Magic Touch

by Leia Stone

  Holy shit. I’d finally killed that bitch.

  “It isn’t over!” my father shouted. “Turn the sword and finish it before the power overtakes you.”

  The vibrating traveling through the lock to my sword, and up my arms, was insane. I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. My arms felt like Jell-O, and the trees off in the distance were rustling so hard with the way the earth was shaking that I thought there was a very real chance they might fall over.

  “Gran, give me strength,” I called, knowing that if she could help me she would.

  A gust of wind whipped past me, delivering the scent of sage, and I smiled. Gran.

  With a final push and a cry, I wrenched my blade to the left, like pushing through cement.

  I screamed, forcing myself to keeping going even though my arms were so weak I wanted desperately to let go. Electrical currents ripped through my body as the katana slowly turned the lock.

  My arms were shaking like I was holding onto a jackhammer.

  ‘Evie!’ Brock cried out into my mind.

  “Don’t touch her or you’ll die,” my father warned Brock quickly, leaning forward in his wheelchair.

  I was a mother now. I would need to be strong in the days to come, for myself and for my unborn child.

  Fuck this gate. Fuck it hard.

  With a final push, my katana slid the glowing, green lock into place.

  The gate released a blast of power so intense that it nearly knocked me backward. I slid on my feet but managed not to fall.

  The shaking finally ceased, but I felt like I was still moving for a moment.

  “You did it,” my father whispered. “You can let go now.”

  Pulling my katana free with weak and wobbly arms, I spun around.

  Holy apocalypse.

  Brock was standing right behind me, naked and covered in black demon blood. The forest floor was littered with bodies. Mostly demon bodies. But I noticed a wolf among them, and the other siren too. I worried that wolf might be Sabine or Ray.

  I struggled not to panic as I rushed to count heads to make sure my friends were alive. Molly, Reo, Haru, Cass, Tianna, Cho, Ray, Sabine … everyone was okay. I felt the loss of the one wolf through the pack bond and the deep sadness that came with it.

  “I’m sorry.” I told Brock, looking at the fallen wolf.

  This fucking nightmare was finally over but it wasn’t without causalities.

  He nodded. “Jerome died with honor.” Then he stepped forward. “The baby.” Brock stepped up and placed a hand on my belly, which the baby promptly kicked.

  We both smiled.

  “He’s a fighter,” Brock told me.

  I stood on my tip toes and kissed his lips. “She.”

  I really had no idea what gender the baby would be, but I liked going against him.

  When I turned again, Reo and Haru were kneeling before me, heads bowed. “It’s been a great honor to serve you, kitsune,” Reo said.

  Emotion clogged my throat again, and I dropped to my knees to be at their level. “The honor was mine. I’m just glad it’s over.”

  Haru nodded. “At least until another gate pops open.”

  My eyes widened. I couldn’t say anything for a few beats. “What?” I finally eked out.

  “There are dozens of gates all around the world. It’s your task to make sure they all stay closed.” My father wheeled over to me and handed me a rolled parchment.

  What the fuck? More gates? Screw that.

  I collected the rolled paper. “What’s this?”

  “A map of the gates. Given to me by my father the day I sprouted my ninth tail. Keep an eye on the news. If there’s an increase in major crime, indicating elevated demon activity, you’ll know what to do.”

  ‘Damn. I was hoping this was the last and only time we’d have to do this,’ Brock lamented through our link.

  ‘Same. Still wanna marry me?’ This was a lot to take in…

  ‘Yes. Like yesterday.’ Naked as the day he was born, he scooped me up into his arms and started to walk with me to the house.

  “Uhh … thanks for all your help, everyone. We’ll be back soon!” I shouted to his pack and our friends.

  “I’m locking us in the house for a week. Sex. Food. Sleep. That’s it,” Brock huffed against my chest.

  A peal of laughter bubbled through me, and I wove my fingers through his hair. “You’re the best one night stand I ever had.”

  He looked up at me with smoky, amber eyes. “I better be the only one night stand you ever had.”

