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    When Nina and I went to my father''s abandoned home, there was something I didn''t tell her.


    In fact, there was something that I didn''t tell her about when we were staying with the Alpha King in the werewolf realm.This content ? N?v/elDr(a)m/a.Org.


    As soon as Nina and I marked each other, I knew that I needed to marry her. I didn''t know exactly when it would happen, but I knew that it would happen soon. And when we visited my father''s house, I found something that made me want to make it happen sooner rather thanter.


    I went upstairs to look around briefly. Of course, the entire house waspletely ransacked. I didn''t know what Lewis and hisckeys were looking for, if anything; it almost seemed as though they were just trying to humiliate my father and be disrespectful of him, of the ce that they called home for years. It made me sick to see all of the broken furniture, scattered belongings, and shattered pictures.


    I never cared much for that house. Without my mother''s touch, it was a gloomy and boring house. It was never a home to me; but still, it hurt deeply to see the ce ransacked, especially by the person who was supposed to be supportive of my father from the beginning.


    Quietly, I made my way into my dad''s room. Of course that room was destroyed, too. It seemed as though they had taken special care to destroy his bedroom. The mattress waspletely off of the bed, the curtains were tom down, and the window that looked out over the ocean was shattered, allowing a cold wind to blow in. His closet waspletely torn apart, and the drawers to his dresser were pulled out with their contents dumped all over the floor.


    I shivered as I walked over to where the contents of the dresser were scattered on the floor.


    Like Lewis, I was looking for something; but we were looking for twopletely different things. While Lewis was likely looking for money or paperwork, if he was even looking for anything in particr, I was just looking for something small. Something precious.


    And I found it, after getting down on my hands and knees and groping around beneath the dresser.


    It was in a little velvet box. My dad had kept it perfectly after all these years; he was more sentimental than he always let on. After my mom died, he took it off of her finger and put it away. At the time, I hated that he did that. I hated that he took my mom''s jewelry away from her. He always told me that she would want me to have it


    someday, but I didn''t understand it at the time.


    Now, however, I understood it perfectly.


    I opened the little velvet box that held my mother''s engagement ring. There was a small note inside from my father that simply read: "To Enzo: I know you will need this someday. Make sure that the girl you give it to loves it just as much as your mother did. -Dad"


    It wasn''t shy, nor did it have arge diamond. In fact, it didn''t have a diamond at all. The stone was a fire opal, which was my mother''s favorite gem. Sighing, I took it out of the little box and held it up to the waning light that wasing in through therge broken window, and turned it back and forth to see how the light made the opal shine and sparkle. It was on a thin silver band with no other ornamentation, and as I held it up to the light, I thought to myself that Nina would love it. I was sure of it.


    Downstairs, I could hear Nina shifting around. If I didn''t get back down there soon, she would probablye looking for me. I ced the ring back in its little velvet box and pocketed it before I headed back downstairs and took Nina home.


    On the ride home, I couldn''t get the image of my father''s house out of my mind. I kept thinking about the broken photographs, the dull gray color of the walls and the dim light. But when I found Nina, she was standing there and she was a ssh of color against the gray. She wasn''t dull. And for some reason, no matter how much I had always hated that house, I thought to myself that I could learn to love it there if Nina was there with me.


    Of course, we immediately ran into trouble as soon as we arrived at home. My mother''s engagement ring sat steadfastly in my pocket throughout the entire battle. For the two days that Nina slept, I stayed awake by her bedside and felt the ring in my pocket. Every so often, I would take it out and inspect it in the firelight, then quickly pocket it again when I thought that Nina was going to wake up.


    Throughout the entire funeral, I kept touching the ring inside my pocket. A few times, I thought for sure that Nina would notice me fondling it. I thought for sure that she would get curious and reach into my pocket herself to see what was in there, but thankfully, she didn''t notice.


    When we ran through the woods together after the funeral, I debated proposing to her then and there several times. But at one point, just as I was about to pull the ring out, I suddenly realized something.


    I wanted to talk to her father first. Out of tradition, I wanted his blessing.


    And so, just as we were about to step through the portal and return home, I finally worked up the courage to ask him.


    "Sir," I said, taking him aside while Nina stood by the portal, may I ask you something?"


    *I know what you''re going to ask," he said quietly. I felt my face go red, but there was a twinkle in the older man''s eye. With a grin, he gripped my shoulder and nodded. "I would be honored for you to marry my daughter."


    And now, here I was; standing next to the bonfire with Nina in my arms, with all of our friends dancing happily nearby, and my mother''s engagement ring in my pocket. The war was over, and although we had lost a lot along the way, we had also learned a lot about ourselves and about each other. There was beauty in that.


    I felt Nina''s arms slip around me as she swayed gently to the music. She was drunk; her face was red and her eyes were sparkling as she looked up at me. Without a word, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me deeply and wetly, no longer caring who saw us kiss because we were mates now and not just fickle college kids anymore who got too tangled up in a one night stand.


    When our lips parted, I couldn''t help but smile down at her. I reached out and cupped her cheek. She leaned the side of her face into my hand and gazed up at me, and that was when I knew that it had to be tonight. The ring in my pocket was too heavy now.


    "Hey," I said, running my hand along one of her long, silky raven braids, "wanna go for a run?"