The Chronicles of Kerrigan Box Set Books # 1 - 6: Paranormal Fantasy Young Adult/New Adult Romance

by W. J. May

  He held her gaze for a second before lifting his hands. “I already told you, Rae, I have my best agents combing the city for Jennifer, but it’s not that simple!”

  Beth moved closer to Carter. “How’s it not that simple?”

  Rae watched her mom, but kept her eyes fixed on Carter. “It’s not that simple because…Jennifer’s basically our best agent. Was the PC’s best agent. But that doesn’t mean she’s impossible to find,” she added quickly. “Let me and Devon go back out there tonight. Trust me, we’ll find the little—”

  “Language, Miss Kerrigan!”

  A new voice interrupted their conversation, and the four of them turned around to see Devon’s father, the Dean of Guilder, pacing towards them through the hushed library.

  Dean Wardell? Great, Rae closed her eyes in a pained grimace, here comes my biggest fan.

  The headmaster’s gaze fixed automatically on Devon’s arm, still circling Rae’s shoulder, and Devon lowered it with a telltale flush. That alone should have been enough to set him off. Or perhaps the fact that Rae was dripping ash and blood all over his pristine library. But tonight, he bypassed both of them as his eyes landed on—

  “Beth Kerrigan?!” he exclaimed, not bothering to lower his voice. His mouth fell open, and before anyone could explain, he rushed forward and embraced her in a huge hug. “I can’t believe it! We all thought you were dead. I don’t…know quite what to say.”

  “Perhaps now is not the time.” Carter stepped neatly in between them, his eyes making a pointed sweep of the rest of the curious students.

  It seemed a casual enough gesture, but Rae thought that maybe there was something a little more deliberate to his move. Something a little more…possessive?

  The headmaster stepped back with a self-conscious flush to match his son’s. “Of course! My apologies, I just…can’t believe you’re here.” For one of the first times Rae could recall, he actually flashed her a warm smile. “You must be over the moon.”

  Over the moon? Really? The man made it his life’s mission to keep her and Devon apart, except if it meant rescuing his son. He did not like her. There was no hiding that. To see him attempt sympathy or joy seemed as likely as Cromfield being alive. The man probably hated her mother as much as he did her. Rae smiled tentatively in return, nodding and linking her arm through her mother’s. “You’ve no idea.”

  Then, in what had to be the worst timing in the world, a glob of bloody plaster fell from Rae’s shirt onto the ground between them.

  The headmaster’s eyes cooled as the corners of his mouth turned down. “Rae Kerrigan.” He sighed. “I suppose you’ll be resuming classes now that you’re suspended from the PC?”

  Beth’s eyes opened wide. “You got suspended? For what?!”

  Rae flashed Dean Wardell a sour look before arranging her features to be the perfect mask of innocence. “If you must know, Mother, I was suspended for breaking curfew while trying to find you.” She turned to Carter with a superior grin. “But I’m sure that doesn’t apply anymore now that you’re here. And I actually have to give a security briefing on Monday to the future Queen of England. So, if the PC could just officially reinstate me, I’ll be—”

  “Not so fast.” Carter folded his arms over his chest. “As I’m sure you recall, Miss Kerrigan, there were other…mitigating factors that led to your probation. Factors I’m sure you wouldn’t like me to go into detail upon now?”

  Rae’s eyes flickered to Devon for a fraction of a second, before she dropped her eyes to the ground respectfully. “No, sir.”

  It was bad enough that Devon’s own father had guessed the nature of their forbidden relationship without the freaking President of the Privy Council knowing as well. Although, to be perfectly honest, Rae wasn’t sure if Carter was going to say anything. The depth of the emotions Devon had shown him back at Heath Hall had been enough to make the man almost tear up and cry. Not to mention, Carter was a bit more intricately intertwined with the newly reunited Kerrigan family than he had ever let on. Maybe she and Devon were in the clear…if only for now.

