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“Go ahead.” Just as smooth a provocation. “We’ll just have this conversation after a good face-polish. The Order needs to–”
“The Order can kiss my ass. I’ve brought them farther in five years than all the others in two hundred, and I never asked for a single favor.”
“And is this the favor you want? To keep the girl?” He angles his head like a bird of prey. “Why?”
My eyes clash with his, blue shards cutting into wolfish gold. Priest’s eyes are an eerie thing, giving his clerical look an assassin-like streak. I’ve seen that assassin in action, and he’s the only opponent I’d never take lightly. But he’s also the only person I can trust. All these years, all we’ve really had was each other, and he is, in a way, my confessor.
“I feel like I’ve known her a long time, and I don’t believe in fate. There’s got to be something there. Even this morning, as I watched her–”
“What were you still doing with her this morning?”
My jaw tightens.
“I’m going to take over half of Carter’s empire through her. I have to get to know the woman.”
“You have to? Or you brought yourself in that position because you want to get close to her?”
“Fucking nonsense.”
He angles his head in that animalistic way again, his eyes glinting with intelligence.
“You forget–I was there when she first came to see you. I saw you before you used her and after. Something was different.” A pause. “Dangerously different.”
The silence stretches out, neither of us backing off an inch.
“If she feels familiar to you, it’s because you gave her the chance to. You opened up too much.” He steps closer, his nose inches from mine. “Make sure she doesn’t become a nuisance, Zayne.”
“Don’t you fucking threaten her.” My fists clench, my muscles bulging under my shirt.
Priest shakes his head. “I never take down women, you know that. I keep to bastards my own size.” He sizes me up as he says the words, driving the point home.
“What is she to you, Zayne? A kindred spirit? A partner in pain? Have you two been hurt the same way?”
“No one has been hurt the same way you and I have,” I rumble, my stare holding his. It shuts him up, but suspicion of what really ties me to Sirenna is still imprinted on his face.
If Priest can feel empathy, he does a good job of shutting it out. I’ve been through some fucked-up shit, but him? Even The Order only speaks of it in hushed voices. His past forged him into an unpredictable weapon, a slippery viper that every man of power should know to fear.
Not me, though.
I step closer, now chest to chest with him, granite to steel.
“Let it go, Priest,” I say quietly, threat rippling in my voice. “The woman is and will remain under my control. She’ll stay here until I’ve figured her out a hundred percent, and until I’ve got her firmly enough in my grip that she doesn’t make a single move without my knowledge.”
“You don’t understand,” Priest replies, holding his ground. “Sirenna Carter isn’t some damsel in distress, dreaming of a prince to rescue her. She’s not one of those gold diggers who believe themselves to be more cunning than they are. And she’s certainly not a dog on a leash.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“I know you do, and that’s our problem. Instead of staying a star in the sky, she can never reach, you plunged head-first into her world. She interests you, she intrigues you, and that’s what makes her so dangerous.”
“I can handle this,” I say, my voice lower but the menace harder.
“Then handle it, but don’t lose yourself in the process. If you do, The Order won’t let her live.” He takes a step back, but nothing else in him budges.
As much as my fists clench with the need to crash through his skull, I maintain enough control to watch him leave my office with his life. The moment the door closes, I swivel around and smash my fist into the desk, the wood splintering under my knuckles.
***
Sirenna
