Chapter 13
Thirteen
Hunter
“What did you do to him?” Tristan asked.
Back in the library of the Pratt Mansion, Tristan and Ammon stood side by side. The dark wood and tall bookcases suited them well—both were avid readers. Backlit by the glow of the fireplace, they looked like angels of death.
At odds with that were the twin expressions of incredulity painted on their faces.
All Hunter could do was shrug. “Made him come really hard.”
Tristan rolled his eyes, but Ammon kept his dead stare trained on Hunter. He was probably trying to be intimidating, but Hunter didn’t mind. He loved to annoy his father figure.
“And he passed out?”
Hunter nodded. It wasn’t all that complicated. “It was his first orgasm with a man, I think. Plus, I’d chased him around a state park in my beast form. And then I shifted. He had a big night.”
Ammon let out a sigh, and Hunter shook his head. The old man could be such a drama queen. Hunter respected his pack leader, but the man was easily thrown.
“What do you plan to do when he wakes up?” Tristan asked.
Hunter appreciated the pack leader’s mate. He was calm and level-headed, especially considering he was human. Or mostly human, now that he was fully mated.
“I don’t know. Try to talk him into moving in here? Try to find out more about the forbidden magic at the rectory? Tell him he’s my mate?”
“He doesn’t know he’s your mate?!” Ammon roared. To anyone else, the pack leader’s loud voice and intimidating demeanor would have prompted a fear response, but Hunter had known the demon for hundreds of years. He was unfazed.
“Not all of us blurt it out the first chance we get, like you did. He was at his limit of new information for the evening.”
Tristan sighed dramatically. “How many times do I have to tell you hellhounds, to build trust with humans you have to tell them the truth. If you keep secrets, you only make things worse.”
Ammon frowned. Maybe Tristan was right, but Father Roy was his mate. He could read the man better than anyone. The priest had been too overwhelmed.
“What do you think his reaction will be?” Tristan asked.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Hunter said. “Maybe he’ll claim it was all a hallucination.
Or that he doesn’t remember. Maybe he’ll think he’s starring in a new demon-themed reality show.
Who knows? I want to know more about what he saw at the rectory.
But that’ll depend on how he’s feeling when he wakes up. ”
“Which he has,” an unknown voice called from the door. Hunter turned to see Naomi, dressed impeccably as always, all business. “He’s still groggy. I’d suggest you go to him now before he fully wakes and realizes he’s not at home.”
Hunter jumped to his feet and headed for the door, stopping only when the sound of footsteps behind him reached his ears. He turned to find Ammon and Tristan following him.
“You two are not coming.”
After a pause, Tristan nodded sheepishly.
“Fine,” Ammon said in the tone of a petulant child.
Sweeping out of the room, Hunter took the stairs to the second floor two at a time as he made his way to the bedroom where he’d stashed his priest.
His bedroom. Hunter had put Father Roy in his own bed. He hadn’t considered an alternative. There wasn’t one. The priest belonged there.
Hunter reached his room, the entryway sandwiched between two ornate paintings of Ammon staring down ominously, both from the 1700s. The door was cracked open, so he peeked through at the man lying on his bed.
He was absolute perfection. Hunter had stripped the priest to his underwear and covered him in an ornate green comforter with gold embellishments.
When Hunter’s pack leader had renovated the old Victorian mansion, Ammon had decorated his own room in a more modern style.
Hunter loved the antique furnishings, though, and filled his bedroom with them.
Gorgeous gold-patterned wallpaper covered the walls, matching the bedding, and all the furniture was in the Rococo style.
The priest was like a Victorian princeling recovering from consumption amongst the plush surroundings.
The smooth, tan skin of Father Roy’s chest was visible, covered in a layer of fine hair.
He had just enough muscle, in Hunter’s opinion, and was spread out like a feast, his arms stretched over his head as he yawned.
Hunter slipped through the door, stealthy as always, and was by his mate’s side by the time the priest reemerged from his slumber.
“How…did I fall asleep?” Father Roy sounded confused, almost embarrassed.
