I left the light on when I left. Maybe when I got back, the warm glow would help chase the shadows out of my head, not just the room.
In the hall, I turned to close the door—and jumped when my shoes knocked into something.
"What?" I laughed, shaking my head at the bottle of water and pot of chocolate dessert that had been left outside my door, a shining spoon propped on top of the pot.
I bent to retrieve them, still frowning, but ripped the foil off the dessert and dug my spoon through the rich, chocolatey goodness anyway.
It could have been Lynn; she'd probably seen me eyeing the dessert last night. But something told me it was the man who'd bought the dessert in the first place, and more of that cool water soothed my wild panic.
I'd been meaning to walk around the clubhouse until I could breathe properly, but instead my feet carried me to the front door and across the tarmac to the chapel.
There were no lights glowing inside, but when I pushed the door, it glided open with a creak. Maybe Priest left it open all night in case someone needed to speak to God? Or maybe he wasalready awake, and he was the one who'd left the chocolate and water.
I closed the door behind myself and found a pew in a circle of faint light from the stained-glass window. Morning wasn't here yet, but there was enough illumination in the church that I could eat my chocolate pot—and see something strange when I scraped the transparent plastic at the bottom.
"Huh," I murmured, my voice hushed within the hallowed halls.
I finished in record time, scraping the last bits of chocolate out and turning the pot over. There was a small post-it note on the bottom of the pot. A scrawl of messy bold handwriting saiddon't suffer alone.
My heart flip-flopped. So it was Priest—he’d told me that exact thing half a dozen times during our supermarket trip. I folded the note into my palm, and wondered if the man was psychic. Maybe he had a closer link to God than most vicars I'd known.
Either way, I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so touched.
"Thank you," I whispered to God. "For sending him to me."
None of this was easy, but knowing Priest was looking out for me put a warm feeling in my chest.
I could have gone back to my room when I calmed down, but I took my shoes off, pulled my knees to my chest, and hugged them as I waited for Priest to come.
16
Priest
My head was full of the Hunters and the raids we were planning when I pushed open the chapel doors, sweaty from my morning run. I usually slept far later, but ever since Luna got here, I'd been waking at dawn or even earlier, experiencing an echo of her nightmares.
A scuffle drew my head up to the front of the chapel, and I startled at the sight of Lunahere, in her red coat with purple pyjamas poking out of the bottom, her face cut with lines of strain, and her braids hanging around her face.
"Bad night, darling?" I asked, closing the door behind me and striding down the aisle.
Her humourless laugh told me everything I needed to know, and confirmed what the bond had already suggested. I'd woken up gasping for breath, covered in a cold layer of sweat. If it was that bad formethrough the filter of a latent bond, how much must Luna have suffered?
I opened my arms when I neared her, and my heart went berserk when she rushed into them, squeezing me tight. I wrapped her up in my arms, the instinct to purr so sudden and insistent that my chest rumbled before I cut it off.
"I—it's okay," she said, halting but strong. "You can purr. I trust you."
Fuck.
Both those statements hit me like a punch to the soul, and my purrroaredout of me.
Luna laughed softly, settling her head over my chest. "Damn, you're loud."
I winced. "Sorry."
But I wasn't sure I could choke the sound off now I'd given it free reign. I'd kept this trapped every single time we were together, when my strongest instinct was to purr a promise of comfort.
Luna sagged as the sound finally worked its way into her, and she turned limp in my arms. "Don't be. I like it."
I dared to run my fingers through her braids, keeping my touches light. She didn't push away from me, so I kept my pressure soft as I stroked her back, a tremor going through the bond from my end. Could she sense my reaction?