Page 3 of Atlas and the Traitor

“Will you be joining us back at the house, Atlas?” His uncle’s words and sympathetic smile were genuine. He was a different sort of zealot, a missionary who would rather convert the magical than banish them. Atlas’s father, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the power that ran through their veins. Perhaps because his wife’s magic had always been more powerful than his own, and beliefs aside, his father had always been, first and foremost, an asshole.

Atlas had taken enough beatings to learn his cues and to stay out of his way. Case in point, his father’s expression today was as clear aget outas any spoken words. “Thank you,” he told his uncle. “But I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Your brother is dead,” James said. “You need to be with family.” He laid a hand on his forearm. “Come with us to church tomorrow and witness His grace.”

It was all Atlas could do not to roll his eyes. Hand over his uncle’s, he gave it a squeeze, then stepped back and tucked his hands in the pockets of his kilt. “I appreciate the offer, but I have to pass this time.” Every time, if he could help it.

“Very well,” James said, before he leaned forward and kissed his daughter’s cheek. “We’ll see you back at the house?”

“I’ll be on my way shortly.”

He nodded, wished Atlas well, then continued past them toward the cemetery exit. Atlas’s father was slower to leave, giving him a disdainful up and down before turning up his nose. “Your magic won’t save you.”

He gestured at Cole’s freshly dug grave. “Clearly.”

With a disgusted huff, his father stalked off, following in James’s wake.

Once they were out of earshot, Daphne bumped his shoulder again and whispered low, “Whatever hole you’re going to stick your dick in tonight won’t save you either.”

“I’m the hole,” he replied with a wink, delighting in the actual scandalized expression that raced across his cousin’s face. “And at least it’ll make me feel better.”

Three

Atlas hadn’t exactly lied to his cousin. Sex would make him feel better. Sex with the same priest who’d officiated Cole’s funeral was doubly delicious. The fact said priest also from time to time slipped him intel about Evan’s whereabouts was the wicked cherry on top.

Niall’s morals and nerves tangled to make him chatty, even more so if the sex was, in his mind, particularly illicit. Which was how Atlas had ended up here, in one of the private rooms of a very particular type of club on the outskirts of town, blindfolded and tied to a very different sort of cross than the one the priest usually prayed to.

“I told myself I wouldn’t come back here,” Niall muttered as he ran his long fingers along the edges of the leather harness that crisscrossed Atlas’s bare torso.

Atlas hissed, the sensations magnified by the lack of sight. Wanting that teasing touch elsewhere, he arched his back, nudging Niall’s fingers lower, over the belt that was holding open his kilt and into the crease of his groin, putting Niall on a direct path to his hardening cock.

Niall sucked in a sharp breath, and Atlas shivered. He could only imagine how high the color would be on the priest’s pale cheeks. Niall wasn’t an unattractive man. Mid-forties, a headful of dark brown waves, a tall, slim body he kept in shape by tending the community gardens and herding cattle at his family’s ranch. And a cock he knew how to use, even if some fictional higher power made him think he shouldn’t.

Niall’s fingers skirted around the root of Atlas’s cock. “An hour ago, I was at your father’s home, witnessing His grace with your family.”

Atlas angled up his face, toward the warm breath hovering close. He found the priest’s stubbled chin and nibbled along it. “You witness anything else while you were there?”

“Your father was more agitated than usual.” His touch drifted lower. “Then again, he’s lost another son.”

Atlas rolled his hips and groaned against Niall’s throat. “You were barely a teenager when he lost the last one.”

Niall purred as he fondled Atlas’s balls. “Those were the days.”

Atlas arched again, as much as his bindings would allow, body skirting the front of Niall’s, heat rolling off his chest. If past experience held, the priest still had his collar on while his shirt hung open and his wet dick hung over the elastic of his briefs, his pants discarded in the corner by the door. “Were you a naughty teenager, Niall?”

His hand circled Atlas’s cock. “I hadn’t found my path yet.”

Atlas thrust into the tight, sure grip, smearing Niall’s palm and fingers with precome. “You’re still naughty, aren’t you?”

Niall melted into him, his lean body pressed the length of Atlas’s, his fat cock digging into Atlas’s hip and streaking his skin with sticky arousal.

Atlas grinned. He may have been the one tied up, but it was Niall who had surrendered. “Seems you found your path today,” he rumbled low and tunneled again into Niall’s fist.

“I want to help ease his pain. But with you still practicing...”

Atlas slammed the brakes on his surging libido. They’d somehow gotten onto him and off the path to Evan. He needed to redirect, needed to work Niall to the very edge so he would spill more of the info Atlas needed. And less of the judgment. He flicked his fingers, loosening the rope around one of his ankles enough to hitch his leg between Niall’s.

Niall moaned. “Oh, fuck.” Then ground down on Atlas’s thigh, sliding his cotton-trapped taint and balls along the hard muscle and rutting his leaking dick against Atlas’s hip. With another flick, Atlas sent a trail of magic down Niall’s spine and between his ass cheeks, a virtual tongue rimming his hole the way Atlas knew he liked it.

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