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When I first met her, I wanted nothing more than to watch the look of shameful pleasure on her face as she came apart for me. It was a whole new kick that ignited me like nothing had in years. I fucked many women before her in all sorts of ways and done shit that would turn a normal man into a psychopath, aroused only by the sickest perversions.
But Sirenna Miller electrified me the night I watched her at The Rite in a whole new way, so I kidnapped Joseph in a plot to draw her into my sphere of influence. He’d already gone into hiding, planning on dragging her with him. He used the first few days to prepare some nasty porn shit he wanted to force her into, which he would then use in court as proof of her adultery. After the divorce, she would get nothing. His plan blew up in his face.
Sirenna stirs in my arms. I lock her against my chest, and she relaxes, surrendering to the warmth of my body with trust that I don’t deserve. My chest swells with a fuzzy feeling as I watch her sleep, her face snuggling against my chest to shield it from the morning sun. I lie here for a while, caressing her hair, a dumb smile on my face. Realizing how stupid I must look, I run a hand over my face to scrub off that happy boy grin. Carefully peeling Sirenna’s arms off me, I get up, all with a half-mind to make her breakfast, and give Mariana the day off. I can’t have this growing intimacy between Sirenna and me reaching The Order before I know exactly what I’m doing.
After taking a quick shower and changing clothes, I head off to the kitchen. There are few good things I can ascribe to life in the orphanage, but the fact that I can make a mean breakfast is one of them.
“Smells delicious,” an even, masculine voice says behind me. I only realize I’ve been smirking like a fucking idiot when the smile wipes off my face, a moment before I spin around to meet his wolfish glare.
“If I didn’t know better,” Priest continues as he approaches, “I’d say you became Sirenna Carter’s guardian angel.” He looks down at the scrambled eggs and fresh vegetables I chopped up for her. “Even though this isn’t exactly the use to which I would have expected you to put your skills with a blade.”
His eyes drag up to mine, fully aware that he’s standing way too close to the blade in my hand. Most men who know me would have the sense to step away, but not Priest.
“I caught your housekeeper on her way out,” he says. “I took the liberty of asking her not to file the report she intended to file with Kelly. I said I’d given The Order all the information they needed, and Kelly is scheduled for a visit in a few weeks anyway.”
“You expect me to thank you for the favor,” I bite out.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” he retorts, his eyes now gliding to the rack of knives on the counter. “Especially since the shitstorm you’re about to unleash will hit us both full in the face.”
“There will be no shitstorm. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? Because it looks to me like you’re becoming all wrapped up in the pussy of a woman you were supposed to use.”
“Don’t talk about her like that.” I white-knuckle the knife in my hand. “Besides, you know damn well I always finish what I start.”
“I also know you never catch feelings unless those feelings are rage and loathing,” he says sharply. “There’s a reason why they teamed us up, Zayne.” His fluid voice cuts into every word. “First, it was because I saw right through you from the day they recruited us. Now you think you can fool me because I never felt–” his eyes rake me up and down, “–whatever it is you think you’re feeling now. But I know weakness when I see it, and that’s what Sirenna Carter is becoming for you.” Then, his tone dripping with gravity, “ She’s becoming your soft spot. The only one you’ve ever had.”
I let the silence between us stretch over a few good moments before I click my tongue. “I always knew it was a mistake, pairing a cleric with an operative.”
“We were supposed to be each other’s balance,” he says impassively.
I know better than to think that Priest experiences anything remotely similar to envy toward Sirenna for the connection we share. The only emotional experience where Priest and I align is in our hatred for sadistic pigs. He exorcizes the evil out of them like an inquisitor, and he employs an inquisitor’s methods to do it while I rain death on them. We complete each other, and together we have made many a vile bastard beg on their knees.
Priest and I met many years ago in a cold room as recruits of The Order, and we immediately recognized kindred spirits in each other. But we were never friends.
“No,” I say, my eyebrows dipping. “We were supposed to have each other’s backs, and we can’t do that when we’re hiding stuff from each other.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“No?” I cock my head like a bird of prey preparing to tear into a corpse. “Once a year, you lock yourself in a monastery in France for exactly five days. Always during winter, after a trip to frosty mountains, from the Alps to the Ural, to make sure you cover your tracks. Everyone at The Order thinks you’re doing some spiritual work, like meditating until your tank’s full, but that isn’t what you do at the monastery, is it, Priest?”
If the Cleric is surprised that I know, nothing in his face betrays it. He just stares me in the eye, reminding me why everybody at The Order calls him The Left Hand of God.
“We can’t risk her discovering the truth about you,” he pushes through his teeth, a tinge of a warning in his voice.
“She won’t,” I growl under my breath. “It’s in my own interest to keep that from her, not just The Order’s.”
Priest narrows his wolfish eyes. “In your interest?”
I steel myself inwardly to tell him the truth. I know he won’t betray me the same way he knows I won’t betray him–for The Order, he and I are a unit. If one of us fucks up, the other suffers, too. If I go off the rails, it’s because he failed to monitor me properly, and if he blows up like the fucking time bomb that he is, it’s on me for failing to recognize the signs and report them.
“If she finds out what I really am, she’ll run off screaming–or she’ll try.”
Priest searches my face with suspicion. “And you don’t want her to stay with you because she’s forced to,” he concludes. “You want her to want to.”
I hold his stare, waiting for him to just accept it for what it is and get out of the fucking way. My fist clenches harder around the knife’s hilt, a gesture that would be lost on most mortals but not Priest. He bares his teeth in a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You’d do that, Zayne? You’d swing a blade at me for her, even knowing you’d be signing your death sentence with The Order?”
