Chapter 31 Priest
Fucking hell.
My fist hits the wall hard enough to rattle the pipes. Rust rains down from the ceiling, the scent of mildew and old blood thick in the air. The vest slides off my shoulders and hits the floor with a wet slap. I rip off what’s left of my shirt, blood streaking down my ribs.
“What the fuck?” Raze storms in behind me, his voice bouncing off the grooved metal. “We lost seven men back there! Seven!”
My ears ring too loud. My hands won’t stop shaking.
He steps closer. “Priest! You’re no good to any of us if you’re dead. Get patched up or I swear I’ll do it myself with a fucking blade.”
I lift my head, the gum in my mouth has turned bitter. “Keep talking, and I’ll use your jaw as a sheath.”
“You can try.” He steps back just enough to evade my reach. “You’re too slow. Bleeding too much.”
Arsen slams through the door, a comm unit clutched in his hand. “We’ve got a problem.” He glances at my side, at the blood soaking through the bandage I didn’t bother tying off. “A big one.”
“Bigger than missing a goddamn tracker on Lev?” Raze mutters, kicking over a crate.
Arsen’s eyes flick toward me. “It was activated when he died. Sterling knew we’d come. He knew we’d kill him.”
I stop mid-motion, staring at the floor. The words slice somewhere deep, far past the wound in my side. Lev made a choice. I honored it. End of story.
I grab a med kit off a crate, slump against the wall, and start stitching.
Welcoming the burn of antiseptic. I can’t get my fucking head to shut up.
The noise is constant, crawling under my skin.
The smell of gunpowder, blood, and smoke.
I hear her voice over all of it. The way she said she wanted me to die. The way she meant it.
I feel nothing and I feel everything.
At the same fucking time.
The ache in my chest isn’t pain—it’s pressure. A sick, heavy pulse that shouldn’t exist. It crawls up my throat until I’m ready to rip it out with my hands.
“Priest, look at me,” Arsen says. “Alistair and Dalton’s bunker was hit, too.”
Raze curses. “Any word?”
Arsen shakes his head. “Nothing. They’re either captured or dead.”
My breath stutters once, then steadies. “If they’re dead,” the needle slides through my skin, “that’s two fewer problems.”
“You think this is about your fucking vendetta? You think this ends with you proving a point?” His voice ricochets off the metal walls.
“We lose the South, Priest, we lose everything. The Commanders, the line, the legacy—gone. You might not give a fuck about hierarchy, but too many Sovereigns have died to let it burn.”
I stand, lighting a cigarette between my lips, blood seeping through the fresh stitches. “You want to worship the system that raised you like a fucking dog? Go ahead. I’m not dying for it.”
“That’s your fucking problem. You don’t fight for anything bigger than yourself.
If Alistair and Dalton are dead, and the fucking Council thinks you’re responsible, this entire war lands on your shoulders.
Sterling’s already got everyone eating out of his fucking hands, believing his shit.
Every Sovereign we lost today, every corpse in the South—they’ll hang it on you. ”
“Let them.”
“Jesus Christ,” Raze mutters, running a hand through his hair. “You’re gone, man. You’re fucking gone.”
“You don’t get it,” Arsen snarls. “If your name goes down as a traitor, the rest of us burn with you. Reinforcements won’t come. The South and North will fall, and the West and East will divide the scraps going to war with Sterling.”
“So send a fucking message, then. Call the Council. Beg for your reinforcements from other sections.” The walls breathe. The air hums. That goddamn static crawls through my skull until I can’t tell what’s real and what’s memory.
He takes a step toward me. “You think you’re special? You’re not the only one who crawled out of hell.”
Something snaps behind my eyes. The walls close in. I see them, men and boys in identical uniforms flash before my eyes—blood-slick hands clutching knives, screaming, fighting for a single crust of bread. The smell of iron and smoke thick in my lungs.
Inhale. Aim. Exhale. Kill.
“Priest!” Raze’s voice cuts through the noise just as my gun’s in my hand, aimed dead center at Arsen’s chest.
He doesn’t move. “Do it.”
My finger trembles on the trigger. For a second, I can’t hear anything but the high-pitched ringing in my head. Raze lunges, shoving my arm aside. The shot explodes into the wall. The echo ricochets through my skull.
I stagger back, teeth bared, and reach for my lighter. The click is too loud, the flame too bright. I drag it against my palm, pressing until flesh sizzles. The pain cuts through the static for a heartbeat—just enough.
