The Chronicles of Kerrigan Prequel Series Books #1-3: Paranormal Fantasy Romance

by W. J. May

  She opened her mouth, but before she could even answer, all the adrenaline he’d been carrying around with him since Rockford came rushing out. He grabbed the sides of her face and searched her eyes with instant worry.

  “Is everything okay? Did something happen? Is it your mom? Oh shit, it’s your mom, isn’t it? What happened? Tell me everything! Just start at the beginning. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay, Beth. We’ll get through it together. We can get through anything—”

  “Whoa, there!” She pressed a finger over his lips with a wide smile. “Slow down, turbo! As much as I appreciate the show of support, nothing’s wrong. Can’t a girl just travel to London to visit her long-lost boyfriend without there being anything wrong?”

  A million different questions popped into his mind, but for a second, Simon lost himself in the word ‘boyfriend.’ Is that what they were? Was that how she thought of him? A telltale blush rose up on the tops of his cheekbones as he decided that he liked that idea. He liked it very much.

  Then he realized she had asked him a question, and he shook himself back to the present. “Sorry.” He blushed again. “I guess lately I’ve just started to—”

  “Worry much?” She silenced him with a teasing grin. A grin that faded the longer she looked at him, before finally twisting into a concerned frown. “Simon…? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Do I?” Simon shook his head with an unconcerned smile, forcing himself to be as casual as possible. “Must just be that my long-lost girlfriend just showed up at my dorm without a word of warning. Half of me never thought I’d see you again.”

  Beth’s rosy cheeks bloomed even brighter at the word girlfriend, but instead of hiding her face and keeping her emotions to herself like Simon had, she flashed him a pearly smile, watching him closely from beneath her lashes. “You caught that, did you?” Her voice sounded confident, but Simon was able to detect a hint of anxiety beneath the words. “It’s just something I’ve been trying out. Seeing how it fits.”

  The anxiety grew more pronounced the longer they both stood there, but vanished into thin air the second Simon took her back into his arms. “I think it fits really well.” There was a huskiness to his voice he’d never heard before. A deep booming vibration that seemed to radiate out from the center of his chest.

  How was it possible to feel so attracted to someone, and so protective of them all at the same time? Half of Simon wanted to barricade the door to prevent her from being seen by anyone outside, but the other half wanted to barricade the door for a variety of different reasons. A thought pattern which led him to the first obvious dilemma of the night.

  “Actually Beth, we’ve got to get the hell out of here,” he said with wide eyes, glancing automatically toward the door. “My roommate will be back any second.”

  “Oh, Brick?” Beth’s eyes danced as she pulled away and settled herself back on the bed. “I met him already. He came by about ten minutes ago. Nice guy.”

  Simon’s jaw dropped to the floor.

  To start, he had no idea why his block-headed roommate hadn’t immediately sounded the alarm to get Simon thrown into a life’s worth of detention. He certainly hated him enough, and since the alarm clock incident, things had been tense. There was also the fact that Simon didn’t think anyone had ever once referred to Brick as a ‘nice guy.”

  “You… Nice guy…” He couldn’t even string the words together. It was such an unlikely collision. Two worlds that were never supposed to have crossed paths. “You met Brick?!”

  Beth shrugged casually. “Yep, he was just grabbing his bag on his way to go train—whatever that means. Saw me sitting here and said that he had underestimated you.”

  Simon could barely keep up. “What does that mean?”

  Her lips turned up in a smirk. “He said that he didn’t think you were the type of guy who had the guts to smuggle a—and I’m quoting here—a hot girl up into your room. I think he was quite impressed. I should come by more often.”

  Simon shook his head in disbelief. She most certainly should. But that still begged the question. “Okay,” he sat her down slowly on the bed, turning so that their knees were touching each other, “it’s not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but what exactly are you doing here, Beth?”

  For the first time, a ripple of fear shuddered through her body. Her lovely sapphire eyes dropped down to her lap before returning tentatively to Simon. “Well actually, the thing is…”

  She trailed off, unable to speak anymore.

  Simon’s heart seized in his chest as he reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrists. Her pulse was racing! Of course something was wrong! How the hell had he let her distract him from it?! “Love,” he murmured softly, still amazed at how easily the term of endearment rolled off his tongue, “whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  She bit her lip and shook her head, keeping her eyes locked on the floor. “Not this.”

  The weakness in her voice scared him, and he redoubled his efforts. “Yes, this. You can tell me anything! Beth, please.”

  Her skin paled as she lifted her eyes slowly to his. “The thing is…my dad found my stash of your letters.”

  Simon’s head jerked unconsciously to the side. “…What?”

  “He found your letters, and he’s on his way here now.”

  Simon didn’t know when he got to his feet. He didn’t realize he had until he was already standing. His eyes drifted to the door, and for a second he considered pushing his desk in front.

  Beth got to her feet tentatively beside him. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I confessed the whole thing. Told him that we were madly in love. That we wanted to get married, and that I’d be moving to London permanently.”

  Simon started nodding automatically, before some of her words began to sink in. Wait…what?

