Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4
Page 27
How could I be sure that in trying to take them out that I wouldn’t take Darius out too? I didn’t know how to find the on/off switch, let alone focus the energy with any sort of specificity.
I hadn’t killed Eli. I’d saved him. I had to believe that in this mirrored battle, I’d do the same for Darius.
Just as I took a breath in, trying desperately to gain control of the energy licking against my skin, an excruciating pain buckled my knees. I felt, rather than heard, myself screaming as my fire-coated arms circled my waist, desperate to contain the agony. There was no blood, no werewolf attack near me, no wound.
What the hell was happening to me? Leaning all of my weight on one knee, I planted my opposite foot on the ground, and tried to stand. Before I could move so much as an inch, the pain doubled. And then tripled. My vision blurred until all that I saw was the swirl of colors from the flame, and then, nothing but a deep, penetrating black.
“Darius,” I yelled, though no sound escaped my lips. Or, if it did, it didn’t make its way to my ears. My limbs felt like they were being burned and torn from my body, like now that the fire was done saving my life, it could move on to taking it.
My eyelids pressed together tight as I tried to use every ounce of willpower to stand, only no matter how I tried to move, the muscles in my body were spent, drained entirely. And no matter how much I focused, I couldn’t move so much as an inch.
With a heavy inhale, my body wracked with a coughing fit, like my lungs were filled with water and I was drowning a slow, terrifying death in my coffin of a body. A heavy wind scraped past my ears, and I thought for a moment that I heard my name on Darius’s lips, but just as soon as the sound formed, it was gone.
When I opened my eyes, my vision returned, but it didn’t make any sense. There was no gravelly rooftop, no pack of werewolves or uncontrollable fire. No Darius. Just thick, stone walls and a damp, suffocating sort of darkness that went far beyond a lack of lighting.
Exhaustion took hold, so I closed my eyes and focused on breathing slowly as a headache unlike any I’d ever experienced hammered against my skull. I gripped the digits of my fingers into the hard, cold floor, and with a slow, heavy ache, pressed my face against it. The gentle balm of the frigid stone against my skin felt like a glass of fresh water after a month-long hike in the desert. I swallowed back a whimper as fear and confusion made way for relief.
Slowly this time, I opened one eyelid, and then the other, giving myself time to adjust as dots of light blurred my vision. Something about the interlocking patterns of the graying stones was familiar.
The ringing in my ears started to disappear, the sudden lack of sound the only thing that made me aware it was there in the first place.
I tried to lift my head from the slab of concrete or stone or whatever the hell I was lying on, but I couldn’t quite manage the weight of it on my neck.
“Ah, so it seems I guessed correctly,” a deep, emotionless voice rang around the walls.
My eyes chased it hungrily, even as the edgy tone sent chills along my arms. Eventually, they caught a large figure in the corner of the room—no, two figures. Both creatures were shrouded in darkness, but one seemed to be shaking with a fragile sort of pain, barely able to hold its body any more than I could mine.
The other figure stepped forward until it was a mere few inches from me.
I inhaled sharply as recognition chased after an almost-forgotten image in my mind.
The shrouded man from Wade’s dream. Was I sleeping then? I glanced around the room again, but I realized instantly that while it resembled Wade’s dungeon, there were distinct differences. This one looked to be a bit larger, and there was a single slither of window where the high ceiling met the wall. A ghost of light filtered in, but it wasn’t much.
Panic gripped around my chest as I stared at the figure in front of me, a form draped in cloth and a power so strong it made my blood sing.
“Where’s Wade?” I bit out, the words a struggle to push past my lips.
A deep, humorless chuckle emanated from the figure in front of me. Without answering, he stepped back to the second figure and dragged it forward. With a final shove, he threw a body to the floor in front of me.
“No,” I whimpered as I tried desperately to close the distance between us.
Wade’s skin, which typically radiated with a soft, fresh glow, was caked in blood. His blue eyes were almost completely swollen shut.
And his stomach—a dark handle was protruding from his abdomen, the material coated in a soft blue light. This wasn’t a typical sort of dagger—there was something ephemeral, magical even, about it. And power. Power so immense that it made my teeth rattle as I stared at it.
“Wade? No,” I said again, as I pushed myself forward, closing the distance between us successfully this time. I looked up at the shrouded figure, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were piercing mine. “What the hell have you done to him?”
The figure seemed to shrug without moving, and then a large hand pushed through the folds of fabric and pulled the hood away, revealing a stunning, terrifying face. Smooth, olive skin, dark eyes, and a shadow of dark hair that lined a sharp jaw.
I choked on my breath as our eyes met, though I wasn’t sure what exactly I was reacting too. Something about this man was so familiar.
“Are you the one who kidnapped Wade?”
He arched a dark brow and nodded, his lip curling in disgust as he glanced down at where my hand reached for the blade piercing Wade’s stomach. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. Not unless you want to kill the boy and die yourself.”
“Can I even die in a dream?” I asked, regretting the obtuseness of the question as soon as I asked it. I blamed the clusterfuck of exhaustion and rage coursing through my body. Would this man shove me from the dream again? I needed to stay. Needed to keep Wade alive.
“The boy isn’t dying, so long as I want him to live, so do try to stop leaking so much fear and grief. It’s a bit distracting. And you aren’t dreaming. I had a hunch, and then I followed it. And, like usual, I was right. You’re here in the flesh now, girl.”
I choked on air as I closed my fingers around Wade’s. Had he just read my fucking mind or was my desperation just that obvious?
The man smirked and crouched down until his dark eyes were level with mine. “Congratulations. You’ve completed your first successful shift. Most end up in a coma of sorts after their first attempt. It can be too much on the mind and the body.”
“It?” I mouthed, my voice failing as a deep wave of exhaustion came over me. I felt my vision go blurry as I tried to hold the man’s image in focus.
“Teleportation is a difficult skill to master.”
Thank You For Reading
This book was a ton of fun to write and I can’t wait to continue writing and living in this world.
If you loved hanging with Max and the members of Team Six, find out what kind of mischief she gets into next. Grab a copy of Abyss of Ruins, Book Five in Max’s story.
Saving the Protector
Want more of Max’s world? Join my newsletter and you’ll get a FREE novella set a few years before she joins The Guild. Saving the Protector is a standalone romance that also acts as an introduction to a certain moody vampire we all know and love:
His job was to keep her safe. Now, he just wants to keep her.
Charlie moved to The Lodge to run away from the demons of her past. And, for the most part, she's succeeded. But everything changes when she learns that some demons are literal, and that the monsters she's spent a lifetime encountering in films and books exist beyond the screen and page.
Bishop screwed up. With instructions to hunt down a vampire, he and his teammate end up stranded at a small resort instead, waiting out a bad winter storm. But the location isn't as quiet and peaceful as it seems, and the monster he's after might be closer than he realized. Determined to protect a human woman, he sticks around for a
few days. The problem? He might never want to leave.
About Gray:
I’m a teacher by day and a writer by night (and, occasionally, I moonlight as a bartender as well). Most of my time is happily spent hanging out with my cartoonish dog (who is spoiled to the core, as he should be), going for meandering walks around the city, and reading everything I can get my hands on. I drink way too much coffee, binge-watch obsessively with the best of them, and love playing board games or kayaking with friends.
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