Pippa's POV
I go straight home. Ignoring the beautifully paved path that leads to the rectory, and from there to my flat, I take a shortcut through the woods that I know better than my own body. I don’t even have to look where I’m going. I’ve worn out my own path over the years and can find it blindfolded in the middle of the night.
I run out of the woods, and into Father Joseph who is out for a morning stroll. I don’t like him very much. He’s kind of cold and uppity, but his presence does reassure me. “Morning, girl,” he grumbles. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I am sick, Father,” I say. “I will go back after Mass.”
He looks me up and down. “You do look a little feverish. Don’t come to the rectory if you’re just going to spread your germs around, you hear?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Go home, rest, eat some chicken soup.”
“Yes, Father.” I look over my shoulder into the woods, but can’t see anything in the shadows. “Have a good walk, Father,” I say and jog past him to my flat.
The church grounds are expansive, more so than most. We have an orphanage, where I grew up, a small school, a convent, a massive rectory where all our priests live, a park where we host picnics and such for the parishioners, a charity shop, and a food bank. The whole town is built around the church, and there are always people coming and going.
But not today. Today, the bad weather is keeping everyone inside. For the first time in my life, I wish there were more people around. I feel totally alone and completely exposed until I reach my flat. I take one last look around, then go up the short walk to my ground-floor apartment.
There are only three other flats, and just the one directly above mine is currently occupied. It belongs to Owen, the custodian, and he’s never home. He leaves early and comes home late. I only see him at church once or twice a month.
I lock the door behind me and slide down it to the floor. I run the conversation between the two men in the cemetery over and over in my head. Werewolves. Werewolves can’t go into human churches.
No. I shake my head. Either I misheard, misunderstood, or they are on drugs. There are no such things as werewolves, if there were, someone would have found them by now.
Putting the incident out of my mind, I finally get back to my feet and go to my tiny kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and a sandwich.
By the time the church bells signal the end of the afternoon Mass, I’ve all but forgotten about the Neanderthal twins and werewolves.
I just want to get this day behind me. Finish up my work, come back home and relax with a good book. I decide to take the shortcut through the woods again. I’m already out the door and jogging through the forest before I realise that I’m really trying to get back to Father Adrian, not the church.
That’s not a good thing.
Maybe I should just leave it and go home.
But I still need to clean up and lock the church for the night.
As always, I slip in through the side door. I stop to inhale the comforting scent of incense, wood, and body odour.
I quietly move through the church, wiping down the pews and returning the hymnals to their rightful place. “You’re back,” Father Adrian says as I start to clean the last row of benches.
How does he do that? How does he manage to sneak up on me like that?
I am too afraid to look up at him. Looking at him is like staring into the sun. It’s beautiful, painful, terrifying, and freeing all at the same time.
And it confuses the hell out of me.
“Pippa,” he says, his voice taking on a strange kind of urgency. “I saw you running away from two men. Did they say something to you? Do something?”
“No,” I say, still fervently wiping down the seats. “I imagine danger sometimes-” I tap the side of my head -“I’m not well.”
In a flash, he’s next to me, his fingers curling around my wrist. “Stop,” he commands softly. My hands still all by themselves as if I have no control over them. “I am worried about you.”
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
“I’m a priest. I worry about everyone. Do you want to give confession?”
I wish I could answer him, but that strange electricity is running through me again, stirring my head around, and turning my hormones upside down. “I-I- I only confess to Father Abraham,” I answer, trying my best to ignore the urgent throbbing surging through my body. “But thank you.”
He smiles and lets me go. Immediately, my head clears and I can think again. “I’ll be around for a few hours if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“Hm,” he grunts and walks away, in the direction of the administration offices.
I finish my work in the church, ending the afternoon by vacuuming the carpets. Tomorrow is Saturday, and we have a wedding scheduled, which means extra work for me. It’s better to get the cleaning done now than to get up early and rush to do it in the morning.
Early tomorrow I have to be back to let the decorators in, and I’m the one who has to clean up when they’re done. Sometimes this job sucks, but I’m grateful for it. The church is all I know, and no one ever taught me anything about being an adult. I’m not sure I can survive on my own.
