Priest (Trident Agency #2)

17. Priest

17

PRIEST

A s far as fights went, it was anticlimactic in ways that were almost disappointing. Priest hadn’t used his wings in eons. He hadn’t been strong enough to draw them out. But feeding on Oliver had given him power he hadn’t known he was capable of having, and he beat Jeremiah’s Hellhound to the compound.

They were met with immediate gunfire—something he was expecting. Jeremiah was able to shield the three of them as they breached the doors, and it wasn’t long before the first guards were taken down. They had just enough time to sound the alarm before Jeremiah was tearing throats, Knight was puncturing carotid arteries, and Priest was sinking teeth and claws into vulnerable flesh.

These were evil humans. He could sense it, taste it on their blood. They were afraid, but only because they had committed hell-worthy sins. Priest could smell fear in that place. He could smell death.

And something else.

Whatever it was, it had taken Knight directly to his knees. He glanced over to find his friend covered in blood, trembling from head to toe. He met Jeremiah’s eyes as the Hellhound shifted back and walked over, kneeling beside the Vampire.

“Go and find Poe. Find the others. Let Priest and me handle this.”

Knight swallowed heavily, his jaw tense. “It was here. This was the place.”

“I know,” Jeremiah growled. “And we will burn it to the fucking ground, but first, we need to get as many people out of here as we can.” He pressed his finger to his ear, listening to the static on his earpiece. Something in the compound was interfering, but the leader of Charlie Team came through well enough. “Charlie says they’re fleeing through underground tunnels.”

Knight climbed to his feet, his fight renewed, and then he was gone in the blink of an eye. Priest followed Jeremiah down a maze of tunnels. The Bravo Team was ahead of them, pulling humans from cages, off medical exam tables, and from behind locked doors.

Somewhere in the distance, Priest could hear children crying, and then he heard Knight’s roar. Gods have mercy on whatever humans were left behind to guard them. He could feel Knight’s rage from where he stood.

“Here,” Jeremiah said, leading Priest through a door. It was a massive medical room, and there was a table in the center. The person on the bed was no longer alive and was just starting to smell like decay.

They were emaciated, skin almost translucent, and they were still hooked up to IVs.

“What the fuck?” Priest whispered. Was this what Knight had endured? He glanced over and saw Jeremiah gathering a few leather-bound journals careless humans had left behind before turning his attention back to the body. Something about the man’s face looked familiar.

“Zimmerson’s son.”

The lawyer from the second attack.

Horror washing through him, Priest’s knees went weak. “We can’t let them find their child like this.”

Jeremiah shook his head and tapped the comm in his ear. “We need two members from Charlie for a body extraction. High-profile client. This cannot get out.”

Priest swallowed thickly. “Do you think this is what Knight?—”

“Yes,” Jeremiah said, cutting him off. His voice was tense with emotion. “Yes, I do.”

Priest couldn’t imagine what his friend had endured. Or why. What was the point of all this? It couldn’t be torment for fun, but why would they take ordinary citizens? Children? He didn’t want to think that they were doing this all in some sick attempt to turn humans into Vampires, and it seemed so pointless. Vampires were not welcomed in society, so why amass more of them?

After all, the people running the labs were humans. He could sense it, their emotions lingering on the air. What purpose would it serve?

Before he could voice all of that, he heard something—a scuffling sound behind heavy metal. Jeremiah’s head whipped to the side, and he jerked his chin at a massive cabinet. Priest rushed over and grabbed the sides, using all of his strength to pull it off the wall. Hinges tore, and there was a passageway behind it.

In the distance, he could hear shoes on concrete.

“Sounds like someone we want to talk to,” Jeremiah growled, smoke rising from his shoulders.

They took off like a shot, the gift of their preternatural speed allowing them to catch up in seconds. Two men were just reaching a massive opening—a parking garage with a single car and several oil stains from those who had been coming and going for years, most likely. There was no telling how long they’d been running this lab.

Jeremiah smiled wolfishly at them as Priest tasted their acrid fear in the air. He half shifted, his skin alighting with Hellfire. “Going somewhere?”

They said nothing.

“We just want a word.”

The men glanced at each other, so Priest took a step forward, but before he could do more than that, there was a sound. It was all-encompassing, high-pitched. It was torture. His hands flew to his ears, and he collapsed, barely able to see Jeremiah doing the same in his periphery.

One of the men took something out of his pocket—a strange, orb-like thing Priest swore he’d seen before. He threw it into the air, and then all Priest knew was pain. It felt like every atom in his body was bursting, over and over. His vision whited out, then began to fade to black.