  “That’s what I thought.” But beneath Carter’s frown, Rae could have sworn she saw a faint twinkle in his eyes. “And of course, I thought you might want to take some of this time to be with your mother. Not only to reconnect, but also…” His voice trailed off as his eyes darted around the crowded library once more.

  But also…to protect her.

  Rae’s throat tightened at the words he couldn’t say. Whether Cromfield being alive was believable or not, Rae knew—without a shadow of a doubt—that he was the man behind the attack on her mother. He had given Jennifer the orders to set the fire that killed her father, and he had specifically instructed that her mother be brainwashed and sent away. In other words, he had single-handedly ensured that Rae would grow up an orphan. If he planned to kill Simon Kerrigan, why hadn’t he done the same with her mother? Rae refused to consider the thought more thoroughly. It didn’t matter, and yet, Rae had been forced to be an orphan.

  Every moment she felt lost or alone… Every night when she’d stay up imagining what it would be like having her mother sing her softly to sleep… Explaining tatùs and what would happen to her… Protecting her from the fear of her father’s ability… Cromfield was responsible for every single one.

  There was no way she was going to freakin’ let him get away with it.

  “Sir,” she muttered urgently under her breath, “if you could just give me a small team to—”

  “Then it’s settled,” Carter said loudly, deliberately ignoring her. “Dean Wardell, I’m sure you can find Beth some suitable housing in the faculty quarters? And while it hardly needs to be said, I think it’s definitely best we keep this under wraps for the time being.” He gave Wardell a stare that clearly stated the importance of why.

  Devon’s father cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. It would be my pleasure.”

  “And as for you, Miss Kerrigan,” Carter turned his eyes again on Rae, “the Dean’s right. It’s time you stop taking time off for work and return to classes. Final exams are only a few months away. If you don’t pass…you don’t graduate.”

  Dean Wardell flashed her a look behind Carter’s back, and Rae could tell that would be a situation the headmaster would apparently relish. Or be horrified to have her remain another year. She couldn’t quite tell which thought crossed his mind.

  She held her ground, but lifted her eyebrows a fraction of an inch. “So, that’s the plan?” she asked with a lethal calm. “You’re…sending me back to school?”

  Carter’s lips twitched. “Indeed I am. You’re a teenager, Miss Kerrigan, and your mother just came back from the grave. It’s time you acted like a teenager. Now—off to bed. We’ll meet again in my office in the morning to discuss further plans.”

  And just like that, the unlikely group suddenly disassembled. Rae blinked in delayed shock as everyone around her silently disbursed. Carter swept back to his office as Dean Wardell led Beth up to the faculty quarters. At first, Devon lingered behind with Rae, but after getting a sharp look from his father, he headed abruptly in the opposite direction—leaving Rae alone in the library.

  “Excuse me?”

  A tentative voice pulled her back to the present and she jumped around in surprise. Then she lowered her gaze. The girl addressing her couldn’t have been more than five feet. She was significantly shorter than Molly, who was already the smallest member of their Guilder group. Her frizzy brown hair hung in little braids down her shoulders, and she was staring at Rae as if it was taking every bit of courage she had just to keep her standing upright.

  “Uh, yeah?” Rae recovered herself quickly. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  The girl extended her hand with a cautious smile. “No—I mean—not yet. I just started going here in the fall. My name’s Ellie.”

  Rae glanced between the girl’s face and her hand, before shaking her head with a sigh. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

  The g
irl faltered with a frown. “Um…yeah, I think I do. You’re Rae Kerrigan, right? I was just coming over to intro—”

  “Then you know what I can do?”

  The words came out sharper than Rae had intended, but right now, she didn’t have time to deal with the little Guilder newbies. Whether this girl was going to obsess over her, or just end up fearing her like the rest—Rae would rather she just figured it out on her own.

