“I’m looking for Nika,” I added quickly, as his eyes narrowed and followed my gaze to Max. The last thing I wanted was for him to focus too much on her. He had even less impulse control than I did, and he wasn’t known for taking kindly to strangers. Especially one as difficult to get a read on as she was.
His lip curled in disgust and he gripped my shirt, pulling my head away from the wall just far enough that it made a heavy impact when he threw me back against it. Fucking obnoxious ass.
“Nika’s gone.”
I knew him well enough to hear the sorrow lacing his anger. Every muscle in his face was tense, like he was trying desperately to keep from revealing any cracks in his composure. Which would be effective for most people, but not for me. Nash and I grew up with each other. I could read him as well as I could read my brother. Maybe even better.
“Gone where?” I asked, though I wasn’t certain that I actually wanted to know the answer. Gone in this place was never a good thing—and always spoke discreetly of an excruciatingly painful going process.
“Do you care?” he exhaled a humorless chuckle before letting me go like touching me disgusted him. “You left her. She needed your protection and you left her to the wolves, like the selfish animal you are. She’s been gone for years.”
My stomach squeezed as I absorbed his words. He wasn’t wrong. I had left her when I found a way out of this hellhole, and I’d left her knowing that when I did she’d lost a valuable source of protection. But I knew Nash well enough to know that some of that disgust on his face was directed at himself as well.
“What happened?” I asked, trying desperately to ignore the annoying tightness wrapping itself around my chest. Nika wasn’t my responsibility—not my only responsibility anyway. And while I wasn’t a good friend to her when I left, she knew exactly the kind of person that I was. It wouldn’t have come as a surprise that I left this place at the first opportunity. I had other priorities.
“What the fuck do you think happened?” Nash shoved away from the wall, both of his hands combing through his hair in the universal sign of a guy at his wits end. “Have you actually managed the impossible in your travels to the human world and back? Have you somehow found a way to become even more thoughtless?” His voice was soft now, like he was talking more to himself and we were just given the privilege of listening in on the conversation. “What the fuck did Nika ever see in you? Maybe she was fucking dense too.”
“Erm,” Max cleared her throat, her dark eyes bouncing between the two of us like she was watching a slightly terrifying match of tennis, one in which the ball might morph into a rabid bear and attack the audience with relish. “I’m Max.”
I resisted the urge to drop my face into my hands at that comment. The girl clearly had no idea how to read a room.
Nash stopped his pacing, every muscle in his body filled with a predatory stillness as his eyes landed on her. I knew him well enough to have a guess at what was going through his mind. Here I was, carting around a girl of mythical originals, who looked like she could do little more than fight off a stray dog, let alone any of the creatures traversing the hellscape. And while he wouldn’t immediately be able to pick up on the strangeness that was Max Bentley, her innocence was practically plastered across every molecule of her body.
Good. Let him underestimate her. It would be fun to watch her kick his ass if it came down to it.
His head swung back to me, like I could somehow explain Max’s desire to insert herself into a conversation between two very volatile vampires.
“Do you have any food?” I asked, shrugging one of my shoulders lazily. Maybe it was best to just embrace the absurd—it had served her well enough over the last few weeks. Maybe her luck would rub off on me.
Nash bared his teeth and he flashed from standing in front of me to standing next to Max, his hand wrapped around her throat as his canines descended. “Looks like you brought your own blood bag. The only good thing you’ve ever been good for. At least that hasn’t changed.”
His dark eyes that always knew far too much studied me with a cool curiosity, like he was baiting me and waiting for me to explode. I was notorious for hating when other people touched my things.
I swallowed the growl building up in my lungs and froze in place, eyes wide as I sent a silent plea for him not to do anything rash. If I said something outright, he’d probably snap her neck just to spite me. And while I knew that Max had survived at least one bite with shockingly little effect, I wasn’t confident enough that she could do it again—not while her developing powers were all wonky. And who knew if a blood-bond could save her like it had the useless one.