And it was only the sweet relief of unconsciousness that saved him.

Am I dead?

He wasn’t sure if he spoke the words aloud, but when Priest tried to open his eyes, everything was white. It was also painful, which might mean he was in one of the hell realms—not that he expected to go anywhere else when he died.

From whence he came and all that.

But then he realized the bed beneath him was soft, and a warm hand was holding his, and a honey-sweet voice was whispering into his ear, “Come on, baby. Open your eyes. You need to feed.”

He knew that voice. By the gods, he loved that voice. And the voice was right. He was starved. He groaned, and his vision was dark again, this time with the shadow of a man. He let out a soft hiss, but it was captured by careful lips and a pressing tongue attempting to push past his teeth.

His hunger was overwhelming, his Demon desperate and exhausted. The temptation of that kiss and all the power he could sense behind it was too much to resist. He opened his mouth to accept the gift he was being given. Power rushed through him, familiar and wonderful.

Oliver , his brain supplied. He was kissing Oliver. He was feeding on Oliver.

He pulled back with a gasp, the memory of the compound rushing back. His limbs felt like they weighed several tons, but he managed to push up and yank his beloved against him. “Are you hurt?” he rasped, squinting around, but everything was too blurry to make out.

Oliver shoved him back and forced him to lie down. “No, jackass. Now, lie still. You’re hurt.”

“I’ll heal,” he muttered. And he would. His vision was already beginning to return, and he could finally see Oliver’s face. His sweet human was pale, dark circles under his eyes, a smear of something on his cheek. Blood? No, dirt. “How long was I out?”

“An hour at most,” came a voice from the other side of the room. He knew that one too. Azriel . “I kept my promise. You did not.”

Priest wheezed a laugh as he reached for Oliver and pressed his dry knuckles to his equally dry lips. “That was a bit out of my hands.” He groaned as he sat up again, but his strength was already returning. It was enough to resist Oliver when he tried to push him over again. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Oliver was shaking. He pressed into Priest’s embrace and buried his face against his neck. “You looked dead when Slate dragged you in here.” His voice was shaking too. “They didn’t know what happened. You and Jeremiah were unconscious.”

“Those wily little fuckers had a weapon,” Priest growled. He pulled Oliver’s head back and nuzzled against his skin, tasting sweat on his neck. He took another pull of his lust, of his love, letting it ease the pain he was still in.

“Jeremiah said the same thing,” Azriel replied dryly.

Priest pulled back to look at him. “He’s okay?”

“Same condition as you. Healing faster, but it looks like you took the brunt of whatever they threw at you.”

Priest swore quietly as he let his head fall back against the wall. “They got away.”

“They did. Only one human guard was left alive, but once it was determined he didn’t know anything, Knight, ah…” Azriel smiled. “Helped himself.”

Knight deserved the hot, fresh meal, and Priest was pretty sure any person willingly working at that lab deserved a painful death. Priest didn’t make it a habit to feel sorry for people he didn’t know, anyway. He wasn’t the most empathetic being and never would be. He’d grown up knowing everything cognizant with a pulse was potential food.

It was only after meeting Jeremiah that he realized there was more than lust—more than power. That he was capable of love. And now, though he was fighting to ignore it, possibly even something more. Something fated.

Turning his face back toward Oliver’s neck, he breathed him in. He was starving, and he was going to need more than a small taste to finish healing. Oliver seemed to sense that, but when he turned his head, body tense like he was going to address the room, Priest kissed him quiet.

“Not now,” he murmured against Oliver’s lips. He felt Oliver’s anger, almost as powerful as his lust, and he smiled. “Soon. I need to debrief and figure out what’s next. And Poe…”

“Alive,” Oliver said. “But…”

It was as they’d suspected.

Priest sat all the way up with a groan. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck, but he’d suffered worse. His gaze fixed on the doorway as a figure appeared. Jeremiah looked almost as bad as he did, though he was walking steadily. He grabbed a chair from against the wall and flipped it around, straddling it.

To an observer, the move would look careless and arrogant, but Priest knew him like he knew himself, and he saw the fatigue and pain running through him. And he could feel Jeremiah’s need to leave—to throw himself into Remi’s arms and heal.

“Poe will survive. He’s past the change,” Jeremiah said, his voice raspy. “Knight’s helping him through it, but he’s going to need protection, somewhere to go, and I can’t put any of our people on it right now, so any ideas you have will be helpful.”

Priest realized he was addressing Oliver, who shrank back. “Everyone in his family is an ally, but…”

“But we can’t be sure they’ll accept it in one of their own,” Priest finished for him, holding him a little tighter.

