Free Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon by Kristen Ashley

heart
skipped a beat when I heard Priest growl, “Fuck me.”
    It took me a second to recover from the
surprise of him suddenly being there.
    Then everything I was seeing, and smelling, crashed in to me.
    The three boys were there, two others
besides, all big and bulky. There were beer cans everywhere, also
Jack Daniels and Absolut, several bottles of both, some tipped to
their sides leaking onto my pretty braided rugs and across my
fabulous floors, not to mention cans of beer the same way.
    The air smelled of vomit, beer, booze,
cigarettes, and pot. In fact, there was a cloud of smoke hanging in
the room and there were makeshift ashtrays, these being torn apart
beer cans. They didn’t work very well. I knew this because there
were burns in my coffee table.
    There was also a girl in jeans, a sweater,
and boots on her ass in the corner, one of the boys ineffectually
attempting to hide her with his body. She was on her ass in the
corner, knees up, curled into herself, face shoved into her legs,
sobbing.
    And there was another girl that another boy
scrambled off of when Priest and I forced our way in (well, Priest
did, I tumbled in).
    She was the one on the couch, clearly
unconscious, her clothing askew, the sweater that was pushed up was
pushed high and I could see her bra.
    Pressure built in my head and was about to
blow but it didn’t because I would find in that instant I had a
much bigger problem on my hands.
    That problem being Priest.
    “You hurt her?”
    His voice came low, deep, quiet, and
deadly.
    “My parents bought us the booze,” the kid
replied, not answering his question, his chin up, his body held
alert, his eyes scared.
    “Did you… hurt her ?” Priest repeated
and I twisted my neck to look up at him.
    Oh yes.
    I had a much bigger problem on my hands.
    “They know we’re here. They’re cool with all
this,” the boy answered.
    Suddenly, I was not held against Priest.
    Suddenly, I was standing on my own two feet,
Priest was across the room, the kid pinned to the wall by Priest
holding himself two inches away, his chin dipped, his face nose to
nose, the kid not moving, I guessed, due to the sheer force of
Priest’s terrifying presence.
    He slashed an arm behind him indicating the
girl still on her ass and sobbing.
    “Did you… fucking …hurt her?” he
growled.
    “The pot was laced with something,” the kid
answered quickly, eyes enormous, body wired, fear wafting off him
in waves. “We didn’t know. She smoked it and went weird so none of
us had any. No one touched her. She’s been crying for, like, an
hour or something.”
    “The girl on the couch,” Priest bit out.
    “She…she…” the boy started and trailed off,
likely so he could concentrate on not messing himself, which was
what his face was sharing he was doing, or close to it.
    At this, I decided to let Priest do his
thing, however scary that might be, but I had to prioritize. So I
rushed to the girl on the couch, pulled her sweater down, and
grabbed the throw I left for customers to cuddle up with in front
of their TVs or out on their porches and threw it over her.
    She moaned and shifted and then went
slack.
    She was fully clothed, even had her shoes on,
which I took as a good sign.
    “You leave this cabin, I break your legs
before I break your neck.”
    That came from Priest and my eyes shot to him
to see he was still nose to nose with the kid so he wasn’t talking
to him. Therefore I looked to the door to see the kid who’d been on
top of the girl on the couch was trying to make his escape.
    At Priest’s words, the kid stopped and stood
completely still, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his gaze glued to
Priest’s back.
    And this was indication badasses had eyes in
the back of their heads and high school punks weren’t completely
stupid because I couldn’t be sure, but I had an inkling Priest’s
threat wasn’t entirely empty.
    “Do you want cops?”
    This also came from Priest and no one
answered, primarily because the