Grave Consequences (Hellgate Guardians Book 2)

by Ivy Asher

  That thought gives me pause. I study it for a moment as I clomp down the stairs. I’m definitely ready to commit to the Gate and to the demons already guarding it, but I haven’t given much thought to what that means for my house. My parents’ house has sentimental value. I can’t just give it up. Plus, the guys haven’t invited me to live here, either.

  After hitting the bottom of the stairs, I make my way down a hallway, but it just dead ends at a window. I turn back around and head the other way.

  I need a damn map.

  I mean, I could live here and still work on my house. Fix it up in my spare time and use it to get away. Or I could sell it to someone in need of a dream home and the dreams that come with it. I decide to talk to my parents about it the next time I go to see them at the graveyard. I’ll have to mull it over and feel their presence to make a decision one way or another.

  When the hallway dead ends yet again, I give out a huff and stop in my tracks. “Marco!” I yell out.

  “Polo!” I hear the call faintly from somewhere behind me, so I retrace my steps.

  “Marco!” I call again.

  It only takes five more minutes of that back and forth before I find the guys in a kitchen. It’s not the medieval kitchen I wandered into the first night I worked here, but a slightly more modern looking one, though still sans electricity and a microwave. Regardless of whether or not it works, I might just need to put a microwave in here, because a kitchen without one is just kind of creepy. Fern would also liven this place up, so maybe I could bring her too. I mean, I can’t be the only one allowed to live it up in Medieval R Us. I could even get her a potted boyfriend. Or four.

  The place has all bamboo counters set off with dark tiles, and a huge stainless steel sink. There’s a butler’s pantry off to the side, and from my vantage point, I can see the open-cupboards filled with canisters, cans, jars, and bottles of all shapes and sizes.

  As soon I make my way inside the open space and grab the open stool at the island, Iceman hands me a cup of coffee and a bagel.

  “Took you long enough,” Jerif grumps across from me. “Thought we were going to have to send up a search party.”

  “It would have been helpful,” I say around a sip of magical bean life blood. “And why don’t you try putting on leather pants with no undies and a wet pussy. See how quick that works out for you,” I retort, taking a bite of my bagel and watching with glee as Jerif chokes on the coffee he just tried to swallow.

  Wracking coughs overtake the lava demon as he tries to clear his airway of java, and Crux snickers and raises his hand for a high five. Jerif shoots me an unamused look as soon as he starts breathing again, but I just smile and stuff my face with more bagel. Before, I would’ve gotten pissed at his asshole-ness, but right now, when I know that he wants me, I find that I just like fucking with him. I’m looking forward to that hate sex he talked about.

  Looking around, I notice that all of the guys are dressed very casually. Even Iceman, which surprises me. He’s in jeans and a Henley, which is a little more preppy looking than the sweats and tee that Crux is wearing or the faded black shirt with matching faded black jeans Echo is sporting. Jerif is in some military black cargo pants and tight black shirt getup, but you won’t see my vagina complaining about that.

  “No ceremonial robes, incense, or sin-laced oil needed for the induction?” I joke as I finish up my breakfast.

  Iceman snorts. “No. Demons hate incense.”

  I smile, but then an unexpected wave of worry suddenly rises up in me as I think about the induction and what it entails. I’m trying not to be a baby about going back into Hell for this whole ceremony, but I’m not going to lie, I’m nervous. I try a solid pep talk of you’re a demon, Delta. You can’t be afraid of Hell. What would the other demons think? But my chastising words aren’t doing the trick like I was hoping they would.

  Iceman’s eyes search my face, and I can tell he’s picking up on the surge of unease that just went barreling through me and apparently swept over the whole kitchen, judging by the way everyone is looking at me now.

  Fuck, is it hot in here?

  I look down, taking in my leather pants, and question why I’m always wearing these fuckers when a panic attack could be coming on at any moment. Damn you, pants. I blame all of this on you. I was completely cool not even five minutes ago, and I mean that figuratively and literally. I was ready. I was eager, even, to take my place as a Guardian. But now all of a sudden, reality caught up, and I’m getting that itch to pause myself again.