Exhausted after a too long day with too much excitement, I turn off the lights and go to the donation drop-off. Since I wasn’t there to receive the contributions, everyone just left it outside the door. “You look tired,” Father Adrian says out of nowhere.
I gasp and drop the box of canned goods I was trying to lift. “Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Stop sneaking up on me like that.”
“I’m not sneaking…I’m just walking.”
“What are you even doing here?” I ask a little irritated. “I thought you left.”
I don’t usually talk to priests that way, but he makes me so nervous that I have lost the ability to control my mouth.
He just smiles patiently. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Do you need help with that?” He points at the boxes and bags of donations.
“No. Thank you, Father.”
He gives me an exasperated look and grabs the nearest box. It’s filled with canned goods, every parishioner’s favourite food bank donation, and extremely heavy, but he makes it look like he’s carrying a box of feathers. “Go on, open up…this stuff is heavy,” he says.
Shaking my head, I unlock the door and start to bring the donations inside with the priest’s help. Tomorrow, during the wedding, I’ll sort through it. Everything that’s still in good condition, including clothes, will go to the charity shop. The food, if it’s not expired, goes to the food bank, and clothes that are still usable, but not good enough to sell, will go to the orphanage, and homeless shelter on the other side of town.
Father Adrian starts to unpack the box of canned goods. “I swear, I know they think they’re doing the Christian thing, but people can be truly disgusting. Expired peas. Do they think the poor don’t deserve anything better?”
“Yes,” I say, and throw the last bag of clothes on the pile. “That’s exactly what they think.”
He looks up, his eyes soft. “You grew up in the orphanage, right?”
I nod. “My parents died when I was a year old. Apparently, I was an impossible child…they passed me from foster home to foster home until they gave up and put me in Miss Loretta’s care.”
“Miss Loretta? The one the church fired last year for abuse?”
“She was harsh, but she wasn’t abusive.”
“I read the reports. I assure you she was.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I say and stand back to watch the priest work.
Even that is unbearably attractive - the way he rolls the cans of food between his long fingers, the disapproving frown when he notices yet another expired product. “What do you do with the expired food?” he asks.
“We feed it to the priests,” I joke without thinking.
His head snaps up and a devilish grin spreads across his face. “Craptastic. That definitely explains why last night’s dinner tasted like a cat’s ass. I suppose I’ll just have to eat at your place tonight. How does seven sound?”
My face catches on fire. Even if he’s joking, it doesn’t feel like he is. “Uhm…” I mumble. “I don’t think that’s allowed.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a priest.”
“So? I’m just asking for food, not sex. I took a vow of celibacy, not a vow of starvation.”
“I mean…I am not the best cook…I can, I can-”
Adrian chuckles. “Pippa, Pippa, relax, I’m joking. Priests do have a sense of humour, you know, just like everyone else.”
“I know,” I mutter.
“It’s just…” he starts, then looks at me, shakes his head and goes in a completely different direction. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have joked like that…it was inappropriate. I grew up with…well, let’s just say non-religious people, and I sometimes forget myself.”
Oh. I let out a long sigh of relief. So that’s why he acts so differently. Good to know. As always, I imagined things. “It’s okay. I won’t tell if you won’t,” I say.
He nods and puts the can down. “It’s late. I have to say my evening prayers, and you need to get home.”
“I need to lock up the church.”
“Do you want me to wait?”
“Why?”
“To keep you safe,” he says with a smile.
“From what?”
He leans in so close that I can feel his body heat radiating through me. “The big bad wolf,” he says.
I can barely breathe.
Werewolves.
“Are you okay?” Father Adrian asks.
“Yes.”
“You’ve gone a little…pale.”
“I’m just tired.”
He doesn’t push me for more information, though I can tell he knows I’m lying. He briefly squeezes my shoulder, but this time I don’t feel any of those weird sparks. They only seem to happen when our bare skin touches. “Get some rest.”
I wait until I’m sure he’s gone before I leave. I walk around the church, checking all the doors by the fading light of the day before I set off home.
