Page 9 of Priest and his Anarchist

Mother smiles, but it isn’t wide enough to reach her eyes. She removes the necklace around her neck, placing the gold chaininto my palm. “I know all too well the complexities of secret societies, Hayes, and I know how dangerous you, your family, and the EKC are, but if she does not make it out of this alive, I will kill every single one of you or die trying, but just know…” She turns her back to me, patting Uncle Bishop over his chest. “I’ll go for Madison first, and then Priest and Halen, and then, well—” The shadows beneath Uncle Bishop’s features darken, and I swear a growl shakes the forest. People are always scared of him. Understandable, I guess, but not really.

Uncle Bishop doesn’t scare me. None of them do except maybe him.

“Leave, Lilith.” He draws in closer, so now they’re shoulder to shoulder, and even though Mother is a lot smaller than him, she keeps her shoulders back and chin high. Mother has a reputation, and it hangs around her like invisible armor. “While you still have legs.”

Mother takes her time as she makes her way through the pillowing snow and to a sedan waiting near the SUV. The same one she brought me here in, with hopes to have a talk away from my fathers. This was supposed to be a regular Aspen trip. We’ve all been coming to the same one once a year for as long as I can remember.

But I knew something was going to be different about this one. And it wasn’t just because I had overheard them talking about me being a Rebellis and the first one of my kind—whatever that meant—but because of the conversations with Father and Dad over the years.

Uncle Bishop takes my hand. It’s small against the base of his. He doesn’t say a word as he directs me toward the SUV. The times we’d play chess, it would only be him and Uncle Nate. Uncle Brantley never did. He would just watch from the corner of the room and drink. He’d drink and drink and watch as the three of us would go back and forth. It was a fun game thatI enjoyed. We played it every year we came to Aspen. I didn’t wonder until just now why we didn’t play it this time.

I climb into the car and shut the door. It’s not until Uncle Bishop slides in beside me that the heaviness of Mother’s words comes back to me.

Alive.

What did she mean by alive?

My fingers spread open, exposing the necklace in my palm. A four-pointed star sits to the side, and the letters IV are engraved in the middle. Encrusted in diamonds and gold, it isn’t something I’ve seen her wear at all.

Maybe because she bought it before we all came.

“Luna, I gave your mother my word that we would go lighter than previous generations, and I intend to keep it.”

My eyes shift to Uncle Bishop. “Okay. What is it that I am doing?”

“You didn’t hear?” he asks, one brow lifts as if he and I share a secret. Damn. Maybe it is true. He can read minds. There are people in Midnight Mayhem who can do that, but it is all bullshit. Is there anything a King doesn’t know?

He shakes his head. “No. And yes, I do know everything.” He unbuttons his suit jacket, exposing the collar beneath. Black and gray ink tattooed his skin. It's fresh, but several are fading.

“I could tell you, but I’d rather show you.”

My saliva gets stuck in my throat. “Okay…”

The car continues its drive until fatigue weighs down my eyelids, and I finally drift off. When I open them again, we’re at an airstrip. Loud jet engines howl like a pack of wolves through the forest surrounding us.

My palm stings when I force my fingers open again. Even in sleep, I clutched the necklace until it left dents in my skin. Now is not the time to be sad, so thoughts of my mother are forced away.

Lights illuminate the tarmac, lining the runway that seems to never end. Why are we at an airport? Is this how it will start?

“Quite pretty, isn’t it?” a deep voice interrupts from the driver’s seat.

My eyes fly to the rearview mirror. Impossible to recognize him from here, even if I knew him.

“The lights?” I ask, retracing the colors of the strip. “I don’t know. I think they’re rather bright.”

He chuckles, watching me from the mirror. He has to be younger than Uncle Bishop. Maybe mid-twenties.

“They remind me of Christmas.” He has a tenderness in his voice that feels warm.

My lips curve into a smile. “I’ve always been a Halloween girl myself.”

“Figures,” he jokes. “At least the planes don’t get lost.”

Uncle Bishop chats with someone outside a black airplane. It isn’t as big as the ones I’ve been on, but it is sleek and pointy. EKC is in gold cursive lettering over the right wing.

“I don’t know. I rather like being lost, don’t you?” I ask the strange man.

The skin around his eyes softens. He must have smiled. “Sure I do. But only if I know the way out.”

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