by Jana Janeway
Registry's Secrets: Book Two of The Mengliad Series
© 2014 Jana Janeway
First Published: September 3, 2014
Published by JanaOnWheels, Ink
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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Contents
Author's Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Author's Note
This is a work of fiction. The content within is the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, real or fictional, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by: Sela Lyons & Jessie Jasen
All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Storming through the door, she hung her coat on the rack in the foyer in angry fashion before stomping towards the kitchen. Following her, he watched her from the doorway, leaning against the jamb; he flinched when the frying pan she had retrieved from the bottom cupboard took the brunt of her frustration.
“Pretty sure it’s not your cookware that you’re pissed at,” he mentioned cautiously, hoping to get her to open up to him. She only scoffed, otherwise remaining on task as she moved towards the fridge. “No, you’re right,” he said in response to her thoughts, “talking about it won’t change anything, but I still would like to.”
“They keep asking me the same questions, over and over again!” she blurted out, slamming bags of produce down before pulling a large cutting knife from the butcher block that held it. “They just change them around!”
Her ranting was now punctuated with the aggressive slicing of vegetables. “Do they think I’m stupid or something? I see what they’re doing! And how many times do they have to draw my blood, anyway? What are they even testing for?”
“I don’t know.” He crossed his arms, waiting for her to continue, knowing she would without further comment from him.
“It’s not enough anymore!” With the blade of the knife, she slid the chopped celery off the cutting board and into a colander. “I want more!” Several carrots were next to be mutilated. “I want to work! I want a life outside of this house! All we ever do is go back and forth to the center! And go over to Bibi’s and Josiah’s, but that’s not much different than being here!”
Her harsh words carried an implication she had not intended, and so remorse eased her agitation. “Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with them, ‘cause I do. And I, of course, enjoy spending time with you, but it’s just not enough anymore. Whatever happened to the idea that, after six months to a year, they’d back off and let us go live our own lives?”
“It hasn’t quite been a year yet,” he reminded her; she rolled her eyes as she scraped the carrots in to join the celery.
“Six weeks and five days, and it will be exactly one year since we moved in here,” she informed him, as if he was unaware, “and they don’t seem any closer to letting us go! I want a life outside these walls! I want a life outside this tiny speck of a town! I want… normality!”
“They’ll let us go eventually.” He watched with a raised eyebrow as she threw half a stick of butter into the frying pan she had minutes before slammed down onto the stove. “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Saying that only brought her irritation back to the surface. “That’s what you said three months ago, Craddock! Alex! Whatever!”
“Jessica, baby,” he soothed, “you can call me Craddock when we’re in private.”
His contrasting tone drew attention to just how unreasonable she sounded. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap at you.”
“I know,” he whispered, gathering her into his arms. “You’re just frustrated. I’m sorry you are.”
Holding her, or even just touching her affectionately, usually ended most of their arguments. It was a subtle form of manipulation he often felt guilty for using, but he eased his conscience by reminding himself that he wasn’t doing it with malicious intent. He would use whatever method necessary to lessen her pain, which brought about another tried and true means of redirection.
“Can I ask you a question?” There was only the slightest hint of humor in his tone, but she knew a joke was coming.
“Yeah.” She was smiling already.
“What the hell are you cooking?”
Laughing, she pulled back to lock eyes with him. “I have no idea.”
The smirks they were both wearing faded as he raked his fingers into her hair. “Can your brutally murdered vegetables wait to be sautéed? I want to go into the bedroom with you.” His smile returned when a playful grin inched into her expression.
“Well, we could go into the bedroom…”
She allowed the sentence to dangle as she backed him towards the kitchen table. When his body made contact with the wood, he wasted no time hopping up on it, reclining a little as she reached for his pants’ snap and zipper.
“Just you thinking it and I’m ready for you,” he whispered, and a small chuckle escaped her.
“You wake up ready for me,” she teased, tugging at his pants and boxers, just enough to expose him.
He played along. “Can I help it if you’re gorgeous?”
She never considered herself to be anything but ordinary, but by the way he looked at her, and touched her – even his thoughts about her, since becoming so attuned to him that she could literally read them – offered assurances when mere words might not have.
The last ten months had been a strange combination of stressful, bizarre, and wonderful, and she knew without question, she never would have survived it all if not for him and his love for her. He taught her, helped her to understand, and then he took the frustrations of the day away by holding her, and loving her. He kept her sane.