She rolled her eyes. Rolled. Her. Eyes.
And then did the unthinkable: elbowed him in the dick.
As he doubled over, rage and pain swallowing his expression, she grabbed the dagger she kept pinned to her thigh and brought the blade to his neck.
“Max,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper, as I tried to dial the deadly energy back to something slightly more pragmatic. “Let’s not infuriate the blood-thirsty vampire any more than you’ve already done, okay? I’m sure it’s all good fun, but I’d rather not have to murder my best friend’s brother if that’s alright with you.”
“I don’t like being threatened,” she said, her eyes flashing black as she studied Nash with a mixture of intrigue and anger. I wasn’t sure if it was her power—whatever the hell that power was—coming out or what, but I needed to dampen it. She didn’t seem to have much of any control at all.
“Nash,” I said, stretching my arms out wide. “It’s been great fun catching up with you. We’ll have to do it again sometime. But since you can’t help us, we should get going before this devolves into bloodshed. We only brought one spare change of clothes, so it’s best to keep this set clean.” I glanced at Max, her top and pants covered in dust and ripped to tatters from the wendigo. “As you can see, we’re already sartorially fucked, as they say.”
“No one says that,” Nash ground out, his jaw tensed as he stared Max down with a mixture of white-hot anger and what looked terrifyingly like intrigue.
“Wait,” Max said, her grip on the blade still poised, but her eyes returning to their more conventional shade of chocolate brown. “Maybe he can still help us.” She looked back towards Nash and tipped her blade forward so that it touched the skin of his neck just slightly. He bared his teeth and she pulled back, hands up in the sign of surrender. “Sorry. It’s just that our friend was taken by someone who can teleport, which seems to be a pretty rare ability. And he’s being kept in this creepy ass crypt or dungeon. Sound familiar or ring any bells?”
It took every ounce of self-control not to drop my face into my palms and leave her to Nash’s whims. This girl had a death wish. And the tact of a goldfish.
Nash narrowed his charcoal eyes and I knew in my gut that he had an idea where the incubus was being kept, but I also knew with just as much certainty that he would never tell us where that was. Not because Max had threatened to decapitate him, but because of the fact she was with me.
“Leave. Now.” He glanced up at me, his jaw clenched. “And if I see you in my territory again, I will remove your skull from your spine. I don’t care who you are or what history you think we have. Is that clear?”
I nodded, before taking a step forward to grab Max’s hand, pulling the dagger from her fingers and sliding it back through the sheath on her thigh. I felt her body relax slightly when I touched her, and tried not to read into it too much. That line of thinking would get too muddy and dangerous, much too quickly. “Aye aye, captain. As always, it’s been a real pleasure.”
Without another word, I started to run, dragging Max with me like a dog on a leash and trying not to audibly chuckle at the way her “erm, bye” was swallowed up by the wind.
After a few long minutes that each seemed to last a lifetime, I paused, ears poised at the sound of ruffling in the foliage.
“Your friends all seem to hate you,” she
said, her eyebrow arched as she set her hands on her hip in a power posture she’d likely picked up from a ridiculous sitcom or one-too-many episodes of Wonder Woman. “Care to elaborate on why?”
“Khali doesn’t hate me, or did you not notice that?” I asked, pressing a finger to her lips to stop the endless flood of words that seemed to leak out whenever she was nervous. “Food.”
She opened her mouth to argue further, but I was spared the disturbance by the loud growl emanating from her stomach. Her lips tightened into a thin line in response and she nodded, fully aware she didn’t have a leg to stand on if she wanted to argue with me.
Hunting in the hell realm wasn’t always the easiest thing. Food was around, but it was much more sparse than it was in the human world.
This was a realm occupied to the brim with predators, so competition was fierce. And if I was alone, I’d settle for something much larger and tastier than a deer, but I had a feeling that I could only push Max so far in one night.
