Page 43 of Priest

Oliver pressed his lips together to hold back a laugh. He peeled his eyes open and glanced over at the clock, surprised to find that it wasn’t even dinnertime yet, even though he felt as if he had been asleep for an entire day or maybe longer, rested in a way he’d never really felt before. All of the lingering aches and pains in his body were just… gone. Like the explosion and hisnear death experience hadn’t happened. He had a feeling that was thanks to Priest feeding on him, but he couldn’t say why.

He slowly stretched his arms up above his head and his toes down toward the foot of the bed and then propped himself up on his elbows to see what his Demon was up to. He found Priest on the opposite side of the bed, holding what appeared to be a sparkly, purple dildo in one hand and a rather large black butt plug in the other. A duffel bag that was overflowing with clothes sat on the bed in front of him. Oliver could tell from looking at it that it would never zip close. As he watched, Priest, seemingly unaware that Oliver was awake and he now had an audience, tried to push the plug into the side of the bag.

Just as he was about to give the same treatment to the dildo, Oliver asked, “Where are you going?”

Priest jerked his head up and stared at him for a second, eyes wide, and then he held the dildo up, shook it at him, and said in a very calm and firm voice, “This is a kidnapping.”

Oliver sat the rest of the way up and raised his brows. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

Waving his arm—and the toy—around in the air, Priest paced down to the end of the bed and back. “Oliver, do not fight me on this. It’s too dangerous for us to stay here. Anyone who’s had surveillance on you for the last few months will know that there’s a good chance you’re with me or someone else from Alpha Team. We need to relocate somewhere that’s more isolated and secure.”

Oliver was shaking his head before he even finished. “I can’t just leave. We talked about this earlier. We can work together. Iwantus to work together, but that can’t mean we just fuck off to who knows where while the rest of your team maybe gets around to rescuing Poe in a few weeks, if at all.”

Priest stopped at the end of the bed and planted his hands on his hips. Their conversation was so serious, and yet, thesight of him in his tight-as-sin jeans and open button-up shirt showcasing his carved muscles, with that sparkly, purple dildo still clutched in his hand, it was all Oliver could do not to laugh, despite how pissed off he was.

“That’s not what’s happening. Do you know where I went yesterday when you decided to just take off, even after everything that has happened?”

Oliver glanced away, guilt growing inside him even though he still felt right, and he’d found something when he was at the bookshop. He’d been able to tap into some ability of his, some latent power that had allowed him to track Poe. He was sure of it.

“No, I don’t know where you were,” he muttered sullenly and then met Priest’s gaze again. “You didn’t say where you were going in your little note that you left. You were just gone, and I decided that if no one else would find Poe, I would.”

“Oliver,” Priest said between clenched teeth. “We’re all concerned about Poe. You cannot even begin to understand the concern we have about people being kidnapped. But that doesn’t mean you can just?—”

“Wait,” Oliver interrupted, leaning forward slightly. “What do you mean,people? Who else is missing?”

Priest went to rub his hands through his hair and nearly poked out his own eye with the dildo. Seeming surprised to find it still in his hand, he tossed it aside and gestured at Oliver emphatically. “That is what I’m trying to tell you. Yesterday, I got a call. There was another attack. This time, on a law firm run by humans that were publicly supportive of supernatural rights.”

Oliver’s stomach twisted, and he thought he was going to be sick for a second. “They attacked somewhere else?” he said slowly, clarifying despite having heard Priest perfectly fine.

“Yes, little human, they attacked somewhere else. Two people are dead, and the son of one of the senior partners is missing, presumed taken.”

Oliver covered his mouth with both hands. Tears burning his eyes, he shook his head furiously. “Why are they doing this?”

Priest’s entire body sagged, and then he threw his hands out to the side. “We don’t know. Not for sure. There haven’t been any ransom demands. No one’s claimed responsibility for the attacks. No manifestos have been printed online or sent to any news outlets. Whoever these people are, they have an agenda, but they don’t want us to know what it is yet, and that’s even more terrifying than if they were screaming it from the rooftops.”

“Why?” Oliver whispered between his fingers.

“Because this is large-scale. This isn’t just one or two bad actors pissed off and striking out because they feel like humans who support supernaturals are traitors. This is a well-funded, well-organized group of people with a goal, one that they’ve probably been working toward for a lot longer than any of us could possibly imagine, and what that goal is might be bigger and more terrifying than any hypotheses we can make right now. There is too much we don’t know and very little we do know.”

Oliver swallowed and swiped at the damp skin beneath his eyes.

Priest’s face softened. “I don’t want you to be even more scared, but you need to take this seriously.”

He nodded. “I am. I have been since the beginning, but I can’t abandon Poe.”

“No one is asking you to. We’re going to go stay with a Hoard I know. One of the Dragons there, he can help you learn how to harness your abilities.”

“Really?” Oliver asked, a little skeptical. “You just happen to know a Hoard of Dragons that’s isolated and more secure who’s willing to take us inandsomeone there can help me learn about my Angel abilities?”

Priest shrugged and scrubbed at the back of his neck. “I know a lot of people.”

It took Oliver a second to realize that his sex Demon was embarrassed at the fact that he had a lot of friends, or at least a lot people he knew well enough he could ask for a favor like this and they’d give it to him immediately based on the fact a day hadn’t even passed.

“Okay,” Oliver said slowly, running all of the information through his head and trying to see a bigger picture or at least a clearer one, but there were too many holes. “While we’re off learning how I can become a better Angel or whatever—” Priest snorted but waved his hand silently, asking him to continue. “—what will the rest of your team be doing? Is there a plan?”

Priest tipped his hand back and forth in the air. “Sort of. At this point, it’s all about running down possible leads, finding a connection between you or Poe and the people in the law office, specifically the senior partner or his son, seeing if we can figure out why these two businesses and groups of people were targeted. Were you mentioned in the same article or news story, blog post, social media post? Anything like that.”

“Okay. That sounds good.” Sounded more than good. Oliver hadn’t even considered that aspect of it. Sure, he and Poe weren’t overtly vocal in their support of Supernaturals, but they also hadn’t kept it a secret, so who knew how they had ended up on the list to get targeted. “Why were we targeted first?”

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