Page 3

Three

Atlas hadn’t exactly lied to his cousin. Sex would make him feel better. Sex with the same priest who’d officiated Cole’s funeral was doubly delicious. The fact said priest also from time to time slipped him intel about Evan’s whereabouts was the wicked cherry on top.

Niall’s morals and nerves tangled to make him chatty, even more so if the sex was, in his mind, particularly illicit.

Which was how Atlas had ended up here, in one of the private rooms of a very particular type of club on the outskirts of town, blindfolded and tied to a very different sort of cross than the one the priest usually prayed to.

“I told myself I wouldn’t come back here,” Niall muttered as he ran his long fingers along the edges of the leather harness that crisscrossed Atlas’s bare torso.

Atlas hissed, the sensations magnified by the lack of sight. Wanting that teasing touch elsewhere, he arched his back, nudging Niall’s fingers lower, over the belt that was holding open his kilt and into the crease of his groin, putting Niall on a direct path to his hardening cock.

Niall sucked in a sharp breath, and Atlas shivered.

He could only imagine how high the color would be on the priest’s pale cheeks.

Niall wasn’t an unattractive man. Mid-forties, a headful of dark brown waves, a tall, slim body he kept in shape by tending the community gardens and herding cattle at his family’s ranch.

And a cock he knew how to use, even if some fictional higher power made him think he shouldn’t.

Niall’s fingers skirted around the root of Atlas’s cock. “An hour ago, I was at your father’s home, witnessing His grace with your family.”

Atlas angled up his face, toward the warm breath hovering close. He found the priest’s stubbled chin and nibbled along it. “You witness anything else while you were there?”

“Your father was more agitated than usual.” His touch drifted lower. “Then again, he’s lost another son.”

Atlas rolled his hips and groaned against Niall’s throat. “You were barely a teenager when he lost the last one.”

Niall purred as he fondled Atlas’s balls. “Those were the days.”

Atlas arched again, as much as his bindings would allow, body skirting the front of Niall’s, heat rolling off his chest. If past experience held, the priest still had his collar on while his shirt hung open and his wet dick hung over the elastic of his briefs, his pants discarded in the corner by the door. “Were you a naughty teenager, Niall?”

His hand circled Atlas’s cock. “I hadn’t found my path yet.”

Atlas thrust into the tight, sure grip, smearing Niall’s palm and fingers with precome. “You’re still naughty, aren’t you?”

Niall melted into him, his lean body pressed the length of Atlas’s, his fat cock digging into Atlas’s hip and streaking his skin with sticky arousal.

Atlas grinned. He may have been the one tied up, but it was Niall who had surrendered. “Seems you found your path today,” he rumbled low and tunneled again into Niall’s fist.

“I want to help ease his pain. But with you still practicing...”

Atlas slammed the brakes on his surging libido.

They’d somehow gotten onto him and off the path to Evan.

He needed to redirect, needed to work Niall to the very edge so he would spill more of the info Atlas needed.

And less of the judgment. He flicked his fingers, loosening the rope around one of his ankles enough to hitch his leg between Niall’s.

Niall moaned. “Oh, fuck.” Then ground down on Atlas’s thigh, sliding his cotton-trapped taint and balls along the hard muscle and rutting his leaking dick against Atlas’s hip.

With another flick, Atlas sent a trail of magic down Niall’s spine and between his ass cheeks, a virtual tongue rimming his hole the way Atlas knew he liked it.

“Oh, fuck!” Louder as the speed of Niall’s strokes and ruts increased. He pressed his sweaty brow against Atlas’s temple, his hot breath a heavy pant in his ear, coming unhinged with a litany of grunts and curses.

Exactly the state Atlas needed him in. He kissed up the side of Niall’s face and pecked away at more of the truth. “Has my brother been practicing in these parts too?”

Evan had been a no-show in La Purisima when Atlas had slayed another giant and again at Club Sutro when the giant from the Stick had attacked Vincent’s son, Paris, who’d allied himself with Nature.

Atlas had killed that giant too, finally, and had made it back to the safe house in time to move Cole—and missed Evan’s return to the Stick on Samhain.

Evan had joined the last remaining giant in another attempt to bring Chaos through the veil, but Paris, Nature, and their team had defeated the giant and kept Chaos at bay a little longer.

And Evan had disappeared. Again.

“Not practicing,” Niall said on a groan.