“You passed out after you came in Purgatory Chasm. Well, you didn’t come in the Chasm. You came in your pants. In my hand. And then I licked off every drop.”
At Hunter’s words, the priest went beet red, his lips and nose scrunching.
“Shit. That…that happened.”
“It did.” Hunter reached out, sweeping the priest’s hair out of his face. “Too late for regrets now.”
Father Roy grabbed Hunter by the wrist and pulled his hand away.
“We should have stopped. I wanted to stop.”
The priest’s hand around his wrist was weak to his supernatural strength, but Hunter thrilled at the touch, even if he’d done it in anger.
“I believe your exact words were ‘Do it.’”
“You tricked me!” The priest rubbed at his eyes, his accusation tempered by the self-recrimination in his voice.
“Like you said at Purgatory Chasm, I’m a demon from Hell. No surprises, Father.”
“Father?!” The human smacked Hunter on the forearm, the sound of it accompanied by a delicious sting. “You might as well call me Nathan. You jerked me off in public, after all.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Hunter hummed as though he was savoring a meal. “Nathan. I like it.”
“I’m so glad my name has your approval.” Nathan’s tone was dry as burnt toast.
“Me, too. I wouldn’t want to have a Keith for a mate.” Hunter pursed his lips. “Or a Chet. Besides, didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I enjoyed it! That was pretty obvious.” The priest pushed himself up to a sitting position. “That doesn’t mean we should have done it. I should have respected my vows. It’s a sin.”
“I think you’ll find,” Hunter said, “that what some sects consider a sin and what the First considers a sin are often very far apart.”
“The Catholic Church is not ‘some sect!’” Nathan gripped Hunter’s arms, his fingers digging into the hellhound’s long, lean muscles. Hunter didn’t mind. The touch of his mate was worth any amount of pain.
“It is to the heavens. To the First, it’s like any other sect: it gets some things right and a lot of stuff wrong.”
Nathan’s brows furrowed as he stared at Hunter. “The First?”
“You know. The big one. The one that existed before the rest. You call them God, although that’s not quite right.”
The human took a sharp breath, his hands loosening their grip.
“You can’t know what God thinks.” The statement came out more like a question, only amplified by the confusion radiating from every part of Nathan.
“Well, maybe not firsthand. But I’m a demon.
Creatures of Hell are born with some innate knowledge.
And the angels make it clear their boss doesn’t rubber stamp any one religion.
Although to be fair, I’ve never had a lengthy conversation with a heavenly being.
But Ammon has. He was around back when Heaven and Hell were in regular communication. ”
Nathan slid back down into a supine position as if all the energy had left his body. He closed his eyes with a pained sigh.
“I won’t throw away a lifetime of belief because of what’s, at best, a psychotic delusion and, at worst, a demonic manifestation.”
“Wait. I’m the worst case scenario?” Hunter smirked. “That hurts.”
The priest sighed. “How can you be so charming and so horrible at the same time? You chased me through Purgatory Chasm last night.”
“And then gave you the best orgasm of your life.”
Nathan let out an exasperated groan. “This is how it’s going to be?”
Hunter leaned over, placing a single kiss on the man’s forehead. He could sense Nathan needed tenderness right now, and Hunter was happy to provide it. He could be tender as much as he could be tortuous, and as his mate, Nathan was going to get all sides of him.
“I think you know it is. And I think you’ve already decided. But until your reason catches up with your emotion, we have other things to focus on.”
The human cocked his head at Hunter like a confused dog, and the hellhound almost laughed out loud at how adorable he was.
“What other things?”
“Well, you know I told you that hellhounds are sent to Earth for a specific task?”
Nathan rolled his head back against the fluffy pillow as though he would rather go back to sleep than hear what Hunter had in mind.
“That task is to deal with forbidden magic,” Hunter continued. “Magic that rends souls apart, magic that’s powered by dissolving pure souls. They send us to areas where forbidden arts are being practiced in order to stop those humans who use such magic.”
At his words, Nathan pushed himself back into a sitting position, his face inches away from Hunter’s.
