by W. J. May
The Chronicles of Kerrigan Sequel
Precious Time
Book 6
By W.J. May
Copyright 2017 by W.J. May
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Have You Read the C.o.K Prequel Series?
A Sub-Series of the Chronicles of Kerrigan.
A prequel on how Simon Kerrigan met Beth!!
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PREQUEL –
Christmas Before the Magic
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Question the Darkness
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Into the Darkness
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Fight the Darkness
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Alone the Darkness
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Lost the Darkness
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The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Book I - Rae of Hope is FREE!
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Book Trailer:
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Book II - Dark Nebula
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Book Trailer:
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Book III - House of Cards
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Book IV - Royal Tea
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Book V - Under Fire
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Book VI - End in Sight
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Book VII – Hidden Darkness
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Book VIII – Twisted Together
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Book IX – Mark of Fate
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Book X – Strength & Power
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Book XI – Last One Standing
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Book XII – Rae of Light
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The Chronicles of Kerrigan SEQUEL
Matter of Time
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Time Piece
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Second Chance
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Glitch in Time
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Our Time
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Precious Time
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Don’t want the Chronicles of Kerrigan to be over yet?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
COMING JULY 15th
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PRECIOUS TIME - Blurb:
How much can you hide before only the truth is left?
The stage is set, the players are ready, and the battle is about to begin…
After years of fighting, Rae Kerrigan and her friends find themselves at the end of the line. Only one remaining person stands in the way of them getting everything they’d ever wanted: Peace, safety, the chance for a normal life. But in Rae’s case, that ‘normal life’ might include a little more than she bargained for.
Upon discovering she’s pregnant, Rae finds herself in the most dangerous game of cat and mouse yet. The stakes have never been higher, the risks have never been greater, and when the gang squares off against Samantha Neilson once and for all—some difficult choices will have to be made.
What will it mean to have a baby who’s not only a hybrid, but has three separate sets of ink? Should she tell Devon, knowing that the two of them are about to go into battle, and risk losing it all? Can she keep it a secret but marry him at the same time?
And as the day of judgement approaches…who can she really trust?
Contents
Have You Read the C.o.K Prequel Series?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
The Chronicles of Kerrigan SEQUEL
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
Find W.J. May
PRECIOUS TIME - Blurb:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
GABRIEL – BOOK 1 BLURB
Chapter 1
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
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TUDOR COMPARISON:
Chapter 1
‘Time is measured not by clocks, but by moments.’
“…and then I was just standing there, wondering what was going on. Wondering about this weird feeling that had come over me. At first I thought it was just the trauma of the royal wedding, but we’ve all been through trauma before. That wasn’t it. So then, I did something strange…”
Rae paused in her pacing long enough to pull in a gulping breath.
“I let all my abilities fall away. Released my hold on Jennifer’s ink and every other set. They didn’t disappear. I just made them go dormant for a moment.” She sucked in a slow breath, trying to let her heart stop ra
cing. “I just let my body decide what to do. Let it decide which tatù I needed. Made it a kind of…automatic response.” It was hard to put into words what she’d done. Since realizing she had more than one ability, she had always let her body automatically choose the ink it needed for that moment. It was an involuntary decision—like breathing. Except, this time she forced her body into the state. Her brain was wired to protect her body and let her know when things were off.
She turned her eyes to her fiancé, who was frozen in place. Watching her.
“It picked Alicia’s,” she said softly. “Not the healing power that she’s using now, but the original. How her tatù got started. As a diagnostician. It told me…” A hand slipped down to her belly, and her entire body seemed to be deciding how best to protect the little life inside her. “Devon…it told me that I’m p-pregnant.”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t even breathe.
Neither did the others.
Not a single person on the porch of the London house moved a muscle as Rae stood before them at the door. She stared at their faces. Wide-eyed and motionless. Rigid as a trio of beautiful statues, with her fiancé standing right at the front.
“I didn’t plan it,” she added hastily. “It’s certainly not something that I had in mind. I mean, you and I are supposed to get married now—not get pregnant. And I know exactly what you’re thinking: no way can we have a child with things the way they are right now. Especially after tonight.”
Her whole body tightened in anticipation, clenching her hands tightly together, as she stared up into Devon’s eyes. She was so close that she could see every fleck of gold around the irises. Every last drop of the glowing sunset as it clung to his long lashes.
“But the thing is…” her eyes searched his, gazing up imploringly,” I think—no, I know—that I really want this child. Your child. A child who would be a little of you, and a little of me. A child we could raise together. Love together. Teach how to read…” Her voice trailed off as she dropped her eyes to the ground.
She, Devon, Molly, and Julian hadn’t said much since departing the royal wedding just a few hours earlier. They had said even less on the way back from Privy Council building, after finishing what had to be one of the longest debriefings in the history of the PC. They hadn’t talked at all the entire car ride back to London, and they didn’t say a word now as they stood on the porch in bloodied ball gowns and tuxedos. She hadn’t argued at the Council table that she was the president. Bile rose at the back of her throat. She didn’t want the title.
The realization didn’t come as a shock. She wanted a maternity leave.
At this moment, however, the stage belonged to Rae. But she didn’t for the life of her know what to do with it.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is…I love you. I love you enough to want to spend the rest of my life with you. And I’m going to love this child.” A flush of fear came over her, and she ended in a quiet, faltering voice. “My only hope is that…y-you’re going to love him—or her—too.”
There was only so long she could avoid looking at him. Only so long she could avoid looking at all of them. A shiver trembled her hands as she pulled in a deep breath and lifted her eyes.
A sea of blank faces stared back at her. Blank faces and rigid bodies.
They were still standing exactly where they’d frozen when she first turned around. When she’d first thrown up her hands and made her impromptu, tear-filled confession.
