Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

They called him Priest. As far as I’d ever been able to tell, no one knew his birth name. Beyond that, I knew nothing much of his history before he showed up at the club as a seventeen-year-old runaway. He was originally from Ireland and retained a lyricism to his speech that he obviously tried to curtail with that rough and gritty biker slang.

He looked exactly how I envisioned God must have wanted a man to look, constructed so beautifully he seemed almost preternaturally handsome. His otherworldliness cast a kind of confusion on those who looked at him; he was at once both divine and an invitation to sin. A magnet to even the most pious moral compass.

One look at him nearly shattered mine.

The silken red hair worn too long, kissing the tops of broad shoulders, and the thick gleam of it along the curve of his jaw and upper lip. The endless constellations of cinnamon freckles scattered on every inch of available pale skin, and the shade of green in his eyes I sometimes fancied was emerald and other times darker, textured like wet moss.

I knew his looks as well as I could, having never touched him or seen him in anything less than a T-shirt, leather cut, and blue jeans.

My imagination, which my mother and sister had long called overactive, filled in the blanks.

Other details were gleaned over my years of living at the heart of The Fallen family where Loulou reigned with her husband, Zeus, as sovereign.

Priest was the club enforcer.

The death dealer.

The vengeful angel sent to collect the cost of betraying the club.

He was a loner, but comfortable in company, charismatic in a quiet way that didn’t draw too much notice. I’d seen him make Cressida laugh when she was grieving for her lost husband, and I’d seen him touch his rough tipped fingers to the crown of Z and Lou’s little girl, Angel’s fair curls, as if anointing her with his protection, a knight in service to her since birth.

I knew he didn’t drink, but he smoked cigarettes he rolled himself.

He played darts like a pro but was masterfully skilled with knives and often practiced on an old, rotting cross the size of a cow he’d leaned against a tree behind the clubhouse on The Fallen Compound.

Such a small collection of things, like seashells gathered along the shore, not nearly enough to claim notion of the entire ocean.

But I was desperate for more.

For him.

It was a fantasy I entertained only in the darkest hours of the night, alone in bed with my hand between my thighs or when storms tossed frightening shadows through my bedroom window and made me think of what kind of monsters inhabited the night.

It was a fantasy I’d determined, after four years of living with its burden, that I should cast aside the way children do childish things at a certain age.

I was almost twenty years old.

It was time to move on.

So I was out on a date with Brett.

Brett Walsh went to the University of British Columbia too, studying economics while I pursued my degree in psychology. He was cute in the way of a puppy still growing into his body, eager to please with a ready sense of humour.

He was, I thought, safer than safe.

The kind of man a girl like Beatrice Lafayette should date.

Loulou, protective as she was, had even agreed when Brett picked me up from her house so she could vet him before our date. Luckily, none of the Fallen had been there or Brett might have peed his pressed khakis.

He was nice, courteous, opening the car door for me, ushering me through the early Halloween party with a gentle hand on my back as he introduced me to his friends.

I didn’t have any friends my age, and after meeting the drunk, foolish students at the party, I didn’t wonder why.

They were boring, predictable.

I was bored too, at that party, holding my warm beer like a social prop inside of a fun libation. I didn’t like the pop music playing or the amount of skin the girls were showing, even the way the men joked, easy sexism and homophobic comments exchanged as friendly insults while they played drinking games.

I looked around for Brett, who had left me for the bathroom almost twenty minutes ago.

Not that I was keeping track of time…but I figured another half an hour and I could get him to take me back home.

“Excuse me, have you seen Brett?” I asked a guy waiting in line for the bathroom in the hall.

He stopped his conversation with another man abruptly and raised his eyebrows as he took me in. “Wow. So did it hurt when you fell from heaven? I could kiss you better.”

“Wow,” I mimicked sweetly. “Original.”

I turned on my heel without another word and pushed my way through the throng of people as I searched the house for him.