Page 40 of Priest

I rub my belly once, grounding myself. “Baby daddy’s VP.”

She snorts softly, almost silent under the surgical noise. “Of course he is.”

The look she gives me is grim, exhausted, and a little bit murdery, which under different circumstances would make me laugh. “If he lives,” she adds, deadly calm, “I’m killing him. You know that, right?”

I huff a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “Fair.”

“And then,” she continues, “I’m going to pretend I never saw him.”

I slide an arm around her shoulders briefly, careful of the sterile field and every line we are already bending by being here. “Sisters before misters, girlfriend.”

She leans into me for half a second. “Always.”

The surgery stretches. Time becomes elastic, bending around the rise and fall of machines, the surgeon’s clipped commands, and the quiet intensity of a team refusing to lose a man who has already bled too much. Lila stays still beside me, but every part of her is fixed on him. I know the feeling. My own body keeps trying to turn toward the hallway, toward the man waiting outside with blood on his hands and questions in his mouth.

When it is finally over, the surgeon peels off his gloves and looks at us. “He made it through,” he says. “But it was touch and go. He’s in a medically induced coma. ICU. The next twenty-four hours are critical.”

Relief hits hard enough to make my knees go loose. Lila presses a fist to her mouth, breathing through whatever almost breaks free. I straighten because someone has to walk out there and say the words before fear eats the waiting room alive.

“I know the family,” I say. “I’ll update them.”

The waiting room is full when I step out. Leather, denim, bloodshot eyes, and tension thick enough to choke on. Priest sits at the center of it all, elbows on his knees, head bowed. Sadie is beside him, leaning into his shoulder with one hand rubbing slow circles along his arm like she is trying to claim space in front of witnesses.

I pause. For half a second, I consider turning around and sending someone else.

Then Priest looks up.

He’s on his feet before I can blink. “Is Deacon okay?”

Sadie rises too, but Priest growls low in his throat, a warning sound that freezes her in place. “Sit down.”

She does, stunned. I look from him to her and back again, filing that away with every other thing I have no time to feel.

“It was touch and go,” I say. “But he made it through surgery. He’s in the ICU, in a medically induced coma. Making it through tonight is critical. They’ll keep you informed.”

Relief crashes through the room in a dozen different ways. Men lower their heads. Someone curses softly. Someone else breathes like he has been underwater too long. I turn to leave before the weight of it can hook into me.

Priest catches my arm. “Blue. We need to talk.”

I suck in a breath. “No. No, we don’t.”

He ignores that and steers me through a set of doors into an empty hallway, the noise of the waiting room falling away behind us. Before I can decide whether to swing at him or scream for security, my back meets the wall and his hand comes to my neck, his thumb settling near my jaw as his other arm braces beside my head. His grip is controlled, but the heat of him is everywhere. Too close. Too familiar. Too much.

“That’s my baby in your belly,” he says quietly. “Isn’t it?”

I hold his stare even as my pulse kicks against his thumb. “The only prince or princess you have is sitting out in that waiting room. This is not your baby. The father of this child works with me. Here. At this hospital.”

His thumb brushes the pulse at my jaw, and my body, treacherous little traitor that it is, remembers everything my brain has been trying to bury. “I know you’re lying,” he murmurs. “I don’t know why you’re running, but I found you. And I’m not letting you go.”

He leans in and kisses me. Hard. Familiar. Devastating.

For half a second, my body betrays me. I make a small sound, too honest and too close to the past, and his answering groan rolls through me like thunder under my skin. Heat flashes low in my belly. My hands catch his chest, and for one reckless breath, I feel exactly how badly he wants me.

Then reality crashes back in.

I shove him away. “I said we’re over,” I snap. “And I meant it.”

His chest is heaving. His eyes are dark with things I do not have time for.