  Beth shook her head helplessly at the floor. “It wasn’t until I told him about the baby that he picked up his rifle and headed out the door.”

  Picked up his…?

  “Why, you little—”

  With a burst of speed that was perhaps slightly too fast to be believable, Simon tackled her carefully to the floor. Strong as she was, she crumbled under the weight of his unrelenting arms with a little shriek and a fit of giggles. He tickled her for a minute, ignoring her breathless cries, before the two of them finally quieted and simply lay there on the floor—staring into each other’s eyes.

  It was an abruptly strange situation. Simon had thought about Beth many times since their magical Christmas together. Many more times than he could even count. Needless to say, he had imagined this moment—a moment when the two of them might be close like this.

  He just…hadn’t imagined it happening right here in his dorm.

  Beth read the micro-changes in his expression like an open book, and slowly pushed upright so they were both sitting. “Simon?” she asked softly, gazing worriedly into his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

  His breath caught in his chest but he forced another smile, lowering his eyes to the floor so he wouldn’t have to look at her when he lied. “The matter? How could anything be the matter? You’re here now. I’m so, so happy to see you, Sweetie.”

  That last part, at least, was true.

  “I’m happy to be here,” she answered in that same quiet voice. “When my father told me that he was going to London on business, I asked if I could tag along. You know how he falls asleep so early. I just had to wait for him to pass out before I got in a cab and gave them the numbers on the return address of all Argyle’s letters.”

  Simon nodded silently. Happy but overwhelmed all at once.

  He knew that when he agreed to start attending a school for kids with superpowers, it implied that a certain amount of ‘surreal’ would be part of the package. But this was getting to be too much. Just today, a man had tried to kill him. He had found out that the organization to which he was hoping to pledge his service might not be as spotless as they seemed. Ju
st a few days before that, another man had tried to kill him. A few days before that, he had lost himself completely to his power and broken an innocent man’s arm.

  And now this? Taken by surprise by a girl he’d fallen head over heels in love with. Holding her hand as the two of them sat with their backs up against his dorm room bed.

  How was it possible to feel so much at once? How was he expected to handle it?

  “I’m sorry, Simon.” Beth pulled away suddenly, flushing self-consciously as she started to lower her hand. “I should have called. I feel like I’ve come at a really bad time.”

  A bad time? Yeah, she could say that. But it was a really good time, too.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said sincerely, refusing to let go of her hand. “It makes everything better when you’re here. I wish…I wish you never had to go.”

  A faint blush tinted her cheeks, and she squeezed his hand. “Yeah, me, too. Life back in Scotland is…” She trailed off as her eyes fixed on something faraway. “Well, it’s small.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips, and she smiled quickly to cover it. “Really small.”

  Simon glanced around the four walls of his dorm, imagining the heavy gate that lay just beyond. Keeping them all in. Keeping everyone else out. “Yeah, well…sometimes this place feels really small, too.”

  Beth’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “This place? Simon, this place is like a palace. And just an hour outside London. If I went to school here…” She shook her head slowly back and forth before flashing him a mischievous grin. “What do I have to do to be labeled as a wayward boy?”

  Simon chuckled. A school for wayward boys. He forgot that’s what she’d been told. “Can’t tell you,” he teased. “Trade secrets.”

  “You and my brother have too many secrets,” she mumbled. Then she smiled. “But I’m sure I could think of a way to coax them out of you…”

  Before Simon knew what was happening, she slid onto his lap. The casualness of the movement surprised him and his breathing hitched automatically as his dilated eyes fastened onto hers, waiting. Her legs wrapped around his waist, anchoring him down, but instead of leaning in for a kiss, as Simon had hoped, she began tickling him just as mercilessly as he’d done himself.

  “Beth—no!” he gasped silently, face screwing up into a smile as he shifted around desperately beneath her. “Come on!”

  Although it would have been easy for him to force her off using his warlock, it wasn’t exactly like he could just flaunt the ink in front of her. So he had to sit there and take it, holding in his laughter with everything he had. “Come on,” he panted, latching his hands around her waist. “Please!”

  “Not until you surrender,” she vowed.

  Her fingers scrambled around his sides as he cast a quick glance up at the ceiling. He knew for a fact that there were at least two boys on this floor who possessed super-human hearing, and the last thing he needed tomorrow morning was to explain why he’d been locked in his dorm by himself, laughing hysterically.

  “I surrender!” he gasped, grinning ear to ear.

  The fingers paused. “You promise?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  She leaned back, satisfied with her victory. But Simon’s hands remained locked around her tiny waist. Their breathing quickened as his fingers tightened ever so slightly and he leaned forward.

  “Simon…”

  Her dark hair spilled across his chest as her lips hovered just inches away from his.

  “Yeah?” he whispered, stretching up to get closer.

  Her lips brushed lightly against his but then she pulled back, studying his face with that same worried frown. “What did you mean before? That this place feels really small, too?”

  Simon’s shoulders fell with the softest sigh. She knew him well. Too well.

  “Nothing.” He brushed it off quickly, bringing a tentative hand up to her cheek. “Let’s just forget about all that for now.”

  He tried to kiss her again, but she was not to be deterred.

