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

by W. J. May

  In the end, she texted Julian a simple Devon SOS and started walking slowly back her penthouse.

  Molly and Luke were either holed up together or out for the night. Either way the door was closed. Rae welcomed the isolation. There was truly nothing and nobody who could comfort her right now. A line had been crossed. A bridge had been broken. And while she and Devon may have been on a temporary break before, it certainly didn’t feel so temporary now.

  She sat down in the middle of her bed and stared blankly at the wall.

  It wasn’t that he had shouted something in pain and anger. That, she understood. And she would never hold him accountable for words said in distress.

  It was that everything he shouted was the truth.

  Whatever had happened to him tonight, it had stripped away some of the inhibitions and emotional barriers that had kept him quiet for so long. Like a truth serum, a flood of honesty had poured out, stripping her bare. Stripping the bond between them.

  It was over. Her heart wanted to break.

  There was a sudden rustle of paper, and she looked down in surprise to see that she had conjured a pen and notepad. The second she had, her body switched back to Julian’s tatù.

  Well…her mind may know that it was over. However, her body would need a bit more convincing.

  Indulging herself this one last time, she focused all the energy she could on seeing what was happening right now in the house across the park. Unlike Julian, she couldn’t just white out her eyes and see it in a vision. She was back where he had been when they first met at Guilder, scribbling half-formed versions of the future down with paper and ink.

  And unlike Julian, Rae most certainly did not possess a natural artistic flare.

  She looked down when she was finished, and almost laughed out loud at the parade of stick figures marching out in front of her. There was someone who looked kind of like Julian—at least he had a ponytail—and someone who looked kind of like Angel, with a sheet of long white hair. Julian was turning the car around in a sharp U-turn. She knew that, because she had also unconsciously doodled the word ‘U-turn’, and from the jagged buildings in the background, it looked like they were flying back to London.

  Well, it may have lacked Julian’s finesse but she got the general idea. In fact, a small part of her thought she may have it framed and sent to his house. He would be proud. At the very least, it would give him a much-deserved laugh.

  Reduced to a coil of raw nerves with time to kill, Rae tried again, her hand flying over the page as she tracked their progress.

  By now they were at the house. Julian was kneeling in front of the sofa, looking as terrified as Rae’s two-dimensional drawing would allow, while Angel paced in the background, holding what looked to be a phone. As for Devon…? Rae couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or passed out. His eyes were closed, that much was clear, but she wasn’t able to get much of anything else from it.

  Frustrated, she ripped off the top sheet of paper she was working on and started anew.

  This time, her hand never stopped moving as it flew across the page. She could tell that she was probably getting ink all over her comforter, but she kept up her speed—reaching out with her mind and willing herself to see more. When she finally finished, she looked down eagerly to see what she had come up with. Only…what she saw didn’t make any sense.

  Gone where her characters. Gone was the house.

  She held the paper closer to her face and squinted with a frown as she tried to decipher it. It was a rather simple drawing. A closed door with a hand reaching for the knob. In fact…she twisted it around to get a better angle…if she didn’t know any better, she would swear it was—

  “Well, this is some really talented stuff.”

  She dropped the paper on the bed and looked up to see Gabriel thumbing through her previous drawings. Her senses had become so caught up in Julian’s tatù that she hadn’t heard anyone come inside.

  “When did you get here?!” she demanded, trying to snatch them back with no success.

  “Sometime while you were trying and failing to be a psychic.” He tilted one of them to the side and cocked his head. “This—for example. It looks like Julian fell down, Devon passed out, and Angel…? My best bet is that Angel’s in the background, ordering a pizza.”

  “Give me that!” She grabbed it out of his hand and stuffed it childishly below her pillow. “It isn’t nice to sneak up on people, you know. Or didn’t your demented father-figure teach you that in the cave?”

  He sank onto the bed with a sarcastic grin. “You know why that’s funny? Because I was actually kidnapped as a child and forced to work as a slave.”

  “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.” She turned her head with a sniff. “You’re the one who came creeping in here.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a sneak attack, Rae. I knocked, then came in.”

  “Well, I was…” she glanced down helplessly at her empty pad of paper, “…distracted.”

  He smiled at her fondly. “Yes, you were.” Without another word, he stripped off his jacket and shoes and lay back against the pillows, making himself more comfortable. “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on? Or should we just skip all that and jump right into bed?”

  “I think the Privy Council did exactly what Cromfield’s been doing.” Rae hadn’t expected to say it. Especially not to Gabriel. But there it was, right out in the open. She continued on in the same inflectionless monotone. “I think they took hybrids by force and locked them away somewhere.” Her eyes grew hard as stone. “Because it’s the hybrids who are dangerous.”

  She looked back up to see Gabriel watching her impassively.

  It was the worst thing he could have done.

  He could have shaken his head, looked horrified. He could have sworn up and down that he had been there while Cromfield was doing the same thing, and then told Rae to trust him, none of the signs were matching up.

  But he did none of those things. In fact, he looked remarkably unsurprised.

  “Anyone you know in particular?” he asked.

