Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4
Page 23
For months I’d been convinced that if I could just get her out of my system, that I would be able to move on. But now that I’d had her, I didn’t think I could ever go back to fucking random girls again. Every single molecule of my body had been alive as I entered her, it was like she was made for me and I wanted all the time in the world to explore every inch of her. Again and again and again.
Jesus fucking christ. I was screwed.
It took every ounce of willpower to pull my hand back from her, to take a few steps away and follow Declan out into the other room—not least of all because I knew what awaited me when I did.
I shut the heavy metal door softly behind me and the second it latched, I went flying into the wall and landed on my ass.
“What the fuck,” I whisper-yelled as I stared up, expecting to find myself confronted with another demon. Instead, all I saw was Atlas. My back straightened as I studied him, trying to keep the shock from my face. He’d never attacked me like that before. And I’d had years of pissing him off, half the time just because I wanted to see how much I could push him before he broke. This—this was what broke him? “What the hell are you doing?”
I stood up, ignoring the sting in my shoulder from where I’d landed against it. As soon as I was on my two feet again, Atlas pressed his forearm to my throat, pinning me against the wall. I opened my mouth to call him out, but then I noticed his eyes—bright yellow without a brown speck in sight.
I raised my hands in surrender as I watched his ragged breathing convulse through his body. “Alright man, we’re good. Calm down.”
He growled in response. Fucking growled. It was easy to forget that Atlas was sharing his body with a monster these days, but moments like this made it alarmingly clear how out of our element we were when it came to his transition. We’d been tricking ourselves into thinking we were in control of the situation.
“Atlas,” Declan whispered from a few feet away. “Breathe. It’s Eli. You need to calm down. Get your wolf under control.”
She was the best at calming him, but it didn’t escape my notice that she was standing several feet away—like even she wasn’t sure if she could talk him off this ledge this time.
“What happened out there?” I whispered out of the side of my mouth to her, as if Atlas couldn’t hear every syllable with crystal-clear precision. “Why’s he so riled up?”
“What the fuck do you think happened, you fucking dickhead?” she snapped.
I didn’t want to look away from Atlas because I was pretty certain that if I did, he’d go for my jugular, but I glanced out of the side of my eyes and saw Dec pinning me with a glare, like I was the one attacking my teammate and not the other way around.
“What the hell were you thinking, Eli?” She took a few steps closer, but made sure to still stay out of range of Atlas’ limbs, just in case he shifted his aggression on her. “You fucked his mate. And a mate he’s using every ounce of willpower to reject—in that way. And then with a shrug you just go and fuck her yourself.” She shook her head, letting out a humorless laugh as she ran both of her hands through her hair like she couldn’t believe she had to deal with my tactlessness, here of all places. “I mean Jesus, we’re gone for three hours. Three hours. And you were supposed to be healing. And yet you still decided that your fucking libido took precedence. We’re in hell one day and you decide it’s the perfect time to get your dick wet. The fuck is your problem?”
My stomach dropped at the mate comment. After everything we’d been through over the last week, I’d almost forgotten that Atlas’s wolf seemed to be just as drawn to Max as the rest of us were. But he’d assured us he was resisting it, that it wasn’t a true wolf bond and all of that garbage he liked to spew wherever she was concerned. The only thing Atlas ignored more than his interest in Max was his wolf.
“It’s not like he’s claimed her,” I responded, my voice dripping with frustration as I stared at Atlas. I could see from the way his body was shaking that it was literally taking every ounce of control he had not to wolf out right now and tear me limb-from-limb. “I mean, you did say you weren’t going to act on it. And she’s a consenting adult. There’s no rule—”
The pressure against my throat increased until my airways were cut off.
Fuck. Fuck. “Wrong thing to say. I can see that now,” I choked out, my voice sounding like it got in a fight with a garbage disposal and lost as I tried to create some space between his forearm and my trachea.
“Atlas,” Declan said, her voice as soothing as she was able to make it, but Declan wasn’t exactly great at disguising her own anger. I watched as she extended a tentative hand to his shoulder—a thoughtless move to touch a rabid werewolf, but she tended to have her head in the sand where Atlas was concerned. “Calm down. He’s an asshat, but it’s Eli. You’ll hate yourself if you accidentally kill him.” She glared over at me, her green eyes filled with more rage than I’d seen in them in a long ass time. “While ending him doesn’t sound like the worst idea right now, I don’t think you’ll come back from that. So calm down and wait for another creature to decapitate him. Not you. I can’t deal with every single member of this team losing it all at once.”
“She’s mine,” Atlas growled, though he released some of the pressure against my neck. He was so close to wolfing out that I was surprised he was able to get even two words past his lips while trying to fight it down.
Rage boiled in my eyes as I stared at him. Max was not his, and the thought of someone else claiming her had my chest tightening like I was being hugged by a metal robot. I kneed him in the dick—a break in bro code if ever there was one—and cranked my fist back as he bent over.