He forced his eyes to stay open, to not close in pleasure, as he watched her every movement. Smiling down on her, he stroked her hair in encouragement of the fast pace she had adopted, her thoughts and actions cluing him in to what she was attempting to do. Slow was beautiful, romantic, and amazing in its own right, but fast was more intense.
She was setting the mood for what she wanted from him when it was her turn. He knew the night for them was just beginning – most nights were spent doing little else beyond making love for hours.
The signs had been learned early on in their relationship, the Chimie connecting them making it that much easier to read him. His breathing turned shallow and sporadic, his body tense as his eyes closed and his head fell back. He was on the brink.
Moments later he shuddered, a deep moan following, and she knew he had achieved his release.
Feeling her eyes on him, he opened his and pushed up into a sitting position, bringing her into his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck, continui
ng to do so as he slid off the table and stood.
“You’re welcome.” She laughed, and then he did, too, but when he pulled back to see her eyes, there wasn’t even a hint of a smile within his expression.
“Your turn.” Lifting her, he turned and dropped her onto the very spot where he had just been.
The only article of her clothing he removed was her underwear. Moving her shirt and bra up out of his way, his tongue and fingers aroused her frantically. He loved taking her there quickly; the faster he got her there, the more vocal she was. He loved making her scream.
Shoving the loose-fitting skirt up to expose her, falling to his knees, he directed her legs onto his shoulders and settled himself between them. While he started slow, that lasted for seconds only, allowing her just that brief moment to adapt. The frenzied pace caused her to cry out, as he knew it would, as he drove her towards pleasurable insanity.
Her uninhibited response when she toppled over brought a grin to his face.
There wasn’t an inch of her body and mind he didn’t know. Nothing he wouldn’t do for her. No adventure he didn’t want to experience with her.
Standing, he collapsed on top of her, his weight on his forearms, his thoughts narrowing onto one specifically. As she started to recover, he knew that she would pick up on it. Seconds later, he was proven right.
When she gasped, he brought her with him while pushing upright.
“I know you want this, baby.” He held her gaze, brushing the back of his fingers across her cheek. “I would deny you nothing,” he reminded her, “if it’s within my power to give it to you.”
“But is this what you want?”
Smiling, he whispered, “You know the answer to that question.” And then he gently pressed his lips to hers.
Losing herself in his kiss, she also immersed herself in his thoughts. Beyond the familiar anxiety that always haunted this particular subject, what surprised her was how certain he seemed.
Their lips parted as her eyes sought his. “But what about Bibi? What about the Registry?”
He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear; the sweet, loving gesture usually soothed her. “Bibi is fine. She has Wade now. And as for the Registry…” One shoulder lifted into a subtle shrug. “We’ll just tell them it was an accident or something.”
“Even if they believe us…” Though she doubted they would, that didn’t resolve the other, more important issue. “They’re never going to let us go, are they?”
It took practice and concentrated effort but, through the months, he had taught himself how to conceal his mind, to protect her from the darker suspicions that lurked within. If she knew her concerns were his as well, it would only cause her additional stress – something he vowed to keep to a minimum at all costs. She was worried enough without knowing his thoughts on the matter.
“They will.” He forced the confident words and tone. “It won’t be much longer,” he added, wincing when she scoffed.
“You’re hiding something from me, Craddock.” Her tone was more sad than accusing. “I don’t know exactly what, but I know you are.”
The casualness that he was normally so good at faking slipped a little. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s easy to read you – I can do it without even trying – but sometimes, it’s like there’s this wall that I can’t get past.”
“There’s no wall,” he lied. “I’m just frustrated because you’re so unhappy, and because you have questions I don’t know the answers to.”
She wasn’t one hundred percent convinced, but she accepted his explanation anyway. “Is this really such a good idea? While we’re still here? Maybe we should wait, till they do let us go.”
“It could take a couple tries… not that I’m complaining.” He smirked, but was abruptly serious once again. “By the time we’re successful… And then there’s the gestation period…”
Uncertainty clouded the excitement she would have felt, had their circumstances been different.
Shifting out of her embrace, he dropped his hands to her waist to keep her close. “Only if you’re ready. We can wait if you’re not. Whatever you want.” He stared back at her, awaiting her answer.
“Do you really think, by the end of it all, we’ll be away from all this?” She might have believed him when he nodded in answer, if it wasn’t for the looming mental fortress. Sighing, she fell back into his arms. “What are you keeping from me, Craddock?”