  I shrugged. “No comment.”

  A girl’s gotta have her secrets…

  Epilogue

  “You’re doing so great, baby,” Brock cooed in my ear.

  Another contraction racked my body and I screamed. “Fuck this. I feel everything!”

  “Can’t you give her anything to help with the pain?” Brock was up in Sabine’s face, his wolf close to the surface.

  Sabine shook her head. “It’s too late for an epidural. She went into labor so fast. She’s already dilated to ten centimeters and the baby is crowning. Come on, Evie! One more big push.”

  This fucking child had better treat me like a queen. She’d better never back talk, better eat all her vegetables without a fuss, and never forget a single Mother’s Day.

  “It feels like I’m shooting fireballs out of my vagina!” I roared as I started to push again.

  Cass had fought with Brock to be in the delivery room and was now staring in obvious shock at my crotch. All blood drained from his face so that his skin was a pale, pasty gray around his hot pink fur.

  “That’s it! Keep pushing!” Sabine screamed as pressure and pain sliced open my pelvis unrelentingly. When I thought I couldn’t bear a second more of it, the worst of the pain receded … and Sabine held up a tiny little … baby.

  Holy shit. Tears blurred my vision as I instantly fell in love with this little bald screaming ball of skin.

  My little crotch goblin was beautiful.

  Sabine’s hand was covering its sex organs. In the end, we’d decided to wait and be surprised.

  I couldn’t speak. Tears streamed down my face as I opened my arms, and Sabine wordlessly lay the baby on my chest. I looked down between the baby’s legs and smiled.

  “It’s a boy,” I told Brock, who bent over my shoulder, squeezing my arm in gentle support.

  Tears lined his eyes, but now they spilled over his cheeks. “Told ya so.” He winked and leaned forward to kiss my cheek.

  I laughed. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear after giving birth to our child: I told you so.”

  Brock nuzzled his forehead into the baby’s chest and my neck, rubbing his alpha scent all over us. When he looked up, he was beaming. “Let’s have another.”

  I grinned. “Um, you gotta let a girl forget the pain of labor before you suggest another one.”

  My little family was now three, and it was the best damn day of my life.

  A sob pulled my attention to my left, where Cass stood, tears rolling down his cheeks, spilling into his pink fur. “I’m an uncle. That little fucker is so cute. I’m a fucking uncle!” he shouted.

  The entire room laughed at that.

  I knew that there would be good days and there would be bad days, but they would be mostly good. I was still the guardian of all these gates to the underworld, but with family and friends like these, the good would always outweigh the bad.

  ~ One year later ~

  With the support of our family and pack, Brock and I survived the first year of Caleb’s life. After all the monsters I’d faced down, I figured raising a baby would be easy as pie in comparison. Well, I’d been dead wrong.

  For much of the year I was too sleep deprived to remember I was a badass supernatural bounty hunter and kitsune-witch hybrid who’d managed to seal the gate to the underworld. The first year was a blur of sleepless nights, foul diapers, and leaky breasts, but enough warm-and-fuzzies to make up for all the discomforts.<
br />
  But now that I’d weaned Caleb, and my body was back to being my own, and looking and feeling much as it used to, I was finally ready.

  I rolled over in bed, staring at Brock as he slept, the soft light of morning filtering through cracks in the blinds. He peeked an eye open and pulled me against him, wrapping warm, strong arms around me.

  “It’s not time to wake up yet.”

  He’d been saying that pretty much every morning since Caleb had entered our lives, no matter what the time.

  “What if I told you I’m ready?” I worked to keep the telltale excitement from my voice, anticipating his reaction.

  Both eyes flew open and he stared at me for a few beats. “Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

  I grinned. “Yep.”

  “Fuck. Finally!” One of his big hands slid across my waist to squeeze my butt. “I never thought I’d have to beg a woman to marry me.”

  “Well, in all fairness, I have been kind of busy raising our son.”