Before I could punch him, Declan elbowed me in the stomach, pulling a surprised groan from my mouth.
“What the fuck?” I choked out, doubling over like Atlas had just done.
I looked up at her and noticed her eyes were wide with shock—and maybe a little bit of disgust too.
“What the hell are you doing? Kicking a guy on the edge of a battle with his monster in the dick? You’re going to get yourself killed, you fucking twat.” She turned away from us both, her hands clutching her hair as we both turned to watch her. “You’ll get along with men, they said; join a team with guys you’re friends with, they said; not all guys are fucking neanderthals, they said.” She spun back around, leveling us both with a glare. “Well, they were wrong. You’re both absolute wanks. Max is not a fucking possession. She doesn’t belong to either of you no matter how much your raging hormones might seem to think otherwise. Jesus, I thought you both were fucking feminists?” She crossed her arms in front of her, nostrils flaring with rage as she studied us both. “Personally, I think she’s fucking daft if she chooses—or even eyes—either of one of you. The fact that she let you inside of her absolutely blows my mind.”
My jaw tightened at that, and I straightened my posture as the sting of her elbow started to dissipate. I glanced down at Atlas and while he was still raging hard, and while most of that rage was directed at me, I could see that some of the brown was bleeding back into his eyes. I nodded at him in acknowledgement.
“Sorry man,” I muttered, even though it was only partially true. Declan was right. I wasn’t one to claim a girl or even fight over one. But it was like something in me was shifting, and the thought of her belonging to Atlas—or maybe belonging only to Atlas—made me snap. “You’re right, Dec. We’re being dicks. Sorry.” I cleared my throat and glanced briefly at her. “And I am a feminist. A raging feminist, in fact. Put that on my gravestone when Atlas decapitates me, please.”
I shot her a cheeky grin as she continued glaring at me—a grin that only widened as I watched some of her anger dissolve into reluctant amusement.
“What the hell were you thinking, Eli?” she asked, exasperation filling her voice as fury drained from it. “How could you possibly think that right now was a good time to hook up with Max. I mean—”
“Holy shit,” I said, cutting her off, not even bothering
to hide the grin I could feel splitting my face. “You’re into her too, aren’t you? That’s where so much of this anger is coming from. It’s not just anger. It’s jealousy.”
I watched, amusement only growing, as her cheeks shaded with red and she dropped eye contact altogether—something she almost never did because it signaled weakness to the enemy.
“No,” she said, her voice higher than usual. “No, I’m not, I just—”
“Enough,” Atlas snapped. When I glanced his way, I could see that while the wolf was still fighting for attention, it was no longer running the show. Uptight Atlas was back. “We have more important things to discuss right now. And Max stays off limits. We don’t have time for this shit. And we can’t afford to turn on each other.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he shot me one of those looks of his that was almost as good at shutting me up as his wolf was.
“I mean it Eli.” He took a few steps back, his chest expanding with each ragged breath as he tried to compose himself. “We know nothing about her. And if the last few days have made anything clear, it’s that whatever she is, she’s not one of us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I slid against the wall until I was sitting on the grimy floor. “Just because we’re all drawn to her doesn’t mean she’s evil. I’m sick of us dancing around this conversation just because you’re not used to actually wanting somebody. Or because you’re afraid she won’t want you back.”
It was a low blow, and I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, which in all fairness was a pretty rare occurrence for me.
“You’re thinking with the small brain again,” Declan muttered, but she walked closer and leaned her shoulder against the wall just above me. “You can’t honestly have gone through the last few days and still think she’s just a typical protector. Even you aren’t that thick.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, but mostly because I wanted to be that thick. Now that I’d had sex with Max, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I’d been betraying her. That I’d lied to her. Multiple times. I let out a sigh and ran my hand roughly over my face like that would help wake me up from whatever the hell my libido was doing to my brain.
“My dad doesn’t think she is either.” I looked up at both of them and cringed at the look of shock cannibalizing their expressions. We didn’t keep shit from each other. They’d had my back for most of my life. And I’d been lying to them. “He had me steal some of Max’s DNA a while back.”
Declan’s brows met as she stared at me. “How the hell did you steal her hair? Creep around in her room like a stalker?”
Shame filled me and I couldn’t keep eye contact as I answered her. Taking it from her hairbrush would have been a smarter move. “I kissed her out at the pond,” I exhaled sharply from the memory, “and when I held her head, I swiped a strand of hair.”
When I glanced up at Atlas, I could see his mind running through loops as his jaw pumped with a fury that had me cringing.
“You’re an animal,” Declan spat, her face scrunched up in disgust. “Doubt your sleeping beauty will want much to do with you once she finds out that piece of history.”
Fear like I wasn’t prepared for licked at my stomach and I dropped my head into my hands. How the hell was I even going to broach that conversation with Max. I didn’t know her all that well, but something told me she wasn’t going to be stoked by the fact that I swiped her DNA in more ways than one while sucking her face. Dec was right. I was a raging dickhead.
