Priest and his Anarchist

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

priest

hours earlier

“ S o we’re not hunting the same girl? It’s someone different?” Moses peers up at me from his phone. “Why?”

They’d lost a lot this past month. Danny Dale was old as fuck. He wasn’t supposed to die like this though, and the sooner I throw the scent off us, the better. We could kill the entire Gentlemen organization with the snap of our fingers but playing with them is more fun.

“Don’t question me, Moses. I am not the Mad Prince that you think I am.”

“…yet.” Halen mutters beneath her breath. What the fuck is her problem tonight. Since Moses turned his ass back around, reconsidering his threat of tearing up the treaty, she’s been sitting on a horse so high it had smoked more weed than Snoop.

My steps are careful when I move forward. “Make no mistake. You will hunt this one, and you will get her, because if you don’t…Vaden here is going to visit your sister.” A smile touches the corner of my mouth as I lean into his ear. “The one that you keep hidden away.”

Moses stiffens. “Fine. But if we catch this one, can we keep her? Or is she not to be harmed like the last one?” His words throw me off, reminding me of Luna. Luna who had been the bait for the Hunt in my poor, final attempt. Only I don’t know what I was trying to do anymore. Lost. I’ve found myself lost.

He nudges his head to the side, gesturing for his boys in suits to move. Holding my eyes, he ensures his words are clear. “If you’re part of my father’s death, Priest, we will come with all we’ve got.”

I pluck nicotine off my tongue. “Good. Makes taking you out that much easier.”

The door opens, midnight swallowing them whole.

Fuck, I love winter solstice.

As soon as it closes, the silence feels heavy.

“You’re missing out on all the fun now, brother…” Deacon adds, smudging the skull paint over his cheek and to his mouth. Vaden’s knee hasn’t stopped bouncing, his eyes staying on me as if a hungry puppy waiting for approval from his owner. Only Vaden has none and if he wanted to do something, he’d do it.

And I’d never stop him.

“Fine.” I settle on Vaden. “But don’t kill any of them. Your time will come.”

He flashes me a wide grin. “Since you asked so nicely.”

They disappear like two hungry wolves through the same way Moses did.

Halen makes her way to the glass window that overlooks the ocean. “There’s something that you need to know.”

I pause, my glass of whiskey barely to my mouth. “Spit it out.” I’ve been waiting for this moment, since her anxiety was so damn fucking thick.

Halen turns, handing me her phone. I take it from her, tapping on the video sent from Bas. My jaw tenses at the same time as my fist, turning the mechanics in her phone to dust.

She closes in, and she’s fucking bold. The rage in my blood is unnatural. Inhuman. Untamed.

“Isn’t this what you always wanted, brother?” I lift my eyes to hers, my breathing rattling the cage in my chest. “You finally did it.”

I shove her phone back into her. “Text Pop. Tell him to bring Bas and tell them to meet us at the race.”

“Priest…” River stops her chat with Stella. Her eyes settling on me. “What are you doing?”

“Something that I should have done a long time ago.” I shoot back the whiskey, hissing when it burns my stomach. “I’d clearly lost my way.”

“Priest!” Nate snaps at me, pulling me from the girl in my arms. So fragile. So unprotected. I can’t fucking do this. What is wrong with me.

Laying her flat in the backseat, I shove him outside of the car, slamming the door after his mother crawls her way out. Over the years, I’ve looked up to my uncle, and I still do, but right now, he’s pissing me off.

“You’re not taking her.” It’s final. It’s don’t know why I thought I could do it. It wasn’t until I saw them pull up that I realized I’d fucked up.

“Priest.” The Wicked Witch murmurs from behind Nate. She wasn’t really a witch. She was fucking great at what she did. “She needs care. Real care. You know who she is and how she’s suffered, yet you loved her anyway.”

My eyes narrow on her. “Don’t fucking tell me how I feel.”

