Strength & Power: Dark Paranormal Tattoo Taboo Romance (The Chronicles of Kerrigan Book 10)

by W. J. May

  She watched her uncle’s eyes widen in shock just as the front door pushed open. As the sharp clang of stilettos and the jingle of a cat collar echoed down the hardwood floors, she and Argyle shot each other a panicked look. As if they’d rehearsed it, she conjured a sponge to wipe the remaining blood of the counter while he threw the soiled towel in the trash. They’d just finished when Linda came bursting through the door, King Arthur safely in her arms.

  “Well, Dr. Millstone seems to think he’s going to pull through.” Her eyes swept the disheveled kitchen with a faint smile. “And I can see you two decided on cheese, grapes, and vegetables for dinner.”

  As one, Rae and Argyle stared guiltily around the kitchen. They’d been so wrapped up in their conversation they realized they didn’t quite have a game plan for dinner.

  “How about I order Chinese?” Linda suggested, giving each an indulgent grin.

  “Sounds perfect, dear,” Argyle said quickly. “I’ll go upstairs and clean up.”

  As he swept from the kitchen, Rae couldn’t help but think that he was not only eager to get away from his inexplicably durable niece, but also from her line of questioning. It had clearly taken him down a side-street of memory lane, where he wasn’t too keen to go.

  She understood the feeling. As she helped her aunt pick up around the kitchen and mimed the smiles of polite conversation, she felt as though her head was a million miles away. She had come to New York looking for answers, but as usual all she’d gotten were more questions.

  But at least this time will be different, she thought with determination. This time I can take matters into my own hands.

  Because, while she might have a whole host of new mysteries to solve, her conversation with Argyle had given her something else, too.

  A pair of names. A place to start digging.

  Well how about it, Dad…game on!

  * *

  “I just don’t understand,” Aunt Linda said with a frown, watching as Rae shoved handfuls of bacon and biscuits into her mouth. “You’ve never shown the slightest interest in going to the library before…”

  Rae struggled to swallow, washing everything down with a huge swig of coffee. “What are you talking about? I’ve always loved the library.”

  It wasn’t true. She suspected her aunt knew this.

  Sure enough, Linda raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “The New York Public Library? Do you even know where it is?”

  Rae faltered for a second. How was it that in all her years of collecting, she’d never gotten some sort of map tatù?

  “Of course I know where it is,” she countered, meeting her aunt’s sly grin with an even slyer grin of her own. “I mean…I have a friend who knows where it is.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her aunt chuckled. “And would this friend happen to be whatever taxi driver you hail down first?”

  “Now you’re catching on! Who needs a map in New York when we’ve all been blessed to live in the land of Yellow Cab?” She leapt up from the table and kissed her aunt swiftly on the cheek before heading out the door. “I’ll be back for dinner!”

  Aunt Linda was most certainly right. Rae wasn’t sure she had ever set foot in the library, save for the occasional class field trip, and she was surprised by how huge it was when she stepped inside.

  In all honesty, all she’d really wanted was a computer and a safe place to research away from her aunt and uncle’s prying eyes. At this rate the library seemed like overkill. She should have just stepped into a Starbucks. Of course, they didn’t come with complimentary laptops…

  As she took a seat and logged in using the library code, she wondered where it was she was supposed to start. ‘Peter and Katerina Kerrigan.’ Maybe the names were more common than she thought. She bit her lip nervously as she typed them into the search engine, bracing herself for how many results she might find.

  As it turned out, there weren’t a lot. She browsed through the first dozen or so, eliminating them as possibilities, until finally something looked familiar.

  Aha! Bingo!

  She clicked on the article and leaned forward to read:

  ‘Russian Couple Found Dead’

  ‘Peter and Katerina Kerrigan were found dead in their home today; the result of what police are now officially ruling a homicide. Initial reports state that both Mr. and Mrs. Kerrigan died of massive blood loss after being shot in the chest. While no suspects are being listed at this time, it’s possible that their deaths were the result of a home invasion gone wrong. They are survived by their son, Simon Kerrigan, who currently resides in London.’

  Rae sat back in her chair with a sigh. A thought crossed her mind: Bet Kraigan would love this…

  However, as strange as it was to find the official report, it offered no further clues as to why Simon had directed Rae to look them up. Killed by guns in their home? Not exactly the Privy Council’s style, if that’s what he was getting at. Then again, it wasn’t exactly his style either. The only person with ink she’d ever known to use a gun was Kraigan, and bless his heart, seeing as he wasn’t born then, this was one of the few crimes Rae could say with certainty her half-brother did not commit.

  But that still begged the question: Why would her father direct her here? Why have her look into the deaths of her grandparents? Was Simon trying to say he didn’t do it? That he was framed as some part of a huge cover-up?

  She clicked around for a while longer, but was unable to come up with any more leads. At this point, she hadn’t really expected to. The information she needed wasn’t going to be found here at a library in New York. No, if she really wanted to get the answers she needed, she’d have to go right to the source. And that meant stopping by a place she’d rather avoid at the moment.

  The Privy Council.

