound
A Night Away
Enforcer’s Redemption
Blurred Expectations
Holiday, Montana Series:
Charmed Spirits
Santa’s Executive
Finding Abigail
Her Lucky Love
Dante’s Circle Series:
Dust of My Wings
Coming Soon:
Redwood Pack
Forgiveness
Shattered Emotions
Holiday, Montana Series:
Dreams of Ivory
Dante’s Circle:
Her Warriors’ Three Wishes
Dust of My Wings - Excerpt
Have you tried Carrie Ann’s other series, Dante’s Circle?
Dust of My Wings is now available
Chapter 1
A summons from the council never led to good things. Shade Griffin’s millennia worth of experience told him that. No matter what he truly desired, he’d do what he was told. He didn’t have another option, and why would he disobey now? He never had before. Whatever demands they dealt might seem tedious to a long-lived being such as him, he didn’t have anything else better to do.
Such was the life of an angel in his predicament; a vast and endless sense of being, yet no one with whom to share it.
Shade shook off the misery that threatened to creep along his skin and suffocate him. The idea of sharing his endless life with someone else, someone special, had long since burned away. No need to think about it again.
The sun broke through the clouds, warming his cool, honey-colored, almost dark tan, skin. He lifted his face, letting the rays soak into his pores. His eyes closed, and he took a deep breath, not really wanting to leave the spot. He rolled his neck, stretching his muscles, and then opened his eyes. His back ached from the long flight to the enclave. He stretched his wings, the light shimmering off his midnight black wings that trailed to a rim of deep blue. The wind picked up, his blue-black hair flowing behind him.
Shade arched his back, his wings flared, and blue dust trickled off and into the air, and drifted to the ground below.
Damn stuff kept doing that; and there was nothing he could do about it. He clenched his fists and winced in pain. He looked down at the healing abrasions on his knuckles and muttered a curse.
As one of the appointed enforcers of angelic law, he’d just come back from the punishment of a young angel: a cocky one at that. He hated doing it, but the unrepentant jerk had decided it would be fun to fly in broad daylight without cloud cover over Area 51. Really? Cliché much? It was easy enough to downplay the event as another UFO sighting, which would certainly bring out the crazies, but it didn’t negate the fact that the reckless angel had broken angelic law by letting humans see him flying.
Because he had decided to laugh about it to his friends and merely shrugged it off, Shade had to step in. If he’d apologized, then Shade wouldn’t have had to use his fists. But no. The young one mouthed off and challenged him, so Shade had to accept. After all, as a warrior, he could not ignore a challenge. Doing so would negate his authority.
And he won.
Of course.
He still hated punishing others, even though it was his job. Between him and his best friend, Ambrose, who was practically his brother, they dealt with most of the enforcing the angelic laws. Together they’d done what they had to do for centuries, and in Ambrose’s case, even longer.
Shade was a warrior angel. In the times of the Angelic Wars, he’d fought alongside the best of the best. Hell, he was the best of the best. Well, maybe tied with Ambrose, but he wouldn’t tell the other angel that.
Shade chuckled as he envisioned Ambrose’s reaction to his thought. Ambrose was sure to want to prove just the opposite to be the case, and Shade would be more than willing to give it a go.
If you couldn’t fight for supremacy with your best friend, how else would you even know how good you were
?
Now those wars were long since over. Times of awkward peace were at hand, meaning the warriors herded the other angels and made sure they followed the rules the council members set in place.
They followed the rules, even if the rules were sometimes, in his opinion, too strict for their own good. But he would never voice it. He was merely a warrior angel.
He wasn’t even a godly one like in the fables of mortals. Their race wasn’t that of a god. Yes, if theology was correct, a god at some point had created them, but they weren’t God’s right hand men; they were not the symbol of goodness and hope. Far from it. They were just another species with rules, regulations, and a seemingly endless long life in order to be subjugated.
Wow. Bitter much?
He shouldn’t be; he had everything he wanted, didn’t he? His forehead scrunched as he thought, and his wings fluttered a bit in agitation.
He certainly had all the money, titles, glory, and privileges a warrior of the finest caliber could have. Why did he feel like he was missing something?
Shade shook his head and looked around. He stood at a midpoint on the mountainside, the enclave circling him. Stone buildings jutted from rock faces, thousands of feet above the surface, old as time. No stairs or elevators here. Open the door and, without wings, they’d drop to their death. Marble and crystal twinkled in the sunlight from the adornments and windows on all of the structures. It may have looked cold to some, but to Shade and his angelic brethren it was warm and inviting.
It looked like home, but it wasn’t truly a ‘home’; There was no love waiting on the other side of the door, and that pained him.
He sighed. He really needed to stop thinking such depressing thoughts. Taking one last look at the place he called home, he jumped off the ledge, his wings spreading to catch a drift, as the cool breezes hit his skin. He flew past other angels in the air, nodding to a few, but kept to himself. He was a warrior angel, the last face some would see as they stared beyond the end of his blade. Tough to make life-long friends outside of certain circles that way.
Shade descended, the wind whipping his hair back from his face, until his feet touched the stone balcony set off the council chambers. He set his wings back, making sure they didn’t trail on the floor. He was exhausted, but that didn’t give him a reason to be lazy. He walked through the ornate doors that reached tall to the roof. Despite his thousand years of living, sometimes the immense beauty of the council chambers had him at a loss for words.
Gold and crystal adorned the walls. Intricate carvings and art filled the room. Eons of pride and talent gave the room a sense of grandeur and honor that made Shade feel young in relation to the other angels surrounding him.
In reality, he was the youngest warrior angel of them all, and second in command to Ambrose, the leader of the warriors, the best at the job. That wasn’t pride talking, just fact.
Shade walked to the center of the room and surveyed the five council members before him, perched high on their thrones, their noses turned up towards him. Another presence worried him. Ambrose stood off to the side, a frown on his face. What was happening?
“I see you have finally decided to grace us with your presence,” Caine, the leader and all-around pain-in-the ass, admonished, and Shade held in a scowl. The brown-haired angel lifted a lip as if the mere sight of him disgusted the ruler.
Shade bowed his head. “I’m sorry I was late. I had just finished my dealing with the young angel and needed time to clear my head before I came. I didn’t want to taint the council with the thoughts and actions of a warrior.” There. That didn’t sound like sarcasm and distain, did it? Well, maybe it did, but it was the best he could do. He wasn’t overly happy with Ambrose in the council chamber. It felt like an ambush.
Caine snorted and shook his head.
Okay, apparently he couldn’t quite mask his true feelings. Oh, well.