  “Excuses, excuses.” He rolled his eyes, but his ruse wasn’t convincing me. His enthusiasm was bleeding into everything he did.

  With a quick kiss, he threw back the covers and shot out of bed, reaching for his phone on the chest of drawers. His fingers whipped across the keyboard before he looked at me again.

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “What was that all about?”

  “I told the team to set Operation Wedding into motion. They’ve been on standby for months, ever since you accepted my official proposal.”

  Brock had gone all out. He’d wined and dined me, showered me with flowers, and arranged dinner under the stars before getting down on one knee to pop the big question—officially. It was perfect.

  “Operation Wedding?” I barked out a laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Hell yeah!” But he’d already turned around and was pulling clothes out of the dresser. I watched his fine ass slip into boxers with a lamenting sigh. Despite the new baby, I’d still managed to get my fill of the man; I didn’t think I could ever grow tired of making love with him. Life with the alpha grew more rewarding each day.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” I finally asked, after he’d pulled pants and a t-shirt on, concealing my favorite parts.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and walked out of the bathroom with a toothbrush hanging from his mouth, talking around it. “We have a wedding to set in motion. Molly, Tianna, and Sabine are waiting to help you pick out a dress, and Haru, Reo, Cass, and Ray are waiting in the wings to help with whatever else we need. I thought we might get married here, on the land that’s been so important to both of our ancestors.”

  Moving to rinse his mouth, when he returned he sat on the bed next to me and took my hand, looking down at the engagement ring I hadn’t removed since I put it on there, right before Caleb’s birth. “What do you think of all that? Would you like to get married here? The ceremony could take place next to the creek behind Belinda’s cabin.”

  I sat up and wove my fingers through his. “I think that will be perfect. I really just want to marry you, Brock. I don’t need all the fancy stuff.”

  “That’s what you say now.” Delight twinkled through his eyes. “Just wait till you see everything the girls have prepared to show you. I think you’re going to love it. But obviously, it’s whatever you want. Whatever you want to do, I’ll be happy. I just want to marry you.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Brock captured my lips in his, and whatever I’d been about to say whisked from my mind, and suddenly I wanted to marry Brock with desperation, like yesterday.

  Weaving my hands into his thick hair, I pulled him back into bed with me. As expected, he didn’t resist, his hands spreading all across my body in that way of his, where he somehow seemed to touch me everywhere at once.

  He slid my thin camisole over my head and immediately brought his tongue to my nipples, banishing all rational thought in an instant. When his fingers skimmed beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts, and he began to slide them down, my own hands went to work, and I had him naked by the time he returned the favor.

  “What about the wedding planning?” I asked against his lips, already breathless.

  “Everything else can wait. This is what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted.”

  Thank God Caleb had moved into his nursery a few months ago.

  Moving directly over me, Brock kissed me with enough passion and desire to make my knees go weak. I spread my legs and pulled him down against me, closing my eyes in preparation for the intense pleasure I knew was about to arrive.

  And then a baby’s shrill cry over the baby monitor filled our bedroom.

  We both groaned, and Brock rolled off of me. “Everything else can wait ... but Caleb,” Brock said.

  “Everything but Caleb,” I affirmed, already tugging my sleep clothes back on. Like his parents, Caleb lacked patience, and his crying would only get louder if one of us didn’t attend to him right away. I sighed, reached over to lower the volume on the baby monitor, and got out of bed.

  The handle to our bedroom door in my hand, I looked back at Brock over my shoulder. With his hair mussed, and his clothes pulled back on in a rush, he looked delectable. “As soon as I settle Caleb, I’ll start approving and setting up wedding stuff. You figure out an exotic honeymoon spot, where we won’t have neighbors and I can scream in ecstasy all I want.”

  Brock’s face split into an eager grin. “You got it, baby. I’m thinking white sandy beaches and lots of naked time. Uncle Cass and Aunt Tianna can babysit.”

  “You read my mind.” Winking at him, I slipped through the door, padding toward the nursery next door.

