Page 36 of Taken By the Alpha Priest

I follow his gaze. Charlotte’s playing her fiddle, but her eyes are locked on Elijah, who’s staring at her like she’s his entire world.

When I look back at Reyes, I catch a flicker of the same expression on his face—directed at me.

“He proposed to her last week,” Reyes says quietly. “It’ll be the first wedding I’ve performed since the Convergence. And my brother won’t be there to walk her down the aisle.”

I can’t look away from him now. The way he chews his lip, his hulking shoulders tensed even at rest—it’s like I’m seeing the weight he carries for the first time.

“What happened to him?” I ask softly.

“Charlotte’s dad?” Reyes sighs, his eyes shutting briefly. “He was executed during a protest in San Antonio, along with her mom. It was a long time ago.”

I inhale sharply, flashes of those protests playing in my mind. I knew the executioners.

Some of them still live in Homestead.

“Jesus,” I mutter. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

I wince. Maybe it wasn’t, but it could have been. I put down a fair number of protests with my unit…and I probably killed mothers, fathers, grandparents…somebody’s baby.

“Charlotte said she was new here,” I say, my voice tentative. “You just reconnected?”

Reyes nods. “Her grandparents took her after the Convergence,” he says. “A lot of people think we’re monsters. That what the Angels did to us when they blessed us stripped away our humanity. And…well, we weren’t on good terms with Charlotte’s mother’s family. They didn’t care for us, even before we were turned.”

“Why not?”

He sighs, his voice quieter now. “Her grandparents were Baptists. Old-fashioned, conservative. And they didn’t much approve of the match.”

“Because your family was Catholic?”

Reyes snorts. “No; Mexican. Ironic that now those seem like simpler times.”

I blink, thrown off by the direction we’ve gone. No one talks about that stuff anymore–everything was eclipsed by the Convergence. The presence of the divine and infernal made us forget.

But when I think about Homestead…we kept our old prejudices, didn’t we?

I clear my throat, not knowing what to say. “So Charlotte–your brother and sister-in-law had already been turned? She’s full Lycan?”

“Yep–and her grandparents tried to hide it, but the truth comes out,” he says. “She found Elijah completely by accident.”

He looks at me then, his dark eyes warm and searching, and I feel my armor start to crack. I can’t say what I’m thinking—that maybe he believes I’m his mate. That maybe I’m starting to believe it too.

“I’m glad she found you,” I say softly.

But I’m not sure if the ‘she’ is Charlotte.

I think it might be me.

12

REYES

Even with all the commotion around the den, I still have a homily to write.

It’s tradition, a way we cling to some semblance of normalcy. Most days of the week, we’re raiding Heavenly Host bases, scavenging, or working in the fields. At night, we cook, play salvaged board games, and listen to Charlotte play her fiddle.

And on Sundays, we go to church.

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