Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4

by Holborn, Gray

  I watched as his eyes darkened with an icy heat. I cleared my throat, trying to dispel my own hormones. “Maybe we should try? Might take the temptation out of, you know—” I gestured to him and then back to me, “this.”

  His face broke out into a small smile, revealing a set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. Damn, were they straight up giving him some first-class dental treatments in here?

  If I was left alone in isolation for months on end, I for sure would have some serious morning breath and mouth slime. But Wade looked the way apocalypse survivors looked in the movies—impossibly perfect given the circumstances. Hell, he even smelled divine.

  “Let’s do it,” he said. He walked towards me and sat next to me on the bed. I could almost feel the anxiety leak away from him now that we had a game plan. He focused his attention on me, gripping my hand in his.

  Protectors healed pretty quickly, often repairing broken bones in less than a day. But demons from the hell realm took healing to a whole other level. And now that Wade was a demon—or, now that his demon side was awakened—he was like an evolved version of his prior self. It was strange, knowing him before and after the incubus was triggered—watching him change before my eyes. Still, even with the transformation, he was still indescribably Wade.

  We both waited for a long, drawn-out minute, the anticipation so heavy that I didn’t so much as breathe. Part of me was terrified that he would zap away and leave me behind, alone in this creepy dream world with nowhere to go. Would I wake up eventually, on my own? Or would I be locked in the trappings of my own mind forever?

  Guilt flooded me at the thought—when I wasn’t here visiting, that’s exactly what happened to him. He was left isolated and alone, with no hope of his circumstances changing any time soon.

  “Er, I, uh, don’t actually know what I’m doing,” he said, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand, like he was ashamed of the fact he wasn’t a perfect little incubus just yet. I bit back a smile at the thought. “With you, you just sort of show up. I don’t think I’m necessarily the one doing it. And if I am, I have no idea how.”

  “What are you usually doing before I show up? Are you asleep generally? Do incubi even need to be asleep to pull from people?”

  He cleared his throat, embarrassment coloring his cheeks as he broke eye contact. “No, I’m not usually asleep.” He glanced up at me again before dropping his gaze to his hands, his fingers weaving around each other like they were fighting a silent, isolated war. “I don’t think I really sleep much anymore. Or maybe I’m actually asleep all the time, and just dream of this place, reality blending with my imagination. It’s hard to say. Everything’s always just so…fuzzy. When you show up, and I mean every single time, I’ve been thinking about you. But lately, I’m always thinking about you so I don’t think that’s it either. The thought of you visiting is one of the only things keeping me sane right now. Even though the protector side of me wants you to stay the fuck away, the incubus just bides his time until you’re here.”

  My stomach flipped at that comment, and I had to swallow my grin. Catching feelings for an incubus—especially one locked in hell—wasn’t exactly the brightest idea I’d ever had. So as hard as it was, I needed to try and fight them from developing any further. Which was tough because I’d had a thing for Wade long before he was able to ramp up the sex drive. “Okay, well, that’s a starting point then. We can work from there. Maybe first we can focus on meeting somewhere else? Like you can try to teleport us to The Guild or something? Maybe your cabin? Some place familiar, cozy even.”

  “Yeah, that’s about as relaxing of a spot as I can think of right now, and I definitely know every last inch of that place so it’s easy enough to picture.” He held both of my hands in his, like I was an anchor he was desperate to remain attached to, for fear of drifting off into some great unknown all alone.

  I closed my eyes, unsure whether or not dream-walking would make me motion sick. One minute passed by. Then two.

  For what had to be at least fifteen minutes, we sat in silence, both of us desperate for this to work, desperate for Wade to find a way to keep his mind occupied when I couldn’t be here with him, distracting his mind in other, equally dangerous ways.

  Finally, with a heavy sigh, he dropped my hands. His eyes popped open, wild and sad, filled with a sort of bone-weary fatigue. “I don’t think that’s how it works. And if it is, I’m not strong enough to do it.” He grinned, but there was no humor in the expression. “Even when it comes to being a monster, I’m not up to par.”

