Last One Standing: Dark Paranormal Tattoo Taboo Romance (The Chronicles of Kerrigan Book 11) Read online

  The Commander of the Xavier Knights rescued Rae Kerrigan from the President of the Privy Council on Guilder grounds. It had certainly been a day for the history books. Shame that Rae couldn’t seem to remember any of it.

  Fodder leaned back and stared at her inquisitively. “I got a rather interesting phone call from my son. Seems there have been lot of things he’s failed to mention over the last few years. Like who exactly he’s been spending his time with. Or why—as perhaps the first favor I believe he has ever asked of me—he requested that I gather up my best men and storm the halls of Guilder.”

  Rae shrank back into the pillows as she and Devon shared a quick look.

  “You can imagine my surprise,” Fodder continued in a brisk tone, “and the natural questions that emerged.”

  To be honest, Rae couldn’t imagine. Not even a little bit. She was still stuck on the fact that Luke’s own dad was the Commander of the Xavier Knights. And then the fact that he’d kept everything they’d been doing a secret all these years?

  For Pete’s sake! Luke had gone to San Francisco on a whim to save the day. He’d been struck into a coma and had freaking brain surgery! He and Molly had been together longer than any relationship either of them had ever had before.

  And the gang teased Luke for not technically being a spy?!

  Pshh! He was better than all of them combined.

  “Yeah,” she finally answered in a small voice, “I can imagine that would be…quite a shock.”

  Fodder studied her face before continuing. “Fortunately, for all the things he may have kept from me, my son’s word is still above reproach. When Luke told me it was life or death, I took a contingent of guards and headed straight for Guilder. I arrived just as Mr. Wardell was…well, let’s say I arrived just in time.”

  Devon’s lips pulled up in a humorless smile. “Actually, I would have preferred you were a minute or so early.”

  Fodder ignored this and turned back to Rae. “I understand that you’ve been through an unspeakable trauma, Miss Kerrigan, and I don’t want to push you any further. When you’ve gotten your strength up, you and I can talk about what comes next. In the meantime, I suggest you rest. You and your friends are in good hands.”

  With that, he flashed a polite smile and left the room. Devon’s eyes followed after him, before returning with concern to Rae. But Rae was still stewing in his departing words.

  …you and I can talk about what comes next…

  What did come next? They were a bunch of disbanded PC agents who had somehow washed up in a stronghold of the Xavier Knights. Luke’s father or not, she wasn’t exactly sure their circumstances had improved much. At any rate, she had no idea what that particular discussion would entail.

  Then, just as she was thinking it over, her brain suddenly awakened to a far greater problem. “Devon!” she gasped, horrified the drugs had stopped her from putting it together sooner, “what happened to everyone else? Where’s Molly?! Where’re Gabriel and Angel?! Where’s Julian?!” She tried to throw her legs over the side of the bed, but pulled back with a stifled scream.

  Not once in her entire life had she felt such pain. It was blinding. Mind-numbing. Literally debilitating. She hardly even noticed as Devon swept her off her feet and laid her gently on the mattress. She was shaking so hard, she hardly even noticed when he reached across her and pressed the button to increase her flow of drugs. It wasn’t until the fresh wave of morphine was coursing through her system that her head cleared enough for her to remember to breathe.

  “So…” she finally panted, gripping Devon’s wrist like her life depended on it, “this is what recovery is like, huh? All this time, I thought you guys were just being wimps.”

  “Please don’t joke when you’re like this.” His face tightened in pain every bit as real as hers as he held tight to her trembling hands. “I can’t take it…”

  Her head bowed to her chest as she pulled in a steadying breath. When she looked back up, there were pre-emptive tears in her eyes. “Devon, tell me they’re all okay.”

  He bit his lip. The same thing she did when she was hiding something.

  “Molly and Julian are already up,” he said quickly. “Both had concussions, and Jules broke his arm and his nose, but whatever drugs they gave to sedate them wore off a couple hours ago.”

  Half of Rae’s heart leapt for joy, the other half was still frozen in fear. “And…Gabriel? Angel?”