I flashed away from her at a speed no deer could outrun and grabbed the creature around the neck, twisting in one quick motion so that it was dead long before it had a chance to realize it was even in trouble. I turned back to the little protector with a smug look on my face, expecting her to praise me for being so thoughtful—both for ending the creature’s life so quickly and for providing a meal for her.
I wasn’t expecting her eyes to be wide and glazed over with moisture. Fucking tears. I hated when women cried, it should be illegal. “What? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“That was just unexpected,” she said, and I could tell she was swallowing back some emotion, frustrated with herself for showing any at all.
I dropped the beast with a loud thump and shrugged. “We don’t exactly have the luxury of a grocery store right now. Those establishments exist—well, sort of—but they’re sparse. And we’re trying not to draw too much attention. If you wanted all the glamor that comes with being a human, you should have stayed in your realm.”
Her eyes hardened as they locked onto mine, but she nodded. “You’re right.”
I almost fell back from the shock of hearing those words leave her lips. It was so rare that anyone actually agreed with me. On anything.
“I’ll get a fire started and then help you skin it.” She walked around me, glancing briefly at the creature with resolve in her eyes. She picked up some dry sticks and brush from the forest floor and looked back at me. “I draw the line at raw meat. Have your fill of the blood while I get the flames up and going,” and then, under her breath, she added, “slurping up a deer like he’s a Cullen now. Hell is weird.”
She paused, every muscle still as she turned back to me. A shadow seemed to ghost across her features and I knew instantly that she was thinking the same thing that I was. That if anyone could start a fire quickly, it was her. But neither of us knew how exactly to get her powers going. I made a mental note to devote some time to it once we had our bellies filled. I had a feeling if we didn’t figure out whatever the fuck she was soon, we’d be in trouble. And while I was always down for some good trouble, something told me that her powers were beyond what I was capable of handling alone.
A worry for another day.
I leaned back, partially sated, and watched her. For someone who’d initially had reservations about her meal, she dove into the deer like it was the first time she’d eaten in months.
“This is great,” she said, her mouth half full. “I feel like I could eat three of these beasts myself. They’re a bit leaner than the deer that exist back home though.” She swallowed, her eyebrows meeting in the middle as she stared at me. “Are there a lot of similar creatures here? To the human world, I mean? And other forms of retail besides grocery stores?”
I nodded, feeling significantly better with some blood in my system, but I was still studying the pulse throbbing softly in her neck as she chewed. Part of me just wanted to know what she’d taste like. And that part was slowly growing into an obsession. The only thing stronger was the strange desire to keep her alive and safe.
“A lot of this world is similar to the human one. Many of the beasts that live here need food just as you do. And the few who’ve left this realm and returned have shared some of the technology you all have—the way you do things, the way you survive. We’ve made use of what serves us and mock the rest.” I grinned at her, watching with joy as her cheeks reddened slightly, like she couldn’t tell whether or not to defend humanity.
“How long have you been in The Guild lab?” she asked, her voice was calm and collected, but I could tell that the question had been dying to burst from her lips for a while now.
“About four years.”
“How old are you?” she pressed.
“My body is about twenty-five. But I’ve been alive longer than that.”
As I expected, her face scrunched up in confusion in that way I was begrudgingly finding endearing. “What do you mean?”
“When we mature in the hell realm, we are often suspended in that state. It’s part of the magic of this place. And we live for a very long time.”
“Interesting.” She took another bite of her meat, chewing as she processed. “How many years have you lived then?”
“Not as long as most. I’d be about forty in human years. After my family and I were able to escape this place, we lived in Seattle for a couple of years. So it’s been about six or so since I was last here.” I glanced around our makeshift rest spot, thinking back to everything I’d encountered here. “A lot has changed in that time, more than I thought possible. Time was difficult to measure while imprisoned, so it’s hard to say for sure. I’d have to ask my brother. I’m sure he savored every second that I was out of his hair.” I cleared my throat and stood, dusting invisible debris from my pants. Talking about my past was not something I wanted to do. Ever. “We should go.”