“Jesus Christ.” Raze tears the lighter from me, hurling it across the room.
The scent of burnt skin mixes with smoke. I stare at the charred line down my hand.
Still nothing.
Except her.
Her voice. Her scream. The look on her face when I killed him.
You killed my father. You killed everything.
I dig my thumb into the wound on my side. Her proof she can hurt me. She shouldn’t be able to. But she does. She fucking does.
And I hate her for it.
And I need her for it.
“You’re half a fucking heartbeat from losing your mind, and we need you here. Focused.”
I blink once. Twice. The room wavers, bending around him.
He jams a pack of gum into my chest. “I will shove this entire fucking pack down your goddamn throat if you don’t pull yourself together.”
I don’t move.
“Now, Priest.”
The words hit something reflexive. I tear open the pack, shove two pieces into my mouth, and bite until the metallic tang of blood mixes with mint. The chewing drowns the static, the noise, for just a second.
Arsen exhales, pacing again. “Axe is trying to reach the West and East. If we can’t get the other High Chancellors on board before Sterling turns the Council, it’s over. He will be one step closer to dismantling the South.”
The gum splits between my teeth. I light another cigarette and bandage my hand. “You do what you want. But I’m not saving the South. I’m burning what’s left.”
Silence.
Smoke coils through the air. The gum grinds between my teeth. And under it all, I realize something I shouldn’t: I don’t feel the pain anymore. Just the ache of her. And the goddamn noise that won’t stop until I shut it off. And there’s only one way I know how.
I land another solid kick to the door, my bare heel thudding against the metal, before I collapse on the mattress. Arsen—fucking bastard—locked me in this windowless bedroom. Said it was “for my own good.”
I’d rather bleed out in the dirt than rot one more second under Sovereign control. All they have done is ruin everything and everyone I’ve ever loved.
My ribs are wrapped. My head’s bandaged. Fresh stitches line my palm from where the blade slipped after I drove it into Priest. I should be resting. But all I want to do is scream. Shatter something. I want to kill him. All of them.
The doorknob creaks.
“Arsen, I swear to god—”
The words die in my throat.
I bolt upright, a strangled sound escaping me as my side screams in protest. I don’t care.
Priest stands in the doorway, shirtless.
The bandage on his side is dark with fresh blood.
The light from the hall catches his face, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe…
his eyes aren’t human. They’re voids, black and endless.
“Get the hell out.”
He shuts the door. Locks it. And crosses the room like a force of nature. By the time I open my mouth again, I’m slammed back onto the mattress. The air punches out of my lungs.
I thrash beneath him, landing a hit to his shoulder, maybe his cheek—doesn’t matter. He doesn’t budge. His body cages mine, bleeding and burning hot. His large hand finds my wrists, and pins them above my head in one brutal grip. His other hand violently yanks down my leggings and underwear.
I try to scream, but his hand clamps over my mouth, cutting off the sound. He shifts, his knees forcing my legs apart, and I feel him, hard and hot, pressing against my entrance. My blood turns to ice.
His eyes lock with mine. The blue is completely gone, consumed by black.
“I’ll hate you forever,” I choke against his palm.
“Good. Then you’ll never forget me.”
He slams into me, so hard the headboard cracks against the wall. A strangled cry tears from my throat, muffled by his grip. My body arches off the bed, his name on my lips—no! His name is a curse, a prayer, a goddamn ruin.
He’s a machine as he pistons into me. Each thrust is punishment. There’s no build-up, no rhythm, just brutal force.
Every painful thrust jolting me beneath his crushing weight. The sound of our bodies colliding echoes in my ears, drowning out my own thoughts
My mind shatters.
There’s no room for anything else.
Just him. The weight of him. The scent of his sweat. The burn of his cock splitting me open again and again.
My body betrays me. Like it always fucking does.
No. No. NO!
My hips roll, trying to ease the brutal friction. “Ah—” The sound rips from my throat as his grip tightens, and he drives into me again, hard enough to shatter what little resistance my body has left.
I hate him. God, I hate him.
And yet every thrust steals another breath, another piece of that hatred. I’m so torn between wanting him to stop and wanting more of the pain. I’ve never felt more broken.
The room is filled with the sounds of the headboard hitting the wall, my reluctant moans, and his harsh grunts.
He shoves my knees higher, spreading me wider, and I cry out as the new angle sends a searing heat through my core.