  “What just happened?” Iceman asks as he reaches for me and starts gently rubbing my arms, up and down in an incredibly soothing way.

  I stare up at him with panic in my eyes and try to breathe. “I’ll tell you, but if you make fun of me, I’m going to be pissed for an entire week, or until I reach a hundred orgasms,” I tell him between labored breaths.

  He smiles, and a chuckle slips out of his gorgeous mouth. “Tell us what’s on your mind.”

  “I’m afraid of Hell,” I admit. Shame and worry tinges my cheeks red, like it’s not enough to wear them on the inside, but the whole world needs to see the visible scarlet mark of my cowardice too.

  Iceman just nods, like he totally understands. “You seemed to be okay in Nihil. Did something happen?” he asks, trying to suss out the root of my alarm.

  “Nihil was fine. A little orgy happy, but I get it,” I confess, looking quickly at the others before settling my gaze back on Iceman’s blue stare. “It’s not the Rings themselves so much as the Gate and stairs and the Vestibule. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to go back down there.”

  Understanding dawns in Iceman’s eyes, and he pulls me in for a hug, careful to not crush my wings. “We don’t have to go down into Hell for the induction, Maverick. We do it at the portal in the mausoleum. That will tie you to the portal we guard, along with the Gate itself.”

  “Really?” I squeak, relief suddenly crashing through me in massive waves.

  “Yes, and it’s okay to not be ready to go back to the Vestibule. We all experienced something very traumatic there, and it will take time. We’ll have to work through it. Once we get you inducted, we can start working on teaching you wards so you can hide yourself in plain sight. I think that will help a lot. You won’t feel so vulnerable.”

  “We should reach out to your Sire and find out what abilities we should be looking out for and training you on, aside from the really necessary flying lessons,” Jerif adds.

  “It was my first time!” I defend, and all the guys crack up.

  I roll my eyes at the levity at my expense before blowing out a breath of relief. I don’t have to go back to Hell today. I will at some point, but not today. I can work with that.

  “Alright, let’s get this show on the road, then. I have a fuckfest scheduled at ten that I do not want to miss,” I announce before eating the last of my bagel and draining the rest of my coffee. Finished, I hop up and walk over to the sink, setting my mug down after rinsing it.

  The guys mimic my moves, all of them depositing their own dishes, and then Crux slings his arm around my shoulders as we walk out of the kitchen and into the warm morning air. Behind us, Jerif grumbles something that I don’t even try to interpret. I’ll have to get better at speaking asshole in the future, or maybe I’ll just make sure his mouth has something to keep it occupied.

  Hmmm, yeah, I like that alternative.

  14

  We make our way down through the patios and gardens, past the pools and Jacuzzis, skirt the fucking hedge maze, and traverse a crap ton of rolling green grass before the guard shack and graveyard finally pop up in the distance. I take in the bright sun and beautiful day, and start a mental list of all the places I’m going to fuck these demons in the future. I’m already on page fifty, and I haven’t even started on the inside of the house yet. So many yummy possibilities.

  “So how does this work?” I ask as we get closer to the wrought iron fence bordering the front of
the graveyard.

  “We form a circle around the Gate, each of us will recite the vow, we sacrifice a little blood to the portal—”

  “Wait. Blood?” I interrupt, looking over at Echo, alarmed by his statement. “No one said anything about blood.”

  “We cut our palms and spill a couple drops of blood on the Gate, Delta. It’s not like you’re going to lose a limb or anything,” Jerif tells me, his tone laced with snark.

  “Okay, that doesn’t seem so bad,” I concede. “Is the vow in English, though? Because if it’s in that Demonese language that I’ve heard you guys slip into a few times, then I’m probably going to butcher it,” I admit. “I should practice. Wouldn’t want to bind myself to the wrong thing just because I can’t say a word right, you know? One vowel slip and I could end up inducted to a gravestone or something,” I say on a nervous chuckle.

