Chapter 16
Sixteen
Nathan
When the creature raised its paw, Nathan had resigned himself to death.
Not that he wanted to die, but he had to do something. Tristan had yelled at him to leave, but seeing Hunter flung across the room had done something to him. It was almost as though he’d felt the pain along with the hellhound.
Inside him, a rage had bubbled up. It was familiar. The rage he’d felt when his mother died. The rage at being impotent. The rage at being left alone. But for once, he’d had an outlet, a place to put that rage.
Revenge.
That rage had clouded his judgement, and even the knowledge that he would soon be dead didn’t moderate his desperate need to harm the beast.
And he’d hurt it, but not enough. Which is why he thought he would die. All the way until the creature’s head hit the concrete.
A man was just there, bearing an enormous sword. A sword! Who fights with a sword?
He had sliced the thing’s head clean off, sending it tumbling to the floor. The rest of the creature’s body soon followed.
After its death, the man had turned to Nathan, not saying anything, a question in his eyes. His orange eyes. His flaming orange eyes.
Was it another hellhound?
He stopped contemplating the man’s existence when he caught sight of Hunter’s crumpled body, collapsed in the center of the room.
“Hunter!” Nathan threw the bloodstained bottle to the side—it was now useless—and rushed out from behind the bar.
He kneeled next to the injured hellhound.
Hunter’s matted fur was stained a deep red, and his breathing was heavy and labored.
Every rattling breath brought a stab of fear to Nathan’s chest.
Tristan was beside him in an instant, his arm wrapped around Nathan’s shoulders, whispering in his ear.
“We can’t help him here. He has to get back to the mansion. Naomi can help him.”
Nathan turned to Tristan, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. What did Tristan mean? How were they going to get him back?
“Eli. Welcome back, son.” Ammon was in human form once more, pulling on his clothes over a tapestry of ugly cuts and bruises. He hugged the man bearing the sword.
Eli only grunted in acknowledgement, then approached Hunter, kneeling down beside him. He moved forward, and Nathan reached out to prevent whatever was about to happen, but Tristan held him back.
Without acknowledging him, Eli lifted Hunter’s beaten body in his arms and headed out the front door. The sight of it set off a whirlwind of panic in Nathan’s body. Hunter was hurt! He might die!
“What is he doing? He’s injured. He shouldn’t be moved!”
Tristan squeezed Nathan’s shoulders and stood, helping Nathan to his feet. “Eli will take him to Naomi.”
That didn’t make any sense. How was Ammon’s demon assistant going to do anything? Poor Hunter needed to be examined for internal bleeding; his wounds needed to be cleaned and treated.
“What can Naomi do? Shouldn’t we get him to a vet?”
There was a choked laugh from the corner, and Nathan glared at Ammon, who was standing there, his face blank outside of a mischievous glint in his eyes.
What was wrong with the hellhound? Hunter was in trouble!
“Come on,” Tristan said, patting Nathan on the back. “Let’s follow Eli.”
Hunter was laid out on his bed, the very bed Nathan had woken up in that morning. This time, Naomi, Ammon, and Tristan stood with him, looking down at Hunter’s injured form.
“Where did Eli go?” Nathan asked, not taking his attention off the broken hellhound.
This was not how Hunter should look. Hunter was wily and strong, stealthy as both human and hound. Nathan’s heart hurt at the sight of him.
“Eli’s not much of a talker,” Ammon said. “He prefers to speak with his sword.”
“And that doesn’t cause him problems?” Tristan asked, but a harsh gesture from Naomi cut off any answer. The woman eyed Nathan before raising an eyebrow at Ammon.
“He’s Hunter’s mate,” Ammon said, answering Naomi’s silent question. “No reason to hide anything from him. Even if he is a priest.”
Naomi shrugged, but said nothing, then reached out and put a hand on Hunter. Tremors shot through the hellhound at her touch, and it took almost everything Nathan had not to reach out and stop her.