“How do you know?” he whispered. “How do you know if someone has done something forbidden?”
Hunter couldn’t stop himself. His mate was so close to him, and he needed to touch him. The hellhound placed a hand on the back of Nathan’s neck, and as he did, the priest’s muscles relaxed and settled.
“We can smell it.” Hunter pressed his lips together.
Few mortal tribulations concerned him. After all, the soul was internal.
Bad things happened, and then it continued on its journey.
But forbidden magic stopped that journey.
It was horrific, and this was coming from a creature who enjoyed torture and destruction.
“It leaves a residue,” Hunter continued, “and if we’re there when it’s used, we know it on sight.”
“So…” The priest paused for a second, and Hunter wondered if he were searching for courage. “If I were to bring you somewhere, you’d be able to tell if this forbidden magic had been used there. Like, in the last week?”
“Yes. But if you are speaking of the rectory, I don’t have to go there again to tell you. The place stank of the Forbidden Ones.”
Nathan gasped, and he stared at the floor, refusing to look into Hunter’s eyes.
“Hey,” Hunter said, “what’s going on? What did you see?”
“I don’t know.” Nathan lifted his gaze to meet Hunter’s. “Father McDonagh was involved, and there was another man there. A Franciscan priest or monk, I think. I only caught a glimpse, and I don’t think they saw me, but…”
The growl that sprang up in Hunter’s throat was beyond his ability to control, even though he could predict Nathan’s reaction. It cut its way out of him like a machete through underbrush.
“What the fuck?!” Nathan leaned away from Hunter.
Hunter pressed his fingernails into his thigh; the pain grounding him in the present.
“I am sorry. You shouldn’t…I don’t like to hear that you put yourself in danger.”
“I didn’t put myself anywhere. And if you think just because we had some thing in Purgatory Chasm, you have the right to control me, then—”
“It’s not that.” The words were out before Hunter could stop himself. He instantly regretted it.
It would be a mistake to tell Nathan about being mates. Or that he’d never cared what happened to a human before now.
“Then what?” Nathan’s jaw clenched with tension. The ferocity was appealing. Hunter wanted more of it.
“Nothing.”
One day, maybe he’d tell the priest about what it meant to be mates. About what their connection really meant. But Nathan was still processing the existence of the supernatural. He’d reject it out of hand.
Hunter would give it time. And if it came down to it, he could always kidnap the man. Nathan was human. They were a weak species.
“Fine.” Nathan slid away from Hunter, getting out of bed from the opposite side and putting his clothes on. Hunter had piled them on a Queen Anne chair sitting a few feet away.
“What are you doing?”
The sight of Nathan up and about worried Hunter. There was an uneasy premonition in his gut. The priest was going to do something stupid.
“If Father McDonagh is involved in some kind of evil cult or something, I have to do something about it. I have to find evidence and figure out what’s going on.
The closest I’ve gotten is some glowing crystals he left behind in the living room, but he caught me looking at them, so I’m sure he’s hidden them away somewhere. ”
“You can’t—”
“I can and I will. Over my last few years as associate pastor, I’ve fallen in love with Purgatory.
Why do you think I keep trying to shut down your stupid gambling hall?
I won’t let the town fall under some kind of occult dominion.
Father McDonagh’s always been kind of a jerk, but I never expected him to be involved in something like this. ”
Hunter crossed his arms, staring at the priest as he buttoned up his black shirt. Why was the human so stubborn about everything?
“It’s too dangerous. You don’t know who he’s involved with. We hellhounds are here for a reason, and—”
“This is my parish, and these parishioners are my people. You have no claim on me. I’m a fucking priest, Hunter! We aren’t going to date or whatever it is you think is happening here.”
The two of them stood staring across the bed from each other. The priest was obstinate, that was for sure. It was hot as hell. Hunter struggled to put his desire aside and focus on the fact that his little mate wanted to walk into danger like a lamb to the slaughter.
After a long silence, Hunter finally spoke.
“Fine. I’m coming with you.”