  Ellie’s face grew pale. “They say you…you can mimic other people’s abilities with your—”

  “Then you shouldn’t be offering me your hand, should you?” Rae cut her off curtly. “Listen honey, you need to protect your gift, okay? It’s the only one you’ve got,” her eyes flickered darkly towards where Carter had just departed, “and you never know who you can trust these days…”

  Without another word, she left the girl standing in the middle of the library and swept out the door. She felt a little stab of guilt as she crossed the lawns and headed back to Aumbry House, but honestly…how much could she be expected to deal with today? She was in no mood to play ‘spectacle’ to the green little innocents at Guilder. She had an arsonist to track down, an evil mastermind to find, and she still had to somehow squeeze in the time to get to know her long-lost mother and somehow pass the school’s notorious finals so she could graduate. Little Ellie would have to get by without her.

  By the time she got up to her bedroom at the top floor, she was seriously wishing that over the last few years she’d managed to pick up a tatù that allowed her to self-clean. Try as she did to straighten herself up a little on the way back to school, she was still covered in blood—both her own and Jennifer’s. Her clothes had been scorched and torn, and the smell of smoke was so deeply infused into her hair, she wondered if she would ever get it out.

  Maybe Molly would let her borrow that amazing conditioner she was always raving about from Switzerland. Sure, cinnamon wasn’t Rae’s favorite scent, but anything was better than—

  “AH!”

  A wave of electricity strong enough to down a small elephant shot from Rae’s hands and sizzled through the room, hitting the opposite wall with a bang. As the smoke cleared, three heads poked up from the floor behind her bed.

  “And that’s why I had us wait on the ground,” Molly said knowingly. “She startles easily.”

  Rae looked on in shock as Devon and Julian popped up beside her wearing identical grins. The acrid smell of fried metal filled her nostrils and she whirled around to her desk in fright.

  “My computer—”

  Molly skipped forward with a smile. “Don’t worry, I also grabbed your laptop. If you’re wondering, I think that scorched circuitry smell is coming from you…” She picked up a lock of Rae’s hair between two fingers and grimaced. “Please tell me that’s…paint or something.”

  “Told you—you always have somebody’s blood on you nowadays.” Devon grinned and planted a swift kiss on her cheek before pulling away and wiping his mouth discreetly.

  Rae couldn’t move. Whether it was the surprise of having three of her friends break into her room, or the fact that Devon had just kissed her so openly in public…she was having a hard time.

  “What are you…” She turned to the side and casually sniffed her hair. “What’re you guys doing here?”

  “Devon called us,” Julian replied. He was sitting in the middle of her bed like nothing had happened—like she hadn’t just lit up the room like an over-charged Taser. “I can’t believe you actually found your mom, Rae—that’s incredible!”

  “That was a good shot too,” Molly approved, sitting down beside him. “High voltage.”

  Devon took over. “They came so you could tell them what the hell’s been going on since we found Bethany…but maybe you want to…” He bit his lip and looked down.

  “Maybe you want to take a shower first,” Molly interjected cheerfully. “You look like Carrie at the prom.”

  Rae glanced in the mirror and winced at the soot and dried blood covering her entire body. No wonder Dean Wardell didn’t want her in the library. And no wonder that girl Ellie had looked so scared before. She shook her head with a sigh. Sometimes it startled her…the things she was getting used to.

  “I’ll be right back,” she mumbled. “Make yourselves at home,” she said a little louder as the boys raided her mini-fridge and Molly started automatically going through her closet.

  Rae felt no shame in swiping Molly’s prized conditioner before hopping into the shower for a rinse. An incriminating trail of black and red streamed towards the drain, but before long, it was replaced with the overwhelming scent of cinnamon. Rae basked in the steam for a moment, taking the time to gather her thoughts. So much had changed in just the last two days, she was having trouble keeping up.

  Was it even possible that her mother was sleeping just two buildings away? Was it even possible that Rae was going to wake up in a few short hours and see her again?

  She turned off the faucet and towel dried as she considered the possibilities. Maybe instead of Rae getting an apartment, Beth would buy a house and they’d both live together. Or maybe her mother would want to get as far away from London and the Privy Council as possible and insist that they both move back to France.