She kept her hand in place, and as she did, she changed. Horns shot from her head, growing larger and curling as a deep maroon energy traveled across her skin.
That energy ran down and gathered in the hand touching Hunter. Soon, he was glowing as well, his whole body taking on a luminescent burgundy.
Then he began to change.
It was subtle at first, as though his bones were knitting themselves back together, just a subtle movement underneath the fur. Soon, however, he was shifting, the structure of his body changing as he turned into his human form once more.
Once he was almost there, he opened his mouth and let out a horrific scream. The sound was terrible, an outcry of agony resonating in the marrow of Nathan’s bones.
Tears welled up, and he couldn’t stop himself from shaking Naomi’s arm.
“What are you doing? He’s in pain!”
“He is.” She leveled a judgmental glance at the priest. “It is necessary. Sometimes we do what is necessary, even though it hurts.”
Nathan stopped shaking her arm, but didn’t break his gaze. She was a demon. If she were going to hurt Hunter, even if it were for the best, she should know someone was watching. Bearing witness.
Someone to protect the hellhound who’d given so much to protect them.
“Nathan?” Hunter’s voice was raspy, and the one word sent him into a coughing fit. Nathan wrenched his focus away from Naomi and to her patient.
“You’re okay.”
The words spilled out of Nathan with an exhale of relief. He immediately regretted them. Why was he acting this way? This man had been a thorn in his side from the day they met, and any revelation about him being a hellhound or them being mates didn’t change that.
He was a priest, for fuck’s sake.
Fuck’s sake? The fact that he’d been recently using—and thinking—the crass language of his childhood was telling. He wasn’t sure if he liked the story it told.
“I am, priest.” Hunter winked at him, despite being worse for wear. “Now, do you want to tell me why you were planning on throwing yourself into that battle? With a broken bottle of Jim Bean? Have you ever been in a fight? Of any kind?”
“Uh, no.” Nathan swallowed, not sure what else to say. He couldn’t tell anyone in this room the truth: that seeing Hunter hurt had both hurt and enraged him. That he had panicked. That he would have done anything to save the hellhound. “I’m…I don’t know.”
The intensity in Hunter’s blue eyes took Nathan’s breath away. When he looked away, Nathan’s whole body relaxed in relief, and yet it was a loss. He wanted more of Hunter’s attention.
“Eli killed that abomination.” Hunter’s voice was icy as he spoke of the creature that had almost taken him out.
“He did,” Ammon replied. “He arrived in the nick of time. Although that seems to be a trend. If I remember correctly, you showed up in Purgatory just in time to help me save Tristan when he was in danger.”
Hunter nodded. “How is Eli?” he asked softly.
“The same.” Ammon frowned. “He said little, as is his way. But the same sadness is there.”
Hunter hummed under his breath. “I guess it hasn’t been that long.”
Nathan looked back and forth between them. He wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but it sounded heavy.
“What about that thing? Where did it come from?”
Her horns still out and her skin retaining a hint of the burgundy energy, Naomi stepped away from Hunter.
“It’s not something I’ve seen in a very long time.” She pressed her lips together before punching her hand against the door frame, a loud crack filling the room as the wood splintered under her blow.
Nathan jumped at her violent gesture, and he didn’t miss Ammon’s shocked reaction. Evidently, she was not one to show emotion.
“I am sorry,” she said, her voice settling back into a businesslike monotone.
“The hellhounds have been rooting out forbidden magic for millennia. I had believed the remaining practitioners were the dregs, a faint shadow of the monsters who once walked the Earth. But this magic…Many human souls were sacrificed to create that monstrosity.”
A low rumble sounded from Ammon’s chest, his nostrils flaring.
“So many years. And we’re still fighting. What progress have we made?”
Tristan reached over and placed his hand on Ammon’s neck. The pack leader breathed out, his muscles relaxing under his lover’s touch.