Oliver bowed his head. “They’re on the side of supernaturals, but Vampires…”

“Demons? Hellhounds?” Jeremiah said with a wry grin. “Trust me, that is a very familiar song and dance. I suppose I can ask the king and queen if they can shelter him, but I hate bringing more danger to their door.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Azriel cleared his throat. “He can come with me.”

Priest blinked at him in surprise as Jeremiah shook his head. “I don’t think a strip club is the best place for a new Vampire.”

“I have rooms at the club, but I don’t live there,” Azriel said, rolling his eyes. “I have an actual home.”

Priest felt foolish for being so damn surprised. How had he not known? How had he not even assumed that Azriel had a life outside of the Pearly Gates?

“I’m not going to patronize you and ask if you understand what it will mean to take care of a freshly turned Vampire who is also going to have massive trauma from being kidnapped and tortured,” Jeremiah said slowly. “But I need you to acknowledge that I have nowhere to take him if you show up at my door covered in bite marks.”

Azriel’s lips quirked up into a small smirk. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”

“I do,” Oliver said. He pushed out of Priest’s grasp and threw his arms around Azriel. “Thank you. I’m… I don’t know what to say.”

Azriel’s eyes closed, and he held Oliver tightly. Priest should have been feeling jealous. He should want to tear the Angel’s throat out, but instead, he was just relieved Oliver hadn’t lost his friend and that Poe wouldn’t be going through this alone.

“If that’s that…” Jeremiah said, moving to stand, but he froze when Priest made a noise of protest.

“That’s not that. I’m not done here. I want to know what the fuck took us out at the knees.” He dragged a hand through his hair, his muscles screaming with pain. “I want to know what information we got and if we were right.”

Jeremiah swallowed thickly. “We were right. At least, as far as Knight and I can tell. We don’t know why, and the one person who might actually know something is still missing.”

“Ozias,” Priest said, sagging backward.

Jeremiah nodded. “Tomorrow, we have to inform Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerson that their son didn’t make it. After that, we’ll have a meeting of the minds because I have a bad feeling this goes beyond fringe hate groups. There were children in that facility. Two of them were turned.”

Priest felt sick. “Where are they now?”

“Rhombus’s Hoard took them,” Jeremiah said.

Rhombus was a Dragon on the Charlie Team. His Hoard lived on one of the Bellona Mountain peaks, which was probably the best place for children that were, for all intents and purposes, now illegal in every country. Anywhere else, the way they aged so slowly would be noticed easily, outing them. Unless something could be done about society, they would never be welcome.

If Priest had been stronger, he would have put his fist through the wall. “What do we tell their parents?”

“Slate volunteered to talk to them.”

Priest couldn’t imagine being the one to deliver such devastating news. As much as he wanted to believe the parents would continue to love their children…

He didn’t have much hope.

Knight’s hadn’t. Neither had Jeremiah’s.

Priest didn’t remember his, his earliest memories of group homes and beatings. He’d been told his mother had abandoned him, and he believed it. No one wanted a child like him, not when the chances of going mad with hunger were basically guaranteed.

“I’m flying back home tonight,” Jeremiah said. “Knight’s staying here so he can go through the lab after Bravo gets done clearing out the rest of the bodies. Two of the unturned survivors are still here, and he wants to question them.”

Priest nodded. “Let him know I’ll help.”

“You’re hurt,” Oliver started to protest.

“I am.” Priest gave him a knowing smile. “But with a little help, it won’t take me long to heal.”

As much as Priest would have loved to order everyone out of the room and to take Oliver right there, he couldn’t. Poe was calling for him, and Priest wasn’t going to stand in his way. Azriel agreed to stay in the safe house for a few more days as Poe gained strength, and it would allow Oliver to help him come to terms with what had happened.

“I don’t like this,” Priest said to Jeremiah, hobbling with him to the door.

Jeremiah bowed his head. “Neither do I. I thought… Fuck, when Knight told me what happened to him, I thought it was some random sicko with a Vampire obsession, but he knew that lab. And if they were able to get out so quickly, if they had an escape plan at the ready?—”

“Then they’ve been doing this a long time,” Priest finished for him. He rubbed at his temples. “There has to be more than one lab out there.”

“I’m terrified to think of how many. But I’m done playing fucking defense.” Jeremiah dropped the handle of his suitcase and grabbed Priest, pulling him into a hug. “He’s your mate, isn’t he?”

Priest swallowed thickly. “I think so. I… I feel this thing inside me, like a thousand impossibly strong threads trying to bind us together. But I don’t know how. He’s mostly human, and he’d be closer to Nephilim than an Angel. This shouldn’t be possible.”

