Rae of Light: Dark Paranormal Tattoo Taboo Romance (The Chronicles of Kerrigan Book 12)

by W. J. May

  Molly nodded practically. “Every three years you’re supposed to present your wife with a new diamond. A symbol of your ongoing love. Everyone knows this.”

  Rae giggled into her hands. “I think that’s something that’s just in ‘Molly’s world,’ actually.”

  Her crimson-haired friend shook her head stubbornly. “It’s not. It’s what my dad has done for my mom their entire marriage. You should expect nothing less.”

  Julian glanced back at Luke, who was eyeing Molly with a flicker of panic on his face. “Good luck, man. You’re gonna need it.”

  “And what about you?” Luke fired back with a rueful grin. “How long after Angel sees these two getting settled down will she start putting on the pressure?”

  Julian looked up in honest surprise, as if the thought had never crossed his mind. “No, that’s not… I mean, Angel’s not like…”

  Devon and Luke chuckled, shaking their heads. “We’ll see.”

  The door opened and shut again as Angel herself slipped into the room. “Angel’s not like what?” she asked, glancing about in surprise. “Whoa—what’s going on in here? I was just hoping to surprise Julian with a little—”

  “Molly’s pregnant,” Julian interrupted her quickly. “And Rae and Devon got engaged.”

  Angel raised her eyebrows in surprise, glancing between them, but otherwise kept her composure. She and her adopted brother had not been raised for such jubilant displays of emotion.

  “Well, congratulations.” She offered each of them a smile, before adding, “You guys are all pretty damn young to be doing that, aren’t you?”

  The other four glanced down at the floor, stifling grins as Julian blushed and leaned in to murmur, “Remember what we said about thinking before we ask personal questions like that?”

  She tossed back her sheet of white hair without concern. “Well, I guess it’s done already, right? So it couldn’t matter less.” Her huge sapphire eyes flickered first to Molly’s flat stomach, and then to Rae’s ring-less finger, before narrowing in concern. “Actually…I think you guys might be missing some of the basics.”

  Molly shook her head with a smile, but Rae was suddenly serious. As was Devon.

  “Actually, you guys,” Rae began slowly, “we kind of wanted to hold off on telling everyone.”

  Angel cocked her head curiously, but Luke and Molly looked like they understood.

  “It’s not because we’re nervous or anything like that,” Rae hastened to continued, “it’s just…” her eyes flicked around the house, “it’s just with everything up in the air like it is—”

  “You want to save the news for a better time,” Luke finished quietly. The group turned to look at him and he shrugged sympathetically. “Molly and I feel the exact same way. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s going to start showing, and people are going to have to be careful around her in training, we would have done the exact same thing.”

  “As it stands, we were just waiting until after the first trimester,” Molly added. “Just to be safe.” Her eyes sparkled suddenly and she skipped across the room to Julian’s side. “After all, we wouldn’t want to spoil the news early about our little…son? Or daughter?”

  Julian’s lips parted in a smile, but he looked between her and Luke and shook his head. “Oh, there’s no way I’m getting in the middle of that. You two work it out amongst yourselves, and decide. Then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  Molly gritted her teeth together, bringing herself up to her full height—even though that still left the top of her head somewhere around his shoulder. “You’ll do as you’re told, Julian. Otherwise I can think of a few choice secrets of your own. A few embarrassing moments I’m sure you’d rather Angel never knew.” When this didn’t faze him, she added, “Or I can always just shock your broken arm…”

  As the rest of the gang joined in on the argument with passion, Angel glanced at Rae out of the corner of her eye before quietly sidling up to her. A sudden wave of nerves started stirring in the pit of Rae’s stomach. She had a pretty good idea what Angel was going to say but she didn’t, for the life of her, know how she was going to answer.

  “So,” Angel began casually, “you guys don’t want everyone to know. I get that. But the whole gang already found out…except one. Are you going to tell Gabriel?”

  Rae reluctantly met her pointed stare, incredibly relieved that the rest of them—including Devon—were far too busy pulling Molly off Julian to notice what was happening.

