19. Priest

19

PRIEST

H e didn’t sleep.

He was comforted by the fact that Oliver was in his arms. That he was safe and for the moment, it was all over. Poe was alive, and apart from him and Jeremiah, they’d walked away unscathed. He and Oliver were fully bonded, they loved each other, and Oliver accepted every facet of him just as Priest did him.

But…

Oliver’s words about mates wouldn’t leave him.

Do you know that? Or is that what you’ve always been taught to believe?

Before Remi, they hadn’t thought Hellhounds could have mates either. Priest was pretty sure that was part of why Jeremiah had resisted so hard—he’d been so sure it wasn’t possible, so he hadn’t even let himself think about it.

And it had been the same for Priest.

How many months had he been drawn to the bookshop but then forced himself away, doubting the innate connection that had sparked to life the first time he’d seen Oliver through the shop’s front window?

Even after Jeremiah mated with the prince, Priest had convinced himself it was mostly because Remi was half Siren—and a royal on top of that. That had to be some extra-strong genes.

But that didn’t explain him and Oliver. The amount of Angel blood in his human made it unlikely, if not impossible, for their bond to start with Oliver. Maybe if he’d been aware and developing his abilities before they’d met, Priest could convince himself.

Which meant it came from him.

An Incubus.

A Demon breed so feared and reviled he wasn’t welcome in several countries.

And their bond was as strong as the one Jeremiah had with Remi. Oliver was like a second heartbeat in his chest now—always with him, always aware of him.

He fed him in ways that Priest had never been fed before. He was starting to forget what it felt like to be truly hungry. He was capable of being sated, which meant his fate of insanity from starvation might not be his fate at all anymore.

So what else about themselves had they been lied to about? Where had the misinformation come from, and why did Supes just accept it?

Priest was brought up knowing down to his very bones that he was not ever meant to be. That his purpose was to live, serve, and die in pain and anguish. Just like Jeremiah knew his purpose was to live, serve, and die completely alone. Never loved. Never mated.

But look at them now.

When he was certain Oliver was fast asleep, Priest crept from the bed, grabbing a T-shirt on the way out, and made his way through the house until he heard voices. He stopped near the corner of the kitchen, and he could hear Azriel speaking to someone.

“… a lot of pain, but it’ll pass. This is early days. But the more you fight it, the harder it’ll be.”

“How do you know? You’re an Angel? I’m… I’m this.”

“This is no less worthy. I don’t give a shit what some bigots on conservative TV say.”

“I literally have to eat people to survive.”

Azriel snorted. “No, you don’t. Knight survives on blood donations delivered in bags, and he’s not weak for that. No one has to die. But even if you choose to feed on people, that doesn’t mean you can’t find a balance.”

“Kill evil ones?”

“Maybe. Though I suppose evil is a bit subjective. But there are plenty of willing donors. They don’t have to be human, you know. There are strong beings out there who will happily and willingly donate.”

“There has to be a price for that.” Poe’s voice was soft, almost broken, and Priest hated that for him.

Azriel laughed softly. “Yes, my darling. There’s always a price. But there’s a price for food you eat too, right? And for what you drink. For where you lay your head at night. You might have changed, but the world hasn’t. You just need to take a breath and let yourself adjust.”

Priest didn’t want to interrupt. The moment was soft, a little tender, and a lot painful. It wasn’t his place.

Moving past the kitchen, he found his way to the side door that led to the garden. It was safer at night with the cover of trees, and he didn’t have to go far to find his friend. Knight was sitting against a wide trunk of a tall oak, his head tipped back, eyes closed. He tensed a little when Priest sat down, but it was obvious the Vampire had sensed him.

“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” Knight asked after a beat.

“Taking down this organization?”

Knight opened his eyes but didn’t turn to face Priest. “With Poe. I want these labs burned to the ground. Not just for me but for everyone they hurt. Everyone they killed. The children—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “But I know what it’s like to live as this. And I hate it.”

Priest offered his hand, and after a long beat, Knight took it. Sometimes, he wanted more touch than this, but Priest knew this wasn’t one of those moments. The careful brush of palm against palm was more than he was expecting.

“We found Poe in weeks. You were there for…”

Years. Neither of them were brave enough to say it. Knight didn’t know how long he’d been under the lab’s control, only that he was very young when they took him, and he’d already started to age when he escaped. Most of his torment had been when he was human… but not all of it.

“Poe will heal. He has a support system here that took you years to find,” Priest told him. He stroked his thumb over Knight’s wrist. “The point of helping people the way we do is so they don’t have to suffer like us.”

Knight bowed his head, nodding as he stared at their joined hands. “Oliver asked me if it always hurt to touch people. I told him no, but it was a lie. I dream about it—about, about being able to just hold someone. It feels so fucking good. And then I wake up, and every time I try, it makes me want to tear my own skin off.”

