Page 105

Link sprawled in the recliner with a flask of bourbon, volleying questions like an eager reporter. His men moved quietly around us, cleaning weapons, repairing shoes, and scraping forks in various cans of food. Some slept. Some kept watch outside. Others sat with us, listening to me ramble.

I detailed every event that affected my life over the past two years, and Jesse and Roark filled in their own experiences. The Drone, the Lakota, the men who raped me, the scar on my chest, our journey to Europe and back, Michio’s biological changes, my inhuman ladybird abilities, the prophecy. There were no stones left unturned when I twisted around and showed the room the spots on my back.

Link took a slug of bourbon and lit a cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as he studied Jesse and Roark with razored black eyes.

He exhaled slowly, his gaze landing on Roark. “You’re a celibate priest, but you won’t turn down a blow job.”

I’d just told him there was a monster with wings flying around out there, and this was what he wanted to talk about?

Roark’s hand tightened on my knee, his thumb tracing the crease between my pinched legs.

Link waved the cigarette in Jesse’s direction. “And you’re a spirit-walker, following the advice of a dead child.”

My hackles shot up, and I jerked forward. Jesse’s arm across my waist pinned me on the couch.

Link reached toward his ankle and stubbed out the cigarette in the folded cuff of his jeans. “I mean no disrespect, Evie. Didn’t have kids of my own. Don’t want to think about what it feels like to lose one.” He looked back at Jesse. “So you follow a prophecy that says your seed will kill your woman.”

Jesse, Roark, and I were pressed together so tightly I felt our collective tension running back and forth between us.

Leaning back in the recliner, Link lit another cigarette, his eyes on Jesse. “It’s been two years since I’ve laid eyes on a woman, but I recognize beauty when I see it. Evie’s a fucking wet dream, and neither one of you are boning her? Fuck, man. That’s some fucked-up shit right there.”

Roark sprung from the couch and slammed into Link with fists flying. His heavy punches connected with flesh, over and over, pummeling Link’s face, ribs, and arms. They rolled off the recliner, Roark punching and Link grunting, as they thrashed across the floor.

Jesse didn’t move, his face relaxed, his eyes following the scuffle.

“Aren’t you going to stop him?” I tried to stand, but his arm held me down.

Ten or so of Link’s men stood around the room, smoking cigarettes and palming flasks, all casual like, watching the fight. Not a single weapon raised.

What the hell was this? Some kind of men-establishing-dominance bullshit?

Bent over Link, Roark continued his attack, his fists raining down, viciously, brutally, with no end in sight. Link raised his arms to block, but he didn’t fight back.

Was this Link testing how sexually repressed Roark was? Or was this his way of proving he and his men were not a threat to me?

Please tell me that sound wasn’t the crunch of bone.

Link’s gurgling manic laugh erupted from beneath Roark’s relentless hits.

Roark jumped up and put his hands on his hips, breathing heavy as he stared down at Link. “All bleeding and having a laugh like. Maybe ye need another come-to-Jesus meeting with me fists?”

Link sat up, knees bent, blood dripping from his nose and the cuts around his mouth and eyes. He flashed a red-stained smile and raised his cigarette, still pinched between his fingers. It was bent to hell but still smoldering.

A heavy exhale hissed past Roark’s clamped teeth. “Bloody hell, your face looks like me dead uncle’s ball sac.”

With his elbows on his knees, Link straightened the cigarette and perched the end between his bloody lips. “Saw the scars on your knuckles, Father Molony. Wanted to see if they were what I thought they were.”

Seriously? He couldn’t have just asked?

Roark flexed a hand, eyeing his knuckles. “I was a street boxer in Northern Ireland, ye fecking muckshit fuck.”

Link choked on a drag of his cigarette, nodding and grinning. “Got some dirty fucking power in those fists, my friend. And the sword? They teach you how to use that in the seminary?”

Roark’s sword leaned against the couch beside me. He told me once he preferred it because there weren’t many guns in Ireland.

He closed his eyes, opened them. “I dragged the church youth group to SCA armored combat activities, before…” He pushed a loose dreadlock out of his face. “The sword fighting was all for sport. Gave the young lads something to do.” He shrugged. “I took a liking to medieval weapons and made a hobby out of it.”

Link watched him for a long moment, puffing on his cigarette and bleeding all over the place. “You’re the strangest priest I’ve ever met.”