Jeremiah rubbed at his chin, and he pulled back. “I have a few theories on that too, but we can talk about it later.”

“Do you think whatever this is might be related to finding our mates?”

“I think there’s a lot of big, waving flags we’ve missed over the years,” Jeremiah admitted. “But I refuse to believe we’re too late to stop whatever the fuck these people are planning.” He gave Priest’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Go. Feed. Heal. We need you.”

Priest nodded, watching as Jeremiah stepped through the door, and then he turned and headed back to his room. It was still empty, and his hunger was gnawing at him, but it was more than that. He didn’t just want to feed. He wanted Oliver.

He needed him.

Those invisible threads in his chest began to stretch out. He could feel them reaching, searching. He could feel when they connected to his beloved. Only minutes passed before the bedroom door opened, and Oliver stepped through, locking it behind him.

Priest felt his lingering worry, felt his hunger. His Demon rose to the surface of his skin, ready to take, to feed, to consume the parts of Oliver he was willingly giving. Priest felt pinned to the bed by Oliver’s gaze, and he could do nothing except wait for his little human to cross the room.

Oliver’s gaze was fixed on him, eyes half-lidded, pupils dilated. He looked like he was in a trance, but then he reached for the hem of his shirt and smiled. “Say please.”

Priest’s throat went dry. “Please.”

Oliver removed the shirt, letting it fall to his feet. He took several more steps. His knees hit the bed. His lithe, perfect, clever fingers touched the button on his jeans. “And this?”

Priest pushed up on his elbows and bared his fangs. “More. All of it. Show me what’s mine.”

Oliver shuddered as he removed his jeans, letting them pool at his feet along with his thin boxers. His body was unblemished, untouched by the violence of the night, and Priest was grateful for it. The only marks on Oliver’s skin should be his own.

He felt his fangs elongate along with his claws as he got his hands around Oliver’s hips. With a short grunt, he tugged, and Oliver toppled onto him. The warmth of his skin sent his head into a spin, his hunger taking over.

“Beautiful,” Oliver murmured.

For a moment, Priest didn’t know what he meant, and then he felt a touch along his horns. The sensation split into two rivers, one flooding his heart, the other his cock. He was torn between lust and love, and he was bewildered that even after showing himself like this, Oliver still wanted him.

His human.

His Angel.

His.

“Kiss me.” The words came out jumbled and growled, tongue thin and forked and flicking out to taste the skin on Oliver’s neck. His little human turned and gave him access to his pulse, then leaned in and pressed their lips together, and Priest had to clamp down on his desire to immediately draw power from him.

He was wounded, and his control was thready, but he was going to draw this out. He wanted to feed, but he wanted to love on this man.

“Why are you holding back?”

Priest pulled away and took Oliver’s chin carefully in his claws. “I love you.”

Oliver shuddered, his eyes closing. “Tell me again.”

Priest sank his fangs into Oliver’s neck, not enough to break the skin, but nearly. He felt those threads in his chest reaching for Oliver’s, twisting together—bright and overwhelming. It was impossible to deny it now. This was his mate. His forever. The soul the universe had chosen to be his and only his.

All he had to do was sink into him and taste him, and they would be bonded forever.

“I love you,” he said again. He forced his shift as far back to human as his hunger would allow, and he caught Oliver’s gaze. He knew his eyes were still black. His vision was distorted by his Demon, picking up on the heat radiating off Oliver’s skin like an aura sunset. He took a breath. “You are mine.”

“Yes.”

Priest shook his head. “I need you to understand. You… you are mine. My?—”

“Your mate,” Oliver said. “I know.”

How ?

Oliver laughed, and Priest realized he had read the question from his mind. “I don’t know how. I just do. I feel it. I need you, Claude.”

He had never, ever thought he would enjoy hearing his given name on the lips of anyone until that moment. His eyes went hot, acidic tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.

“I’m not just yours, okay? You’re mine too. I want this. I want the bond. I feel like I’m going to die without it.”

Priest heard a growl, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. It was his Demon, ready to possess, to claim, to take what was being given. To offer what he had never thought he’d be allowed to. The fact that he wasn’t just wanted but that he belonged to another soul was almost too much for him.

But his Demon wouldn’t let him spiral. It was taking over. His fangs dropped again, his face shifting, his horns stretching high above his head. He flipped Oliver onto the mattress and pressed his hands on either side of his head.

“Tell me now if?—”

“I want it. I want you. Take me,” Oliver begged, cutting him off.

And that was all Priest needed to hear before his Demon took over and descended to make Oliver his.