The night is cool, but it’s still cloudy. For a brief moment, I consider running home through the woods, but it will be pitch black in there already, and as much as I find comfort in the woods, it scares me tonight. Anyone could be hiding in the darkness, waiting for me.
I jog down the path, eager to get home before the rain starts again. Ahead of me is a dark figure, tall and broad. At first, I think that I just caught up with Father Adrian, but as I get closer, I realise this man is a fair bit shorter, and he has long black hair.
He stops abruptly and spins around to look at me. His eyes flash brightly in the dark and stare straight through me.
Werewolf.
I freeze in fear.
“Do you know Father Adrian?” the man asks in a gravelly voice. “This tall-” he holds his hand above his head -“brownish hair, green eyes.”
Something, I don’t know what it is, some ancient, inborn instinct perhaps, tells me to lie. “Nuh- no, Sir.”
“Are you lying to me, little girl?”
“N-No.”
A low, deep rumble echoes in his chest. My blood turns to ice and my legs to jelly. I can’t move.
I have to move!
A howl shatters through the night. I jerk at the unearthly sound, and when I blink, the stranger is gone.
Pippa's POVIt’s going to be a difficult day.I had a long night. I kept waking with the stranger’s menacing voice in my head, “Are you lying to me, little girl?” followed by that bone-chilling howl that broke through the serene silence.My eyes are swollen and gritty, and as I walk down my short hallway to the bathroom, I keep bumping into the walls. I’m so tired I literally can’t walk straight.The shower does nothing to help - neither does the cup of strong coffee. I don’t even bother to eat. I just want to get this day over and done with.The priests and nuns have golf carts that they use to travel around the grounds, but I don’t have that luxury. I don’t even have a licence, because Miss Loretta didn’t think ‘my kind’ needed luxuries like driver’s licences. “You end up in one of three places,” she used to say. “In the convent, as a wife, or on your backs in a nasty hotel. None of those requires the ability to drive.”She was an awful woman. It’s a sin to hate, I know, but I think
Adrian's POVThe moment I walked into that church, I knew I was fucked five ways from Sunday. My mate was here. After all these years, the fates finally found me another mate and sent her my way. I knew it would happen one day, that they’d send another, but I had some hope that it wouldn’t be this soon.I followed her delicious scent to the sacristy and stood in awe of her. How beautifully made, how perfect. Her long raven hair tumbled in wet curls down her back, and the soaked clothes clung to her skin accentuating her soft, womanly curves, but it was her aura that really attracted my attention. She radiated magnificence.“Father Abraham,” I snap when the old priest doesn’t answer me right away. “What can I do to help?”It’s sheer torture to just stand here and pretend that I barely know Pippa. It’s agony to ask the old priest for permission to help my own mate, but I can’t give myself away. It would be a disaster for both of us.What I really want to do is wrap my mate in my arms an
Pippa's POV I stare into Father Adrian’s shocked face, and I am suddenly riddled with doubt. After what he said in the storage room and the church, I convinced myself that he wouldn’t mind if I asked him to stay, but clearly he does. “Nu-never mind,” I say, my voice trembling with embarrassment. “I will be okay.” Without a word, he takes the keys dangling from my shaking fingers, grips me by the elbow and steers and me in the direction of my flat. He looks around to make sure we’re not being watched before he unlocks the door and quickly slips inside. Adrian’s massive frame takes up half of my little entryway and I have to squeeze past him to get inside. “Do you want some tea?” I ask while nervously fiddling with the hem of the ugly t-shirt. I've never had a man in my house before. It's strange, but a little exciting at the same time. “I’ll make it,” he says, a deep frown of disapproval on his face as he looks around my living room. “You don’t have much in the way of security.”