“Hey!” Nate snaps his finger in front of my face. “We’re not enemies here. We want her to be safe like you do. But Mom is right. We did what we could, you did what you could, and now that we’ve had the first sighting of Darling since the day she killed a Kiznitch?—”

“A Brother of Kiznitch.” Pause. I know I’ve hit a nerve when Nate’s face changes. It’s true. I can’t even remember his name because he was that irrelevant, but I’d walked in as it happened and held her until our mothers arrived. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, and no one could understand why he was. No one had answers. So she killed him the second she got the chance. We still don’t know why. We need to know why.

We’ll never know why.

“Yes, we’re well aware of the repercussions of her actions, Priest. Everyone. The entire world of Midnight Mayhem had to split into separate sanctions to not kill each other. She’s a liability, but we took her. Her mother knew that, her fathers too. We were the only ones who offered her a chance to live, since everyone wanted her dead.”

I step into her space. “ I did it. I allowed her to carry my name so that no one dared come near her.”

“Yes.” The Malum witch stares up at me, unfazed. “And now that she’s back, who will you choose?”

Ignoring her, I turn back around and open the car door. I’ll carry her ass back to her bedroom where she can rot for the remainder of her years for all I care.

I stare back at the empty seat. “She’s gone.”

My fingers fly over the contacts in my phone. I hit dial on the one person I need right now. I’ve guarded her with a selfishness I’ve only come to realize since Luna has been back in my life.

“Are you okay?”

Even the sound of her voice pulls me back down from the turmoil. “Meet me at our spot.”

I pause with a mouthful of burger. “You never asked.”

Her face turns to me. “I was too afraid to! You seemed to get these crazy eyes whenever Luna was mentioned, so I hung back.” She leans back on the hood of my car, the lights of Riverside showcasing her dark skin and curly lashes. Evie is so much more to me than a friend. She is the foundation of what I need to stand straight. I’ll never tell her. She already has a big head that she is the only friend that I willingly chose and makes sure to remind every single person in the EKC any chance she gets.

I place the burger on my lap and turn toward her, swallowing. “When have I ever given you the impression that I’d hurt you?”

Evie smiles but it’s not the one that makes a day of slaughter feel like candy. Her hand covers mine. “It’s not you I’m afraid of. It’s, well?—”

“—well what?” My head jerks as I shove another fry into my mouth.

“Well it is the love you have for her, Priest.” Her green eyes rest on mine, and in this light, I see it. The way people talk about Evie. She is that beautiful, but it isn’t the superficial kind that comes from something so easily accessible like good looks. It is the kind you can’t pay for with good money. The kind that lives deep within your soul.

“Don’t take over for your father.” The words feel like acid. “You’re too good for this world, Ev.”

She side-eyes me, bursting into a deep laugh. She stops when she notices I’m not joining. “Priest.” She rests her head on her arms, pulling her knees up to her chest. “My father has been with yours all our lives and no one, not even Halen, knows or knew.”

She had a point.

“Speaking of.” She bites into her burger. “Where is your bride?”

“Gone,” I answer, side-eyeing her as I reach into my pocket when my phone doesn’t stop vibrating. The number that flashes over my screen isn’t one I’m expecting, so I swipe and answer.

“Yeah?”

Moses quips, “We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem…” I test the words even though I know I don’t want to taste them. I gave them the damn Huntress to hunt to keep them busy, what could possibly be wrong?

“Someone killed Jeremiah tonight.”

I swallow my burger. “Fuck.”

Evie turns mid-bite, eyes wide.

“The same way my father was taken out, only this time, cut his damn head off.” Moses pauses a moment. “This is an attack, Priest. We’re retreating until we find out what’s popping us off. The threat remains. If we find out it’s you, we’re coming.”

I hang up, sliding off the hood and gesturing to the car. “Get in.”

Turning the key, the engine pulses beneath as I slip it into reverse, hooking it out of the spot Evie and I spent a lot of our childhood together at.

“Priest, what’s happening?” She shoves her seat belt on.

“I have to get you out of here.” Memories die into the distance of Evie and I playing on the mountain of Riverside. The opposite side of where I built my house.