  Echo looks over at me with a confused frown. “What?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, and I look around at the others, noting that the rest of the guys are wearing the same perplexed look.

  “Delta...you’re speaking Hellion now,” Iceman finally answers, his tone leaking concern and bewilderment.

  My brows lift up. “What? No, I’m not. I’m speaking English,” I argue.

  “No, you’ve been speaking pure Hellion since we popped into Nihil,” he counters.

  “Hellion? Is that seriously what it’s called? I really thought Demonese was going to be the winner. But no. I’m definitely not speaking it.” I look at Jerif to demonstrate. “I can’t wait to fuck the rude asshole out of you,” I tell him before turning to the others with a triumphant look. “See? That was totally English. I can hear it with my own two ears.”

  “Wrong. That was Hellion, and I can’t wait to fuck your asshole for being rude,” Jerif rumbles back, his eyes flickering with some serious heat.

  Yum!

  I shake my head. “Are you guys seriously telling me that I’m speaking another language right now and I can’t even tell?” I demand, anxiety lifting my voice an octave.

  They all nod, and that old overheating panic tries to take over, but I shove it down.

  “Maybe when your block was removed, you tapped into your ability to speak and understand your origin language?” Iceman guesses. “We’re all born speaking Hellion for demons and Enochian for angels. We also learn mortal languages later if we need to.”

  “I’ve heard some Nihil can speak and understand any language in existence. We’ll have to ask Tazreel if you’ll be able to do that too,” Crux adds.

  I reel at the thought of being fluent in every language ever. That would make haggling at the flea market a little easier, but holy shit!

  I tap my lips in thought. “How ’bout now…English?” I ask hopefully.

  “No, still Hellion,” Jerif says with a surly, impatient look on his face.

  “Dammit.” I pout.

  Crux just laughs at me like I’m adorable and pulls me through the graveyard gate.

  “After the bleeding and offering up my social security number and my first born child, what else does the induction include?” I ask, my tone a little more petulant than joking, because I can’t figure out how this whole language thing is working. What if I’m stuck on Hellion setting? That would sure as fuck make managing in the Mortal Realm tricky.

  “Our children will already be tied to the Gate. Offering them up is just redundant,” Jerif grouses.

  I snort, but then balk when what he said sinks in. “Wait. Our kids will have to Guard the Gate? They won’t get any choices in the matter?”

  “First of all,” Echo starts, “we don’t have any kids, so don’t waste too much energy getting worked up about this. Second of all, do any of us even want them? I mean, we just fucked for the first time, so the little demon talk feels too soon. Third of all, yes, this position gets passed down to the next eligible member in a bloodline, but we live for—pretty much—ever unless we’re killed, so that could mean our kids won’t ever have to pick up the mantle, and our great-great-great...fuck ton of greats-grandchildren could be the ones to have to step up.”

  I snort and don’t even try to wrap my mind around the live forever part of that statement.

  “The Gate chooses whoever is the most powerful of that bloodline when the Guardian passes. It’s not always who you would assume it is,” Iceman tells me.

  For some reason, the way he says that makes me pause. “Were you…” I trail off, not sure how to voice my question.

  “Everyone assumed that the Gate duty was going to pass to my older half brother. He was, by all accounts, better than me. Physically stronger. More powerful. Rigid mental discipline. But then when the time came, the Gate chose me instead. Everyone was shocked. Myself included.”

  I can hear that there’s more to the story. “Did that bother you?”

  In a very uncharacteristic gesture, he reaches up and runs a hand over his dark blue hair, his fingers caressing the base of his horns. “That’s...a difficult answer.”

  “Just tell her the truth,” Jerif butts in. “You were glad, because it meant you didn’t have to take a position in Avarice like all the rest of your family expected. But then you felt fucking guilty, because it meant your brother would be expected to instead, and he had been preparing his whole life to be a Guardian.”

  Iceman rubs the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable.

