Page 72 of Priest

“Then we should start at the lab and work our way out from there. But I don’t want you to push yourself beyond what you can come back from,” Priest stressed.

Knight smiled at him—a small, sad thing. But it still reached his eyes. “I know. And you’ll never know how much you and the others mean to me for how you’ve protected me. But it’s time to take my power back from them.”

Priest grinned and offered his hand again, and he felt something unfurl in his chest when his friend took it. Without hesitation.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Priest looked up from where he was feasting on Oliver’s collarbones and smiled at him, shrugging. “Not really, no. But I don’t need sleep the same way you do. This is enough for me.” He licked a stripe up Oliver’s neck, making his back arch.

It was both alien and beautiful the way he could feel Oliver’s lust rushing through him. Before, he could scent it, could taste it in the air between them, but now, it was like it was his own. They hadn’t fucked since they’d bonded, both of them emotionally and physically spent, but he had a feeling it would be different than it had been before.

“Kiss me,” Oliver whispered, turning his body toward Priest.

Their lips met, lazy and sloppy and no less fantastic than when Oliver was frantic and desperate for him. Priest felt his eyes darken, his tongue lengthen, as he tasted his beloved’s mouth. “Love you.”

Oliver pulled out of the kiss and smiled. “You like saying that, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance. Not with someone like you.” Priest raked his claws through Oliver’s hair before forcing himself to shift back fully. They didn’t have much time for this. Knight wanted to visit the lab early before whoever had been running it sent people to clear up what was left behind. They needed every bit of evidence they could gather.

Oliver hummed contently as he arched his back, then sat up and looked down at Priest. “Do you know you purr?”

Priest laughed. “Yeah.” He dragged the tips of his fingers up the inside of Oliver’s naked thigh. “I think somewhere in the long ago, Incubi came from some sort of cat shifter.”

“The purr?”

Priest nodded, then sat up and shifted enough for his eyes to change. It took extreme effort to do what he was about to do, and it usually only happened when his instincts were to protect his face. But when he heard Oliver gasp, he knew he was successful.

“You have inner eyelids?”

Priest grinned, showing a little fang. “Claws, fangs, a purr, and my eyelids are pretty solid proof.”

“Also proof that maybe I’m right about the whole societal mythos bullshit about your species,” Oliver said. “Gods, I wish my shop wasn’t blown to pieces. We had a whole library of books I hadn’t gotten to yet, and some of them were ancient history texts.”

Priest frowned. He thought blowing up the shop was a random act of violence to distract from the people who wanted to steal Poe, but maybe there was more to it. Which also meant there might be something more to blowing up the law office than suspecting the poor bastard they’d taken and killed was a vampire.

“What’s that frown?” Oliver brushed his fingers between Priest’s eyebrows.

“Nothing. Just more food for thought.” He swung his legs off the bed, then yanked Oliver to his feet and buried his face in his mate’s neck. He could feel heat radiating off the mating bite, and he licked it, feeling a surge of lust rushing into him, giving him the boost he needed.

“If you don’t stop that, we’re never going to get going,” Oliver murmured.

Priest forced himself to pull away, turning so he could grab his jeans and shirt from the top of his suitcase. He threw his clothes on, then raked fingers through his hair before turning back to Oliver, who was delicately picking through his things.

“I’ll get some coffee going and see if Knight’s ready. Meet you in the kitchen?”

Oliver waved him off, and to stop himself from pouncing and taking what he wanted, Priest made himself walk out the door. He could hear voices, slightly raised and agitated, as he made his way to the kitchen, and he found Poe standing against the counter with his arms crossed.

Knight and Azriel were across from him, both looking determined.

“We need a vote,” Poe said as soon as he locked eyes on Priest. He was definitely angry. His fangs had drawn pinpricks of blood over his lower lip. “He wants to leave me with Azriel while you all go to the lab.”

Priest raised a brow and looked at Knight and Azriel, who both nodded. “This is a bad idea, why? Because I can see you’re still healing from here.”

“I want to see where they were keeping me. I was drugged and tortured while they had me, and I was half fucking dead when your friend pulled me out,” Poe snapped. “And I’m not made of glass. I’m hurting, but I’m not going to fall apart.”

Priest turned to his friends. “He’s got a point.”

Azriel looked mildly surprised, but Knight looked outraged. “You cannot be serious.”

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