Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4

by Holborn, Gray

  “I didn’t know that,” I let out a humorless chuckle. “Cy never even mentioned he had a brother until Seamus greeted us at Headquarters that night.” He was always standoffish and private, even when it came to me and Ro. So while I could tell that Eli took it more or less personally that Cy brushed him off all those years, that was just the way that he was. I learned to love that about him, as frustrating as it could be. “What about us?”

  Cy wasn’t exactly the sort of proud father who’d carry pictures around in his wallet, but I wondered if he’d ever mentioned us before preparing to move back into the society he’d so mysteriously left behind.

  “My father mentioned on occasion that Cy had adopted kids, but it wasn’t something we discussed very often. And I was forbidden from mentioning our meetings with him to anyone else. Their rendezvous were always shrouded in absolute secrecy.” He grinned, a wistful expression creeping over his face. “Back then I thought that was the coolest thing ever—like I was being allowed on a secret mission, despite being a student. And there was something sort of intoxicating about walking around Headquarters, having met the infamous Cyrus Bentley. Especially since so many people were convinced he was dead.”

  I studied Eli, wondering what it would have been like to grow up at The Guild, surrounded by family and friends. And, perhaps more than those things, knowledge about our world, about my heritage.

  “That’s good that Seamus didn’t keep everything a secret with you, that he shared those meetings even if they weren’t frequent,” I said, my words hushed as a familiar bitterness settled in my stomach. As much as I tried to ignore it, I was hurt by how much Cy had kept from me. I was strong and I could fight, but Ro and I would have been so much better prepared to take on this world if Cy hadn’t tried to hide us from it for so long.

  Eli’s lips tightened and he nudged my foot with his. “I wouldn’t take it personally, Max. Uncle Cyrus had a difficult past. I think he wanted to keep himself as far away from The Guild as he could, to be honest. Not telling you about his brother, about his career—I think that was his way of protecting you from the pain that comes with being a protector. You and Ro were the life he chose, sounds like he just wanted to erase everything that came before that and focus on the life he actually wanted, rather than the one he was born into.”

  Much to my surprise, his words felt like a soothing balm, like it was something I always knew more or less but needed to hear all the same. Because as frustrated as I was with Cy, Eli was right. He chose to raise me and Ro. He chose to devote his time and energy to training us and keeping us safe when he didn’t need to.

  “He’s never seemed particularly paternal,” I said, considering my words carefully. “I was always shocked—as were most of the people in town—that he even adopted us in the first place. He seemed to crave isolation something fierce. Raising a couple of kids in the middle of nowhere when he had no obligation—it just always seemed so out of character.” I swallowed, my throat clogging a bit with emotion. As much as I loved Cy like a father, sometimes I worried that he didn’t feel the same. Abandonment issues were a bitch. “But I think you’re right. He did choose me and Ro, even if I don’t always understand why.”

  A guardedness came over Eli and he slouched slightly, considering, his eyes suddenly averted from mine. I got the feeling that he knew something I didn’t. Which was pretty on par for me. Most people seemed to know more about Cy than I did.

  “Do you know much about your parents—where you came from?” he asked, the words falling out in a rush like he had to get them out before he could think twice about saying them at all.

  I shook my head, my limbs suddenly antsy with the familiar frustration that sense of lack built up. “He’s only ever told me that I showed up on his doorstep with nothing at all, not even a name. Any time I’ve tried to press for more, he’s shut down. Like he was just as guarded about my past as he was about his own. It always infuriated me. Eventually, I just stopped asking.”

  And part of me had hoped that I’d find the answers to my questions once I joined The Guild. Learning that no one seemed to know where I’d come from had pierced more than I thought it would. It was like my entire history was simply erased, like it didn’t matter to anyone since no one had any answers.

  After a long, drawn-out moment, he turned back to me, a sad smile pulling his lips up at the corners. Pity. I much preferred his usual cocky, devilish grin on him. “He might just be a guarded dude, Max. Heartbreak has a way of doing that to a guy. I’m sure he’ll open up one day. If he opens up to anyone, it will be you and your brother. Of that I’m certain.”

  I broke out laughing, puncturing the quiet moment like an overextended balloon. The idea of Cy ever experiencing something remotely like heartbreak was absolutely ridiculous, but after Eli didn’t join in with me, my reaction died down.

  “Wait. You’re serious?” I waited for him to join in on the joke with me, figuring he was just trying to lighten the mood. “You can’t really mean that Cyrus left because of a relationship? Like, with another person?”

  Cyrus Bentley, the man who chose to spend his life living in the woods, in almost complete isolation; the man who treated going into town for groceries like most would greet an afternoon of creative torture, simply because there would be people around. Not a chance.

  Maybe the wendigo poison was messing with his brain.

  Eli chuckled soundlessly, clearly amused by my own amusement. “Dead serious. Not surprised he didn’t mention it, though. It’s not the sort of thing an already private person would likely openly share. I only know because of my father. And it’s one of those topics he’d only occasionally bring up because he was drinking and his guard was down—that’s the only time he reminisces about the good old days.”

