Page 16 of Taken By the Alpha Priest

I try to reassure her, even though I’m not sure I believe it myself. “As long as you’re with me, you’ll be fine. No one’s stupid enough to cross me.”

“Fantastic,” she says dryly. “I just need to glue myself to you for the foreseeable future. Sounds like a blast.”

I glance back at her. “Give me a day or two to figure this out. You’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll just try not to get murdered in the meantime.”

We head toward the community center–previously a visitor center, now our mess hall and gathering space—and the smell of breakfast hits me. Tortillas and beans. Simple, but it’s food–and when Mateo’s cooking, simple is delicious. Tilda’s stomach growls loud enough to turn heads, and I can’t help smirking.

“Mateo madetetelas,” I say. “Kind of like black bean dumplings.”

Her face twists in confusion. “What?”

“Tetelas Oaxaca,” I clarify. “Our mother used to make it. Mateo does what he can with what we’ve got. Everyone else has probably eaten already, but there should be some left.”

“Mateo?” she asks. “Who’s that?”

I hesitate. Sharing pack details with a crusader—even a half-starved one—isn’t smart.

But she already knows who I am, so what’s the harm?

“My brother,” I say.

“Older or younger?”

“Younger. Ten years.”

“Me too–my sister, I mean,” she says. I can tell she’s considering whether or not to tell me, and I don’t know how it makes me feel when she offers a name. “Enid.”

I open my mouth to say something comforting, but before I can, Grant saunters out of the kitchen, a plate of food in hand and a grin that could rival the devil’s. His gaze flicks to Tilda’s blindfold, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Freaky,” he says. “Is that for practical reasons or?—”

A low growl escapes me before I can stop it.

“You’re going to need to fuck off unless you want to lose your blackberry rations,” I warn.

Grant throws up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright,” he says, backing off. “No need to bite my head off. Don’t want to get scurvy…”

He sets the plate down at a table with a few other people, and. I sit Tilda down and pull the blindfold off, pocketing it as her eyes adjust to the dim light. She blinks, glancing around. Her gaze snags on the walls, lined with kids’ drawings, and her brow furrows.

“There are children here,” she says, like it’s some huge revelation.

“Just a few,” I say. “Some of our couples wanted families. So they started them.”

“Human?” she asks.

“Some,” I admit. “Some lycan.”

“Huh,” she says. “You...you have humans here.”

“Mmhm,” I nod. “People who felt more secure living out here than they did in the city after the resistance took it. We’re a little more insular here—and well-defended.”

Her lips press into a thin line, but she doesn’t push it. Instead, she picks up a tetela and takes a small bite, chewing slowly. Her eyes flick back to the kids’ drawings on the walls, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head.

“What’s this about blackberry rations?” she asks, her tone casual, though there’s a sharper edge beneath it.

I chuckle, grabbing a tetela for myself and tearing into it. The beans are seasoned well enough, but they still have that faint metallic tang of canned food. “We don’t have much fresh stuff to go around,” I explain. “Blackberries are one of the only things keeping us from scurvy. And yeah, I know—it’s not great for the kids.”

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