Page 78 of Priest and his Anarchist

“Halen, sit down,” I flatline.

Her tantrum feels like nails on a chalkboard. When she doesn’t stop, I trace the lines of the table until my eyes collide with hers, and finally, everything falls silent. Her mouth hangs open mid-argument before she lowers herself back down. It takes a lot to shut her up. The vein pulsing against her forehead further proving that.

“One.” It’s too late. I’m already locked on her and the way she squirms in her chair, she knows it. “For a Hayes, you sure as fuck forgot how to rein in those emotions. Two, you’re not gonnastart firing the blame around the room. There will be things you won’t know. There are secrets you still don’t know, and that’s how it’s going to be going forward, so if you have a problem with that?” My brows rise. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, but I warn you, whether we shared a womb or not, I will make decisions that best the society, and not your ego.” When enough time has passed for her to object, I continue. “And there isn’t going to be a wedding. She’s already mine.” The joint is back between my lips before I pass it to War.

Halen is smarter than she is a brat, and that’s saying something. As much as she has a lot of emotions, she usually directs them in a way that doesn’t implement the EKC.

She needs reminding every now and then.

“So why was she with you?” Stella asks from the other side of War, her eyes bright. She’s excited for the story, probably hoping for more blood and gore. I smirk at my cousin. “I mean, there’s always a reason, right?”

“She came to me for three years. I lashed out when Dad had told me that I had to make her my wife at the end of her training to be able to sit where I do. I wanted to punish them through those years, and her, for simply existing. For being the one thing that I couldn’t control.”

“Surprise, surprise….” Halen snickers under her breath.

I ignore her. “The night of Mom’s final gala, I put Luna up for auction.”

“Of course you did.” Stella settles into her chair as if I’m telling a bedtime story. “Who to?”

My tongue slides over my bottom lip. “Archer Thorn.”

Stella’s eyes widen, unblinking. Her head tilts a little. “Huh. Not my choice of subject but okay.” She turns her attention to Luna. “What happened there?”

Luna doesn’t answer. Bone structure framed from an ancient goddess, her dark lashes are almost too dark to frame eyes sodamn surreal. There’s not a single woman walking this earth that comes near her kind of beauty. She simply isn’t for this world.

Definitely not for someone as fucked up as me. If the Fathers and her parents didn’t forge the marriage, there’s no way I would have had a chance at ever coming near her, even if I was interested. Which I wasn’t. She merely intrigued me. She always has.

She tucks her hair behind her ear. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times that surprised me. That maybe I’d seen a smidge of something else in her. “Nothing spectacular. He set me up, allowed me to leave whenever I wanted, see who I wanted, and only checked in on me when needed.”

My eyes narrow. If she thinks she can dance her way out of her secrets this time, she has another thing coming.

“And I’m guessing the Fathers helped you with getting to Perdita to perform in your little tent once a week?”

That side I see from her every now and then bubbles to the surface when her eyes land on mine, but the alarm of the elevator door opening distracts us.

Swinging my chair around, Moose buttons up his suit and jerks his head toward the exit. Everyone gawks at the stranger in the room, but it’s Luna that lingers on him the longest. She remembers him.

Good.

“Moose is my driver.” I’ve caused enough bullshit tonight. Everyone probably should have left me to get drunk in my hole.

Vaden laughs under his breath. “That’s one way to put him.”

“—and as you all may know, his father once worked for Dad.” I turn back to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t get hold of your parents.” He adjusts his suit. “Any of them.” There’s shuffling around the table before I dismiss Mooseout of the room. His head dips between his shoulders, his eyes find Luna at the last second. He warms. “Hello, kiddo.”

Tapping on my dad’s number, the phone rings but doesn’t connect. The same thing on Mom’s.

“What is it?” Halen asks, and I look up in time to catch the lines in the middle of her brows deepen. “Priest!”

“I don’t know.” My feet carry me to the other side of the room as I wait for the elevator to light. Moose stands beside quiet, almost at my height and with shoulders as large.

“This isn’t like them to not answer.” His voice is low.

“I know,” I grumble, stepping into the elevator. It’s not until we’re back outside and when Halen pulls away in her Skyline that I notice the white MC20. Flared and dropped, it’s what I would own if I was to roll in Euro.

Luna’s blonde hair catches in the wind, her steps directed right toward the waxen weapon.

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