  “Angel…” she murmured, shaking her head, “I can’t. You know that.”

  Angel set her jaw, searching Rae’s eyes with a shrewd expression. “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “No,” Angel shook her head, “I know a few reasons that it might be. I know a few reasons that would make sense, but I want to hear which one you’re choosing. Because if you’re just drawing this out as long as you can to lead him on—”

  “Hey,” Rae cut her off sharply, “I could not have been more clear with him. From the very beginning, I’ve told him exactly the way it is. You know that.”

  “Really?” Angel was unfazed. “So…?”

  Rae sighed, tucking her long curls behind her ears. “We’re training for this big fight. A huge battle against the only man in the world who’s dangerous enough that he could actually bring us all down with devastating casualties.” The truth rose up to the surface, like a dark little cloud. “I don’t want to give Gabriel any reason to do anything stupid.”

  Angel took a step back, considering this thoughtfully.

  When she’d been quiet long enough to make Rae nervous, she hastily added, “I’m not trying to be arrogant or anything. I just know he—”

  “No, you’re right,” Angel interrupted quietly. “That was the exact right reason to give. And coincidentally, it’s the only thing you could have said to make me keep your secret.”

  Rae’s heart slowed tentatively, back to normal levels. “So…you will? You won’t tell him?”

  “I won’t tell him.” Angel raised her voice sharply. “Just until after this whole mess with Cromfield is sorted once and for all. The second it is you’d better tell him yourself.”

  “I will,” Rae promised. And she would. That had always been the plan in her head.

  “But until then, you’d better—”

  Rae put her hands on her hips. “I’ll keep rejecting his entirely inappropriate advances the way I always have, thank you very much.”

  “Good luck.” Angel shook her head with a smirk. “Boy’s got it bad.”

  “Babe,” Julian called from across the room, backing nervously away from Molly, who was advancing despite being held back by both Luke and Devon. “Do you think you could maybe freeze her without getting the baby?”

  Angel and Rae shared a faint grin, before rejoining the fray.

  No matter how crazy everything had gotten, for a second, everything was as it should be.

  At least for now…

  * * *

  Sleeping arrangements be damned. The gang slept together that night. All six of them crammed into Rae and Molly’s room. Gabriel and Kraigan had gone off scouting for tatùs together, an alliance that made everyone present more than a bit nervous, otherwise they never would have fit. They had to push both twin cots to the side of the room, and ended up sleeping in a giant blanketed pile in the middle of the floor. Like an adorable slumber party in the middle of a war zone.

  When the door creaked open early the next morning, none of them stirred. Rae heard it, but she knew the others were sleeping and she was determined to enjoy a few more minutes of half sleep. There was a series of loud throat-clearing, but still, none of them opened their eyes.

  It wasn’t until a loud voice shattered the silence that they returned to the land of the living. “Well, would you look at that. Guess the rumors turned out to be true—you guys are all sleeping together after all…”

  Rae’s eyes shot open to see six people standing
in the doorway. Six people she hadn’t seen in what felt like a very, very long time.

  “Holy hell!” She extracted herself quickly from the tangle of arms and legs, before pushing to her feet. “What’re you guys doing here?!”

  It was like a little Guilder family reunion. The one good thing about the looming threat on the horizon was that it was bringing people together. People from all over the world.

  Andy and Rob looked years older than the last time Rae had seen them. They’d been recruited by the PC before graduation and partnered up together—two shifters, an eagle and a wolf, working side by side. By the pale pallor of their skin, she was guessing they were still stationed up in Serbia, but they had little beards now. The tasteful kind of facial hair that Rae could only describe as ‘pirate.’ The kind that made the world of women see them in an entirely different light.

  Haley, a girl gifted with the ability to create torrential gusts of wind, and Rae’s Guilder days’ nemesis, looked just as bitchy as ever. Overly made-up, probably for the benefit of the men standing beside her, and clearly seething with jealousy at being left out of what she probably assumed was some kind of ill-timed orgy.

