Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4

by Holborn, Gray

  If we couldn’t convince her to join, if we couldn’t convince Atlas to stop being such a ballsack, well, the alternative was Reza. I blew out a loud puff of air. Hell by myself I could handle. Permanently living and fighting alongside Reza, having to trust her in any capacity—that I wasn’t so sure about. I’d rather take my chances on an alarmingly pretty protector who just happened to light shit on fire when she panicked.

  I just had to keep my interest in her firmly in the teammate category, and not go confusing things with my emotions and hormones. Easy.

  Probably.

  “You look miserable,” a deep, taunting voice said behind me, “but I guess it makes sense. I would be too if I was stuck all by my lonesome in that grumpy head of yours.”

  I spun around, fingers clenching around the dagger at my side, ready to strike whatever hellbeast I was about to encounter. And then, to my own chagrin, my muscles relaxed and I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s you,” I said, half-relieved despite my annoyance. I looked at the vamp as he towered over me, his silvery-blond hair slightly disheveled from his trip into hell, willing myself to summon the sort of fear or anger that I was supposed to feel around a vampire. My jaw clenched when I realized that all I felt was just a bland annoyance. And, even worse, a lukewarm excitement that I was with someone I knew. It was like my brain and my body were getting used to his presence, which was dangerous. Once our guards were down where he was concerned, we were well and truly fucked.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  We were alone. He’d gotten us into hell and we didn’t really need him anymore. Now was my chance to end him without having to deal with Max’s wide, shell-shocked eyes watching the whole thing and trying to intervene.

  So why didn’t I?

  My mind filled with the image of having to relay the asshole’s death to Max once I found her. The way those dark brown orbs would glass over with tears while she tried desperately to process whatever emotions she was feeling. Truth be told, she was just as emotionally stunted as the rest of us, just as clogged up and confused as I was. But I knew that she’d be upset if the vamp were killed, even if she didn’t understand why.

  Fucking empathy and compassion. The girl had it in droves. It was going to get her—and everyone close to her—killed one of these days.

  And then I thought of Eli, which made me metaphorically let go of the blade altogether. The vamp was now tied to one of the few people in this world I actually gave a shit about. I’d never get to act on my desire to decapitate him.

  My lip curled in frustration as I watched the obnoxious fuck smirk at me, as if he could read my thoughts as they circled around my mind.

  “Don’t pretend you’re not excited to see me. Hell isn’t a fun place to wander alone. Especially for a so-called protector. Trust me,” he said. His creepy yellow eye darkened until it was just a few shades lighter than his dark one, his face growing uncharacteristically serious as he glanced around the perimeter. “Hate me all you want, Grumpy, but if we’re to survive the night, you’ll want to keep me near. We’re stronger together than we are apart.”

  “Have you seen the others?” I narrowed my eyes at him, frustrated with the realization that he was right. As much as I didn’t want him to be the person I ran into, I also had no idea where I was going. My chances at finding the rest of my team went up exponentially if I had backup. Especially if that backup was actually an exile from this realm. “And where did you come from? I’ve been walking for a while and didn’t see or hear you until you were right behind me like an annoying, desperate-for-attention shadow.”

  His brow arched as he started walking in the direction I was heading, arrogant enough to assume I would follow him.

  And in all fairness, I did.

  “You didn’t see or hear me until I was in a position close enough to kill you because you were lost in your own thoughts. That’s a dangerous thing to do in a place like this, especially if you’re alone. They don’t train you lot very well in that big old fancy academy do they?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to argue, but then I snapped it closed again, my mouth tasting sour with the acknowledgment that he was right. I was being reckless. This was why I fucking hated emotions and relationships. They stole your focus. They got you killed.

  Look at Wade—he went charging recklessly after Max when he was still half-dead from his last mission and that decision got his neck snapped. Then again, if he didn’t do that, Max would probably be dead too. Any option we chose, any path we traveled, we were screwed. That’s what being a protector was. The key was finding ways to hold our deaths back just a little bit longer, and then a little bit longer than that, again and again until eventually we got swallowed up by the monsters anyway. It was always a losing battle, the goal was to just make it a long one.