  I bumped his shoulder with mine, the expression in my eyes stern. I knew that he constantly felt like he wasn’t enough, especially with a brother like Atlas. It was the sort of insecurity that came with the territory of growing up with a father who didn’t value him and an older brother who was practically a Guild rockstar.

  “If it helps, I think you’ll be a tip-top incubus in no time. Five out of five stars,” I said, desperate to stop him from collapsing into his inferiority complex. I could feel the shit-eating grin spread across my face.

  There was only one path I was familiar with when it came to building up an incubus’ strength. And Wade had emphatically knocked that option off the table. When I met his eyes, he shook his head softly, as if his new powers included mind reading as well. And damn did I hope not—because my mind was filled with all sorts of things it shouldn’t be filled with these days.

  Not my fault that being around an incubus made most of my thoughts head in one very specific direction. A girl could only be so powerful. And just like Wade was new to living the life of an incubus, I was still pretty new to life as a protector.

  I picked up the scratchy piece of fabric that was doubling as the bed’s covering, trying to remember all I knew about incubi and succubi. Honestly, it wasn’t much. Werewolves and vampires were by far the most common creatures in the human realm, as far as we were aware anyway, which explained why they dominated human films and books. They were also the only two monsters Cy had bothered to teach me about. Which in a way made sense, since they were the only two beings that had attacked me recently.

  But if I had learned anything over the last few months, it was becoming abundantly clear that what we knew, even about vamps and wolves, was alarmingly limited. Either protectors knew very little about the hell realm and the creatures who inhabited it, or else The Guild had some serious hierarchies in place to keep most of us out of the know. And if the latter was the case, I was damned determined to learn the reasons behind it.

  Dropping the blanket, I grabbed his forearm excitedly as my mind caught on a realization.

  “Wade, every time I’ve come to you, you’ve been focusing on me. But I’m already here. You can’t get to Guild Headquarters, because it’s not a person. Incubi don’t feed on places, they feed on people. What if instead, you focused on someone, someone you know just as well as you know your cabin? Focus on your real home.”

  His lips turned up in a small grin, but I could tell he was trying to disguise his excitement—his hope—from himself just as much as from me. “Like Atlas? Do you think we could try to meet with him?”

  Even though I’d been spending more and more time with Atlas, my chest tightened with anxiety at the thought of being alone with him and Wade. Atlas was so hot and cold. I could never tell if he wanted to abandon me on the side of the road or keep me under his eye for constant observation. Or watch as a bunch of demons tore me to pieces. Atlas was a pretty unreadable dude.

  “Of course,” I said, meaning it, even with my reservations about Atlas. If I were Wade I’d want to see my brother too. I wracked my memory, trying to recall the last thing we’d done, the last place we’d been, in case it would help him get a grasp on his brother.

  I remembered breaking Darius out, I remembered my last dream with Wade. And then meeting Darius’s twin and getting kicked out of the bar—but that was all. Everything after meeting the succubus—Villette, maybe—felt impossible to gra
sp, like figments or dreams just out of reach. Little balloons drifting towards the sky.

  Not needing more encouragement, Wade picked my hands up, giving them a soft squeeze. I could feel how badly he wanted this to work, his skin was alive and buzzing with anxiety.

  Ten minutes of stillness. Nothing.

  He tried Declan. Nothing.

  I could feel the frustration emanate from him in waves. Failure was the bane of his existence.

  “Maybe it’s you,” he said, swiping some stray beads of sweat off his forehead. His eyes bugged suddenly as he shook his head. “I mean, not like I’m blaming you, but more so the fact that maybe I can only connect to you or through you or I don’t know.”

  I bit back a grin as he stumbled over his words, alarmingly afraid of insulting me, like he’d push me away somehow—the only person capable of keeping him company.