  I shoot an irritated look at Jerif for his brashness as we head closer to the mausoleum, our feet tromping over the deep green grass as we meander around the headstones.

  “Why was your brother preparing for this job though? If Guardians live so long, wouldn’t you just assume that you’d live a normal life? Whatever constitutes normal for Hell, I mean.”

  “Things with the Gate were volatile at the time. There were two Guardians then—Jerif’s and my ancestors—but the Hellgate was calling for a third, so they were waiting for a third to accept the position. Whenever the Gate goes through a transition like that, it seems that dissatisfied demons in unrest somehow get alerted and start causing trouble. So my family selected my brother as the better option between the two of us and started training him, just in case.”

  “Ah,” I voice in understanding. “So right now, with the Gate being more volatile…” I trail off, not wanting to finish that curious thought.

  “Each of our lines are training several of the demons they think could be called upon in the event we die,” Jerif morbidly finishes in answer to my unspoken question.

  “Wow, that sounds intense.”

  Everyone nods and falls silent for a moment. I want to toss out some cheerful comment like, well, don’t worry guys, I’m here now and all is well again, but I don’t actually know if that’s true, and even if it is, for how long? How long do we have before the Gate wants a sixth or seventh Guardian? Will it just keep demanding more until it eventually breaks? But I banish that thought, because we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it, or hope we somehow figure out a way to never come to it.

  “So what does your brother do now?” I ask, hoping to change the direction of all of our thoughts to something less ominous.

  “He works for an Avarice think tank,” Iceman states casually, but I don’t miss the slight scrunch of his nose as he says that, as if he thinks it would be the worst job ever.

  Avarice...why does that name sound so familiar?

  I get lost in thought as I try to place where I’ve heard that before. “Wait. Avarice... Tazreel called that jewelry-loving dude that name right before we came back home.”

  “Yes. My brother works for him,” Iceman confirms.

  “So...Avarice is his title? And your brother works for his Hell company or something?”

  “I guess you could look at it like that. That male at the party is the Abdicated responsible for the entire sin of Avarice, which is why Tazreel called him that.”

  I blink at him. “Avarice is…”

  “The sin of wealth and material greed,” he supplies.


  “And your brother works for him? In a think tank?” I question, really fucking confused.

  They give me a funny look. “Did your dad—I mean Tazreel,” Echo quickly corrects when I give him a glare, “not explain to you that he’s Pride?”

  I snort incredulously. “He didn’t have to explain that. I’ve never met a more arrogant, prideful, prick in my life.”

  He shakes his head, running a tattooed hand over his shaved head. “No, not like that. I mean, yes, I agree about him being a proud prick, but he didn’t explain to you about how Pride works?”

  I stare at Echo for a beat. How Pride works? Like the parade?

  “Um...does Hell do something different for Pride than we do here?” I ask. “Is it less rainbow-y or something?”

  “What?” Jerif cuts in, confused. “What do rainbows have to do with Pride?”

  I saw plenty of same sex action in the orgy my wings forced me to fly all over, so either Jerif is oblivious or we’re talking about two different things.

  “Pride? Like the Gay Pride celebration? Is that what you’re talking about?” I ask. Jerif runs a hand down his face as if he’s been trying to teach me Shakespeare, only to realize I can’t read Dr. Seuss.

  Everyone stops and looks at me, giving me that how does she not know look.

  “Shit. Did I start speaking another language again?” I ask, bringing my hand to my lips and mumbling against them as though I can feel the words and figure out what language they are. It doesn’t help. It’s like trying to smell your own breath by breathing into a cupped palm...totally useless, and yet, I can’t stop doing it.

  I once saw this spelling bee, and the kid that won would hold her hand in front of her mouth and sound out the words. It was a lot of awkwardly heavy breathing, and I remember thinking that even though she won, images of her sex-breathing on her hand would haunt her for life. Right now, at this moment though, I totally get it. Maybe she was also trying to make sure the answer was in English and not Demonish, or whatever it was called.