  “Honeypot…”

  Turns out, pet names came as easily to her as they did to him.

  “…you’re not happy. I could see it the moment you came inside. Don’t shut me out here, talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “Beth,” his fingers traced the top of her jeans, “we only have a little time—”

  “Exactly, we only have a little time,” she interrupted firmly. “So why don’t you tell me what happened that’s made you suddenly feel this way? Whenever you and Argyle talked about school before, you always sounded so excited. You still did in your last letter.”

  She tilted her head coaxingly, but he dropped his eyes to his lap.

  He couldn’t explain it to her. And he didn’t want to lie. It left him with very few options.

  “I don’t want to hop in another cab and leave you here, knowing that something’s troubling you,” she warned. “Talk to me.”

  He was quiet.

  “Fine.” She held her hands out in front of her, and began causally studying her nails. “I guess I’ll just sit here and run out the clock.”

  The corners of Simon’s mouth twitched up in a grin. He’d forgotten how absurdly stubborn she was. Perhaps even more stubborn than him.

  But still…how exactly was he supposed to talk to her?

  “It’s just,” his head tilted up to the ceiling as he tried to explain, “all my life things have moved at a steady pace, you know? Slow, predictable. But since I got back to school after winter break, it’s like everything took off at a sprint. All of a sudden, I’m hurtling down this carefully laid-out path, only…for the first time, I don’t know if it’s the right path for me.” It was the first time that Simon had said it out loud. The first time he had put words to his problem. And even though Beth didn’t understand the fundamentals of what he was saying, he had to admit, that it helped to have someone listen. “Now it’s like everyone suddenly wants something from me. They want me to stand up, they want me to fall in line. They want me to trust them.” He hesitated. “But the more I learn, Beth, the further I go down this rabbit-hole…the less I do.” His eyes flashed up as his story came to a sudden finish. All at once, he was abruptly worried as to how his little outburst might have been received. “Does…does any of that make any sense?”

  Beth looked at him sympathetically, and without seeming to think about it she stroked a curl of hair away from his face. “Not really,” she admitted. “At least not what you’re saying. But what you’re feeling? I’ve felt all of those things myself before. Feeling trapped where I am, feeling as though I’ve set out down a road that’s already laid out for me. A road I’m not sure I want to follow.” Her eyes softened as she stared quietly out the window. “It’s…isolating.”

  “Isolating.” Simon lit up. “That’s exactly it.”

  The two of them were quiet for a while, each one lost to their thoughts, before Beth lifted her eyes hesitantly to his. “Simon…you said in your last letter that there was something you wanted to tell me. Something that had to be said in person…”

  It was said softly, but she was clearly dying to know. And he was clearly dying to tell her.

  But I can’t. At least…not yet.

  “Come to the spring dance with me,” he said abruptly.

  She pulled back a few inches in surprise. “What?”

  “The dance. It falls over your school’s spring break, too. Come with me. Be my date.”

  “How do you know when my school’s—”

  “Wear that dress,” he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. “The one that you were going to wear back in Scotland to the ball. The blue one that matches your eyes…”

  It was quiet for a split second, before she threw back her head with a laugh.

  “So this is your way of saying you’re not going to tell me then?”

  Simon flashed her a charming smile. “It’s my way of saying, I’m not going to tell you…yet. It’s also my way of asking you to the spring dance. Two birds with one
stone, and all that.”

  Her eyes twinkled as the tension of the previous conversation was forgotten. Beautiful curls of raven-colored hair spiraled down on either side of his face as she leaned closer with a little grin. “I’ll tell you what…”

  Their lips brushed against each other, and Simon’s eyes snapped shut.

  “…I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter 9

  Simon woke up the next morning feeling elated, but pensive as well. Beth had left not long after that last, perfect kiss—but short as the visit was, it had given him a lot to think about.

  To start…how exactly did a human girl sneak into a school like Guilder?

  Simon’s eyes flickered out the window as his mind flashed back to last night. He’d insisted on walking her to the gate, even if it meant being caught out after curfew twice in one night. She had reluctantly agreed, and the two of them walked, hand in hand, over the darkened lawns. No one saw them. They saw no one. The closer they got to the perimeter, the less it made sense. Why was no one stationed there? There had been at least one member of the security detail there every night since Simon could remember. Since the attack in the Oratory, that number had doubled. But now, on the one day that Beth had decided to surprise him, there was no one?

  She bypassed the gate and hopped the fence instead, climbing up over the ivy-covered walls and tumbling back down on the other side like it was the easiest thing in the world. Nothing shocked her. No one caught her. No magical nets dropped down from the sky.

  “See?” she’d whispered with a grin. “Piece of cake.”

  Simon had lifted his hand with a disbelieving wave, realizing that the entire operation had been exactly that.

  But Beth’s suspiciously easy entry and departure wasn’t the only thing that had Simon preoccupied the next day. Before they’d said goodbye at the gate, he’d turned to her one last time. “What do you think I should do?” he’d asked.

  He hadn’t been planning on saying anything. Quite the contrary. It was out of context, and he still hadn’t given her any details about what he was actually even talking about.