Priest tried to pull away, but Knight clung to him. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not. I need this. I need to stop running from the things that scare me. I’m never going to get past this if I don’t.” He swallowed heavily. “I want to be able to have what you and Sunshine do.”

“A mate?”

Knight shrugged. “Just a lover would be enough for me. The ability to touch and be touched without thinking about them. The ability to sink my fangs into someone who wanted to feed me the way Oliver feeds you. Tiny sips of life from their veins, knowing they want to be there in my arms. I mean, I’m a Vampire, so I know that finding someone capable of making me their mate is next to impossible, but?—”

Priest squeezed his fingers. “About that. Ah. Well.” He bit his lip. He didn’t want to give Knight false hope, but he also knew this was a thread worth pulling because the tapestry that would unweave from this meant giving the gift of mates and life and purpose to so many beings who didn’t believe they were allowed to have those things.

“What?” Knight pressed.

Priest blew out a puff of air. “Oliver pointed something out to me. We have a bond, he and I, like Jeremiah and Remy. But it didn’t come from him.”

Knight stared at him, and Priest hunched his shoulders.

“It didn’t come entirely from him,” he clarified. “I felt something when I first saw him, I just didn’t understand what it was. But if we were entirely wrong about how Vampires were made, what if we’re wrong about a lot of things?”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that Incubi will eventually go mad and starve to death. Oliver satiates me. Completely. The hunger is entirely gone after I feed on him.”

Knight looked unsure. He pulled his hand back. “And you think that’ll be forever?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s different with him. Even in my younger days, when feeding would allow me to be full, it was never like this. There was always a little pang of hunger left behind—a want for more. And that’s gone.”

Knight pulled one leg toward his chest and wrapped his arms around it. “That doesn’t mean someone like me is destined for a mate. I’m… barely a Supe. I was born human and made into this.”

“Except…” Priest sighed. “Oz’s theory seems to be right. Sunshine finished going through the journals, and it documented some of the experiments they did to trigger the change. It’s genetic, brother. This was always in you.”

Knight looked away. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Okay, fine. But it means we have to question everything now. Everything we know about beings like us says we’re unnatural. That we’re abominations that weren’t ever supposed to exist. But what if that’s all bullshit?”

“What would be the point?” Knight stressed.

Priest didn’t know, but he also couldn’t deny he was onto something. Maybe he was just getting his hopes up, but from the moment he’d fed on Oliver, things had been different. Oliver hadn’t been drained, and Priest felt almost like he’d been reborn into something else. And he refused to believe all of these things weren’t tied together.

“Once we get back, we can talk to Sunshine about it. But I think I want to go back to the lab and see if there’s anything left behind,” Priest said.

Knight nodded, his jaw tense but his eyes determined. “I’ll go with you.”

“Knight—”

“No. Like I said, I’m tired of running from everything that scares me. It’s time to face this head-on. Sunshine thinks Remi’s ex—that Nephilim—might have some of the answers we’re looking for. About more than just how Vampires come into existence. I spoke to him tonight, and he said our number one priority after we get Poe somewhere safe is to find Oz.”

“Then we should start at the lab and work our way out from there. But I don’t want you to push yourself beyond what you can come back from,” Priest stressed.

Knight smiled at him—a small, sad thing. But it still reached his eyes. “I know. And you’ll never know how much you and the others mean to me for how you’ve protected me. But it’s time to take my power back from them.”

Priest grinned and offered his hand again, and he felt something unfurl in his chest when his friend took it. Without hesitation.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Priest looked up from where he was feasting on Oliver’s collarbones and smiled at him, shrugging. “Not really, no. But I don’t need sleep the same way you do. This is enough for me.” He licked a stripe up Oliver’s neck, making his back arch.

It was both alien and beautiful the way he could feel Oliver’s lust rushing through him. Before, he could scent it, could taste it in the air between them, but now, it was like it was his own. They hadn’t fucked since they’d bonded, both of them emotionally and physically spent, but he had a feeling it would be different than it had been before.

“Kiss me,” Oliver whispered, turning his body toward Priest.

Their lips met, lazy and sloppy and no less fantastic than when Oliver was frantic and desperate for him. Priest felt his eyes darken, his tongue lengthen, as he tasted his beloved’s mouth. “Love you.”

Oliver pulled out of the kiss and smiled. “You like saying that, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance. Not with someone like you.” Priest raked his claws through Oliver’s hair before forcing himself to shift back fully. They didn’t have much time for this. Knight wanted to visit the lab early before whoever had been running it sent people to clear up what was left behind. They needed every bit of evidence they could gather.

Oliver hummed contently as he arched his back, then sat up and looked down at Priest. “Do you know you purr?”

Priest laughed. “Yeah.” He dragged the tips of his fingers up the inside of Oliver’s naked thigh. “I think somewhere in the long ago, Incubi came from some sort of cat shifter.”

“The purr?”