  She lifted her head. “No, but what does that matter? It happened. It happened to a hell of a lot of people, and there are still hybrids out there on the run. Something has to be done. Someone has to be held accountable.”

  Perhaps it was the result of living in abject, nightmarish hell for so long, but no matter the circumstance Gabriel had an uncanny ability of staying bright and above it all. Even now, he was staring at her with a sparkle in his eyes. Looking almost…proud. “So what’re you going to do about it?”

  Her heart sank an inch lower in her chest, and she bowed her head in defeat. The words sealed the deal. Now, more than ever, she knew it had to be true. “What would you do?” she asked quietly, praying for some kind of inspiration.

  “Get proof. Tell Carter.”

  Her head snapped up again and she stared at him in silence. They may joke about it now, but the years growing up in the catacombs had also made him unshakably pragmatic.

  Of course! In this twisted, tangled mess of a situation—that was the obvious answer.

  Get proof. Tell Carter.

  “That’s what you would do?” she repeated, head swirling with the beginnings of a plan.

  He threw back his head with a sparkling laugh. “No. I would leave it alone. I would forget all about it, take off your clothes, and finally consummate this unholy love of ours.” He met her dumbfounded look with a cheerful shrug. “But we’ve always had different priorities.”

  She shook her head with a soft chuckle. Angel and Gabriel were some of the most deeply disturbed people she had ever met. But sometimes there was no one better to have around.

  “So you’d tell Carter?” She looked at him carefully, asking the silent question and waiting on pins and needles for his response.

  His face sobered instantly and he gazed back with a serious nod. “Yeah, I would.”

  Thank the Maker! They were on exactly the same page. There was no
way Carter could be a part of this.

  She nodded thoughtfully then flashed him a quick grin, trying to lighten the mood. “Well, given your history with the man, that’s actually rather brave of you.”

  He smiled, though his eyes remained thoughtful. “Carter may not trust me anymore, but I still trust him. I’d trust him with my life.”

  The words hung heavy in between them as both of them weighed the chilling consequence of what would happen if they were wrong.

  “With your life?” she finally joked.

  He flashed her a grin. “Well, I’d at least have some sort of a back-up plan…”

  * * *

  Gabriel left shortly after. He didn’t ask what else was bugging Rae, and she appreciated his non-prying nature. He kept her thoughts distracted from Devon. She had no idea what had happened to Devon, but whatever it was, he no longer wanted her to be a part of it. The sooner she accepted it, the better. Their last kiss… well, it must have been a sad good-bye.

  Growing up was hard. Heartbreak sucked big time.

  She didn’t sleep well that night. Although there were hundreds of new things to fret about, she kept tossing and turning with the same recurring dream…

  It was exactly as it had been before, only everything was happening much faster now.

  She was standing in the center of the Oratory floor, and Devon had just handed her a knife.

  He made his usual denials, and she called out to him as he turned and walked away. But by now, she didn’t expect him to stay. Already her eyes were on the fog at the other end of the room, waiting for her father.

  Simon Kerrigan walked slowly forward, appearing from the exact spot where Devon had vanished just seconds earlier. He was holding the same blade as she was, and she took a step back as he unsheathed it.

  But scared as she may be, she understood there was nothing to fear. At least, not from him.

  “Dad?”

  She was speeding things up this time. Trying to find the perpetrator. Trying to jump ahead to identify the man still lurking in the shadows.

  “Dad, you have to help me,” she said, deviating from the script. “He’s coming, and I don’t—”

  But just then, Simon’s eyes fixed on something behind her and she knew it was too late. “Rae—look out!”

  Her body whirled around just as the silver blade flew into her stomach. There was a muffled screaming coming from somewhere above her, but she couldn’t lift her up eyes to see. She couldn’t tear them away from the man standing in front of her—slowly lifting off his dark hood…

  “Rae!”

  Her eyes opened with a gasp and she sat up in alarm, still clutching at her stomach. Julian was sitting on the bed in front of her, gazing down with concern.

  “Geez, hon…are you okay?”

  She shook her head back and forth. She knew her eyes were as wide as saucers. “There’s a bug!”

  He raised his eyebrows but remained calm, glancing around at her tangled sheets. “There was a bug in your dream, or you saw something—?”

  “In the house, Julian!” she interrupted. “There’s a surveillance bug in our house!”

  A second later, she was a blur of color. Dressing, searching, and generally racing through the different rooms as Julian followed behind her, trying to keep up.

  “Hang on.” He lifted his hands pragmatically. “Why the hell do you think there’s a—”

  “Think about it.” She stopped dead in her tracks and whirled about, gesturing to the living room around her. “How did Mallins know I would be at your house that morning when he came to pick me up? How did he know that you and I were both heading to the library?” She continued her frantic search—overturning vases and tearing pictures off the wall. “How the hell was it that he used the exact same phrase in the afternoon that both Molly and Luke had said that morning? It makes no sense! He has to have a bug in here!”