  It came back to her in bits and pieces. Flashes from the fight. Angel had been knocked to the ground with a force great enough to dent a car. Rae still remembered the torrents of crimson blood running through her white hair. How could she have come back from that?

  And Gabriel…?

  Her throat tightened and a dozen tears slipped down her cheeks. The bullet Gabriel had taken had been meant for her. He had leapt in between her and a gunman as she’d run to the Oratory. She flinched as she remembered the moment of impact. Right in his chest. Right in his heart, for all she knew. The shot meant for her…

  “Angel is…” Devon stopped short, and tried to collect himself. “She’s stable, right now. I mean, that’s what the doctors all say. They don’t know if…”

  Rae squeezed his hand and forced him to look at her. “Just tell me.”

  He bowed his head and nodded. “Rae, they don’t know if either one of them is ever going to wake up. With Angel, they’re calling it blunt-force trauma. Any more force and it would have killed her for sure. As it stands, either she wakes or she doesn’t.”

  Rae’s head nodded quickly. Or maybe she was just shaking that hard. “And Gabriel?”

  “The bullet missed his heart by four centimeters. They went in and repaired everything they could, but…” He sighed. “…but he basically bled out at the scene. If he wakes, they’re not sure what kind of shape he’s going to be in. If there will be brain damage. Whether or not he’ll know his own name. And that’s if he wakes.”

  Because he came with me. Because I called him.

  The bright, sunlit walls of the makeshift hospital felt like they were closing in. There was a pounding in Rae’s head she was finding impossible to ignore. Something she doubted had anything at all to do with her incision.

  “Hey,” Devon said sharply, causing Rae to shoot her gaze up to him, “I know that look. And I’m not going to have it. Not even for an instant, do you hear me? Angel and Gabriel are adults. They went there of their own volition for something they believed in. This was the price they paid for the risk they took. It has nothing to do with you. Molly and Julian are the same way.”

  Another stream of tears poured down Rae’s cheeks and she pulled in a painful breath. “You wouldn’t say that if our positions were reversed. You would see where the blame should—”

  “It cheapens it, d’you hear me?” Gone was the gentle, accommodating Devon who’d rushed to get her water and held her hand. The man before her was as unshakable and determined as they come. “It cheapens what they did and what they sacrificed if you try to put it on yourself. I’m not going to let you do that. It’s not your blame. And it’s not your right.”

  She felt like he’d slapped her in the face. But it wasn’t cruel or harsh. It was like he’d slapped her awake. He was right, she realized. Just like usual, Devon was right.

  She nodded hastily and he regarded her with a critical eye.

  “Do you understand?” he demanded. “Say you understand.”

  “I understand.”

  He leaned back, looking satisfied. A second later, he slipped his hand into hers once more.

  Her eyes lingered on their intertwined fingers for a long time as the new wave of drugs quickly took hold. Her eyelids were becoming impossible to keep open, and if it wasn’t for a sudden explosion down the hall, she might have fallen fast asleep.

  “What was that?” she gasped, clutching her stomach in pain as she tried to sit up.

  Devon was on his feet at once, angling himself automatically between the door and her bed.

>   “I don’t know,” he answered, on high alert. “Maybe the PC is retaliating. Maybe the—”

  “WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?!”

  There was another crash, this one was louder than before.

  “YOU WANT TO END UP A BRISKET LIKE YOUR FRIEND?! YOU TELL ME WHERE THE HELL MY DAUGHTER IS RIGHT NOW!”

  Devon slowly relaxed his posture with the hint of a smile. “You know, your mom really knows how to make an entrance.”

  “Yep.” Rae sank back into the pillows with an apologetic grimace. “This is going to go a long way towards solidifying our new tentative relationship with the Knights…”

  There was a deafening bang outside the infirmary door, followed by a flash of blue light.

  “OVERREACTING?! LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, HONEY, YOU HAVEN’T SEEN OVER-REACTING! NOW, IF YOU DON’T STEP AWAY FROM THAT DOOR, I’M GOING TO—”

  “Mom?” Rae called tentatively.