  The two girls standing beside her, Rae liked much better.

  Maria, her sweet friend. She was a tiny Hispanic telepath, whose ability had saved Rae’s life on more than one occasion. She’d voluntarily taken a step back from field work after falling victim to Simon Kerrigan’s brain-washing device, but according to files from Carter Rae remembered reading, Marie had recently returned to work in Prague. Alicia, the lovely blonde standing beside her, lived in London like the rest of them used to, working as a brilliant diagnostician at a secret PC medical facility. Actually, the last time Rae had seen her had been with Devon collapsed in between them, writhing around from the effects of a lethal serum burning through his veins. Needless to say…this timing was much better.

  That just left Riley.

  While being Rae’s least favorite school companion aside from Haley, she still had to admit she was happy to see him. He might be a shameless flirt, but she was older now and better able to handle herself. Not to mention, they could use his cheetah-like speed in the days ahead.

  “We saw the Kerrigan bat signal up in the sky, so we came,” Andy snickered, helping Devon to his feet and clapping him on the back with a one-armed hug.

  The only two people who didn’t fit in were Angel and Luke, who the gang had adopted post-graduation, and introductions were quickly made. Both Riley and Haley gawked openly at Angel—one with desire and one with automatic dislike—before Haley turned her eyes to the gorgeous Knight standing beside her.

  “So,” she smiled enticingly at Luke, “what’s your ink all about then? Why exactly are you here?”

  “He’s here for me,” Molly answered with a pointed grin, slipping her arm into Luke’s as she easily ‘out-bitched’ Haley, smile for smile.

  The not-so-silent message was delivered loud and clear, and Maria rolled her eyes with a grin as Haley melted a step back into the doorway group. “We were all away on assignment when we heard about what happened with Mallins at Guilder. Louis Keene summoned us back immediately, but by the time we got there Carter was president again, and you lot were already here.”

  “Things happened fast,” Rae admitted. “Sorry if it caused you guys any trouble.”

  “Are you kidding?” Rob interjected. “We were thrilled to have Mallins gone. Would have done it myself, if I could have gotten past that force field.”

  Devon and Julian chuckled at his honesty, but Rae was curious. Hybrid torture aside, it wasn’t like Mallins was a terrible leader. To the agents out there already in the field, his appointment shouldn’t have made that great of an impact.

  “What do you mean?” she asked curiously. “I didn’t think he—”

  “It wasn’t just Mallins who left when he got shot,” Andy interjected. “Our commanding officer disappeared on the same day. Never heard from him again.”

  Rob’s lips stretched up into a grin. “And trust me, that’s a good thing. The guy was a dick.”

  “Two of my superiors left as well,” Alicia added. “Along with five or so other agents and security guards stationed around the hospital. Just…vanished. Like they had never been there.”

  A nervous chill raised the hairs on the back of Rae’s neck. She glanced at Devon instinctively, only to find him looking as worried as her.

  “What does that mean?” she asked quietly.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment two more people burst through the door.

  Rae’s heart leapt in her chest, for two very different reasons.

  It was Kraigan and Gabriel. Back from their scouting mission.

  Gabriel’s eyes swept over the mess of indented pillows and blankets, before travelling up to Rae with a mischievous smile. “Looks like we missed out on some fun.”

  Kraigan ignored him. “Let me preface this with: I don’t really care what happens to anyone in this house come war time—just me.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Seriously, who has time for this shit?”

  Rae rolled her eyes. “Duly noted.”

  Kraigan turned to Devon, ignoring the others. “You been protecting my sister?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.”

  “What did you find, Kraigan?” Devon asked impatiently.

  Kraigan shook his head. “We’ve got a huge problem…”

  Chapter 5

  “Cromfield’s recruiting.”