Not missing a beat, Max stood too, unsheathing her blade like she was afraid something would sneak up on us. “Did you hear something?” When I shook my head, she relaxed a bit. “Then where are we going?”
“Nash wasn’t being honest. Not fully.” I grabbed her hand, half out of habit now, but also because I liked the feel of it, and started walking slowly through the forest. “He knows more than he’s letting on, and I expect that if we stalk him long enough, we might find out what it is.” I looked down at her and could feel the smirk crawling over my face. All of her focus was on me, her expression similar to one I often saw when she looked at the others. Like I was an equal. “We’ll need to be stealthy though. Nash isn’t as strong as I am, but he’s pretty damn close. And he’s far more familiar with this world now than I am. He’s always had a knack for survival.”
“You’re quite arrogant,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. Thankfully she didn’t pull her hand from mine as she followed me through the woods, just on the outskirts of the smattering of buildings I’d lost familiarity with over the years. “Are you ever going to tell me why you and your brother are so strong? Or why you hate each other so intensely?”
I stiffened at that question and shot her a quick glare. My fangs flashed briefly, out of habit more than threat. Though as the canines descended, I couldn’t stop my eyes from landing once more on the pulse point in her neck. The deer was not enough. Not when I’d been starved for years and beaten down by my asshat of a twin. “Who says we’re stronger? And no.”
She rolled her eyes but, despite her conjectures, she didn’t appear like she was afraid of me. I wasn’t sure whether that made me happy or angry, so I ignored it for now—something to deal with later.
“Weird thing to play coy about, but whatever.” We walked in silence for several moments, so I thought she was ready to drop it. But clearly I was wrong. She was even more stubborn than I was. Maybe even more stubborn than Nash. “I mean really, it’s a bit ridiculous. Are all vampires this insufferable?”
The question was more of a mumble and I had a feeling that she didn’t really care if I’d heard it or no
t, so I left it lingering in the air as some unrecognizable emotion gripped my chest. I was getting tired of these unrecognizable feelings that kept cropping up more and more often these days. I blamed her for most of them.
“What’s the story with you and Nash then? And his sister, Nika—what’s that all about?” She said, clearly in a chatty mood now that we were tromping around after a vampire. The girl had a death wish, if ever I’d seen one. You’d think that for someone who’d had more brushes with death in the last few months than most, that something would have instilled a sense of fear and self-preservation. Obviously not.
“Did you miss the part where I mentioned that Nash had pretty good senses? And that we’re supposed to be spying on him?” I swallowed back my smile, aggravated with myself that it was starting to form against my will. “You talking sort of ruins any semblance of stealth we have going for us. They don’t teach you much in that school, do they? No wonder your lot dies so young.”
Her mouth narrowed into a straight line, but there was humor in her dark eyes as she studied me. She mimed shutting up by doing that ridiculous zip-lipped gesture that human children often did. She even tossed away the key. Like, why the need for the performance? Just don’t talk. Simple.
Still. When she did it, it was almost…endearing. Which was its own brand of infuriating.
“We grew up together,” I said after a few moments of silence that were making me itch with discomfort. “Nika was my closest friend. I can’t—I refuse to believe that she’s gone. Nash is keeping something from me. And I want to find out exactly what it is.”
Her hand squeezed mine gently, like she was encouraging me to continue, but I didn’t want to. Not least of all because if Nika really was dead, it would be because I wasn’t here to protect her. She was always getting into trouble, largely because I encouraged it. The thought that I could be responsible—
“Something tells me that he might know more about where your friend is being kept as well,” I added, forcing the other line of thought to evaporate before I suffocated on it. “Nash is sort of top-of-the-food-chain material if you catch my drift. If anyone knows details about what’s been happening in this realm during my absence, it would be him.”
Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4 Page 25