  The shouting stopped at once, and, rather anti-climactically, the door creaked open to reveal a tear-stained Beth. The second she saw her daughter, she was beside the hospital cot in a flash, weeping openly as she fussed and questioned and prodded, and generally did whatever it was mothers were supposed to do in this situation.

  Rae soaked in all the attention a little smugly—sniffing all the while for fire-damage—until Carter filed quietly inside as well. Their eyes locked and Rae’s jaw fell open in amazement.

  It was one thing for her mother to be here. Her mother no longer worked for the Council and was, well, her mother. But Carter? The President of the Privy Council in the den of the Xavier Knights?! How the hell did that work?!

  “What are you doing here?” she breathed over her mother’s head. She was still too weak to pull in a full breath, and Beth’s frantic hovering wasn’t helping.

  Devon turned around, and even Beth pulled back to stare at Carter.

  He was standing with his hands stuck deep in his pockets, looking like he hardly knew the answer himself. Things were moving here at the speed of light, and in the end it was Beth who answered Rae’s question.

  “Julian called him, too. But just like Devon, he got there too late.”

  Carter had been there?

  Rae shook her head weakly. “I’m sorry, I don’t…I don’t remember.”

  “That’s okay, honey.” Beth knelt by the side of the bed and took the hand that Devon wasn’t currently holding. “All that matters is you’re safe now.” She closed her eyes and repeated it again, almost to herself. “You’re safe.”

  But Rae couldn’t understand it. By her side, Devon wasn’t having any more luck.

  “But…how is it that they’re allowing you here?” he asked quietly, giving Carter a curious stare. “I don’t even know why they’re letting me, and you’re the—”

  “Well, I may not have arrived in time to help you and your friends,” Carter cut him off suddenly, “but I did arrive in time to be permanently disavowed from the Privy Council.”

  Rae and Devon flashed twin looks of shock.

  “What the hell for?!”

  Carter flashed Rae a small smile.

  “For trying to kill Victor Mallins.”

  Chapter 2

  Rae slept in the hospital wing that night. Or at least, she was supposed to sleep.

  A little earlier that day, the doctor in charge had come by to take a look at her. The doctor was an incredibly efficient, though professionally cold, woman named Dr. Roscoe. The bandage on her stomach had been pulled back, and for the first time Rae was able to see the damage with her own two eyes.

  It looked like a nightmare!

  Devon and Carter were banished immediately behind the curtain, but Beth refused to budge and gazed down with an almost critical eye. Not usually one to be squeamish, even Rae found herself bracing against the mattress, watching with wide eyes as Dr. Roscoe prodded here and there, scribbling things down all the while. When she noticed the look of abject terror on the face of her patient, the doctor smiled. Not that it looked comforting in any way.

  “This is all dried blood,” she explained quietly, taking a cloth and gently wiping it away. “It makes it look worse than it is.”

  Rae watched in wonder as the grisly mess was quickly and expertly reduced to a single thin line, only a few inches long. Sealed with neat white stitches.

  Whether it was the drugs or the fact that she’d never had a long-lasting injury before, she felt almost a little let down.

  “That’s it?” She stared down at it doubtfully. How could so small a thing cause so much damage? Cause so much pain? There had to be something here they were missing.

  Beth’s eyes softened in amusement, and even the unshakable doctor offered a faint smile.

  “That’s it.” She tossed the bloody cloth onto a nearby counter and began unrolling a bundle of bandages. “Pretty incredible, huh?”

  Rae frowned. “Maybe it went all the way through to the other side or something…” She resisted the urge to feel her back for a similar wound, but refused to believe that she had been taken down by something just a little longer than her pinky. “You know,” she continued hopefully, “a through-and-through? Like a gunshot?”

  Outside the curtain, she saw the silhouette of Carter smack Devon, who hastily turned his laugh into a cough.

  Dr. Roscoe gave her a quick look before deliberately dressing and re-bandaging the wound. “Is this your first time in a hospital?”

  Rae rolled her eyes at Beth and chuckled softly. “Hardly. Over the years, I’ve probably been in a room like this almost as many times as you. But this is my first time getting treatment.”

