“No,” Priest said instantly, irrefutably. “You are not doing it.”
“I am,” I whispered as I turned in my chair to look up at him. “I have to.”
“You are absolutely not doin’ this, Bea,” he repeated in that voice of titanium. “Not the kinda man who’d forbid you from much, but puttin’ your life on the line is one of those fuckin’ things.”
“We’ll organize it so she’ll be in minimal danger, McKenna,” Hutchinson said as the door between rooms opened and the cops came flooding in.
Priest actually growled and snapped his teeth, stepping in front of me as if they were a threat. “I said no. You got lead in your fuckin’ ears?”
“Priest,” Lion tried, always the moderator. “We got this.”
“You do not,” Priest said—not angry but cold, so cold he emanated it like dry ice. “You have fucked up time and time again, not just with this, but with every fuckin’ thing to do with the club. I’m not puttin’ my fuckin’ woman on the line when I know it’s you lot in charge. Your incompetency will get her killed.”
“You watch your fucking mouth––” one of the RCMP officers stepped forward to say.
“Fine,” Lion interrupted. “The PD will coordinate with the club if they want Miss Lafayette’s coordination.”
“What the actual fuck?” the RCMP cop barked.
“You’re not even a damn cop anymore, Danner,” another one protested.
“No,” Hutchinson agreed, pulling out his phone. “But this retired cop took down an entire MC in Vancouver and helped clean up this damn department, so speak to him with some fucking respect. I’ll call Staff Sergeant Munoz and set something up.”
The two RCMP officers blinked, clearly shocked that a police department would ever let a private investigator take control or collaborate willingly with a criminal element.
This was Entrance.
Weirder things had happened.
Priest didn’t say a word, but his body language spoke volumes. Putting me in the path of danger went against every instinct he had and every bone in his body. Protecting me was the most important thing in his life now because, in a way, I’d become his life just as he had mine.
We were two very different souls who only made sense together. Yin and yang. Sweet and bitter. Light and Dark. Bea and Priest.
Now that we had connected, I wasn’t sure one could exist without the other.
All I knew was that if I didn’t go to the clearing, I’d never forgive myself. I couldn’t in good conscience let another woman I loved be hurt because of me, let alone die for me.
I’d never recover.
No matter what, and that included Priest’s opinion on the matter, I was facing my demon in less than twenty-four hours, and hopefully, this would all be over.
Priest
For a moment, I thought I was dreaming. Then I remembered, I did not dream. I was so used to the sound of my own breath isolated from others to the absolute stillness of my unmoving body like a corpse in my bed that my sleep-drunk mind could not compute the noises of Bea beside me.
She was dreaming.
I opened my eyes to see the faint light of dawn spilling like milk through the single skylight I’d put in the roof of the warehouse directly over my bed. It was a stupid thing, a vulnerability if anyone truly wanted to attack me while I slept, but I’d always found the stars peaceful. Counting them helped me find whatever sleep I was capable of snatching.
I was grateful for it now as I turned to watch my Little Shadow bathed in the pale glow, her small, perfectly formed mouth the colour of the inside of a seashell, golden brow furrowed as she dreamt.
I never slept deeply enough to dream. As I watched her in the clutches of one, I was intrigued, a voyeuristic pleasure that mildly surprised me. It seemed I was obsessed with every single fucking thing about this woman. I wondered if I was in her dream, decided it was unacceptable if I was not, and then considered waking her just to ask the absurd question.
I decided instead to run my finger gently down the curve of her heart-shaped face and along the thick fan of the white gold lashes resting on her cheek. Sleeping there beside me in the black sheets under the pure glow of the rising sun, she’d never looked more innocent.
She’d also never looked more mine.
There was a love bite on the right side of her neck peeking beneath her silken hair, and when I pushed back the sheets from her skin, I traced the other reminders of my possession on her form. The bruised knees so pretty, the swollen nipples like raspberries under cream. I wanted to fuck her into the mattress so hard she’d forget any other thought in her head.
She’d forget in just over an hour she was meant to meet a madman in a clearing.