“But he’s been here?”

“He wanted to say a prayer for your brother.”

Anger caused Atlas to bite down harder than intended on Niall’s ear lobe. The priest only groaned louder...and disclosed a nugget of useful information, finally. “He wanted me to arrange a meet at the casino.”

The closest casino was located on Chumash land. The local Indigenous tribe had steadily reclaimed more and more of the southern inland territories, same as other tribes had done north and east of Yerba Buena.

Sensing Niall was close to spilling come and more intel, Atlas hitched his leg higher and rolled his hips, jostling Niall so his erection collided with his fist stroking Atlas’s.

Niall was powerless to resist the offered pleasure, wrapping his hand around them both, their hard cocks slippery against each other in his grip.

He wound his other arm around Atlas’s neck, needing more leverage and balance for his rutting, for the climax bearing down on him.

Atlas didn’t have much time. He licked into the hollow behind Niall’s ear. “What did he want with the Chumash?”

“Help Cole reach peace,” Niall panted. “One way or another.”

Niall might have believed that; the priest always wanted to see the good in people. Atlas didn’t buy it for one second. Evan was after something.

Or someone.

“Who did he want a meet with?” Atlas had a few ideas, but he needed Niall to confirm which one was right.

Instead, the priest’s body tensed, practically vibrating, and with a shouted “Oh, fuck!” he erupted, soaking his fist and Atlas’s cock with warm, sticky come.

And then with his next breath, he promptly panicked, his self-hatred welling up and out. “Fuck,” he cursed again in a decidedly different tone. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the familiar litany began as he scurried off Atlas. He always did this. Every single fucking time.

Atlas was glad for the blindfold. It hid his rolling eyes as he tried to coax Niall back with a gentler tone.

“Niall, it’s okay,” Atlas called after him, his best lead in months stumbling for the door.

“You did so good. We can do more good.” Sometimes the cajoling worked, but more often than not, Atlas was left hard and hanging.

Literally, this time.

The door opened and slammed shut, leaving Atlas to curse alone.

To sulk in a rare moment of exhaustion, letting the cross and bindings hold him up.

No one was there to see him, to take advantage of his weakness.

He could indulge in a well-earned moment of self-pity.

Two months, four dead giants, a second dead brother, and his last surviving brother on the run again, each passing day another one closer to Solstice and Evan’s next best opportunity to bring Chaos through the veil.

And Atlas had to stop him.

Because of a promise he’d made their mother.

He leaned back his head, his world blissfully dark beneath the blindfold, his earlier sweat and Niall’s come cooling on his skin. “Did you have any idea how hard this would be?” he idly asked the keeper of his vow. “What you were asking of us? Of me?”

Times like these, he wished it had been him who’d taken Evan’s hit six weeks ago—or on that day ten years ago in Talahalusi.

“But then who would champion Her cause?” his mother lilted in his head. “Who could balance it all but you, my sweet?”

Balance.

Sweet.

He laughed out loud, the cold, harsh sound bouncing off the cement walls.

No one would ever accuse him of being sweet, and as for balanced.

.. He felt more unbalanced every futile day, like he was teetering on the edge of one of those jetties in the Canyon Lands, nothing but a sheer cliff and the cold dark water below.

“It’s too hard,” he told her.

“There’s another way. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Always that possibility. Always a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

The door clicked open, and he stepped back from the teetering edge, pretending to be balanced once more. “Niall, I’m glad?—”

The scent of dog tickled his nose.

A very particular dog.

Loathing, shame, fear, and a list of other things Atlas didn’t want to name slammed into him, knocking him all the way to unbalanced for a startled second before self-preservation kicked in and he flipped over his hand, fingers poised to snap.

But that single damnable second of unsteadiness was enough for Robin to race behind him and grab his hands, holding his fingers apart. The shifter growled beside his ear. “Not so fast, you stinky bastard.”

“You’re one to fucking talk,” Atlas spat back. “You smell like you rolled in your own shit.”

“Enough,” snapped a third familiar voice before the blindfold was ripped off his face.

Nature stood before him in all her five-foot-nothing pissed-off glory, color high on her tan cheeks, dyed green curls piled atop her head, a new piercing in her nose.

“For the record, you both stink.” She stepped closer and shoved the blindfold between the leather straps of his harness.

“But right now, you stink worse. And I want to know why.”