“Me? From where?” Pulling the brake, I drift my way down the mountain all the way to the main street.

“Everywhere.” I find Evie’s dad’s name and hit the green button. He answers instantly.

I squeeze the steering wheel. “Madrabbit.”

He sighs before things start crashing in the background. “Get Evie home now. We’ll head to the place until it dies off.”

Ending the call, I drive through the streets of Riverside before turning down suburbia. I direct the car around the fountain outside her house as her dad rushes out the door with her mom in tow, carrying bags out to a waiting SUV.

She slams the car door. “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on!” Evie’s eyes swing at both of us, and I grab her quickly before her dad can pull her into the back seat of the SUV.

Placing a kiss on her forehead, I’m quiet with my words. “Don’t answer any calls on your phone. No matter the name that pops up. You understand? Leave and listen to your father.”

“Priest.” She lifts her hand to my arm, but I’m already forcing her into the car. Her heels sink into the ground as she spins back around to me. “Priest, I swe?—”

“Evie!” I’d never snapped at her before. “Get the fuck in the car before I show you firsthand what the fuck I do.”

She doesn’t pale or run scared. She flips me off, sliding into the back seat and I watch as their car disappears down the driveway.

I should have done more. Nothing makes sense. Nothing has worked. I’ve been so sure of every damn thing in my life, been careful with how I did it. Yet here I am, the gavel in one hand and the world crumbling apart in my other.

Back in the confinement of my car, I place a cigarette into my mouth and take a second. Another. Beat after beat and minute after minutes.

Had I not known this was going to happen? That eventually, when everything came to an end, she’d be the one who’d come back. Didn’t I want that?

I did.

My jaw tenses.

I do.

I don’t stop driving until I’m idling outside my house. River, Vaden, Stella, War, and Halen all watching me from the patio.

A text vibrates from my phone.

Archer: Sending everything I know.

I don’t wait, because there’s no point. I reach into my pocket and search for the familiar jagged edges of the key.

Am I angry?

No.

Am I intrigued?

Yes.

I force open my car door, bypassing everyone. River’s eyes stay on me a moment too long before I drag myself away from her and head straight for the stairs.

The bedroom door opens slowly. So familiar, yet a stranger. Her touch is still fresh. The way she felt beneath my hand, her laughter, the look in her eyes when I’d touch her. I fell too hard and I’d lost my mind while doing it.

Fingernails slide over the desk in the corner, her hair falling over her shoulders. She has to be something out of a damn novel, your favorite fucking nightmare. I’ve spent years waiting. Praying. Waiting. Wanting and yearning. Now she’s here…I feel…

Lonely.

“Hello, Mad Prince.”

I flick my cigarette into the brittle flowerpot. No one has been in here since Luna. Yet here she is. Back in here.

“What are you doing?” The closer I am to her, the faster blood rushes to my head. I’m simply hardwired by chaos and thirsty for her attention.

My footsteps draw closer, and when I’m an inch away, my hand flies to her throat. “It’s been a while, Darling.”

Fuck but it has. Now what was I going to do? Lock her in the same room I kept Luna in?

Actually…

I force her against my lips. When her tongue slips into my mouth, her desperation reeks in the moan that leaves her.

Buttons fly everywhere when I tear off her dress, laughter dying off in the back of her throat. I catch her thrust with a buck of my hips, shoving her farther into the room while leaving the door wide open.

Her hands find my zipper, and my teeth catch her bottom lip when her fingers wrap around my cock.

The kiss breaks when she falls to her knees, keeping her eyes up on mine. Blood puddles around her knees as she sucks me into her mouth, her tongue flicking over the base of my cock.

I jerk forward, my eyes rolling as I shove myself further down her throat with the grip I have on her hair. Saliva slips over my balls when she gags, the inside of her mouth way too fucking warm. Her eyes water and the first tear drop falls to the ground. Fuck. Blood? What the ? —

My cock hardens further as her groan vibrates around it. I force her up by her hair and using the grip I have on her ass, I lift her to my shoulders. Her legs cling around the back of my neck as I bury my face in her pussy, my tongue working her clit. I don’t stop. My tongue working the same pattern as her clit swells against my tongue.