“Nothing, I promise,” he insisted, his guilt raging. At some point, he knew he would have to be honest with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet. He couldn’t bear to see the despondency on her face, or feel it dwelling within her heart and soul. Maybe if she had something else to focus on, something happy, the possible scenario wouldn’t be so devastating. “Let’s go to bed now, okay? I don’t want our baby being conceived on the kitchen table.”
In agreement, she allowed him to lead the way to their room. “So, we’re really doing this? We’re really trying?”
He smiled back at her over his shoulder. “If you say yes we are.”
“Yes,” she whispered, smiling as well. But then it dropped. “Eventually, you’re going to tell me what you’re keeping from me, right?”
Torn between answering honestly and continuing the act, he instead opted for a declaration of his love. Turning to face her once they were in the doorway to their room, he gathered her into his arms. “I love you so much.”
“I know.”
Whatever secret he held, she resigned herself to the fact that he wasn’t about to share it anytime soon. Convinced it didn’t have to do with her or their relationship, the only other logical option pointed towards the Registry, and their current situation of being under their thumb. But whenever she broached that possibility, he always responded with the same placations.
Why he would hide his feelings on that was, at the very least, confusing to her. Late night conversations held while snuggled in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, told her he had no great love for the Registry, or how they conducted certain aspects of their organization. If it wasn’t for the sake of loyalty, why was he so determined to deny what was so very obvious?
“Don’t worry about any of that right now, okay?” he asked of her. “Just let me love you.”
His nuzzling kisses, meant to persuade her, did exactly that. “I love you, too,” she whispered, moving him with her towards the bed, “and I trust you.”
She knew they could get through anything together, because of that fact. Whatever it was that he was keeping from her, it could wait to be shared. His motives were pure, of that she had no doubt.
When he was ready to, he would tell her.
Chapter Two
Stewing in silence, Jessica glared out the passenger side window, watching the all-too-familiar scenery pass by with indifference, simply because it was habit to do so.
“Please talk to me.” Her only response was an exaggerated scoffing sound. “I’m not the enemy here.” Silence. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”
Finally, there was a slight break in her anger.
“I know that.” Tearing her gaze away from the outside, she dropped it to her lap instead. “I just thought that, today of all days…”
When she trailed off, he sighed heavily in response. “I know. Me, too.”
That was, in part, a lie. Though he had been hoping for the best case scenario, he now knew that the worst was pretty much inevitable. If they were going to release them, they would have done it already.
“And call me crazy, but I think they know.”
“They don’t,” he insisted, but mostly because he was trying to keep her paranoid concerns from taking hold. “We haven’t even told Bibi and Josiah yet.”
Shrugging, she muttered, “It just seemed like they did. Somehow.”
The despondency in her tone made him ache, bringing with it the desire to fix it in some way. He didn’t think it would do any good in the long run, but
he had to at least offer. Anything to lighten her mood, even if only a little.
“Next appointment, I’ll talk to them, okay? Ask them point blank when they plan on allowing us to move on.”
She scoffed. “They’re not going to answer that question, Craddock, and you know it. They’ll sidestep it, just like they always do. Just like all Mengliads who hold important positions seem to, whenever subjects of a delicate nature are brought up.” Huffing dramatically, she returned her attention to out her window. “They’re never going to let us go.” She rolled her eyes when he replied in typical fashion.
“They will.”
“I know you don’t believe that,” she snapped.
“I have to believe it.” He glanced in her direction when she turned and scowled at him. “I have to believe it, because the alternative is just too incomprehensible! The alternative means you’re frustrated and miserable for the rest of our lives together! And I’m sorry, but the thought of that is just too much to bear!”
When she gasped, he realized he had foolishly dropped his guard just enough for her to read him. He fought to put the wall back up, but it was too late. She knew.
“You don’t think they’re going to let us go! You never did!”
“Shit!” he cursed, softly and to himself. He’d gotten careless. She was bound to find out sooner or later, but he wasn’t quite ready to have this conversation with her. Reluctant to admit to any wrongdoing just yet, he responded with, “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know.”
“You should’ve told me!” Her irritation set Craddock on the defensive.
“Which would have accomplished what? I was trying to protect you!”
“I don’t need to be protected from the truth, Craddock! I just need you to be honest with me! I mean, we’re in this together, aren’t we?”
Her combativeness having eased with the question, he followed her lead, curbing his exasperation before answering her.
“Of course we are. I didn’t keep things from you as a way of excluding you. I did it because you were already so worried, and I didn’t want to add to that.”
