by W. J. May
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
—truth.
You’re an idiot.
She fought back a grin, imagining that his inner voice sounded just as critical as her own.
“I don’t know either.” They walked in silence for a while, then she ventured out onto a rather precarious limb. “What do you want it to be?”
His face stilled for a moment.
...I want it to be a lot more.
“I want you to be happy,” he finally answered. The next words caught in his throat for a moment before he forced them through. “I think maybe you could be happy with me.”
They had stopped walking, staring deep into each other’s eyes.
“You really mean that?” Aria whispered. “You want to actually try this for real?”
The voice vanished. He wasn’t thinking anymore. It was pure, uncensored emotion.
“Yeah, I do.” His fingers hooked around her chin, tilting her face to his. “Do you?”
The only thing she wanted to do was to answer him in that moment. The only thing she wanted to do was say yes. But, as usual, the fates had other plans.
“Well, isn’t this sweet.” The trees rustled as Alexander walked out of the darkness, withered leaves crunching beneath his feet. “I have this knack for catching all your private moments, guys.”
“Do you prowl in the shadows professionally?” Aria demanded. “Why aren’t you at the dance?”
“The dance?” Alexander echoed with false surprise. “I was heading there now, but then I thought I might want to double back to the dorms and make my offer one last time.”
“Sorry,” Jason replied as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, sounding not sorry at all, “but you’d be wasting your time. Aria’s with me.”
Not ‘she’s going to the dance with me’.
Just ‘she’s with me’.
It was a distinction both Alexander and Aria couldn’t fail to notice. His face hardened while hers flushed with a beaming smile.
“Jason Alden,” he repeated, placing a special emphasis on the last word. “Really, sweetheart, you can do better.”
Jason opened his mouth with a fiery reply, but Aria was done staying silent—the guy had pushed her last nerve. In a flash, she was standing in front of him glaring right into his eyes.
“Call me sweetheart again and I’ll break both your arms.”
His eyebrows rose as he took the slightest step back. A strange look flickered across his face, but it was hidden almost immediately by a mock-courteous smile. He gestured formally for the two of them to continue onward, watching as they vanished into the trees.
They’d almost left him behind entirely, when he called out one last time.
“That’s a lovely dress, but it’s no corset.”
Aria kept walking but Jason stopped in his tracks, glancing over his shoulder with a look that gave her chills. Alexander met his gaze, lips curved in an ugly smile.
“Are you mad I asked her to the dance? Or are you mad I’ve seen more than you?” he taunted.
Two little questions...and the whole night went off the rails.
Jason released her hand and flew back the way they’d come—ready to pound the guy into the ground using nothing but his bare fists. Only it wasn’t a man waiting for him. There was a shimmer of air, and the next second a snow-white tiger appeared beneath the trees.
Aria let out a gasp as Jason froze where he stood. There weren’t many other appropriate reactions to the sudden appearance of a tiger. A look of boyish wonder flashed across his face, replaced immediately with a look of dark understanding as the animal crouched to pounce.
“Hastings—don’t you dare!” Aria screamed, racing towards them. “It’s not funny! You can’t attack someone in your animal form—”
But Alexander and Aria had something in common.
They’d never been known to follow the rules.
With a deafening growl, the tiger leapt into the air—faster than a human could react, more savage than one teenage boy could possibly hope to withstand. Jason’s hands flew up between them before it crashed into his chest—tackling him to the ground with the force of a small truck.
He let out a broken gasp as the beast came down on top of him. Only life-saving adrenaline made his hands fly up again to catch it by the throat. Giant jaws snapped just an inch away from his face as he held the thing back with willpower alone.
“That’s enough!” Aria shrieked, leaping towards them.
But she underestimated the tiger’s reach. With retracted claws he clubbed her right in the stomach, winding her immediately and sending her flying back into the trees. She came down hard on the grass—temporarily stunned and unable to breathe.
“Arie!” Jason shouted.
Then the tiger rounded on him once more.
A sharp cry of pain echoed through the trees as it leaned its full weight on his chest, crushing whatever bones happened to be beneath its massive paws. His arms buckled against the unrelenting force of it, and the beast came even closer—it’s open jaws growling just an inch away from his face.
For most people, that would have been it. There was a good chance it would have been the end for Jason as well. But at that moment Aria let out a little whimper.
Jason’s eyes shot to the side, glowing with concern. No—not with concern. Actually glowing. She watched in amazement as the blue iced over to pure silver—as if the stars themselves had emptied into his eyes. The same ethereal glow began to halo around him—streaking his hair liquid silver, frosting over the grass wherever his body touched the ground. The air in the clearing dropped forty degrees as winter itself seemed to descend upon them, whirling like a storm in those staggering eyes.