It takes her seconds. Cum drips down her slit and use my tongue to clean it. The gaping hole in my chest expands when I drop her to the ground, ignoring the world around me as I step over the naked body.

My cigarette burns through the dark as she grabs at her naked breasts, dipping her hands into the slippery puddle of blood and bringing it to her pussy. Her fingers begin their slow circle of torment, her eyes turning lazy on mine.

“I want you. I’ve missed you. Watching you with that bitch…” The bite of her tone has the hairs on my back rising.

What the fuck.

A smirk crawls over my face when I use my own body to force her back down to the floor, spreading her legs wide and dipping my cock into the entrance of her gaping hole. Wet and needy.

I lean down and suck her nipple into my mouth. When she growls, my hips drive against her until I hit something deep inside.

“Mine.” I trace the familiar features. “You’re mine.”

I was a child when I knew I didn’t love anyone.

I was a young boy when I realized I loved her. I’d do anything for her. I would have…

My fingers find their way around her neck, but her legs widen for me.

“I waited for you for years,” I bite, my hips hitting her harder and harder, but she takes it like the greedy bitch that she is, widening even more.

My grip tightens. “I waited, and you never came.” Leaning down, I roll saliva around my mouth and spit over her bare pussy. Her eyes fly open and settle on mine, sweat rolling over her body and leaving streaks through the dried blood. “You’re mine, too. Even if?—”

I squeeze, my balls tightening the closer that I get. Riding my cock deep inside of her wetness, she tightens, the ribbons of her cunt closing around me. Hard and fast, until her moans turn into screams and my fingers dig into the side of her stomach.

“I fucking loved you, and you left.”

Her screams turn into wails as my balls tighten and her orgasm rips around me. “But I still let you come all over my cock like my perfect little slut.”

“Always. Always whatever you want me to be. From the moment I felt you inside me when we were too young to know—” Her eyes close as she fights consciousness. I pick up my pace to a torturous thud until her ass claps against my balls, and my cock grows thicker. She turns purple, a beautiful shade of fucking death, and just as her life fades out, hot cum shoots out of my cock, and I empty myself deep inside of her dying corpse, feeling her sail deeper and deeper into the dark.

“Not anymore.”

I pull myself away and shrug my jeans back on, catching the fallen bodies around the room. One after the other, they come into view, and one after the other, I realize who they are.

My eyes fly back to where she’s passed out. If I leave her, she’ll die. I should leave her. She should die. But I fall back to my knees and bring my hand to her chest, pumping it in hundreds. Images flash through my mind with each one…

My legs burn the faster I run, but I know that I’m only a few steps away and I’d have found the darkest hiding spot. Somewhere that none of them would be able to find me in. I fucking hate this game, but for whatever reason, Mom and Dad want us to learn. They wanted us to play, and they said that one day, it will help. I wasn’t so sure.

I run through the maze, zipping past the perfectly manicured flowers and deeper and deeper into the darkness that eloped the castle’s maze. I’ve never gone this far in before. Not because I was afraid, I wasn’t. But because Mother told us to stay away from it.

Ha! Bet Evie and Halen wouldn’t find me now. Fucking Evie. She can always find me, even in the darkest of rooms.

I stop running, leaning over to rest my hands on my thighs when footsteps sound out behind me and a twig snaps. I quickly spin around, annoyed that they found me again—I was so sure that this would do it—“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Her brown hair is long, a complete contrast to her pale skin. Her mouth falls open, and a side smirk that reminds me of death swoops over her face. “Following you, of course.”

“Why!” No one follows me. Everyone runs away from me, afraid that I’ll kill their whole family.

“Because,” she whispers, and the closer she gets, the colder I become. I like it. It feels oddly comforting, and that makes no sense. When she is a breath away, her hand lifts and touches mine. “We are the same, you and I.”