  No sooner had she thought the words than her phone buzzed in her pocket. She extracted it with a small smile, not bothering to even look at the Caller ID.

  “Hey Jules.”

  “So you’re coming back home? That was a quick visit.”

  She stifled a grin, thrilled that he was still talking to her. She was worried that she might get the silent treatment for a while longer out of loyalty to Devon. “Mind your own business, psychic.”

  He chuckled softly. “Don’t you think I’m trying? Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain when my eyes go blank and I mutter the word ‘Rae’ when I’m with Angel? It always seems to happen at the most inopportune times…”

  Now it was Rae’s turn to laugh. “Sorry to intrude.” Her breath caught suddenly in her chest, and she found herself bowing her head in shame. “Jules…I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

  There was a brief pause, filled with a soft rustling sound. She could just picture him shifting his weight uneasily as he tapped on the side of the phone.

  “It’s none of my business,” he answered. But it was stiff. Way more stiff than was normal.

  “I never meant to hurt him,” her voice dropped to a whisper. “I would never do anything to hurt him. I just…made a mistake.”

  Julian sighed. “Hey, we all make mistakes. There’s no judgement coming from me.”

  Rae’s eyes teared up with gratitude, but she shook her head. “You don’t have to say that. I know how the two of you are. Like brothers. If you want to, like, throw stuff and sharpie me out of all our pictures together…I’d completely understand.”

  He laughed again. “Hey, he might be a brother to me, but I also think of you as a sister. You two are going to work it out—I know it. Just…give it some time.”

  Rae nodded, trying to keep herself from crying right there in the New York Public Library. “Is that my psychic telling me? Or my friend?”

  “Your friend,” he snickered. “I’m not reading that future for you. You’re going to have to figure it out on your own.”

  “Fair enough.” She grinned, suddenly excited to be going home—to her real home. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow I guess. I’ll try to book something for the morning—”

&
nbsp; She cut off suddenly as she realized her mistake.

  The second she’d imagined going back, she unintentionally imagined exactly what she was going to do when she got there. Needless to say…it wasn’t the kind of thing to go unnoticed.

  “Rae Kerrigan!”

  She paled. “Gotta go, Jules! Bye!”

  “Don’t you dare hang up this phone!” he yelled. “Explain yourself!”

  She glanced nervously around the library, worried people might hear. “Explain…what?” she stalled, trying to figure out a way to get out of it.

  “Explain why the hell I just saw you trying to break into the Privy Council! Again!”

  She bit her lip. No real excuses could explain away that. And he saw all of it in just one second? He was getting too talented at reading the future for his own good.

  Then again, since he’d already seen it happening…

  “So,” she began fishing, “how exactly did you see me accomplishing this master break-in?”

  “Oh no,” he cut her off sharply, “you are not doing this to me again! You are not roping me into this! Another break-in, Rae? We just got offered our old jobs back!”

  “I’m not roping you into anything, Julian.” She smiled. “You were the one who had the vision, not me. Did you see yourself there?”

  There was another pause, after which Julian sounded increasingly unhappy.

  “It’s…unclear.”

  She fought back a grin, but then sobered. They may banter about it back and forth, but this time wasn’t going to be like the others. This was her father, her family, her answers she needed to find. If she was indeed going to be infiltrating the PC to find those answers, she would most definitely be doing it alone. Julian would not be coming with her.

  “It’s not unclear at all,” she said decisively. “With Cromfield underground, we’re taking a break on the whole team-crime-fighting thing. And even if we weren’t, this isn’t one of our typical missions, Jules. This is something I need to do alone.”

  “What?” He sounded both frustrated and concerned. “What do you need to do alone? What is it you aren’t telling me?”

  “Julian, don’t—”

  “Don’t tell me not to worry about it, because I already saw it happening. And don’t tell me that it’s ‘something you have to do alone,’ because you’re one of my best friends in the world, Rae, and I love you like family. Whatever it is, we’re in it together. So just tell me.”

  Sitting in a library halfway around the world, Rae drummed her fingers nervously on the table and tried to decide what to do.

  Julian wasn’t the problem. She would trust Julian with anything—even her life. She could trust him with this. Except…

  This was exactly the sort of thing she decided she wasn’t going to do.

  Her fight. Her problem. Her answers. Right? No need to go dragging all her friends into it?

  “Rae. Stop trying to complicate things with your damn over-analysis and just tell me,” he interrupted her muddled train of thought. “I’ll end up seeing it anyway, so you might as well just let me know.”

  “Okay, fine,” she surrendered, unable to combat the obvious logic in his threat. “But Julian, there’s one condition. And this is something you have to swear to stick to no matter what…”

  “Okay,” he sounded uneasy, “what is it?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You absolutely cannot tell Devon.”

  Chapter 4

  Julian stood waiting for Rae at the airport the next afternoon, nervous and tense. He wore a jacket with the collar flipped up, and heavily-tinted sunglasses that still didn’t quite hide the fact that his eyes were darting anxiously around the terminal. At first, Rae figured he was worried he might have an unexpected vision. It took her only a second to realize she was seeing five years of psychic neurosis coming into play.