  “And I haven’t seen the others yet,” the vamp said, his tone quieting a bit with what sounded almost like concern, “but I’m sure that they’re okay. Portals are just fickle things, even more so now.”

  “Yeah, what makes you so fucking sure?” My tone was hostile, but I’d be lying if I didn't acknowledge the hope that was starting to stir in my stomach at his proclamation. I wasn’t exactly the type to trust anything a vampire said, but I was starting to get desperate. The sheer emptiness of this hellscape was starting to make my skin tingle with fear. I should’ve come across them by now. And why was hell so...empty? It felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the storm to sweep me away.

  Darius shrugged. Even that small gesture made him look like a smug asshole. “I’m still alive.” He turned back to look at me, a shit-eating grin on his face that only served to heighten his particular brand of chaos. Without even slowing his stride as he hopped over a pile of rocks, he added, “pristine in fact.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I climbed up the small hill he was dragging us towards, my feet sliding a few times on some of the loose pebbles. Why didn’t hell come with clearly marked hiking trails? At this rate, I was going to sprain my ankle seven times over by the time we hit three miles. And I was actually pretty graceful on my worst days, so that didn’t bode well in the long run.

  “You’re a vampire. You’re, unfortunately, very hard to kill. Doesn’t mean the others are,” I mumbled while I glared daggers at his back. I couldn’t kill him, but I could certainly paint elaborate images of how I would in my fantasies. Those wouldn’t hurt El—

  “Oh,” I said, catching on. I could feel some of the tension dissolving from my shoulders as my lips quirked up a bit. Maybe having this vamp around wasn’t totally useless. “You’re okay. So that means that Eli is too. Alive at least, anyway.”

  He winked back at me and fury boiled in my stomach. I wanted to punch that smug face next time it turned in my direction. Eli could survive a broken nose. He healed quickly. And he’d understand. Hell, if he was here, he’d probably beat me to the punch, ready and willing to take one for the team. And since the link was so random and hard to predict, it was possible that the injury wouldn’t even mirror itself at all.

  “Catching on, are you?” the vamp said as he reached the top of the rocky hill and paused, waiting for me. “And while I don’t like the wolf, he seems a lot more capable than Eli. So I’m sure he’s fine too.”

  “And Max?” I asked, though there was no venom in my tone. I wanted a clear, logical explanation for how she was safe too. I’d swallow and internalize my grumbling so long as he was talking sense, easing some of my latent anxieties. Because, as much as I hated to admit it, having the douche-canoe around was actually making me feel a little better. There was nothing worse than being alone with your thoughts when you were navigating through the rocky terrains of fear.

  He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck as he surveyed whatever scene lay in front of him. “You saw her flambé a pile of vamps, didn’t you? Something tells me she can hold her own if she’s alone. At least for a little while.” He turned back again as I closed the distance between us, a line f
orming between his eyes. “Hurry up. While I’m fairly certain she’s okay, I can’t guarantee it. The slower you are, the longer it will take for me to track her.”

  “Track her?” I echoed as I reached him and looked out across the distance. More rocky plains, peppered with weird hilly mounds like we were walking in the hell version of the Badlands. If it wasn’t hell, it would almost be beautiful. I squinted until I realized that there looked to be some sparse buildings a mile or two ahead of us. I felt my face scrunch up as I tried to decipher what I was seeing. “Is that a town? Does hell have towns?”

  He exhaled, impatient with me already, as he started making quick work with his descent. “Come on, Grumpy, we’ve got some ground to cover. The portals aren’t always consistent with where they drop their passengers off. And from what I’ve heard, they’ve been less predictable as of late. It’s possible everyone got plopped down a few miles apart. It’s rare for people to enter through the portals, most are trying to leave this place. And we, well, we entered through the exit.”