My mouth opens to answer. Maybe cuss her out, because there’s no one like me…

She wore her hair in pigtails, but it is as dark as mine. Her eyes are bright, but I can never make out the color, and when she smiles, she’s missing a tooth.

Oddly cute.

She barks out a laugh that pierces my ears.

Never mind…

“Well don’t. Unless you want to get lost…” I answer, turning back around. Beneath a curved archway, there’s a concrete bench covered in moss and vines.

“What is that?” the weird girl asks.

I can’t tell if she is just crazy or stupid, since everyone knows not to annoy me. Why didn’t she?

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” I take her hand with mine. “Scared?” I ask, a brow lifted.

“Me?” Her eyes turn a brilliant shade of something I can’t put my finger on. “Never. I’m excited.”

I stop. “Who are you here with?”

“My parents.” Her words are lost in the wind. Turning to look up, she smiles. “I’m ? —“

“—I know.” My fingers clench.

She blinks. “Oh so you doooo know me?” She forges a brilliant smile.

“I know who you are.”

Only because of those damn eyes.

I toss my cigarette in the puddle of blood and scoop her up from the ground. Stepping over the three bodies, I carry her to the bed.

How many more had she killed? How long did I turn my back? Evie and I were only gone for not even twenty minutes. Where the fuck did everyone go in that time?

Blankets swallow her limp body when I lay her down. At every tick on the clock, I find myself being pulled closer and closer to the edge. Like a stranger in my home.

No. This shouldn’t feel like this.

I stumble backward, reaching for the door. Plucking the cigarette from behind my ear, I bite down on the end. Maybe Dad is right, and it is a habit we couldn’t run from. The fact that Deacon puffs on a fucking unicorn’s asshole of a vape proves that. Could not be me. Fucking weird ass generation.

“She’s out?” Deacon asks from behind, and I turn over my shoulder to see him near the staircase.

“Don’t get excited. When a snake is in hibernation, she’s still a snake.” If I suck on the nicotine any harder, I’ll go up in flames.

“This isn’t good. You care to enlighten me? I spent a great deal researching all over the world how to get into the head of a—” He pauses, waving back up the stairs. “—her. And now she’s back?”

I stop, just short of turning back to my half-brother.

“Did you see the state of my living room?” I point down with my fingers. “You gonna tell me you’re not curious what the fucking cat dragged in?”

Deacon’s eyes widen. “Okay. Fair. Yes, I am, but Vaden is?—”

“Goddamn, guess the bitch is back—” The words leave me.

Deacon waves his hands out as if performing a magic trick. “—Vaden right out there, and I have to tell you something that happened tonight?—”

I land on the bottom floor right when a loud crash sounds from upstairs.

“You sure you got a handle on that still?” Vaden’s eyes come to mine, his brow raised when he walks through the front door. “Maybe you’ve lost your touch of…well…”

I glare at him. “Don’t fucking say it.”

He laughs. “I’m playing. Okay. Let’s see the damage of who she’s dropped this time. The last time caused a lifetime rift between a cult of brothers, now?—”

“There was a last time?” Deacon asks nervously, stepping around the blood-stained suit near my front door.

“Oh, Priest didn’t tell you? This one is the jealous type, and she doesn’t much like when others play with her toy.”

When Deacon doesn’t catch on, I lower to the dark-haired man lying face down in the pool of brain matter and blood. This rug was expensive. I hope it comes out.

Vaden continues when Deacon’s last brain cell can’t catch what he’s saying. “Priest being the only toy she’s ever played with.”

I roll dead guy onto his back with a shove. Even in death, he hides the secrets he kept.

Fuck. Another Gentlemen dropped. Consider that treaty good and burned.

Deacon and Vaden are still bickering about something stupid, and on any other day I’d be partially amused for the mere fact that it’s as though Vaden is still inside somewhere.

Ripping the crucifix from his neck, I toss the chain at Vaden.

He catches it mid air and stares down at the corpse. “Fuck. She just started a war.”

Yeah. And something tells me that’s what she wanted.”

“She’s a good girl, then, isn’t she?” Vaden’s smile needs to be knocked off his face.