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

by W. J. May

  A rush of feeling and warmth flooded back to her body as she slowly lifted her head to see what had happened.

  At first, it wasn’t exactly clear.

  Cromfield was frozen in the center of the room, one arm still stretched out in front of him as the other curled slowly in towards his chest.

  Then Rae saw Gabriel standing behind him, pointing towards him with a shaking hand.

  “Gabriel?”

  “Get Devon and your brother out of here,” he said through his teeth. Blood and sweat were dripping down his face, and the longer he kept up his arm the more it started shaking. “I can’t hold him for long.”

  Ignoring him completely, Kraigan leapt upon Cromfield at once, immediately removing every tatù as the man scrolled through, searching for any way he could to combat the power Gabriel was using over his blood.

  “No,” Rae gasped, “I’m not leaving you!”

  Devon’s pulse had grown slower and weaker, it was making her skin run cold, but of this fact she was certain: no one was getting left behind here. No one was going to die in this room.

  “You have to,” he gritted his teeth, his whole body trembling now as he struggled to keep his grip, “please.” His eyes flicked down to her ring for the briefest of moments, before returning to Cromfield. “For me.”

  A flood of tears poured down Rae’s face as she stood frozen in front of them, not knowing what to do. The second Gabriel lost his grip, Cromfield would be coming after them. There was no way to separate one from the other. And if the sedative didn’t work…

  She glanced behind her without even meaning to at Devon. If she were to take him now, there was a chance that he could make it out of this. That they could get away from Cromfield and make it to a doctor in time.

  But that would mean…

  “Rae!” Gabriel was yelling now. His blond hair fell into his eyes, matted with blood. “Get out of here! GO! I can’t—”

  Then suddenly, his strength finally gave out.

  Cromfield didn’t wait for even for a millisecond. Nor did he use any conventional tatù, not with Kraigan stripping them away at a million miles a minute. He went the classic bad guy route and pulled a gun out from his jacket pocket and fired it straight at Gabriel’s chest. No hesitation. Just a single, perfect shot.

  “NOOOO!!”

  Rae’s scream echoed in the stillness that followed.

  Except, it wasn’t Gabriel who fell noiselessly to the ground.

  It was a man who had jumped in front of him.

  Her new stepfather.

  It felt like the world had stalled to a halt. Rae could see every detail as it played before her eyes in slow motion.

  The way Carter had pushed Gabriel protectively out of the way. The stunned look on Gabriel’s face on the moment of impact. The way the bullet seemed to sharpen as it buried itself deep in Carter’s chest. The way he didn’t make a sound as he died right there on the floor.

  “NO!”

  In a daze, Rae twisted around. Along with Kraigan, and Gabriel, and even Cromfield himself. She wasn’t the one who had screamed. At least, not out loud. None of them had. It was someone else. Someone who was flying through the air on the wings of hell.

  With a tortured cry, Devon buried the knife in Cromfield’s chest. He stayed there for a moment, panting, before ripping it out with another vicious, barbaric shout.

  The entire room stood still.

  Rae looked at Cromfield. Cromfield looked at Devon. And Devon looked at the knife.

  Then, the oddest thing happened.

  With an expression of honest surprise, Cromfield collapsed to the floor as a river of blood poured from his chest. He lay there, frozen in shock, before his body relaxed ever so slightly and what little light there was drained slowly from his eyes.

  “I don’t understand,” Kraigan gasped in a tight, halting voice. “What happened?”

  All four of them stared down at the body.

  “He’s dead,” Rae said in wonder, unable to believe it was true. “He’s just…dead.”

  She and Devon locked eyes as the door to the chamber was suddenly pulled open, flooding the little space with a burst of sunlight as their people came pouring through.

  “It’s over.” Rae stared at the man who couldn’t die. Who now lay dead that their feet. “It’s really, finally, over.”

  The words were too simple, but they carried the deepest meaning that only those in the world of ink could ever understand. There was no proverb of truth. The sins of the father were not the daughter’s. The sins of the past would not overshadow the future.

  There would be hope.

  There was light.

  They all had a ray of light.

  They had a future.

  Epilogue

  In the days that followed, the world as Rae had known it suddenly ceased to be. No longer were they living under a constant shadow. No longer were they praying for a future that they thought would never come.

  The battle at the factory was a tipping point from which the world of tatùs was only just beginning to piece itself together. People were just beginning to move on.

  Yet there were some things that were gone forever.

  Some people who could never be replaced.

  Andrew Carter was buried in a family crypt on the outskirts of London. Just ten days after he’d stood on the cliffs of Scotland and said his vows. Beth exchanged a white dress for a black one, and stood silently by as she buried her second husband. Rae and Devon were by her side.

  So was Gabriel. He still hadn’t said a word about the fact that Carter had leapt forward to take the bullet meant for him. At this point, Rae didn’t think he could. Maybe someday, but not here. Not now. Instead, he went straight from the funeral back to the city, where he would proceed to sit in his flat for the better part of a month. Staring silently out the window. Barring everyone from coming inside.