  “Insufferable prick,” I mumbled, but I picked up my pace all the same. “Would’ve been a good thing for you to warn us about before we all drank the koolaid. How exactly are you going to track her then? Is vamp smelling really that strong?”

  I knew it wasn’t. That if she was that far off, there wasn’t a chance a vampire could scent her out. But it had become alarmingly clear over the last few days that the vamp twins weren’t your average set of fangholes. And while generally being in the presence of one of them would make my skin crawl, right now he was my best chance at finding my friends. So for once, I was almost happy that he was stronger than most, even if his brother blew his strength out of the water if their little battle royale was anything to go by.

  “What was that?” he snarled, not bothering to turn his head now. Instead, he picked up his pace.

  “Oops, guess I spoke that last part out loud. Sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t. Prick could use a little ego hit as far as I was concerned. It seemed to be the only weapon against him I had since I couldn’t physically hurt him.

  “Are you familiar with this ar—” my words cut off as something bowled into me and knocked the wind out of my lungs. As I stumbled and fell like a damn cartoon character, I watched the vamp get attacked by what looked like a werewolf, but I was spinning downhill so fast that I couldn’t be sure what the hell I was seeing. Fur, definitely what looked like fur, but that was all I could concretely identify.

  When I finally stopped tumbling like a fucking nursery rhyme, I was face down on a flat surface. I could feel small cuts all over my body and I was certain that my clothes were torn to shreds. Thank god I still had my small bag on my back so I could change after I sawed off the head of whatever the hell attacked me.

  As soon as I was still enough to do so, I grabbed the dagger out of my thigh strap and raised it up just as a giant white wolf sprang towards me like a rabid torpedo. The beast was obviously faster than me and leapt directly onto my chest. I was pinned beneath the creature's heavy weight, my vision filled with nothing but a pair of yellow eyes and the dust that my fall had stirred up.

  I coughed as the cloud settled into my mouth and lungs, tears streaming from the irritation. Just as the creature moved to sink its teeth into my shoulder, I freed my hand and sunk my blade into its side. I wasn’t positioned to reach its heart for a kill shot, but it was enough to hurt and fast enough to catch the wolf by surprise.

  The wolf let out a pained howl and instinctively backed far enough off of me for me to escape. I crawled away quickly, like a crab, and ripped my blade from its body, watching as its snow-white fur turned a deep red.

  Not waiting long enough for the creature to regroup and spring on me again, I flung my body into it, shoulder first, to try and unsteady it before it went on the offensive again.

  Large tufts of white hair crept into the seam of my lips and went up my nose as I tried to tackle the creature to the ground.

  With a cringe, I felt it dig a set of claws into my side, but the adrenaline coursing through my body was too strong for me to be aware of the pain. I needed to end this quickly, before I lost too much blood. I used all of my strength to wrestle the beast underneath me and forced myself to clear my mind as much as possible.

  Ever since Atlas was turned, I’d been having trouble killing werewolves with the same amount of vigor as I used to. I knew that the creature below me was trying to kill me; that this sort of situation was kill or be killed. But when I caught sight of those yellow eyes, chills ran up my spine and all I could see was my best friend.

  Before I could think about it any longer, I shoved my dagger through the wolf’s diaphragm and angled up until I was certain the blade sank into the heart. I watched as the life drained from the beast’s eyes and a sort of hollowness carved into me. I used to be filled with so much pride, so much excitement when I took down one of these beasts. Now, each one that died made me worry about how long Atlas had before a protector did the same to him.

  With a heave, I pulled my dagger from the carcass, my lip curling at the squelching sound the movement made.

  I spun around, ready to help the vamp in case he needed it when I noticed a giant gray wolf diving for me. It was less than a few inches away, it’s long teeth bared around an aggressive growl.

  I braced myself for impact, knowing I didn’t have time to dodge.