  Rae shuddered at the possibility as she pulled on some designer sweat pants Molly had gotten her for Christmas and a matching camisole. Her hair was silky smooth, and instead of winding it up in a messy knot—as had become her custom—she let the wet curls run loose down her back. Two minutes and one wind tatù later, it was perfectly dry.

  She couldn’t move to France, she thought as she wandered back down the hall to her room. Her entire life was here. Her school, her job. Her face flushed as she thought of the real reason she didn’t want to leave. A certain someone had done a damn good job of making her want to stay.

  The same certain someone pulled open the door a second before she reached it and swept her inside, planting a quick kiss on her lips.

  Her eyes snapped open and she glanced quickly at Julian and Molly before smacking Devon lightly on the chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she murmured between her teeth.

  “Give me a break,” he grinned, “do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

  Julian smiled. “And it’s not like it’s some big secret anymore.”

  Only Molly grimaced. “Except it’s not like that’s something I want to see every day.” She lifted her fingers up to her forehead. “I’m going to have to electro-shock therapy the image out of my brain. Devon Wardell kissing someone…”

  He laughed and threw a pillow at her as the four of them settled down in various positions around the room. “So, how about it, Rae? You up for a little story time?”

  Rae leaned back against her desk and crossed her legs in front of her. “I don’t even know where to start. The whole thing’s such a blur…” Was her mother safe now? Should she call her? It’s not like they had time to exchange cell phone numbers. What... She took a deep breath. Carter would make sure her mother was safe. She needed to let that fear go.

  “Why don’t you start from right before you and Jennifer fought?” Devon suggested.

  Julian’s eyes grew wide. “You and Jennifer fought?”

  “No,” Molly shook her head, “start from when you, Devon, and Carter took an impromptu road trip to France.”

  “Wait—what?!” Julian held up his hands to slow things down. “You’re going to have to start a lot further back than that. How about when I dropped you out of the window?”

  Rae couldn’t help but chuckle. It was as good a place as any…

  * * *

  The entire recounting took the better part of an hour—with many interruptions and loud interjections from her friends. It turned out that while she and Devon had been in the French countryside collecting her mother, both Molly and Julian had some adventures of their own. Molly was the unfortunate one who’d been left at the hospital. So, when the place had flooded with Privy C
ouncil agents, it was up to her to sell some sort of wild story in her first ever debriefing. Julian, meanwhile, had taken a sixteen-hour trip to Italy for an agency mission of his own. One which he was being far more secretive about than usual.

  “You met a girl, didn’t you?” Devon demanded with a grin.

  Julian flushed. “What? No!”

  “I know that look, man.”

  “Why? ’Cause you’ve been wearing it ever since little miss big-thing over there started Guilder?”

  “I take offense to that!” Devon countered.

  “Enough!” Molly held up her hands for peace. Then she turned to Julian with a conspiratorial wink. “So, who is she?”

  He ran his fingers back through his long hair. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about! I also don’t think I need to remind you that these missions are confidential.”

  “We’ll find out eventually,” Rae teased. “I’m sure I’ll pick up some tatù that lets me see down into your very soul.”

  Molly frowned. “Don’t you already have one like that?”

  “Oh yeah—Carter’s!” Rae brightened and stretched out her hand. “Come here, Julian!”

  He backed away so fast it was as if she had thrown a ball of fire at him. “Actually…I better call it a night. I have some early morning training then a debriefing.” He was out the door as fast as Devon on a good day. “Night guys!”

  The other three cracked up as Molly got to her feet also. “I should turn in too. I can’t believe they have us going back to classes the day after tomorrow!”

  Rae shook her head wearily. “It’s going to suck so bad. G‘Night, Molls.”

  Molly disappeared into the hall but shut the door carefully behind her, leaving Devon and Rae alone in the silence that followed. There was nothing but the suddenly deafening sound of a second-hand clock, and after a minute, Rae glanced at him a little self-consciously and stood up.

  “Hey, I’m sorry if I got you in trouble with your dad earlier. I didn’t mean to—”

  But the next second, her voice was silenced by a kiss.