The breeze picked up, and the soft hum of a car engine echoed down the street as Mrs. Ava Milton, their next-door neighbor, rounded the corner in her aging Mercedes.
Rae’s shoulders wilted as she let out a long sigh. “And that’s how I would tell you…if I ever got up the courage.”
A numbing kind of dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she took her place at the front of the line and twitched her fingers towards the sky. Her father’s tatù kicked into effect and, just like that, the thin veil of time she’d been holding back sprang free, releasing its hostages.
“—actually had the nerve to ask what I was doing there!” Molly snapped. She couldn’t know it at the time, but she’d actually started the sentence five minutes earlier. “Like he couldn’t possibly fathom what someone like me would’ve been doing on a PC mission. Someone like ME!”
Julian rubbed his eyes, looking extremely tired. It was a look he hadn’t been able to shake since the dozens of sniper dots finally vanished from his body. It was the same look of exhaustion through the interrogation, still holding as he’d dragged himself back to house from the car. “Because you’re pregnant.”
A soft gasp erupted out of Rae. She spun around, hesitating just as Julian finished his response.
“—He was probably just concerned, Molly. Your belly’s showing.”
Before Molly could retort Devon spoke up as well, reaching for his keys. “It’s true. The Privy Council has one of the highest-working mortality rates of any agency in Europe. That includes the Center for Infectious Diseases and the bomb squad. There’s a reason they don’t tend to employ women who’re expecting. Let alone send them out into the field.”
Molly put her hands on her hips, shaking back her long crimson hair. While interrogations tended to make the others guarded and stressed to the point of physical exhaustion, they revved her up. Filling her with an aggressive sort of zeal the others had learned to avoid after such debriefings. “Well, that’s just sexist and completely unacceptable,” she fired back, looking for an argument from her favorite men when, clearly, all they wanted to do was sleep. One hand slipped down to her belly, and her eyes flashed fiercely. “I’m pregnant, not handicapped! And I’ll be dammed if some high and mighty council of men tells me when I have to stop working.”
Her words rang out angrily in the crisp evening air, and when the boys merely held up their hands in a ceasefire, unwilling to engage, she turned to Rae instead. “Kerrigan, back me up here. You’re the president, after all.”
Rae jerked back to the present, trying to remember the question. She was staring at Devon, completely riveted as he searched obliviously for his keys. “I’m sorry…what?”
Molly rolled her eyes with an impatient huff. “I was saying that pregnancy is a blessing, not a curse. We can still have babies and continue on with the rest of our lives, right? It’s not like the sky is going to fall.”
Did she just…? Is she really asking…? Okay, breathe. Just breathe. Instead, Rae froze in place. White as a sheet. Unable to respond.
The others may have been slightly preoccupied with the fact that they had almost been unceremoniously executed at a royal wedding, but Rae’s thoughts were slightly more introverted than that. Ever since she’d pressed her hand against her crystalized dress, felt through the sparkling fabric to the magic getting started just beneath, she hadn’t been able to think about anything else.
My debriefing must’ve been a nightmare for Keene. Who knows what I even said?
When she got neither support nor opposition, Molly gave up and slipped under Julian’s arm, leaning sleepily against his chest. “Whatever. I’ll just continue to fight these social injustices all on my own. Like a true champion…”
Julian wrapped his arms automatically around her, resting his chin on the top of her head though his tired eyes stayed fixed on the wall. “Give ‘em hell, sweetie.”
“I think I will.”
Devon sighed inaudibly and pushed open the door. “Knock yourself out, Skye. Tomorrow, I’m with you. Tonight, I’m just looking for a bed—”
But that wasn’t meant to be.
The second the door opened, the gang was attacked all over again.
“THEY’RE HERE!” a painfully shrill voice screeched onto the landing, making Rae’s eyes blink in shock and suddenly focus right there on the spot. “ANTHONY, THEY’RE HERE! TRIS!”
The gang shrank backwards in astonishment as Commander Fodder, Beth, Tristan, Luke, and Angel came rushing out onto the porch, colliding with the gang. They att
acked like a well-intentioned swarm; grabbing onto any unbruised, undamaged bit of skin they could find to pull the others inside, slamming the door safely behind them in the process.
What the hell?!
Before Rae could say a single word, she was swept off her feet. She let out a gasp of surprise, but the others were having similar luck. Her head jerked back and forth like a rag doll as she was passed around, accosted at every turn by questions and demands and soothing hands, before ending up in the crushing embrace of her mother.
A mother who seemed entirely incapable of releasing her, despite the fact that worried little trails of smoke were spiraling up from her trembling hands.
“Mom.” She tried to make herself heard over the deafening din of voices, tapping Beth on the shoulder as she struggled to breathe. “Mom, you’re setting my coat on fire…”
It was no use. Beth was in her own world. Completely out of reach.
And from the looks of things, she wasn’t the only one.
“Dad, I’m fine.” Devon was trying to casually extract himself from his father’s grasp, but Dean Wardell was holding on just as tightly as Beth. In fact, judging by the slightly bluish tint to his son’s lips, it might have been even harder. “Seriously, I’m okay. You can let go.”
He might as well have saved his breath. Tristan simply closed his eyes and crushed his son against him, gripping a fist of his jacket and a fist of his hair.
Just behind him, Molly was being gently attacked by both Luke and his father. One held her tenderly in his arms, burying his face in her fiery curls, while the other looked her up and down with the practiced eye of a seasoned general, checking for any and all damages.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” the commander asked urgently, hovering in a tight circle. “I can have the Knights’ doctor here in less than an hour to check on you and the baby.”
“I’m fine, Commander Fodder. Really, it’s—” She broke off with a little gasp as Luke suddenly lifted her off the floor. He didn’t seem to notice it himself. “I…I promise.”