  The words echoed in the suddenly silent room. Rae glanced around at the truly bizarre sight. Each of the three groups of people stood in progressive states of readiness in the order by which they’d entered. Kraigan and Gabriel—decked out head to toe in tight-fitting black spy gear. The other Guilder alumni—freshly recovered from the four corners of the world, still wearing long, wet travelling cloaks. And Rae and the gang—shivering slightly in their rumpled pajamas. Three incredibly different sets of people, and yet, it was a unifying expression that tied them all together.

  Fear.

  “He’s recruiting?” Angel repeated with a frown. Her voice was just about a whisper and yet it echoed in the room. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  And confusion.

  Angel and Gabriel locked eyes, but before either one could speak there was an audible gasp from the group of freshly arrived agents.

  “So it really is Cromfield? As in…five-hundred-year-old Cromfield?” Andy asked with wide eyes. “We kind of thought…” He trailed off and glanced around self-consciously at his friends. “I don’t know, mates. We kind of thought you guys were exaggerating.”

  “Exaggerating?” Molly tossed back her fiery hair, pulling a long cardigan protectively over the tiny camisole she wore to bed. “How exactly do you exaggerate something like that? The man’s alive or he isn’t.”

  Alicia shook her head with an incredulous frown. “Yeah, but we thought he wasn’t.”

  “That you guys picked someone so inflammatory to blame, that everyone would have to come in,” Rob explained without judgement. “Then you guys could tell us what this was really about. To be honest…” He glanced at Alicia, who took over again.

  “To be honest,” Alicia said, “we thought it was about Mallins. We thought you guys really did assassinate him to reinstate Carter.” She held up her hands to combat the preemptive wave of exclamations that followed that pronouncement. “Something that we all would have fully supported, by the way.”

  “We didn’t assassinate the President of the Privy Council,” Julian said quietly, putting the matter forever to rest. “How could you think we would do that?”

  Andy shrugged, casting a wary glance at Kraigan, who was staring him up and down with an odd look on his face. “I don’t know…you guys have made a habit of venturing off the reservation. Mallins was a bad guy, everyone knew that. We just assumed—”

  “Well, you assumed wrong,” Rae interrupted. “Cromfield really is alive. He’s a hybrid gifted
with one half sight, and one half immortality.” Her muscles locked down involuntarily, and she added through clenched teeth, “I’ve talked with him myself. Gabriel and Angel have spent most their lives under his control. Locked up and imprisoned.”

  While the group from Guilder looked up at her in alarm, Kraigan kept his eyes locked on Andy. “Why do you smell like a wet dog?” he asked rudely.

  Andy looked up in surprise, before blushing. “Oh—sorry. It’s my tatù. I—”

  “He doesn’t have to explain himself, Kraigan,” Devon cut him off sharply. “Manners.”

  Kraigan rolled his eyes but Devon held his ground, having just averted what could have been a major catastrophe. Andy’s ability to shift into a wolf was one of the more extraordinary sets of ink around. And something that no one present wanted Kraigan to ever, ever get his hands on.

  “He can’t be recruiting,” Angel said again, circling them back to the main point, her eyes still fixed questioningly on Gabriel. “That was never the plan.”

  Gabriel shrugged, looking uncharacteristically grim. “It was never in his plan for Rae to start assembling an army to fight him off. It was never in his plan to lose all three of his top lieutenants. I guess he thought he should replenish the ranks.”

  There was an odd edge to his voice. If Rae didn’t know any better, she’d swear it was a kind of jealousy. She glanced up in alarm, to see the same emotion flitting across the faces of both he and Angel.

  A second later, it was gone. But the effect it had remained long after.

  Like it or not, both Gabriel and Angel had been raised by Cromfield since they were both just children. His influence was the only thing they’d ever known. His approval was the only thing they’d ever craved. And even though they’d turned their backs on him completely—even though they’d literally fallen in love with his enemies and dedicated their lives to tearing him down—he still had a strange hold on them. A kind of invisible power, like two lost puppets that still occasionally raised their arms to phantom strings.

  “How do you know that?” Devon asked pressingly, ever the soldier. “How do you know he’s trying to get more people on his side?”