Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,87

did the same with the right, then held them together so I could run my lips over those bruised, bloodied knuckles.

When I pulled away, his blood was on my mouth.

Anointed by his sins, I stared up at him clear-eyed and brimming full of intention. “The only nightmarish part in all of this is the idea that you’d leave me in the dark alone. I’m here, Priest. Even before you, I was here. I’m the sister-in-law of The Fallen MC prez. I’m in this life whether you like it or not. Loving you isn’t a worse fate than death. The idea of not loving you? That’s what makes me feel like I’m dying.”

A cloud passed over the moon, casting Priest all in black, yet I felt as if I’d never seen him so clearly. There was need in his eyes. Need. So fierce and poignant it radiated off him like a scent, like a vibration. I could feel it with all my senses.

And knowing I was the one to make him feel so penetratingly?

It eviscerated me.

“Come,” I said, softly, coaxing even as I pulled him inexorably toward the light. “Show me who you really are, only ever alone. Let me follow you into the dark.”

He moved so quickly, I gasped in excitement and in shock. His hand was at my throat, squeezing just enough, settling me in an instant. When he spoke, it was a sinuous rasp against my parted, panting mouth. “You wanna see dark, mo cuishle? I’ll show you every inch of it. Just remember, you begged me for it.”

* * *

* * *

He took me to a graveyard.

It was a little plot close enough to the farm, but otherwise in the middle of nowhere.

We took my car.

My pretty pink Fiat that Priest folded his long, hard body into like a clown car after he put his things in the trunk. I didn’t know what detritus an enforcer for a criminal syndicate carried around with him, but I could imagine.

Or I thought I could because when we finally pulled up to the barely illuminated graveyard, gargoyles and angel tombstones haunting the landscape, I wasn’t prepared for what he pulled from the trunk and hefted over his shoulder.

The body of the man who’d attacked me.

He was wrapped in a serviceable dark blanket of some kind, taped close at the neck and feet. Priest carried him like a sack of grain, muscles bulging in the close-fitting black hoodie beneath his cut as he stalked off with his package into the dark.

With his hood up, he looked exactly the way most artists rendered the Reaper.

Priest didn’t wait for me, and something was reassuring about that. He wasn’t going to check in and make sure I was fine with anything. This was what I’d wanted, to know him not just carnally, but criminally, to know that complicated, substantial part of him shrouded in secrecy. Once he’d made a decision, he didn’t falter, and he expected the same of me. There was respect in that, which buoyed me above the turbulent waters of fear and doubt in my belly.

As I’d been doing for years, I followed him, hastening after him into the trees.

The night air was bitter cold, the clouds over us condensed and quilted, overstuffed with downy snow. I wished I was wearing more than just my plaid skirt and cream peacoat with the super cute wooden buttons. If it snowed, I’d freeze.

But my discomfort was easy to ignore in the face of my morbid captivation. I was silent as Priest stalked up the slight incline, then cut through the haphazard plots in a way that said he’d done this many, many times before.

He stopped by an uneven row of crypts lining the back of the rusted wrought-iron fence. Easily, he balanced the body of a grown man on his shoulders, traded the black gym bag from one hand into the other, and fished a set of antique keys out of his pocket. The black scrolled gate groaned open ominously, the sound echoing in the empty interior.

Empty, but for the dead.

I shivered delicately, knowing whatever was about to happen was pure, unadulterated sacrilege. My spiritual soul quivered as I took my first tentative step into the freezing crypt after Priest, who had forged inside like it was his own home. When I was immediately struck down, I rolled my shoulders back and told myself to stop being such a ninny.

The air was so cold it burned my nostrils as I sucked in the