  Roscoe looked up with a frown. “What is that supposed to mean? The PC didn’t treat you?”

  “There was no need,” Rae explained. “I have a healing tatù. Works on everything.” Her eyes flickered down to where fresh blood was leaking through the gauze. “Well, almost everything.”

  “I see.” Roscoe pursed her lips, and looked for a moment like she wanted to nick the corner of Rae’s arm just to see it for herself. But instead, she merely placed her tools in the sink and pulled back the curtain to allow the men back inside. “Well, everything looks good. The blade sliced through the muscles in your stomach—that’s why it’s so painful—but it was a clean cut. For that, you should be grateful.”

  Beth raised her eyebrows at the choice of word and Devon growled, “Grateful?”

  Roscoe ignored them. “I’m going to check on you one more time later tonight, and tomorrow morning we start your physical therapy. Alright?”

  “Physical therapy…” Rae repeated. “Like…training and stuff?” She tried to flex her stomach and pulled back with a grimace. “I mean, I guess we could start with hand-held weapons and stuff, I’m just not sure if I’ll be up for a full aerobic regimen by tomorrow—”

  “Walking, Miss Kerrigan.” Roscoe looked at her like she was nuts. “By physical therapy, I meant we’re going to help you out of bed and get you walking.” She headed out of the infirmary, shaking her head all the while. As she vanished through the door, they heard her murmur, “What the hell do they do over there at the Privy Council…?”

  Carter turned back to both Rae and Devon with a dry smile. “Do you feel like the Council pushed you kids too hard, too fast?”

  Both of them adopted instant poker faces.

  A thousand images flashed through Rae’s head. Fifteen-year-olds hurling spears at one another. Jumping off the roofs of buildings. Infiltrating the royal family. Falling off cliffs and being chased by maniacal gunmen…

  “No…” Rae shook her head with a frown.

  Beside her, Devon scoffed. “Us? Please.”

  “Hey! You heard the doctor. Everybody out,” Beth commanded. She kissed Rae on the forehead before gesturing the men to the door with a flaming hand. “Rae needs her rest.”

  Carter complied immediately, but Devon ducked beneath the smoke and doubled back to the bed for a quick kiss. Rae was stunned by the speed at which it happened. Even more
shocked that it happened at all. She was still registering it when he pulled away with a nervous smile.

  “I’ll, uh…” His eyes searched hers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rae.”

  She blinked up with a morphine-induced grin, feeling sixteen years old again. “Uh, sure…okay.”

  “Now, Wardell.”

  This time Devon hurried off behind Carter and Beth as they filed out, but tossed her a mischievous wink before the door closed.

  Rae lay there in sudden silence. Her fingers drifted up to her mouth as she remembered the feeling of his lips on hers. So familiar. And yet so…

  Weren’t they broken up? Didn’t they have good reasons for being broken up? And speaking of broken up, wouldn’t it be…

  …maybe I should conjure some ice cream.

  Okay, that last one was the morphine talking.

  In complete and utter exhaustion, Rae fell back against the pillows and closed her eyes, more than ready to let this unending day finally come to a close.

  Except…the night had other plans.

  * * *

  Six hours later, she was still awake, her blue eyes burning metaphorical holes into the ceiling. Long gone was the novelty of being trapped in a hospital bed. Long gone was any trace of self-pity she had left. Dr. Roscoe had come and gone, the sun had already begun to set, and more than anything else in the entire world Rae wanted to see her friends.

  She waited until the jingling keys of the pharmacist had faded at the other end of the hall before lifting herself slowly to a sitting position. It was just as bad as she remembered, from when she tried it the first time with Devon, and she jammed her fist in her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

  Should have done this when the morphine was still fresh in my system. Rookie mistake.

  But, in a way, Rae was grateful for the respite from the drugs, no matter how brief. She needed her mind clear. She needed to figure out what their next move was, what she was going to say in this fast-approaching meeting with Luke’s father. Most importantly, she needed to go and see Angel and Gabriel for herself.