Nathan wondered how rash Ammon had been before meeting Tristan. Did Heaven give hellhounds mates in order to help them settle down? Act more rationally? What smartass angel had come up with that idea?
“I think we should leave these two alone,” Tristan said, his tone soft. Naomi nodded in agreement, although Ammon looked unsure. Regardless, they all filed out, leaving Nathan standing next to Hunter’s reclined form.
The insanity of everything that had happened struck him. After the events of the past few days, Nathan should be commended for keeping calm despite the sheer impossibility of it all.
Now he was alone with a hellhound. His hellhound? It was as if they had a million things to talk about, and nothing at all.
Because certain things could not be changed.
“You can’t put yourself in danger like that. Not again. Ever.” Hunter’s voice was low and raspy, but it held a strength that sent a tremor of desire down Nathan’s spine.
“Hopefully, I’ll never encounter anything like that—”
“No.” Hunter sat up, energized, his hands making deep impressions in the mattress as he pushed. “I will lock you away. I’ll keep you here forever. I’ll bring you takeout and watch cat videos with you and suck you off, and that’ll have to be enough. You will never be that close to death again.”
“Hunter, I’m a priest. I can’t be whatever you think I am to you.” Nathan searched Hunter for a reaction: hurt, anger, something. The man was a demon. He’d stalked him and made him betray who he was.
Even so, Nathan cared about Hunter’s feelings. He didn’t want to, but he did. Watching him get hurt had been excruciating.
“Your mistake is thinking you have a choice.” Hunter’s face was blank, impassive. “If I decide to keep you, you don’t have a say.”
Talking to the man was like slamming your head against a brick wall. Nathan didn’t understand why he didn’t run, get out of there, leave Hunter to heal on his own. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Maybe he also understood that the hellhound would follow him anywhere. There was no escape.
“Hunter, listen to me. I’m a priest.” Nathan sat on the edge of the bed and tentatively reached out, placing his hand on the hellhound’s bare, muscular stomach.
Why was he touching him? Hunter opened his mouth, but Nathan shook his head to stop him.
“It’s all I have left. I have no family. My mom died when I was in college. She’d been sick for a long time, since I was a teenager. She had been estranged from her parents for so long that I didn’t even know them. It was always just the two of us.”
Taking a deep breath, Nathan paused. Hunter had to understand. There was only one path for him.
“I had been so lonely as a kid. We lived in a small town with almost no children. It was like living in a retirement community. No friends. The nearest school was two towns over, and no one ever wanted to come to my house to play. It didn’t help that I was a weirdo. Too introspective, too quiet.”
“Then one Sunday, she brought me to the Catholic church in town. St. Gabriel the Archangel’s. People there doted on me. Everyone wanted to talk to me. There were some kids there—not a lot, but a few. It was nice to have friends.”
“But more than that, I loved it. The pageantry. The music. And the message. The old priest there, Father McKenna, was a kind man. I became an altar boy. He became the family I never had.”
“The church has done many terrible things in its history. But it was my home. Still is. And once my mom died, it was all I had left.”
A silence spread throughout the bedroom. A small oil lamp flickered nearby, bathing Hunter in a soft amber glow.
The hellhound was staring at him. There was something strange there, a confusing mix of compassion and domination. Nathan just hoped it was enough to make the demon understand. Whatever was between them didn’t matter. He’d made his choice years ago.
Hadn’t he? He’d never questioned it before he met Hunter. But even as he made his case, he sensed how close he was to caving. Their connection was almost too great to resist.
When Hunter spoke, his voice was soft, but it hummed with an unnatural power.
“You are confused, priest. You say you can’t be mine, that you are devoted to the priesthood. But you are missing one important fact.”
Nathan stared at him. What was he talking about? Nathan shook his head, trying to parse his words and failing.
“What?”
Hunter smiled. It was the grin that the fox gives the rabbit, that the tiger gives the antelope. Cold and hungry.
“You already belong to me.”