  Rae would have liked to go with him. To shut herself away from the world as she gathered up her thoughts, and allowed her heart time to heal. But just as one future had ended, another one was about to begin.

  One that Rae still couldn’t believe was about to happen.

  “Are you ready for this?” Devon asked her again.

  They were sitting in an examination room at the old Privy Council hospital, tapping their feet nervously as they waited to be seen. The entire drive there, neither of them had been able to say a word, but now that the moment was upon them Devon was being uncharacteristically unsure.

  “You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to, you know.”

  Rae turned to him with a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? After all this? After all this time?”

  He’d stood and now shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “It’s just, now that it’s actually happening… I don’t know. Maybe we should wait, think it through a little.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes. “You are truly unbelievable, you know that? Now you just sit back and shut up. I’m about to get my wings clipped and make all your dreams come true.”

  As if on cue, there was a faint shuffling from outside and the door cracked open to reveal Rae’s brother. Half-brother. Glaring painfully with his arm in a sling.

  “About time you got here,” Rae teased gently. She’d been feeling uncomfortably protective of Kraigan since the showdown at the factory. Needless to say, it was a feeling she was hoping would go away pretty damn quick.

  He scoffed and locked the door carefully behind him. “What’d you expect?” He scowled. “I’m on such a cocktail of pain meds, I’m surprised I even remembered you guys were coming today.”

  “All the more reason for us to maybe wait…” Devon ventured tentatively from the corner.

  “You, be quiet,” Rae instructed. “And you, let’s get this over with.”

  Without hesitation, she stuck out her arm and rolled up her sleeve. Her skin was already tingling as the tatù rose to the surface, almost as if it was as ready to come out as s
he was for it to be gone.

  Kraigan lifted his hand, but even he looked up with a pause. “Okay. Are you sure about this?” He shook his head incredulously. “It’s a hell of a lot to give up.”

  “I’m not giving anything up.” Rae locked eyes with Devon. “I’m getting my life back.”

  Deon stepped forward and held her other hand as Kraigan grasped her wrist and removed the power in question.

  They stared into each other’s eyes the entire time.

  When he was finished, he stepped back, wiggling his fingers.

  Devon tilted his head worriedly towards her. “How do you feel?”

  Rae rolled back her shoulders, testing it out. “Uh…mortal, I think.”

  Kraigan pinched her hard on the shoulder and she jerked back with a little shriek.

  “Yep.” He sounded satisfied. “Mortal alright. Which means that I—”

  “Which means that you have no reason to ever steal anyone else’s tatù ever again,” Rae finished quickly. “Do you hear me? Unless you want to die, you keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Fine.” He pretended to pout, before his face lit up with a genuine grin. “I guess that evens out okay. After all, it’s not every day your sister gives you the gift of immortality.”

  Rae shook her head with a smile. “Half-sister.”

  Kraigan shrugged. “Semantics.” Then, with a look of extreme concentration, he closed his eyes and tilted back his head. A second later, he took off the sling. “See ya.”

  “Where are you going?” Devon called nervously, automatically wary of any show of enthusiasm.

  “I’m going to throw myself off the roof of this building…and freakin’ survive.”

  The door slammed shut behind him and Rae and Devon turned to each other with a sigh.

  “Years from now, we’re going to regret this day,” he said sadly.

  She grinned. “You mean…years from now, when I’m years older?”

  His eyes twinkled for a second. “We’d better not have just created another Cromfield.”

  “Nah,” Rae waved her hand dismissively, “this one’s actually got a heart. He pretends he doesn’t, but we both know he does.”

  Devon smiled before he took her seriously by the hands. “You’re being honest?” he asked carefully. “You feel okay about this?”

  She silenced him with a kiss. “We’re finally getting what we always wanted,” she murmured.

  He grinned and pulled her back in for another. “And what’s that?”

  Her heart leapt in her chest as she tried out the words for the first time. “A chance.”

  It had taken them a while to figure out what had happened. After all, Kraigan had been swapping out so many tatùs at the time, he couldn’t remember which one he’d had at the moment of Cromfield’s death. When he finally pieced together that it was a healing tatù, it didn’t take long for the rest of the story to make sense.

  Cromfield wasn’t immortal. Any more than Rae.

  What they’d believed to be immortality was actually perpetual cell regeneration. The same thing that allowed them to heal almost instantaneously also protected them from the ravages of time. Useful, sure. But the second the tatù was removed…

  Rae had called Kraigan the moment she’d heard. She couldn’t wait to get the thing out of her. Not only did she have a man to marry and start growing old with, but she’d recently been asked to accept a very special job.

  One that had belonged to her dear, departed stepfather.

  “A chance it is.” Devon smiled and took her by the hand. “So, Madam President, are you ready to fulfil your first act of governing?”

  Rae rolled her eyes as she slipped off the examination table and followed him out into the hall. “You mean, besides the mountain of paperwork they greeted me with when I walked in?” She hadn’t been sure if it was the job she wanted. However, if Carter had taught her anything, he had shown her that change was inevitable. One might have to sacrifice everything in order to find what was right. The Privy Council needed her. She was the change that would help set things right away. It wouldn’t be easy, but then again, when had anything ever been easy for her?