Priest nodded, then sat up and shifted enough for his eyes to change. It took extreme effort to do what he was about to do, and it usually only happened when his instincts were to protect his face. But when he heard Oliver gasp, he knew he was successful.

“You have inner eyelids?”

Priest grinned, showing a little fang. “Claws, fangs, a purr, and my eyelids are pretty solid proof.”

“Also proof that maybe I’m right about the whole societal mythos bullshit about your species,” Oliver said. “Gods, I wish my shop wasn’t blown to pieces. We had a whole library of books I hadn’t gotten to yet, and some of them were ancient history texts.”

Priest frowned. He thought blowing up the shop was a random act of violence to distract from the people who wanted to steal Poe, but maybe there was more to it. Which also meant there might be something more to blowing up the law office than suspecting the poor bastard they’d taken and killed was a vampire.

“What’s that frown?” Oliver brushed his fingers between Priest’s eyebrows.

“Nothing. Just more food for thought.” He swung his legs off the bed, then yanked Oliver to his feet and buried his face in his mate’s neck. He could feel heat radiating off the mating bite, and he licked it, feeling a surge of lust rushing into him, giving him the boost he needed.

“If you don’t stop that, we’re never going to get going,” Oliver murmured.

Priest forced himself to pull away, turning so he could grab his jeans and shirt from the top of his suitcase. He threw his clothes on, then raked fingers through his hair before turning back to Oliver, who was delicately picking through his things.

“I’ll get some coffee going and see if Knight’s ready. Meet you in the kitchen?”

Oliver waved him off, and to stop himself from pouncing and taking what he wanted, Priest made himself walk out the door. He could hear voices, slightly raised and agitated, as he made his way to the kitchen, and he found Poe standing against the counter with his arms crossed.

Knight and Azriel were across from him, both looking determined.

“We need a vote,” Poe said as soon as he locked eyes on Priest. He was definitely angry. His fangs had drawn pinpricks of blood over his lower lip. “He wants to leave me with Azriel while you all go to the lab.”

Priest raised a brow and looked at Knight and Azriel, who both nodded. “This is a bad idea, why? Because I can see you’re still healing from here.”

“I want to see where they were keeping me. I was drugged and tortured while they had me, and I was half fucking dead when your friend pulled me out,” Poe snapped. “And I’m not made of glass. I’m hurting, but I’m not going to fall apart.”

Priest turned to his friends. “He’s got a point.”

Azriel looked mildly surprised, but Knight looked outraged. “You cannot be serious.”

Priest shrugged. “What would you do in his shoes?”

“I was in his shoes,” Knight hissed. “And I most certainly didn’t look for a way back.”

“That’s because the lab was still operational when you escaped,” Priest pointed out. “And you’ve never been in his shoes. What happened to you was different.”

“I—” But then Knight deflated. He turned to Poe. “I think this could be a mistake, but it’s on your head.”

He stormed out, and Priest held back a sigh.

Poe looked torn, but Azriel closed the distance between them and set his hands on Poe’s shoulders. “Don’t take it personally. He’s like that with the people he cares about.”

Poe laughed bitterly. “He doesn’t even know me.”

“He knows you better than you think,” Priest said, slipping past them to grab coffee. For a moment, he swore he could taste tendrils of lust in the air, but before he could flick his tongue out to verify, it was gone. “You need to be patient with him. This is harder for him than he wants to let on.”

Poe let out a short breath. “I don’t want to hold you up or anything, but I really need to do this.”

“We’re not going to stop you,” Azriel said. “So long as you promise you’ll say something if it becomes too much.”

“I promise,” Poe said quietly.

There it was again. Priest flicked his tongue out, and Azriel smacked him. “Stop that. I know what you’re doing, and I will rip your tongue out if I have to.”

Priest raised a brow at him. “I’m not hungry. I was just curious.”

Poe looked confused, but Priest wasn’t about to fill him in.

After a beat, Poe sighed. “I’m going to go check on Oliver.”

The moment he was out of the room, Priest rounded on his friend. “A baby Vampire?”

“It’s not coming from me. He’s dealing with a lot of confusing feelings and emotions. Everything is heightened, and he feels a little… grateful to the people who rescued him,” Azriel explained. “Trust me, it’ll pass. And for the record, I would never prey on someone in his position. Do I think he’s attractive? I mean, look at him.”

Priest snorted. Objectively, he supposed Poe was good-looking, but now that he and Oliver had bonded, he struggled to see beauty in anyone else.

“He’s adorable in that weird, humanly awkward way. Like a baby giraffe. But I don’t want to fuck baby giraffes,” Azriel said.

“Protest much?”

“Fuck you.”

Between one blink and the next, Azriel was gone, leaving Priest to the coffee. He didn’t think there was actually something going on, and he did understand what Azriel was trying to say. But he also couldn’t deny that now Poe had turned, his life was going to be different.

Not only that, but if they were right about the mates thing, his prospects about any happily ever after he might have would be drastically and completely changed.