  Brock and I were going to get married! I indulged in a giddy smile while no one was looking, and then allowed my heart to melt all over again when I saw our son. A balanced mixture of Brock’s features and mine, though he’d inherited my violet eyes, he was beautiful.

  When he noticed me, he stopped crying, smiling instead. He stretched his arms out to me and I rushed to pick him up, pressing him against my chest like the miracle that he was.

  Who would’ve thought a one night stand with Brock the Cock could work out so well? I’d gotten everything I hadn’t realized I wanted...

  Brock had built my father a cabin on the property, where he stayed with Cho, and Molly had settled into Gran’s cabin, along with Haru and Reo. Though the warrior brothers mentioned returning to Japan every once in a while, their mentions had become increasingly less frequent as time passed. Tianna had moved in with Cass at his downtown loft, and together he and I trained Molly to become a full-fledged supernatural bounty hunter. Since Molly couldn’t leave the area while she was our apprentice, Haru and Reo remained with her. Whatever arrangement the brothers and Molly had, they all seemed happy and in love. It was good enough for me.

  The cantankerous old witch Willemena had traveled from her home in California for the wedding, and even Croft and the Blacks had accepted my invitation. I wasn’t exactly friends with my mother’s family, but after what we’d been through together, it was easier to accept them, though there was still no way in hell I was ever going to bring Caleb around to visit them. I’d been keeping my end of the bargain, visiting Johnny and Aunt Bertie every couple of weeks for a short while, but I’d left Caleb at home every time.

  When we added in the hundred or so members of the pack, our wedding had quickly gone from small and intimate to raucous and wild. It suited me just fine.

  Brock and I had written our own vows and we’d spoken them to each other beside the trickling creek that ran behind Gran’s cabin while Willemena officiated the ceremony. It had been my way of bringing the woman who’d raised me into one of the most important days of my life. There’d been a few times when a breeze had blown just right, delivering the scents of Gran to me, and I’d known that wherever she was, there was a part of her that was watching on.

  “Hey, Evie!” Molly hollered across the clearing in the
dusk of the balmy night. “Come dance with us!”

  Hundreds of lanterns lit by Tianna’s magic adorned the forest clearing, and little sparkling lights hung from every tree within sight. The evening was magical, and that was before every person in the world I cared about had gathered to celebrate my union with Brock.

  “Maybe in a little bit,” I called back to my apprentice, smiling at the way she danced like she owned the night. Haru and Reo trailed every one of her movements with appreciative gazes, taking turns dancing with her. Her purple hair had mostly fallen out of its up-do, but Molly didn’t care in the least. She’d make a fabulous bounty hunter, especially since even at the party she wore a handgun strapped to her thigh—just in case. She was taking to her new role as wolf just fine as well. Brock said she was a strong member of the pack.

  “I think Molly’s had a bit too much to drink,” Brock said, leaning into me, sitting on the chair next to me, Caleb on his lap.

  I chuckled. “I think everyone here has had too much to drink. They’re all happier than I’ve ever seen them.”

  “And you?”

  “And me what? Am I drunk?”

  “No, are you happy?” he asked, amber eyes suddenly serious as they held mine.

  I looked from him to our son and back. “I’m happier than I ever thought possible.”

  His eyes misted and he squeezed one of my hands. “Good. Because so am I.”

  He leaned over to kiss me, and the moment our lips met, the tinkling of wine goblets rose all around us. I laughed and yelled out, “You’re supposed to do that before we kiss, to get us to kiss, not after.”

  “You guys don’t need help to kiss,” Tianna hollered.

  “And neither do we,” Cass said, sidling up to his Amazonian fae-witch, wrapping an arm around one of her thighs beneath her short dress. Cass had ordered a special set of rhinestone booty shorts for the event; he wore them and a matching rhinestone-studded bow tie. He looked like a Chippendale dancer, if the male strippers were short and pot-bellied. Regardless, as usual, Cass rocked the look, and of everyone at the party he was smiling the most.