THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

I wasn’t like Grimm, Vic, or Khaos. I had decorum and realized the levity of how this wasn’t the place or time—at a fucking wake.

I was prepared to kill another priest who presumed he could have his way with me, yet I was still focused on my lips buzzing with Eve even as I put distance between us.

Finding Vic in the room, my fists clenched, and I turned around too quickly for him to escape.

If I had my way, I would kill every priest—no one deserves to feel so above darkness they hide behind a cross.

My hand found his throat and pushed him backwards until his back hit the pulpit, digging into his spine and singeing his wings. “Such a pleasure? They teach you that in priesthood? Is that the code phrase everyone agrees to before you take their innocence?”

Everything about those words, always such a pleasure, rubbed against my memories until the bad ones dislodged and I found myself confronted with the same shit I already buried. Those words could trigger an eruption of feelings, ones I was hell-bent on not feeling.

I heard Eve’s trembling voice shout above my anger, “Bowey! Please!”

If anything was going to bring me back it was going to be her, that voice that begged for me to not only survive but prosper.

My hands shook as I was squeezing his neck so hard, I could see his pale skin turning a light shade of red under my strength. It was as addicting as the feeling of being numb that I chased with alcohol. I felt more powerful than my demons when things got violent. I felt powerful enough in the moment to strangle them into silence. Only in those moments did that kind of invincibility last.

Seeing his life and the will to fight back draining from his face, her voice snuffed out my motivation by saying my damn name again. “Bowey, stop. You don’t have to do this.” Her hand touched my arm where my muscles felt like steel. Suddenly, I didn’t feel invincible but dangerous enough to hurt her without meaning to.

Loosening my grip around his throat, I let him go, dropping him to land on the floor. I looked at him, waiting for the cough I knew was coming next. All the strength draining out of me in the opposite way life was flooding back in for him.

Eve clung to me, arms wrapped around me, slowly pushing me backwards until he had enough breathing room to decide to stop acting like I hurt him.

Her fingers grasped onto my face, dragging my eyes to hers instead of the body heaving for air on the floor in front of us. “Bowey, what was that? What’s wrong?”

Confusion dripped from her features, no trace of fear, just thirst for answers.

Vic’s voice was booming with authority; he was daring people to disrespect him when he announced the refreshments were in the next room. The room was silent and still when Vic announced for everyone to hustle above all the shock. He didn’t need to know the disgusting details to have my back right now. He was either for you or against you.

The room emptied quickly as the priest coughed up a lung that I may have broken, and Khaos somehow appeared next to him like a savior for the damned. Helping him upright, he handed him all he had which was a bottle of water.

All that was left in the room was the horsemen, their catalysts, and the projection of trauma I inflicted upon the “holy” man.

Pushing her hands away, the same ones clutching onto my shirt so tightly they were wrinkling it, I dropped down to the pew to fish out a joint I had handy for the drive home. I knew one of us would need it. “I don’t like priests.” I turned my face away from her so she could detect anything in my eyes.

Turning my attention to everyone around us, I gave them all a personal death stare until the ability to read the damn room blossomed in their hands. I wanted them to leave without me having to say it, and finally they got that message when they all drifted away from us.

Vic’s hand squeezed my shoulder on the way out like a sad excuse for a hug, not that I would be caught dead doing that in front of people.

Dragging the joint from my lips on an inhale, Eve sat down next to me still waiting for me to respond to the whys of what just happened. “Don’t like priests… wouldn’t be able to tell. Any particular reason?”

Unwilling to hand over my relief yet, I took another inhale, my hands steadier than I expected. Looking at the priest I caught his eyes. “Would you like to tell her why I stopped walking into churches? Or what happened to your predecessor? Why don’t you offer Hennessy to go with your assaults? Or why it stunted my development?”

I didn’t have the balls to glance at Eve, to take inventory of the damage I had just done by giving her the truths I wasn’t getting from her. The same truths I withheld sex for.

Holding his hand to his throat, he swallowed hard enough to almost hear through the silence when he shifted his eyes off mine to the floor. “I don’t think I - I don’t-” Stammering around his words, I watched him fumble with the truth.

Slicing through his missteps, I spoke for him, “I stopped walking into churches when I realized priests were in need of more saving than me. Blind leading the blind. Father Whatever-Your-Name-Is here has been the Clave’s go-to holy man for what? Ten years? It was after I killed the guy before him for stealing my innocence. Then whatever was left, he fucked it away until it was gone.”

“I’m sorry - Bowen,