I can’t do anything but take it. My back arches, my body instinctively responding to the punishing rhythm, chasing something I don’t want to understand.
The friction, the pressure, the overwhelming fullness—it’s a storm I can’t escape.
The pain is the only thing that feels real.
My hands, pinned above my head, are starting to go numb from his grip. I try to scream again when he violently shreds my underwear the rest of the way off and shoves them in my mouth.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” he snarls, his face mere inches from mine. Saliva floods my mouth, and I gag, trying to push it out with my tongue.
Roughly yanking my hair back, he lifts his weight just enough to flip me on my stomach. He grabs my hips, dragging my ass up to meet him, his knees forcing my legs apart again.
No amount of thrashing or fighting does anything but exhaust me.
He’s an immovable force. He lines himself up and slams into me from behind.
The angle is brutal. It’s too deep, too fast, too much.
My fingers dig into the sheets, tearing at the fabric, my body jerking forward with every punishing thrust.
Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. I bite down hard on the cotton in my mouth, trying to anchor myself, to find a sliver of control in this storm.
But he takes it all.
Reaching around my neck with his forearm, he pulls me up against his chest. My back bows at an unnatural angle.
My airway constricts. Not completely, but just enough to make my head swim, to make every breath a desperate, ragged gasp.
His other hand slides between my legs. Two fingers find my clit, circling, pressing, rubbing in time with his brutal strokes.
My body jolts. A strangled sound escapes my throat, soaked and pathetic. I hate this.
The underwear falls from my open mouth, but it doesn’t stay empty for long; his veiny forearm fills the space.
I clamp my teeth down, and blood floods my tongue.
His hips piston, deeper, harder. The pressure builds inside me, a storm surge of unwanted pleasure.
No. Not this. My mind screams in denial, but my body is a traitor.
An orgasm rips through me. Violent. Shattering. My cunt clamps down around his cock, milking him, my entire body convulsing. It’s a violation. A betrayal. His deep groan vibrates against my spine as his hips slam one last time, burying himself to the hilt as he spills inside me.
His blood drips from my mouth as his cum floods me. The shame is so profound it feels like a physical blow. I’m nothing more than a vessel for his rage and his release. A thing to be used and filled.
And I hate more than anything that a part of me is shattering in a way that almost feels like relief.
The pressure on my throat eases. Air rushes in, burning my abused airway. I collapse forward, my cheek pressing into the damp sheets, my body boneless and shaking.
My eyes drift down, catching on the blood that oozes from the wound on his forearm. But just below it—barely an inch or two from the raw, torn flesh…a tattoo?
The same shape. My stomach drops. I stare, frozen, blood roaring in my ears.
“Priest… Is that my bite mark tattooed on you?”
He doesn’t answer. His breath is hot and ragged against my spine, his body still flush with mine, still inside me.
The silence stretches. He says nothing.
“Is it?” I whisper. “Tell me.”
He leans down and presses his lips to the crown of my head. A slow inhale follows—deep, drawn out—like he’s memorizing the way I smell. A strange, fractured gesture of…what?
He pulls away and rises without a word.
I watch through tear-blurred vision as he moves toward the dresser, grabs a piece of gauze, and presses it to the bleeding mark on his arm. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t clean himself off. Just walks out, barefoot, blood-slick, and silent. The door clicking shut behind him.
I’m alone in the wreckage.
My legs are coated in him. My thighs sticky.
The sheets beneath me, torn and wet. I curl onto my side, the motion slicing through my ribs with a fresh wave of pain.
A sob breaks loose before I can stop it, then another, each one sharper.
I bury my face into the pillow, trying to silence them, but the tears keep coming, soaking through until the fabric clings to my skin.
I hate him.
God, I hate him.
I hate what he did. I hate what he took. I hate that every time I think of my father—it’s Priest’s face I see. I should want him dead. I do. And yet the only time the pain stops…is when he’s the one hurting me.
That’s what I hate most. That he’s the only thing that quiets the ache.
But the tattoo…that bite mark… It can’t be real. It can’t.
It has to be some sick joke. Because if it isn’t—if he chose to carry that part of me, to carve me into his skin, to keep me…then nothing makes sense anymore. It means he wanted it. Wanted me. Wanted something lasting.
It means he made me permanent. And that thought is too much. Too perfect. Too twisted. Because for one terrible, broken second, I want to carve it off his skin and keep it for myself.
Just so I can believe it ever happened.
Even if nothing else ever does.