Page 2 of Priest and his Anarchist

Her baby-soft cheeks dimple when she smiles, and her lips are so fucking perfect they almost have me slipping.

“Pure madness?”

“No!” A deep blush powders her cheeks as she draws in her bottom lip.

I pull her up and unlock the car with the key in my pocket.

“I just?—”

The way she tries to calm herself is fascinating. With each inhale, her chest swells. With each exhale, it deflates. So human. I try to lose myself on the Cupid’s bow that dips in the middle of her lips, but it’s useless. I’m hyperaware of everything around me, like the fluttering of her heart against my chest. It was a sad melody. One you’d play at a funeral.

“Would you rather I call you Lunatic?”

“Fuck you!” She chokes on a whimper. “Is what they say about you true?”

“What?” I ask, wondering if she’ll say what she’s really thinking. She probably won’t. I’ve known Luna since we were kids. Her father is part of one of the ten founding families my ancestor had chosen, but one of the ten that aren’t important. It is the three that are.

Hayes.

Malum.

Vitiosis.

They are the three who continue to run the Elite Kings Club from the vanguard without the disguise of being under anyone else. People still whisper the EKC in fear, only when it comes to the three, they don’t whisper at all.

They run.

My fingers find her chin as I force her eyes back on mine. Fuck, but they are weird. A concoction of lavender and gray, a complete mix between her mother, who has lilac, and her father, who has blue.

She looks like a fugitive who’s been exiled from another dimension.

Like Madness.

I trace her bottom lip and force her mouth open with my thumb. “Don’t like the truth, hmmm?”

Her doll-like features fly to mine, turning my blood to ice and my heart to stone. “It’s not the truth.”

She’s fucking madness. Complete and utter madness.

I shove myself away from her and open the passenger side. “Get in the fucking car.” She’s barely in when I slam it closed and round the other side.

Vaden’s voice stops me as my hand lands on my door handle.

“You sure about that?”

Keeping my back turned to him, my lip twitches. “You second-guessing me?”

Vaden is always the reasonable one of us. Having the Vitiosis bloodline, he resembles neither his cold, feared father nor his sunny, witch-like mother. He is his own self.

A poised poster child for insanity and control.

“Not second-guessing, no.” Vaden chooses his words carefully as gravel crunches beneath his boot. “But she’s Luna. She’s not disposable. She’s one of us.”

“Barely.” I am not unhinged. I remain the one always in control, yet tonight, insanity has left its mark on me.

Snowflakes drift down from above, disappearing on my warm skin. We don’t have much time. The sun will soon rise when not even your shadow can hide. “Go back to the party, Vade.”

“I’m coming.” He doesn’t wait for my answer, rushing to the passenger side and disappearing into the back seat. I wait a moment, thinking over my options. I don’t have many, especially when it comes to my best fucking friend. Even though I have two, War is a lost cause. Too obsessed with my sister to be loyal to anyone else, but Vaden is still pure. For now. Because there will be no saving him when the time comes, and the time will come.

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