  But it was too heavy and when it landed on my chest, we both went down with the momentum in a pile of limbs. My blade was knocked from my fingers as we hit the ground and my heartbeat picked up as I fished around for it. I didn’t stand a chance against one of these without a weapon and this one was significantly larger than its predecessor.

  After a long moment, my body stilled. The wolf hadn’t moved—no attempt to close my neck within its jaw, no set of claws raking against or through my abdomen.

  With a heavy shove, I crawled out from under the creature. A giant blade was sticking out of the body, aimed perfectly at the beast’s heart. It was dead.

  I swiped some stray strands of hair from my face and glanced around. The vamp stood over me, his hand extended to lift me up.

  “You killed it?” I asked, the words little more than a whisper.

  He arched his brow and grabbed my hand, clearly bored with waiting for me to accept the offering. “Yeah, that’s sort of what you do in an ambush, no? Kill the enemy? I would think your kind is particularly used to that.”

  With a heavy yank he pulled me up, his eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned me for injuries. My head swam from the movement and I held onto his forearm for support.

  He swiped his fingers carefully against my side, lifting my shirt to get a better look.

  I shoved him away and in the process fell back down. I’d lost more blood than I thought.

  “Stubborn woman,” he mumbled as he turned around and went through his bag. He must’ve stolen some things from his brother’s house. He didn’t exactly come with any luggage when we broke him out. “I wasn’t trying to come onto you, Grumpy. You’ve got a wound there that needs dressing if you want it to heal quickly.”

  “You could have let me die,” I said as I watched him pull out a water bottle. It’s what I would have done if the circumstances were reversed and he wasn’t connected to Eli.

  “Is that what you would have preferred?”

  I narrowed my eyes in answer, but there was no malice behind it. For a brief moment, it had felt like I was taking on a pack of wolves with a member of my team—a notion which sent a series of repulsed shivers down my spine. A vampire was not a part of my team, nor would one ever be.

  “Yeah well, I know this might come as a surprise to you, but while I am a vampire, I’m not a monster.” He tore my shirt open so that my stomach was exposed. I held in my wince as he gave the wounds a water bath and cleared out any of the sooty debris that lined the gouges. “Besides, if you died, I’d have to deal with your friends. And she—”

  He shook his head, which I
took to mean he wasn’t going to finish the thought.

  “Thank you,” I said, the words tasting unfamiliar in my mouth—not because I’d never said them before, but because I’d never said them to a vampire. It felt foreign and strange, thanking him for saving my life, when I’d spent so many years hating his species for taking the lives of my parents. “Whatever your reasons, I’m glad you didn’t just sit back and let me die.”

  I glanced down at the wounds. The claw marks looked nasty but they weren’t too deep and I’d be mostly healed in a few hours if I was lucky. Considering I’d taken on and slaughtered one of the werewolves solo, I’d consider this particular battle a very solid win.

  I started swiping up and down my legs before trying to glance at the back of my shoulder.

  “What on earth are you doing?” The vamp looked at me like I was the one whose mind was broken.

  “Trying to make sure I wasn’t bitten,” I mumbled as I craned my neck trying to make sure the scrapes on my back were from tumbling down the hill and not from the scrape of a tooth.

  He rolled his eyes before gripping under my arms and lifting me back to my feet. I froze as he spun me around and lifted up the back of my shirt. “You’re fine. Devil forbid you get any beastie cooties. No bites here.”

  I shoved away from him and pulled my shirt back down; well, as much as was possible anyway with all the bottom of it shredded to scraps. Ignoring his bemused expression I grabbed my pack and pulled out a fresh tank top. “It’s not a cooties problem, you asshat,” I said as I swiped my shirt off in one quick motion, trying and failing to ignore the sharp stab of pain as the cloth swept over my wounds. I glanced at the vamp and he was doing a very good job of staring at my face and not my boobs. Points for that at least. I pulled the fresh top over my head as I added on a cloth-muted mumble, “we can actually die from those bites. And on rare occasions, be turned altogether.”