  “Very slick,” she complimented as she came to a stop in front of him, striking a sarcastic pose. “And just who may I ask do you think would be following you?”

  “What are you talking about?” He fidgeted guiltily. “I’m not…No, this isn’t—”

  “You’ve just taken to impersonating the KGB for fun?”

  He took off his glasses so she could see his scowl. “Cute. Come on; let’s just get your bags so we can get out of here.” Without another word, he began crossing the terminal in strides so long she struggled to keep pace with him without slipping into a tatù.

  Ironically it reminded Rae of her return to Guilder after her first summer away. She’d been following Devon then. She pushed the thought aside. “Seriously, what is with you?” she asked with a grin, tugging on his coat to get him to slow his crazy pace.

  “Nothing, I just…” His eyes tightened. “I just don’t like sneaking around like this behind Devon’s back. I don’t like lying to him.”

  Rae bowed her head and hastened to check her emotions. She didn’t like it any more than he did, but there were good reasons they were keeping Devon in the dark. “What did you tell him?” she asked quietly.

  Julian’s shoulders fell in a quick sigh. “I told him I was going rock climbing.”

  There was a pause. Then Rae burst into laughter.

  A family parted curiously around them as she struggled to get herself under control. Under the circumstances, it was rather hard to do.

  The furious look on Julian’s face wasn’t helping much.

  “Well,” she finally gasped, “you can take comfort in the fact that you barely lied to him at all. That is, without a doubt, the worst lie I’ve ever heard. It scarcely counts.”

  Julian’s dark eyes narrowed. “You try coming up with something then.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, how about, ‘I’m going to see my girlfriend.’ Or something around those lines?”

  A look of awed simplicity washed over his face, though he was quick to hide it under a mask of impatience. “Let’s just go.” He tugged her arm and rushed her along. “I’m double-parked.”

  She allowed herself to be towed to the car, all the while muttering a constant stream of easy substitutes to his pathetic attempt at trickery.

  “…going out to lunch…heading to the gym to work out…going to see a movie…”

  “Shut up.”

  “…going to re-read my manual on how to be a spy…”

  “SHUT UP, Kerrigan!”

  * *

  When they finally got back to their part of the city forty-five minutes later, Rae was surprised when Julian bypassed their street altogether, and instead took her to a small diner tucked away behind an industrial warehouse she had never noticed before. She got out of the car in silence and followed him in, sliding obediently into the booth. She smiled politely as the waitress set down their menus, but the second the woman was gone she looked up curiously, waiting for him to speak.

  “You’re going to have to give me a good reason.” As was his custom, Julian spoke quietly but she found herself hanging onto every word. “I know we went over it on the phone,” he continued, “but I need to hear it again. In person. Why is it that we aren’t telling anyone about this? In particular, why are we keeping it from Devon?”

  Rae bit her lip for a second as she thought about it. When she finally looked back up, she knew her face was grim. “Do you remember when Devon jumped off the cliff in Scotland?”

  Julian frowned thoughtfully. “When he flew back out?”

  Rae shook her head a fraction of an inch and stared intently into his eyes. “I’m asking if you remember when he jumped in…”

  A charged silence hung between them, then Julian bowed his head and nodded.

  Rae had been thinking about this particular problem the entire flight. There was an old saying, ‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.’ Devon and Rae might have had a fight. Might have veered off-course. Might have even technically broken up. But nothing had really changed. Nothing ever would. He had hurled his body off of a cliff for her without a second thought, knowing full well he w
ould be dashed to death against the rocks. The second that she needed help—the second her well-being was at stake—he’d made the final sacrifice; offering up every last bit of himself so that she might be safe.,

  And what was more, he would do it again in a heartbeat.

  In the tumultuous saga that was their lives, one thing remained constant: she was always getting into trouble, and he was always risking his life to save her.

  They’d made both a professional and personal career of playing with fire; only, Devon was the only one who could get burned. And as the years went by, it was getting easier and easier to see the scars.

  But not this time. This time, he would stay safe. This time, he would get away unscathed. Rae had made a vow that she would keep that promise.

  And the only way for that to happen was if he didn’t know anything was happening.

  “He’s happy,” Rae said quietly. “He’s returned to London, back working with the Privy Council, nothing terrible or life-threatening is on the horizon. He’s happy,” she repeated, as if to reaffirm it to herself. “I’m not going to take all that away because my dead father sent me a letter a decade and a half ago.”

  Julian stared at her for a long time. Long enough that the waitress delivered their coffee and disappeared back into the shadows without a trace. If it had been anyone else, it would have made Rae completely uncomfortable, but she and Julian had always been different. More natural. They could read each other without the pomp and circumstance inherent with most other people. Some days, they could read each other better than they could read themselves.

  It was for this reason that Rae found herself holding her breath—waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

  “I won’t tell him,” he said slowly, weighing each word before letting it go. “And I won’t leave you alone in this either. We’re doing it together, step by step.”

  “Jules—”

  “Do not argue with me.”

  Something about his tone silenced her and she dropped her gaze with a small nod. When she glanced back up, he was still staring at her, although there was something different now in his gaze.