He was as beautiful as he was terrifying. A wintery angel out for blood.
The sight of it was enough to stop even a tiger in its tracks. But when Jason lifted his hand, survival instinct kicked in and Alexander decided he didn’t want to see what would happen next.
He struck instead. And it was deadly.
With a wild growl, he struck down with a mighty paw—slashing Jason from his chin to his stomach. The glow vanished immediately, replaced with a tortured scream of pain.
Aria blinked but couldn’t make sense of it, her head was still spinning from where she’d hit it on the ground. He was lying there like nothing had happened. Same hair, same clothes. Only, his clothes had been torn down the middle. His blonde hair was streaked with blood.
The same blood that was spilling freely over the frozen blades of grass—painting the snowy portrait a shocking shade of red.
“Jason!”
She scrambled to her feet, then fell immediately where she stood. The picture lurched and her eyes closed for what felt like only a few seconds.
Only a few seconds—but when she opened them again, the whole picture had changed.
The clearing wasn’t quiet, nor was it empty. Another person had entered the arena, and from the look on his face he was out for blood.
“What the hell did you DO?!”
Without a single thought for himself, Benji sprinted forward and grabbed the tiger by the back of the head. Alexander whirled around with a blistering snarl, but before he could so much as open his jaws Benji hit him with a volt of electricity so strong he flew backwards into the trees.
When he tried to push to his feet, he was struck over the head with a log. When he tried to stand again, another blast of lightning lifted him off his feet.
Aria watched the whole thing in a kind of daze, half-wondering if she was dreaming. Then her eyes drifted to Jason and a sudden chill washed over her skin.
Jase...
Without the slightest bit of coordination she scrambled frantically across the grass, coming to a stop by his side. His eyes were open, but for a second she couldn’t even see them. She was lost in all the blood. It wasn’t until he said her name that she snapped back to the present.
“Arie...are you okay?”
She st
ared down in disbelief, eyes streaming over with tears.
“Are you serious?” she stammered. “Am...am I okay?”
“GET YOUR MOM!”
She lifted her head to see Benji still battling the tiger. Looking like some Norse god with bolts of lightning flying from his hands.
“GET YOUR MOM TO HEAL HIM!”
Of course!
Aria’s fingers scrambled to unclasp her bag and extract the phone. Only when she was holding it did she realize that there wasn’t any time. This wasn’t your average scrape. This was a tiger attack. Jason was bleeding out. There was nothing to be done to stop that.
Unless...
“Just hang on,” she whispered, placing her shaking hands above his chest. “I’m going to try something, okay? Just stay with me.”
He let out a gasp when her fingers touched the open wound, shaking his head and trying in spite of himself to push her away.
“What are you doing? Arie—”
“I’m going to heal you.” She squared her shoulders with determination, tears still streaming down her face. “I’m going to heal you, then everything will be okay.”
He coughed out a mouthful of blood, trembling all over.
“But you can’t heal,” he said weakly.
It was true. Never in her life had she been able to tap into the ink. It had taken her own mother years to learn it herself. But a strange sense of calm washed over her as she stared into his eyes. Eyes that were just as lovely blue as they’d been that brilliant silver.
Without realizing what she was doing, she leaned down and kissed him one last time—never noticing as the palms of her hands began to glow.
“Can’t heal, huh?” she whispered, touching her forehead to his. “Let’s just see about that...”
THE END
Book 3
Copyright 2020 by W.J. May
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All rights reserved.
Kith & Kin
Book 3 of the Kerrigan Kids
Copyright 2020 by W.J. May
Cover design by: Book Cover by Design
NO PART OF THIS BOOK may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Kith & Kin
IF YOU CAN'T BEAT THEM, join them...
When yet another attack leaves the students of Guilder Boarding School looking for answers, Aria decides to take matters into her own hands. Armed with a set of powers she'd vowed never to use, she follows the clues to the killer—only to find that nothing is as it seems.
The world is changing. Alliances are shifting. And the very foundations of the supernatural community are at risk. Like it or not, people are starting to take sides.
But will Aria and her friends find themselves on the right side of the fight?
Or are some sins too big to come back from?
Chapter 1
To anyone watching from the air, something incredible was happening on the secretive campus of Guilder Boarding School. Bolts of lightning ripped through the peaceful night, feral growls and roars echoed off the trees. But perhaps the most fantastical sight of all was happening a little ways off from the rest of the action. A soft golden glow, tucked away in the shadowy trees.
