Page 110 of Priest and his Anarchist

I relax a little. I know how much his pop means to Priest, but I also know how things can change off the drop of a hat in this world.

“Grandson, you’re a hard man to get a hold of these days…” Pop Hayes always has three things: a cigar, a suit,and the uncanny ability to make everyone in the room feel uncomfortable. A cloud of smoke wafts from his lips, and when he turns, my body turns to stone when his eyes land on me.

I’ve heard stories of him over time, all of which weren’t particularly great. He spent a great deal of his earlier days being the bad person in everyone’s lives. It wasn’t until Madison fell pregnant that it changed.

“Luna Nox,” Hector says around the trunk of his cigar. His voice is gritty yet languid, the damage of nicotine obvious.

He plucks the cigar from his mouth and flicks the ash off the end. “Can’t say that I’m surprised you’re here, although, it was a long time coming.”

“Good to see you, Hector.” My smile is soft, but my shoulders are pulled back and my feet are solid to the ground.

I hold his stare the entire time until he finally chuckles. “Well. They sure knew what they were doing with you, didn’t they?” His smile is tight before going back to Priest. “I need to run something past you, and you might not like it.”

The energy doesn’t loosen. Anyone else would think Priest is simply standing, but I see the instinctive stance of an animal on alert. “And he needs to be here for this?” He gestures to Bas.

Hector turns over his shoulder slightly before nudging his head toward the car. Bas retreats, but not before his eyes land on me. Seconds pass. Questions linger. It’s suffocating. Like looking back at an old photograph.

“Your bitch boy has about ten seconds to find his seat before you don’t have a bitch boy no more.” Priest’s warning is loud and clear.

Bas disappears inside the car quickly.

“I love that we’re all ignoring the fact that the soulless one suddenly cares about someone.” Stella chuckles from the front.

No. We’re not.

Priest disappears with Hector, and I continue watching in front of me as Halen’s car slides around the final bend.

Her door slams closed, and my smile falls to a frown when I see the panicked look in her eyes. She rushes past the parked Rolls, and past War—directly for me.

“Priest!” The scream that leaves her mouth is powerful enough to turn the electricity back on in this place.

I don’t know what happens next, or why the back of my neck radiates a pain that I’ve only felt once in my life, because the ground shifts from beneath me and everything goes black.

Something rocks beneath my weight, but I can’t seem to open my eyes no matter how hard I try. There’s a house…and inside that house, there’s a couch…and on that couch, there’s a boy. He has— “Her heart rate is picking up. What’d you slip her?”

“What we give all of them when it’s time, Nathanial.”

“Don’t first name me, Mother…”

Mother? He’s never spoken about his mother.

“I’ll do whatever I please because you’re getting in the way. Now, I asked you this same question all those years ago when you brought her to me fresh out of the Devil’s hands—bless Scarlet because I swear it came from her side—now.”

Pause, only drawing more attention to the throbbing in my head. Why can’t I open my eyes. “—Are you going to let me do my job, or are you going to get in the way? Because we both know that you can’t stomach what she’s about to go through. But she needs to go through it, Nathanial. There’s simply no other way for her to be out there without it. Being the wife of a King requires more than love, loyalty, and the basics. It requires a strong mind, the skill to fight, and the will to kill when needed. We know she has all but one. That one needs to be set in stone before releasing her out in the open. You know this. If it wasn’t for Bas alerting us, we wouldn’t have known.”

A hand touches the side of my head. “She reminds me of Micaela.”

Who is that? The more that time passes, tension uncoils.

“Son, she’s not her.”

“She looks like her. Tillie says it herself and it’s why she can’t stand to be around her for long.” Another long stretch of silence. Whoever this person is, I can feel it. I can feel how important she was to Nate.

“Maybe it’s a spiritual thing, son. Maybe she came back as Luna, and it’s why you feel so closely connected to her.” Tears well in my eyes because I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I love my Dads and Mom, and couldn’t have asked for better, but Nate is…that person to me. He fits against me like a big brother.

My tears tickle the sides of my eyes, and someone’s hands come to my cheeks. Not Nate’s, these are cold. Hard. When the edge of his thumb grazes the bottom of my lip, I crawl into his touch like a child does its parent.

“Prince, you know you shouldn’t be here.” The woman talks again. I recognize her voice, I didn’t know that it was Nate’s mom. I’ve seen her twice over the years, both times I’d never directly spoken with her, but she’d watched me from afar during training sessions.

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