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“You’re not supposed to roam around the den without an escort,” Arden says, crossing her arms and tilting up her chin.
“I mean,you’rehere.”
A rumbling growl tears itself free of her throat, and she takes a threatening step toward me. “Don’t get feisty with me,” she warns. “I don’t trust people like you.”
“I’m not a crusader anymore,” I say. “I swear, I’m just trying to help your pack with their farm.”
“Arden!”
Reyes’ voice cuts across the corridor, deep and menacing. It makes a verydifferentkind of chill run down my spine, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end and my skin prickling.
Arden’s head snaps toward him, and she almost cowers as she backs away. Her dark eyes flash in the golden lamps lining the wall, thirsty for blood but unable to do anything about it.
Reyes wasn’t lying when he said no one would hurt me while I was under the Alpha Prime’s protection.
I follow her gaze to find Reyes illuminated from behind, leaving him cloaked in shadow. As he gets closer, I can see his brown eyes glowing with an almost silver glint, his beard freshly trimmed. He’s wearing a priest’s collar, which brings up more than a few dirty fantasies from my youth.
Down, girl.
“Leave her alone,” he says. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“But she—”
“Leave it,” Reyes commands. His posture and expression paint a clear picture of a man ready for a fight: squared shoulders, tense jaw, his eyes getting narrower by the second.
Arden takes another step back. “Fine,” she hisses, and leaves us behind.
I look up at Reyes, licking my lips. He tracks the movement of my tongue, his eyes darting back to mine after I’ve already caught him watching.
“I was actually just trying to go to the bathroom,” I mutter. “Nothing nefarious happening here.”
“Figured,” he says. “You can go ahead.”
“Wow, thank you,” I say, and he snorts at the sarcasm in my voice.
“I’ll stay here and make sure she doesn’t come back,” he says.
I make it quick, relieving myself and washing my hands before re-joining him in the corridor. Reyes is standing and looking down at a little piece of paper when I come back out, muttering to himself.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Oh.” He looks at me, folding the paper back up and slipping it into his pocket. “It’s my homily for today’s morning meeting.”
“Morning meeting…?”
He smiles. “It’s what we call church here,” he says. “Not everyone was comfortable coming to a church service, so I try to keep God out of it for the most part—at least explicitly. We just come together to catch up, talk about the week’s events, any plans for the next week…”
“Okay,” I say. “I didn’t even know y’all did that here.”
Reyes chuckles. “I may be the Prime, but I’m still a priest. And there’s a lot more a priest can do than talk about God.”
“I get that,” I say. “We just…we stopped holding services a long time ago in Homestead.”
He cocks his head. “Mind me asking why?”
I shrug. “Once the Heavenly Host arrived, I guess it just seemed like there was no point in trying to talk to God. We had a direct line, after all.”
Reyes frowns like he’s going to argue, his mouth opening slightly. His hand moves in his pocket, his homily crinkling in his fingers. But he doesn’t argue with me; instead, he schools his expression and meets my eyes.