  “Or,” I said, shaking my head slowly at our oversight, “maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?” He arched a dark brow as his eyes narrowed in thought.

  “Every time I land here, my body is already asleep. Maybe Atlas and the rest of them are all still burning the midnight oil?” Brain spinning with the new roots of an idea, I swung my legs onto the bed and kneeled back down on them. “Just trust me, okay? Try to focus on my thoughts, because you’ve already got a read on me, obviously. That connection that you and I have, try to extend it to Ro.”

  I tried my best to ignore how badly I wanted this to work, because my reasons were selfish. I missed my brother something fierce, even if I was only away from him for a few days. And I knew, wherever he was, that he’d be worried sick about me. It didn’t matter that I left a note explaining where I’d be, promising that I’d return.

  It wasn’t everyday your sister ran away from home to descend into literal hell. Not that I was particularly open about where we were going. Just that we were bringing back Wade. I didn’t want to give him a heart attack. Ro was a worrier.

  But again, after ten long, impossibly-stretched moments, nothing happened.

  “I’m out of ideas,” Wade said, and I saw the fear in his eyes, the dejection. He’d allowed himself to hope that he’d make it out of this room, and now he was left with nothing but disappointment.

  I could see it in the slump of his shoulders, the sweat on his brow as he stared wildly around the small room. It would have been better almost, to not have tried at all.

  “I have one more idea, okay? Humor me.”

  He nodded and I could tell he was only agreeing because I asked him to, not because he expected anything more.

  I closed my lids and thought of someone specific, someone who would hopefully be deep in the throes of sleep right now, not that I knew what time it was.

  And then, all at once, I opened my eyes and clung to Wade’s hands, both of us somewhere else altogether.

  No. No, it was more than that.

  We were somewhere else. Together.

  2

  Atlas

  I ran over to Max and Eli, my breaths coming in heavy and inconsistent. Ignoring my shaking hands, I pressed two fingers against her pulse point. The air left my lungs in a relieved rush. She was still alive, for now, just trapped in unconsciousness.

  I could feel the wolf close to breaching the surface again, desperate to take over, even though I’d just wrestled back control. The moment my skin came into contact with her pulse, he backed down. For now.

  My mind flashed with the image of her bursting into flame as she fried the vamps trying to take out Eli. Did she know that she could do that?

  What the hell was she?

  As if highlighting her mystery, her hellhound, Ralph, was curled up next to her, resting it’s abnormally large head on her thigh, like an overgrown Chihuahua.

  I didn’t know whether to protect her or protect the rest of us from her. I’d spent my entire life around protectors, but I’d never once heard mention of a creature that could wield fire like that. And she’d done more than light a simple match with her mind—she produced enough energy to cremate some of the most powerful creatures in the world.

  My chest felt tight. Jesus, just the thought of what The Guild—hell, what my own father—would do with her if what just happened got out in the open, was enough to make me want to scream. Forget spending a lifetime in the lab. She’d be destroyed.

  Satisfied that for now at least, she’d live, I moved over to Eli, reaching him just as Declan did.

  I glanced at her, seeing my own concern reflected back in her alarmingly bright green eyes. She glanced over at Max briefly, like she was afraid of what she might find if she looked too closely.

  “She’s alive,” I said, voice as even as I could make it. We’d need to talk about what happened. But not here, not until we were alone and far from prying ears.

  Eli looked rough. Ignoring the gaping wound in his neck, he was surrounded in a pool of his own blood, a quick inhale telling me all I needed to know—most of it was his.

  Protectors could survive vampire bites. Many of them did. Hell, even Max had survived a bite herself just a few short months ago. My stomach churned at the reminder that the girl had come close to death more often than anyone I’d ever met in my entire life.

  But most protectors suffered long term effects from the vampire venom. It was the entire reason that Max’s adoptive father walked with a limp. Almost two decades ago, he was bitten. And the injuries from that battle still stalked him daily.