  I could feel my jaw dropping as I turned towards Eli, every atom of my body focused on pulling the story out of him. “You have to spill, Eli Bentley. It’s basically mandatory.”

  I tucked my legs under my ass and settled in for his tale, like I was a giddy schoolgirl.

  He scrunched up his nose, considering, before finally turning back towards me. “There’s not a whole lot to tell. Sorry to disappoint. I don’t know much. Just that he was in love with Alleva—”

  “What?” I yelled, far too loudly for someone hiding out in an old warehouse, trying not to pull in unwanted attention from wandering neighborhood demons. “You can’t seriously mean to tell me that he and Alleva were into each other…like that?” I added with a whisper, as if that might negate my earlier exclamation.

  His eyes danced with amusement as he studied me, and I could tell that he was pleased that his big reveal didn’t disappoint. “The one and only. They were in love and on the same field team way back when. There were supposedly big plans for them to bond, but at the last minute Alleva pulled out and bonded to two other people. I think it had something to do with her father. Cy was, believe it or not, a bit of a rebel back in the day, and while he was top of his class, a lot of people were wary about being tethered to him. But I’m not really certain of the details.”

  I toyed with some of the cloth we were lying back on, trying to picture a world in which Cyrus could be in love with someone. He’d barely so much as even looked at any of the women in town and never once mentioned a previous relationship. Was this why he’d kept us from this world for so long? Why he’d chosen to hide out on the side of the mountain, adopting two abandoned kids as his duty to his heritage? Heartbreak?

  My chest squeezed at the thought of him going through that sort of pain, at the possibility that he’d changed the entire course of his life because of it.

  And then I thought about Reza—and how close he could have come to being her father instead of mine. Or, well, not her father exactly, since she wouldn’t be the same person if she had his DNA, but the father of someone like her all the same.

  “What happened?” I asked, leaning towards Eli, hanging on every single syllable of what he had to say. He might not be able to
give me much on my own history, but I’d eat up every bit of Cy’s that he offered.

  He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, thinking. “Our dads are stubborn men. And I know that mine took heartbreak very hard. Cyrus is even more intense, so it makes sense that he couldn’t handle being around Alleva after that. He did save her though, before leaving.”

  I’d heard part of this story, but I didn’t know the details. That Cyrus had taken on two vampires solo, walking away with nothing but a few bruises, cuts, and some permanent damage to his leg.

  “Do you know the details of that night?” I asked, almost ashamed that I didn’t know them myself. Cyrus was, after all, the person I’d known the longest in my life. If anyone should have known about his past, it was me. But he’d kept everything from me, which left an uncomfortable ache in my belly every time I lingered on that fact.

  Eli’s dark eyes filled with what looked alarmingly like pity again. A realization that sent a jolt of discomfort and further embarrassment through my chest. I didn’t want pity. It was the one thing that could make learning all of this secondhand even worse.

  As if recognizing this just as I felt it, Eli gripped my hand softly in his and shook his head. “No one really knows the details of that night, not even my father. And if Alleva does, she’s never spilled to anyone as far as I can tell. All I know is that as soon as Cyrus was well enough to walk on his own, he took off in the middle of the night.” He shrugged, his brows tilted in focus. “My father doesn’t talk about that time in his life too much. It was hard on him—having his best friend leave like that. He looked up to Cy, admired him intensely.” He paused and glanced over at me, a wistful smile on his face. “They were on the same field team too, and were probably just as widely-respected and feared amongst their age group as Atlas is now. They were supposed to be the next big thing. I think losing that—losing his best friend and brother—sort of took something from him. Something he never quite got back.”

  I sat with that for a moment, thinking about how I would feel if Ro just up and left me one day to navigate this life on my own. The thought alone had my stomach tightening with anxiety. As soon as I got back to Guild Headquarters, I was going to make that dude sign a contract—in blood—promising never to ditch me.

  And there had to be so much more to the story than Eli knew. Curiosity filled me as I sifted through the threads, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit together in my mind. I desperately wanted to know what happened between Alleva and Cy the night of the attack. Alleva was one of the most powerful protectors we had at Headquarters—what kind of situation had she gotten into that left Cy fighting off two vampires without her help? And with the rigorous details The Guild kept on missions, how was it that no one seemed to know the full story of this one?

  And then I traced my version of Cy against what I’d just learned—the subtle anger and pain that he seemed to always carry, no matter what; the way he frequently used alcohol or excessive training to try and block out his ghosts, like he was constantly running away from them, lest they catch up. Had it all been because he was heartbroken? Or was there more to the story? And why had he chosen that night to abandon The Guild entirely, when he could have just as easily gone with his brother and joined another team at any of the other Guild satellites or headquarters around the world? If he was the top of his class, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have had options.

  There were so many dead ends, so many stray pieces that didn’t fully make sense. After learning these few details, all that I was left with was the aching realization that I didn’t know Cyrus very well at all. Only the parts of himself that he allowed me to see, which wasn’t very much in the grand scheme of things. Hell, even complete strangers seemed to know more about his past and his life before our cabin than I did.