  “Yeah,” he chuckled, “besides that. Like it or not, invincible or not, you’re still the strongest piece of firepower we have on the force. No pun intended.”

  “With great power comes great responsibility.”

  He rolled his eyes, but the dimple she loved appeared, and she leaned over to kiss it.

  “I promise not to use too many proverbs of truths.”

  “Then you’re okay with being the first female, the youngest, the least experienced, the first Kerrigan as President of the PC?”

  “I am.” She smiled, hoping it looked more confident then she felt. She had a fleeting thought. Devon was the one who should’ve been nominated as President. He was brilliant beyond his years.

  “Are you listening to me, Rae?”

  She blinked and shook her head slightly, having no clue what he’d said. “I am. Keep going.”

  Her glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he began walking. “Not only that, but whatever they find down there, it’s up to you what to do with it now. I really think you should be there when they open the doors.”

  “And I will be,” Rae assured him, flexing her shoulder. “Just as soon as I get an aspirin for this arm.”

  ***

  Two hours later, they were back at the factory where it had all happened. Rae’s nose burned with the smell of ash and sugar, and as she moved down the darkened corridor with a group of agents at her side, her only goal was to get this done as quickly as possible.

  In the aftermath of the fight, they had discovered a series of doors beneath the foundations of the building. Doors that didn’t show up on any set of blueprints. Since this place was a stronghold of Cromfield’s and there was no telling what he might have stashed, it was agreed that a contingency of agents would be sent in first.

  A force led by Rae Kerrigan herself, she had insisted.

  “So are we just breaking them down, or what?” she asked as they came to a stop in front of the first locked entrance.

  “Yeah,” Devon gestured to a man behind him. “Tom?”

  An iron bar appeared from nowhere and first door went crashing to the ground. Followed by the next, and the next after that.

  There was nothing inside any of them.

  Rae shot Devon a quick look, thinking resentfully of how Molly, Luke, Angel, and Julian were all enjoying a well-deserved leave of absence at their house in the city. A leave of absence that she intended to crash the moment this nonsense was complete.

  “Well…this is thrilling,” she muttered under her breath.

  Devon laughed softly as they came to the end of the hall. “Relax, turbo. We’re nearly done.”

  The man named Tom raised the bar again, but Rae held up her hand. She was here, wasn’t she? Might as well make herself useful.

  “I got it.” She took a step back and kicked the thing down as hard as she could. There was a mighty crash as it fell to the ground in an explosion of dust and grime. “There.” She wiped her hands briskly on her pants and turned back to the hall. “Now if we can just…”

  But no one was looking at her. They were all staring into the cell.

  Rae turned around slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. It took little time as Devon’s tatù kicked in to strengthen her night vision. She blinked in surprise, suddenly able to make out the outline of someone. A man.

  Venturing tentatively forward over the rubble.

  A man who wasn’t supposed to be there.

  A man she had seen many times before. She’d sworn he was dead.

  Her heart stopped cold in her chest as her mouth fell slowly open. She tried to speak and when nothing came out, she cleared her throat and tried again.

  “D-Dad?”

  THE END

  *The Chronicles of Kerrigan doesn’t end here. *

  Download CHRISTMAS
BEFORE THE MAGIC for FREE

  Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0195ZSB3I

  Preorder QUESTION THE DARKNESS

  (coming July 15, 2016)

  Join the Kerrigan family in a 6-book prequel series

  and be ready this Christmas for the Sequel to CoK.

  Will the Kerrigan family ever have a chance at happiness?

  How much can your heart take before you question the darkness?

  Preorder Book 2 - Question the Darkness

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GNLNVRS

  Prequel #1 Blurb:

  Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0195ZSB3I

  Christmas Before the Magic

  Learn how it all began … before the magic of tatùs.

  When Argyle invites his best friend, Simon Kerrigan, home for the Christmas holidays, he wants to save Simon from staying at Guilder Boarding School on his own.

  Simon comes along and doesn’t expect to find much more excitement in the tiny Scottish town where Argyle’s family lives. Until he meets Beth, Argyle’s older sister. She’s beautiful, brash and clearly interested in him.

  When her father warns him to stay away from her, Simon tries, but sometimes destiny has a hope of its own.

  The Chronicles of Kerrigan Prequel is the beginning of the story before Rae Kerrigan. This Christmas Novella is the start (but it may not be the end...)

  Prequel #2 Blurb:

  Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GNLNVRS

  Question the Darkness

  Learn how it all began … before Rae Kerrigan.

  The sins of the father are the sins of the son.

  What did Rae’s father do that put fear in people’s eyes at the name Kerrigan?

  Simon Kerrigan is a bright kid. He likes to ask questions and push adults in their way of thinking. He’s falling for a girl he’s been warned to stay away from. Tempted by forbidden love, he also must face the biggest challenge of his life: receive a tattoo on his sixteenth birthday.

  This ink is going to give him a supernatural ability unlike anyone before him. When secrets of the past begin to reveal themselves, he questions everything he’s ever known.