  Julian trailed behind, but looked doubtful. “Rae, do you have any idea how difficult it is to get approval for a PC listening device? How many privacy laws it obstructs? Laws that were created by the same Council you think put one here?”

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t be that hard for the president himself to order one, would it?”

  He bit his lip and glanced nervously around. “No, I suppose not…”

  After another fruitless search, Rae came to stop in the middle of the carpet. There had to be something she could do to speed this up. Someone weapon in her arsenal she had yet to employ.

  Closing her eyes in concentration, she took a mental step back and let her body take control, giving it free rein to choose whatever would help her most.

  What it ended up choosing surprised her.

  Gabriel’s tatù?

  It buzzed—loud and eager through her skin—and she frowned as she considered it. She’d only used it once or twice before, and while the premise was clear the actual mechanics eluded her.

  In a bit of a Hail Mary, she held out her open palm and spoke in a commanding voice.

  “Come!”

  Nothing happened.

  To Julian’s credit, he wasn’t openly laughing. But he was looking at her as though worried that she may have actually lost her mind.

  “Rae, what are you—”

  “COME!”

  He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “Kerrigan, be serious. Do you honestly think there’s any chance in hell that’s going to work?”

  A tiny metallic disk flew into her outstretched hand.

  Julian’s mouth fell open as she examined it carefully. While Devon had been the one to put a similar device on Jackman White, she was fairly certain this was the same kind of thing. In fact, when she held it close enough and squinted, she could just barely make out the Council seal.

  Her lips curled up in a smirk as she tossed it Julian’s way.

  “Still think the Council wouldn’t bug our homes?”

  His face paled, but he didn’t deny it. In fact, as he crushed it between his fingers he could say only one word. “Angel.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, Julian and Rae went jogging together after all.

  Running was more like it.

  The two of them tore through the park without restraint, bolting towards his house. As great as the intrusion was, Rae didn’t see any particular time crunch to destroy it now. Why not misdirect a little? But as Julian pointed out, if Mallins was listening on the other end then he already knew they’d found one device. It was only a matter of time before he retaliated, and there was no telling what that retaliation might be…or how many people might get involved.

  They went tearing into the front room just as Angel was wandering down the stairs, still wearing a tiny pair of pajamas. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw them.

  “Hey, babe, I thought you were headed over to Rae’s house to talk about Dev—”

  Julian lifted a finger to his lips, and glanced warily around the house—as if the listening devices might just be cameras as well. When he was satisfied that no one was about to bust in the door, he turned to Rae expectantly.

  “Do it.”

  Feeling particularly grim, Rae lifted her hand as she done before and called out for the devices, latching onto any metal signature in the room she could find. No fewer than three shiny disks flew into her hand.

  The three teenagers stared down at them like one might peer at a bomb, waiting at any moment for the delayed explosion.

  Then with a burst of fury Rae rarely saw, Julian crushed them to a pulp in his fist.

  “I don’t understand…” Angel’s face was pale. “Was that—?”

  Julian turned to Rae. “Do the rest of the rooms,” he asked softly. “Please.”

  She nodded and headed up the stairs, while he turned back and began quietly explaining what was going on to Angel. There was another device in the upstairs hallway, and two more in the loft. She found a single disk lodged inside a wooden bookshelf in their shared bedroom, but for the sake of p
reserving their sanity, she kept that one to herself.

  Twice as she passed by Devon’s closed door, she considered knocking. In fact, she considered opening it up and barging on in, demanding an explanation for the previous night.

  But again reason ruled out over emotion, and she headed back downstairs. They had a much more immediate problem than a failed romance to deal with right now.

  The second he saw her Julian raced over, meeting her at the bottom of the stairs. “Did you find anything else?”

  She nodded. “Three more,” she handed them over and gave him the honors, “one in the hallway and two in the loft.”

  He crushed them mercilessly against the banister, taking a grim sort of pleasure in it before turning to her with worried eyes. “There wasn’t…you didn’t find any inside the—”

  “Just the hallway and loft,” she repeated, keeping the rest to herself.

  He nodded swiftly and held up his phone. “I texted Molly and told her to come over right away. There’s just no way we can keep this to ourselves anymore. It’s bigger than that.”

  She nodded in agreement and sank down onto the couch next to Angel. It most certainly was. Half of her was surprised the PC cavalry hadn’t busted in already. Half of her was wondering if she should be calling Carter.

  “I still don’t get it,” Angel said in a low voice. The bugs might have been officially destroyed, but the fear of them remained. “When exactly did they break in and do this? These things had to have already been in the house before you and Julian even got back from the airport.”

  “Mallins has always suspected me,” Rae shook her head with a sigh, “from the moment I broke into the PC to steal the piece of my father’s device. He never accepted the fact that I was doing it to protect them. Even when I gave it back, he’s always thought I had ulterior motives.”

  Angel nodded quietly, watching Julian pace back and forth with her wide, sapphire eyes.

  “I’m amazed he hasn’t asked me to leave yet,” she muttered. “The Council has to know by now who I am, and if there’s a chance they might be coming. I’m amazed he hasn’t told me to run for the hills.”