Page 61 of Taken By the Alpha Priest

We’re tied to each other now.

Our gasps mingle as he keeps fucking me hard, my dress pooled around my waist, him still fully dressed. Reyes groans and ducks his head against my chest, and I gasp when something cool slips out of his collar and falls on my breastbone: the silver cross he wears around his neck.

The shock is enough to tip me over the edge, and we come together in the humid Texas night. I scrabble at the grass, barely avoiding knocking over the music stand altar beside us as I come, hands trembling. A slip of paper drifts from the music stand, falling on top of us as we breathe and Reyes finally slides out of me.

He reaches for the paper and frowns as he gazes at it, then shows it to me.

I can’t quite make it out at first, but I realize after a moment that it’s his homily from Sunday morning. Most of the ink has been washed away in the rain earlier today, black blotches covering the weather-worn page, but one sentence remains.

What God has put together, let no man put asunder.

I let out a laugh and stare up at the sky, shaking my head. “Okay, God,” I say. “I get it.”

Reyes laughs with me, then gets to his knees to right his clothes and zip up his pants. The silver cross gleams in the starlight on his chest as he extends his hand and pulls me up, helping me straighten my dress.

“I told you,” he says. “Call it what you want, but I think that counts as a blessing.”

For the first time in a long time, ‘blessing’ doesn’t sound like a bad word.

20

REYES

Tonight, I didn’t just break my vows of celibacy—I obliterated them.

I shattered them completely, right there on an altar to God. And yet, somehow, I feel no guilt. Instead, there’s a strange, unshakable certainty that I did the right thing, as though this was always part of some greater plan. Against all odds, Tilda is here. My mate is in my bed, and if that note left on the pulpit meant anything, the message couldn’t be clearer: I can’t send her back to Homestead.

Whatever happens next, she has to stay.

But staying won’t be simple. Tilda has a sister who needs medicine, and this world doesn’t make anything easy. I’ll need to acclimate her to the pack, help her prepare for the full moon, and ensure no one from Homestead—or anywhere else—comes after her, or any of us.

There’s so much we haven’t talked about yet. I don’t know if she wants children—or if I do. We’re still strangers in so many ways, fumbling through the dark together.

And yet, when we’re alone, it feels so natural. Like we’ve always belonged to each other.

After we have sex in the chapel, we head back into the den, dodging anyone who might catch us. We’re like kids sneaking to my room, ducking into shadowy alcoves so I can push her up against the wall and steal kisses. I feel drunk, but I haven’t been drinking; I’m just high on her scent, that heady combination of blackberries and leather.

Most everyone is still outside, though I’m certain the whole pack knows what we’ve just done. All the lycan have keen senses, and we weren’t exactly quiet. Frankie is probably raising her complaints with the others as we speak, plotting some kind of coup.

I don’t know how that would work, nor can I be bothered to care. The only thing on my mind right now is Tilda.

The relief is palpable as we finally find my door, scrambling to open it and tumble inside. We kiss until we’re out of breath, only stopping to peel off our clothes. She’s left my shirt in tatters, and I feel the sting of where she scratched my back as the shirt comes off.

A nice shirt is hard to find in the apocalypse.

I’m going to hang it from my bedpost like a flag.

She laughs as I toss her to the bed, then kiss my way up her thighs and toward her hips, pressing my mouth to the bite mark. I lay a hand on her thigh and press my fingers into her flesh, finding that long scar and hard muscle beneath. Tilda tugs violently at my hair until I’ve crawled up her body and I’m lined up with her once again, my cock dragging over her slick folds.

We make love again, sideways on my too-small bed, but I still don’t let my knot inside. Tilda begs for it though, not bothering to stay quiet, taking me deep until her back is against the stone wall. My hips snap into her at a punishing speed, feeling how she takes every inch like she was made for me. She claws at my back, clamping her mouth down over my pulse and running her tongue over the raw twin punctures of her bite.

I come inside her repeatedly, filling her until she’s dripping. She isn’t fertile right now—one of the perks of our transformation is that we can scent our mate’s fertility—and something primal in me loves the idea of claiming her in every way, of making sure that my scent is all over her.

She lies limp across my chest in the aftermath, her slender fingers tracing circles over my chest, her hair in chestnut waves over my shoulder. Tilda’s green eyes drag over my body as she moves to straddle me, my now soft cock twitching to life at the feeling of her molten hot core.

“You said you weren’t going to knot me tonight,” she says, her hands on my shoulders. “So I guess that means this is a more than one night thing.”

I smile up at her, taking her breasts in my hands and rolling her nipples. “I could knot you in the morning, when you’re relaxed and ready.”

---