  A neck wound was another story. Most protectors died from neck bites within hours. The venom infused the bloodstream quickly, often damaging the heart and brain beyond repair. If they survived, they at the very least wound up in an extended coma, circling the drain of death in a slow, painful, cumbersome battle. Max was the only protector I knew who’d not only survived a neck bite, but healed from one completely. There was no scar, no lingering side effects. She was just...normal.

  It was another example of how far from normal she really was.

  I glanced down at Eli again, pressing down on the wound to stop some of the bleeding. I wasn’t naive though, it was a futile gesture for something like this. This wasn’t just one bite. This was many. He was in a bad way. And there was nothing I could do to help him.

  If it was anyone else, anyone but one of my own, I’d sink into the realization that this was a lost cause. There was no waking up from this, not really. And even if he did wake up, what would the long term repercussions be? Cyrus was one of the strongest protectors I knew and he still limped from a single bite. What chance did Eli have?

  I swallowed back the emotion threatening to escape. Maybe I was overlooking something. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  “Fuck,” Declan shouted, liquid pooling in her eyes as she stared down at him, gripping his hand in hers like she could bring him back to us if only she held on tight enough. His skin was more red than not, his body splattered in blood like a gruesome Jackson Pollock painting. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You can’t die on me you twat. Not now.”

  I fell back on my ass, readjusting slightly when I landed on a crispy vamp arm. I took a deep breath in, ignoring the sting of my own injuries, holding my head in my hands as I tried to make sense of this. I left The Guild, threw all of our futures into question. I made a series of rash decisions all to save my brother—only to lose another.

  Why was this world so fucking cruel? We didn’t stand a chance. Not now, not ever. What the hell was even the point?

  I’d known Eli since we were kids. He used to follow me around like an obnoxious, lost puppy, copying everything I did like I was some sort of superhero. He was annoying as hell, and his rebellion against so many Guild rules and protocols got us into more trouble than he was often worth, but he’d grown on me over the years. The kid was smart, ridiculously so, and he was one of the best fighters I’d ever encountered. In a year or two, he’d be able to kick even my ass if he trained hard enough. Well, maybe not now that I h
ad a wolf sharing my skin.

  I liked to pretend that I was reluctant about him joining our team when he did a few years back, but the truth was that we were better with him than we were without him. He rounded us out, brought in some playful energy in a way that Declan and I couldn’t. We needed him. He breathed fresh air into our team. And without Wade, we desperately needed fresh air.

  My stomach felt hollow now, my chest tightening like I was being hugged by an iron giant. I couldn’t lose another one. We’d lost too much, too many members of this team.

  Sarah. Wade. We couldn’t add Eli to that list. I refused.

  I glanced over at the only two vampires in the room who were still alive: the jackass I helped break out of The Guild and his twin brother.

  “We need to save him,” I said, fully aware that I was asking two of the creatures I was expected to kill for help. “How can we save him?”

  If anyone knew how to survive a vampire bite, it would be a vampire. At least I sure as fuck hoped so anyway.

  Darius walked over, passing me up to sit next to Max. I didn’t miss the way he studied her pulse, nor the way his expression relaxed once he found it beating in a seemingly acceptable rhythm.

  Maybe he knew her from before—from before he was captured. My jaw tightened as I watched him watch her. Maybe the two of them were pulling one over on all of us. Maybe Max was sent in to infiltrate The Guild. Maybe she was one of them.

  Part of me knew it was just easier to imagine her as some evil entity. It was infinitely easier than focusing on how drawn I—no, how drawn my wolf—was to her.

  “He’ll only slow us down at this point,” Darius said, not bothering to look up from her throat, like her pulse was hypnotizing him into submission.

  I had half a mind to rip his head off right then and there, even in front of his brother who I was certain could kill Declan and I pretty easily if given the chance. We were drained, exhausted from the fight. He’d only come in at the end. And something about him seemed a lot stronger than any vamp I’d come across in my years of field work. I couldn’t explain it, but there seemed to be an extra energy about him.