“Why did Seamus want her DNA?” Atlas was pacing now and I had the feeling that he was once again trying to keep the lid on his wolf. “What did he suspect? And what did he find?”
I shrugged as I heaved myself off the floor, to start my own bout of pacing. Nervous energy was starting to make my hands shake. “If he did find something, he hasn’t told me. But he thought Cyrus was keeping something from him—he’s too protective of her. He said he knew some of the details of how she came to live with him. But that something was off. That Cy was deliberately hiding an important piece of the story. He wanted to know what that piece was.” I glanced at them both and shrugged. “You know how my dad is. He doesn’t like not being in the know.”
Atlas nodded. He paused like he was debating something, but then let out a heavy exhale. “I overheard them talking about her a while back. Before things went down with Wade. They seemed to think she was in danger, like something was coming for her. Like there was a reason why she kept getting attacked. And probably the same reason Cyrus adopted her in the first place. We just don’t know what it is.”
Declan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s because neither of them realized that the werewolf who attacked her was you.”
He narrowed his eyes, every muscle in his body tensed. “I didn’t attack her.”
“Right,” I added, remembering some of the details of this story from Dec. “You attacked her human boyfriend. Like that’s so much better.”
“He wasn’t her—” Atlas shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. His face got that stern expression he got whenever he was deciding something. “Seamus suspected something. And clearly his instincts are still on target. She fucking conjured up fire and literally burned a mountain of vampires attacking you to flames. That’s not normal. She’s not a protector. At least not just a protector.”
Right. I deflated slightly at the memory of her standing there like an avenging angel straight out of hell.
We hadn’t discussed it since it happened, not openly anyway. Probably because she was always around and we were afraid of the fang twins overhearing anything.
“And then she helped heal you,” Declan added, her tone monotonous and unreadable, like she was reading from a history book—detached. It was something she did well, when she was afraid of getting hurt—turn off, like her emotions were attached to a switch. “With that girl from the vamp’s house. What if she’s like her?”
“Like Khali?” I asked, trying to impose the image I had of the mysterious girl at Claude’s against Max—who was also mysterious, sure, but in a different way. “I don’t think they're the same breed of demon.”
“Demon?” Declan asked, surprise momentarily breaking through her steel wall. “You don’t really think Max—” she cut off, her eyes filled with a distant expression. “Have either of you heard of someone being part demon? Maybe she’s some sort of hybrid. Do you think she’s actually unaware of her powers or is it just some weird innocent act?”
“I mean, Wade is part demon,” I said, before nodding towards Atlas. “And so’s he. Maybe Max is too. The rules are all changing on us. It’s new territory.”
Atlas shook his head. His hands were fidgeting as they always did when he was feeling useless. For once, I got it. I didn’t know how the hell to feel about Max. And if she was actually a demon—did I really give a fuck?
“I don’t think she knows,” I added, feeling the truth as the words settled over the room. “She’s been pretty clueless about our world the whole time—to an extent that it would have been senseless if it was all an act and she was trying to blend in. I think Cy kept everything from her. And maybe he doesn’t even know everything. I doubt he’d bring her to Headquarters at all if there was any concern she’d light up like a torch when attacked by demons.”
“And Rowan?” Dec asked as she scratched at some of the paint chips flaking off the windowsill. She was deliberately avoiding looking at either of us. “You think he’s—whatever she is too? Hard to believe Cyrus Bentley is the type to harbor demon fugitives. I don’t understand where he found her or why he kept her alive. She’s clearly dangerous.”
“More dangerous than our entire team combined, and right now that includes a werewolf and an incubus, so that’s saying something,” I added with a smile, though the situation was anything but funny.
“So what now?” Dec asked, but her focus was on Atlas. He was the one she would listen to, the one she depended on for answers. Not me. As always.
16
Darius
“What do you think? It’s our job to kill monsters. There’s our answer,” Eli said, his voice dripping with a cruel edge that didn’t particularly suit him. He was supposed to be the fun one of the group, the one who kept everything light and reasonably entertaining. It was part of the reason I saved him in the first place. That level of sardonic nihilism was better suited to his slightly older peers.
“Are we eavesdropping now, little protector,” I whispered against the shell of her ear, grinning when she jumped in response, her skin pebbling from the sensation. For someone who could basically self-combust and destroy a pile of my kind, she was unusually jumpy. “I have to say, I’m quite shocked. You don’t seem the type to listen in on private conversations.”
She spun around towards me, her pulse beating frantically against her skin, her eyes wide and glazed over with a liquid that made my stomach sink.
My grin slid away. I didn’t do tears. And something about her being sad rubbed at my chest in a way that made me want to tear into something. Or someone. What the fuck was that about?
“Is it true?” she whispered, her voice a low whisper that didn’t quite cloak the fear lacing it—there was hope there too, and I realized that she wanted me to tell her that everything she’d overheard was false. That she was just the average, run-of-the-mill, neighborhood protector.