Adrian's POV I run to the edge of the woods where Joseph meets me. “Did you hear that?” he asks. Who didn’t? “The sound of a wolf being tortured.” “Caspian punishing the Stonefang twins for failing to grab Pippa?” “She calls them the terror twins.” Joseph laughs. “You are smitten.” “Well…she is my mate.” “She can’t be. You know that right? You have to reject her.” I look at Joseph to tell him that I’d do it. I have to. It’s the only way I can truly keep her safe, but the words that come out of my mouth are, “I can’t. God help me, Joseph, I can’t do it. She’s just a human, it will kill her.” “She’s not just a human. I’ve been watching her for a while. She’s different.” “What is she?” “I don’t know. A Halfling maybe?” “Regardless, I can’t. Not again.” He sighs and tenses when another agonised howl echoes out over the forest. “Then you must leave. Run. Stay one step ahead of Caspian.” “Yes.” “Do you want to go in…see if we can help those unfortunate souls?” “No. There’s n
Pippa's POVI couldn’t face going to church after what I did last night. The thought of looking Father Adrian in the eyes is just too much. Every time when I think about it, I burn with shame. What was I thinking, trying to seduce a priest?I get up at my usual time, but instead of changing into my church dress, I change into hiking gear, grab my backpack, and head out into the forest.The church property borders on a large national forest with beautiful hiking trails and streams so clear and clean that you can drink the water.Signs warn me to stay on the trails, but it’s one of the few rules I break. I often go off the trail, and in the two years I’ve lived on my own and allowed myself to do it, I’ve never gotten lost. It’s my superpower. No matter where I end up, I can always find my way back home.Singing softly to myself, I put the priest and the horror twins out of my head, and decide to enjoy the early morning quiet and the forest that I have all to myself today.I lose myself
*TRIGGER WARNING:* This chapter contains violence and some BDSM themes.Caspian's POV “What do you mean you couldn’t find her?” I ask Wyatt Stonefang. “She’s one little human girl. How difficult can it be?” I haven’t been this angry in a while. Two nights ago, when I came across the dark-haired girl, I knew that she is special. I don’t know how or why yet, I just know that I want her. “She wasn’t home Alpha,” Walter, his equally useless cunt of a brother says. I grab Walter’s arm, the right one, the one with the hideous tattoo on it, and twist it behind his back. I pull his arm upwards until I hear the satisfying pop of his shoulder dislocating. “You couldn’t track her?” “We- We couldn’t find her scent, Alpha,” Wyatt says. I let Walter go and kick Wyatt in the knee, shivering with excitement when his kneecap shatters. The wolf howls and goes down, clutching his leg. “Alpha! You are being unreasonable.” “Am I?” I hiss. I bring my boot down on the already obliterated knee and grind
Adrian's POVI went too far out into the woods, so it’s already sunrise by the time I make it back to the rectory and I'm late for my appointment with Pippa.The priests are still in their rooms, doing their morning prayers so my return goes unnoticed, but when I leave the bathroom after taking a shower, Father Abraham corners me in the hallway. “You’re back?”“Yes, Father,” I say. “An old parishioner texted me last night and asked if I’d go see them.”“Why?”I pull my phone with the fake text from Joseph out of my pocket and hand it to Father Abraham so he can read it. “His wife is dying, and he wants me to deliver her last rites.”Abraham’s eyes fly over the text. I have no idea why the man is so suspicious of me – I’ve never run into this problem before, but in a few hours this will all be in my past. He nods and gives me my phone. “How did you get back?”“The bus,” I lie smoothly. “And a very long walk.”This, for some reason, pleases the old priest. He smiles and nods. “You are v
Adrian's POV I take Pippa’s packed suitcase and carry it out to the car. I’m hyper-vigilant and on high alert, ready to run back to grab her and leave if I have to. I load her bag into the trunk of my beat-up old 4 x 4 and cover it with a blanket just in case someone comes by and looks inside. She’s dressed and ready to go by the time I’m back. She looks adorable and thorougly edible in her khaki shorts, an oversized black t-shirt and hiking boots. I tuck all my lustful thoughts away, and try to concentrate on the matter at hand. “Grab a sweater or something,” I say. “It’s cool outside.” “I’ll be fine.” “Do you always have to argue?” “No.” She sighs and pulls her long tresses back, tying them up in a high ponytail. My heart jumps in my throat and my mouth runs dry. I wonder if she has any idea what she’s doing to me. “I really don’t know why I’m doing it. I never used to be so…belligerent.” She fetches a jumper and returns with her keys dangling from her finger. “Where do I leav