Page 14 of Priest

I tracked back up the hill behind Priest and climbed onto his bike. I clung to his body as we rode through the woods and back to the cabin.

I was thankful for once that I hadn’t been wearing heels when they came into our home. I had on a pair of pink ballet flats because they were cute with my outfit. They had come in handyout in the woods. They weren’t running shoes, but they were a whole lot better than my stilettos.

This situation was my fault. I was so pissed at my daddy that I hadn’t listened to him when he’d told me to run upstairs. I always listened to my father and obeyed him, even at twenty-two. The first time I decided to be defiant, I regretted it. His ass didn’t deserve to have me listening to him after learning what I’d learned about him.

If only I had listened, I would have been safely tucked away in the safe room when they arrived rather than in the danger that I was now in. They wouldn’t have been able to reach me unless my daddy had let them inside. Despite what he had pulled, I found it difficult to believe that he would have let them inside the safe room. Maybe he’d forced me to go at that time because I was right there. If he hadn’t forced me to, then they would have forced me to, and who knew? Maybe Priest and his men would have killed my father and me both. They hadn’t hesitated to shoot him in the knees.

That thought made me hiccup a sob. I couldn’t allow Priest to see me cry, but my situation was devastating. I had no one that I could trust. Without my purse or my phone, I was at Priest’s mercy.

I knew that Phaedra had tried to call me a thousand times. She would have expected me to pull up at her house by then. I wasn’t a flaky bitch, and I couldn’t help but wonder what my father would tell her when she called him to look for me.

How the hell had I become a bargaining chip in a men’s war again? It was bad enough that my father had arranged a marriage between Daniel Usher and me. The man was twenty-five years my senior. Yes, he was attractive, and yes, he was filthy rich, but he was too damn old for me. He was almost my father’s age. No matter what my friends said, I couldn’t find myself turned on by him, and I dreaded the moment that we married.

God, I hated how weak I was. If I were a stronger woman, there was no way that I would be back in the same situation that I was already in, used as a bargaining chip to make my daddy’s life easier.

When he had approached me with the proposal that Daniel made, I was livid and insistent that I wouldn’t marry him. It was the night of my seventeenth birthday, and my mother had been dead for less than six weeks. But as I always did, I humbled myself because I sought to please my father. He had been devastated when he’d come home from his business trip to learn my mother had been assaulted and murdered and that I had been forced to watch. She was his everything, the air that he breathed, and he couldn’t live without her, or so I thought.

It took my father three weeks to get out of bed after her death. I thought I was losing my father back then, so I tried everything in my power to strengthen him and be the best daughter I could. Now I knew he had used that against me all those years. And here I was, foolishly walking into the same setup that he’d already trapped me in before with Daniel.

Maybe I deserved the bullshit that I went through. After all, if I couldn’t be strong enough to resist these men and protect myself, I didn’t deserve to be on my own. I needed someone to tell me what the fuck to do. God, I hated being controlled.

I bit my bottom lip because I refused to cry. I knew that Priest would punish me for my attempt to run away. But I would hold my head up. I would behave for a short time. When he trusted me enough, I would strike and make my move again. There was no way that I could remain here and be his whore.

“You can make this easy on yourself or hard,” Priest stated when we arrived at the cabin.

“What? Give in to you, or you’re gonna take it from me?” I asked angrily.

“I ain’t never took shit from a woman. They beg for it. And you will, too, before it’s all said and done,” he asserted and mugged me.

“I doubt it.” I muttered.

“You don’t think I saw the way you looked at me when I showed up at your daddy’s house?”

“With disgust.”

He laughed but stopped when he leaned closer. He sniffed me. “Tell that to your wet panties, princess.”

A shiver ran through me, and Priest shook his head and climbed off the bike. I followed him up the pathway, and I couldn’t help but stare at his broad shoulders, strong back, and the defined muscles in his arms and legs.

We stepped inside, and gratitude poured through me at the elegance and warmth of the cabin. I hadn’t expected it to be nice. A big fireplace blazed with a roaring fire in front of a large sectional. Behind the open living room area was a nice, high-end industrial kitchen. My belly growled in response at the sight.

“You’re hungry,” he commented with a glance at me as though I were an inconvenience.

I nodded.

“Go wash your hands. I’ll fix you something to eat, and then you can shower and change.”

I nodded and walked into the bathroom off the kitchen that he indicated. I flicked on the light switch and closed the door before I looked into the mirror. I looked as if I had aged five years since this morning. My hand went to my matted hair and plucked a leaf out and some other debris. My eyeliner and mascara had mostly faded, and my lips had a pale remnant from my pink lipstick.

Honestly, I looked like shit, and I knew it. I would never want anyone to see me look this way. I had never made any apologiesfor who I was. I was my parents’ only child, and after my mother died, it was just Daddy and me forever.

At that moment, though, I wished I knew something more about survival. I dropped down onto the toilet to use it, and I allowed myself a good silent cry. I didn’t want Priest to hear me, but I had to get it out. How was this my life? What the hell had I done to deserve any of this? Trusted my evil ass father, that was what. That was where I had gone wrong, trusting him to handle everything in life for me and not being a smarter woman. Oh, sure, I was smart as hell when it came to school, but when it came to common sense, I was sometimes bankrupt.

Who the hell was my father? I didn’t know that man at all. The thought of that gutted me. But being in my feelings about it wasn’t going to save me.

I finished using the toilet, and then I washed my hands, arms, and face before I stepped back into the kitchen.

Priest stood before a dining room table, and I watched as he placed dishes on it. His black leather jacket had several patches on it, and they all surrounded the centerpiece, a plume of smoke rising from the infinity symbol. I shook my head. He would one day have to repent and pray for forgiveness for his blasphemous attitude.

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