“Come on,” Aria whispered, bowing her head. “Please work.”
Her eyes were closed and her body was frozen in suspension, as if the ethereal light radiating from her fingers had put the world in a kind of trance. Both hands were pressing on the chest of the boy lying beneath her. The same boy whose broken kiss still lingered on her lips.
He’d passed out only a moment after, staying conscious just long enough to stare up at her with a silent goodbye. Then the pain and blood loss overtook him, leaving her alone to perform a magical miracle on the dark and wintery night.
“Just stay with me,” she whispered again, leaning over as locks of her dark hair whispered around his face. “Just keep breathing.”
Never had she been able to work the tatù until that very moment. Never had she understood that such a magic had a cost. It wasn’t possible to simply save someone’s life with a wave of one’s hands. Such a thing demanded personal sacrifice. A life to be leveraged against the one to be lost.
It consumed her completely, leaving her immune to the world around her. To the vicious fight raging on in the trees. A fight that was about to get a whole lot bigger.
“Benji!”
Lily was the first to arrive in the clearing—ironic, given that she was one of the only people involved who wasn’t in possession of a speed tatù. She raced across the lawns, her shimmering gown trailing behind her, then froze in horror at the nightmarish scene.
Two of her friends were lying on the ground, soaked in blood she could only pray wasn’t their own. Haloed in a fantastical ring of light that was—for the moment—keeping them alive.
...her other friend was fighting a tiger.
“Ben!” she screamed again, prioritizing in terms of risk.
Without a thought she went tearing towards him, ignoring his warning, looking around for something she could use to fight. Then all at once, an enormous shadow stepped in between them.
At first, she didn’t understand what she was staring at. There was something obvious and familiar about it, but her mind couldn’t force it through. She tilted her head, trying to see to the very top. Then the creature let out a deafening roar—just inches from her face.
“...that’s a bear.”
She didn’t know who she was talking to. The others were either locked in a death-match or lost in some supernatural trance. But, as she’d later realize, it was impossible to come face-to-face with such a creature without stating the obvious at least once.
She allowed herself one scream. Then she grabbed a jagged tree branch off the ground.
“Fire!” she called, lifting it high above her head.
Benji tore his eyes away from the tiger, glancing over his shoulder, before firing off a bolt of lightning with his free hand. He was already back in the fight by the time it hit the target. He didn’t see the edge of the branch burst into flames, or the girl in the ball gown swing it fiercely at the bear.
He hadn’t even had the time to check on the others, though they were no longer talking, and in his periphery they’d grown terrifyingly still. His every attention was fixed on the wild beast in front of him. The one that kept getting back to its feet, no matter how many times lightning struck.
“Just stay down!” he shouted in frustration, pushing back a tangle of damp hair and wishing like crazy he wasn’t still wearing a suit. “For shit’s sake, Alexander!”
Of course, he had no way of knowing whether it was Alexander. He’d heard some shouting and arrived at a fight already in progress. But he didn’t se
e who else it could be. And he didn’t know anyone else who wouldn’t hesitate in doling out such lethal force.
...therein lies the problem.
As the tiger sprang at him once again, he caught it mid-air with another searing volt of electricity. It wrapped around the beast’s body, twisting and writhing before it collapsed upon the ground with a high-pitched snarl. A painful shot, like all the others that had come before, but just seconds later it was scrambling back up to its feet—ready to try again.
Yes, lethal force was the problem. Benji couldn’t bring himself to use it. And as long as he pulled his punches, the beast would keep getting up. And as long as it kept getting up, it would keep jumping at him. And eventually, he would tire. His arms were already beginning to shake.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” he shouted, leaping back with a curse as the beast darted close enough to swipe at his legs. “You’re actually trying to kill us right here on the lawn?!”
The tiger couldn’t answer, but its eyes glowed with frenzied rage. The kind of rage it might have had the sense to stop otherwise, but had grown in panic beyond his control. Again and again he sprang at the boy with the lightning, growing more manic and feral with each pass.
Eventually, he had to stop. Eventually, he would tire.
“You guys?” another voice rang suddenly through the trees. This one was younger, trying to be brave but full of fear. “What’s going—”
James trailed off when he raced into the clearing, his slick formal shoes scrambling to a hasty stop. At first, he simply didn’t understand what he was seeing. Benji was fighting a tiger. Lily was fending off a bear. His sister and Jason were locked in some kind of celestial mind-meld.
And the worst part? None of them had seen what else was coming through the trees.
It’s mine, then. He ripped off his coat, swallowing hard. I’ll take care of it...