  I felt a gentle pressure squeezing my hand and I glanced down, studying the way that Eli’s fingers wrapped around mine. Seeing our skin touching, feeling his against mine, sent my mind flooding with visuals of my dream and I momentarily welcomed the shift in my focus. This was a sort of anxiety that was fun to linger in, an exciting sort of stomach plummeting. My mind filled with visuals of the way he’d pushed me up against the wall and kissed me like he was a drowning man and I was the only source of water for miles, the mind boggling sensation of his head tucked between my legs while Wade watched with a greedy expression in his eyes. As much as I didn’t understand it, I wanted back in that moment, I wanted to bury myself in those sensations and forget all of the drama and violence of the real world. No more hell, no more family drama, no more Guild politics. Just feeling.

  Heat flooded my body and I slowly lifted my eyes, heavy with lust, from our hands to meet his face. He was a terrifyingly beautiful creature. His dark hair was still mussed from our fight with the wendigo, and the lower half of his face was coated in a dark shadow from going days without shaving. That typical cocky smirk tilted his lips, as if he knew where my thoughts had suddenly turned, as if he was navigating them there himself, just through willpower. He leaned forward slightly, like he wanted to close the distance between us as much as I did.

  My lips felt like magnets, like they had no purpose in the entire world, other than to latch against his—and the longer we waited, the more desperate it felt.

  I could feel my heart beating like a rabid animal against my ribcage as I watched him inch closer and closer to me. But at the last second, panic took over and I pulled back.

  “I’m sorry about the dream,” I blurted out, pulling my hand from his. My eyes dropped instantly from his tempting-as-fuck grin, to stare instead at my lap. I needed to not feel this way about Eli. He’d made it very clear that he wasn’t exactly the relationship type, and while losing myself in him for a little while would be fun, I wasn’t certain I’d be able to resurface. Not now, not anymore. I knew him now—he was so much more than just a hot guy I saw at school. Our lives were permanently woven together through Cy and Seamus. There wasn’t an option to kiss and forget, to go back to pretending like nothing had happened.

  Firm fingers tilted my chin up so that I was staring into his warm brown eyes, any sign of his usual taunting smirk nowhere in sight. There was an almost angry edge to his face as his eyes studied me. “Why the hell would you be sorry for that? It was, by far, the best fucking dream I’ve ever had in my entire life. Without a doubt. And I have a pretty good imagination, so that’s saying something.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, trying to force my racing pulse to calm down. “I mean, the thing with Wade’s powers is that it heightens any kind of—urges. And that was your first time being in a dream with an incubus and you were already in a weakened state. I should have known better and stopped before things got so car—”

  My words cut off as Eli’s lips pressed into mine, somehow the perfect combination of hard and soft. Memories of the last time he’d kissed me came flooding back, memories not of a dream, but sitting quietly at a pond—our pond. He was so different there, so open. As if it was muscle memory, my body seemed to sing when his was pressed up against it, just as it did then.

  There was a sort of rightness about being pressed against Eli, an all-encompassing feeling of home.

  But then I remembered the rejection. The way it felt when he’d pulled away that day, the shame that had consumed me.

  I pushed away from him before things could deepen and shook my head, desperately trying to find the words I needed.

  His face looked so dejected as he stared at me with a mixture of hunger and something I didn’t quite know how to place. The usual arched brow and lip-tilting smirk were completely erased, making him seem so much more serious, more vulnerable than he usually did.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he said, leaning back and rubbing his hand over his face. He let out a frustrated sigh. “I didn’t mean to take advantage. I thought—”

  Confusion flooded me at his apology. “I just—last time, it didn’t seem like you wanted this. Like you wanted me.”

  His face flushed as
his eyes found mine, the hunger in their depths amplified. “Max, you didn’t take advantage of me in that dream. I knew what I was doing, and whatever I was feeling there had nothing to do with Wade. Once I saw you, he all but disappeared from focus for me. And before—” he shook his head, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips as he considered me, searching for the words. I followed the movement with a hollow hunger, my eyes fixated on his plush upper lip. “It was complicated, and my head wasn’t straight—it was just, I needed—look, I shouldn’t have just left you like that and then pretended like it didn’t happen.” He let out a humorless, deep chuckle that did strange twisty things to my stomach. “Sometimes I can be an absolute ass. But trust me when I tell you that it’s all I’ve thought about since it happened. The way you felt against me, the way you tasted—” He blew out a frustrated breath and ran his hands through his hair, “I know on some level that this is a bad idea. Like a colossally bad fucking idea. I just—I don’t think I care anymore. That’s not a good enough reason.”

  His voice was low, gravelly almost, and I could feel myself practically panting, lingering on every word.

  Warmth spread through my limbs as he studied me, my entire body filled with a tingling energy. It was a heady thing, having Eli Bentley focus all of his attention on you. His eyes left no question as to what he wanted to do, what he wanted from me. The way he stared at me now, I might as well have been naked already. And maybe I could survive just one encounter—just one desperate attempt to erase the heated desire from my system. Maybe then we could focus on other things, if we just took care of this tension now.