Grave Signs (Hellgate Guardians Book 4)

by Ivy Asher

  “You want to stand here and get pissed? Fine. Get pissed. Get fucking furious that I’ve had my cock in someone who isn’t you,” he growls as he leans forward and lets his scruffy jaw graze against my cheek. “But don’t try to walk away. That’s not going to work with me. You beaconed me, I answered. We’re fucking mates now.”

  “Why? Because you found out I’m a special Annulus?” I challenge, recalling the greedy expression on his Matron’s face.

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “I’m not fucking lying,” he says. “You know what happened when we talked last in that dream of yours? I’ve tried to scour all of Hell to find you even though your Sire was already searching. I’ve been to every fucking Ring personally. Even the Outers. And that was long before I knew you were a damned Annulus. So don’t pull this shit with me, Sable, or try to push me away because you think you have me figured out. You irritated me and intrigued me right from the start. And that? That’s fucking foreplay for me,” he says, and I shiver from the heated vehemence in his tone. “You stoke my anger and lust like no other, and all I want to do now is bend you over and spank your ass until you beg for me to fill you up and call me your mate.”

  Holy. Shit.

  I forget how to breathe. All I can do is stare up at him, my knees weak and my body pulsing. I can’t even respond; I’m just caught reeling like a loose fishing line drifting out to sea.

  “Now,” Ire begins. “Since we’re on the topic, do you want to tell me about the fact that you have other mates?” he asks, stressing the plural. “Who else did you beacon?”

  “No one,” I argue. “It didn’t work like that for the other two.”

  “Two,” Ire repeats, like he’s trying to see how he likes the taste of that fact in his mouth. “If you didn’t beacon them, then they’re not Abdicated.”

  “No, they’re not. Toreon is a Nihil, I think. He hasn’t exactly said that, but he’s strong, and that would be my best guess. Vudu is his protector. They were sort of a buy one get one deal.” My lips quirk up at the thought, but Ire’s brow furrows, clearly not sharing my amusement.

  “And how do you know they’re your mates?”

  “Toreon’s people have their ways, but even without that, I can feel it,” I answer, trying to be vague so as not to spill secrets that are not mine to spill. “I have the same pull for both of them that I have for you…”

  I clamp my mouth shut. Why did I just admit that?

  Ire stares at me intently, as though he’s breathing in my confession and savoring it. “Well, then. I look forward to meeting the mates of my mate when all of this is done,” Ire declares, his voice lower and his blue eyes serious.

  Shock goes through me at his easy acceptance of it. I knew that plural mates were common, but I expected Ire to react with more...well, ire.

  “I feel the pull too,” he says quietly. Then he brings a hand up and traces the neckline of my dress over my shoulder, slowly inching further down my chest as he brings his other hand to rest against the wall behind me. He has a thing for caging me in, and I realize that I have a thing for being caged in by him.

  “I want your face back,” he murmurs, like the admission is too precious to shatter with volume. “Your body, your breasts,” he confesses, his finger tracing even lower down the plunging neckline. “Your wings,” he adds, his soft whisper making another shiver run up my spine.

  I breathe through the desire his actions and proximity call out in me. This is not the right time for this. Then again, I macked on Toreon in a dungeon and nearly came on top of Vudu as I healed his wound. I think I can go ahead and just admit that my mate situation isn’t exactly cut and dry. Why not just add in me soaking in desire in the middle of a life and death situation? For some reason, it really gets me going.

  Yeah, I might have bigger issues than I realized.

  Sure, I don’t see monsters anymore, I mean...I do, but they’re actually real, which means there’s nothing wrong with me seeing them. But I seem to have a penchant for getting all hot and bothered when my life is in danger. That can’t be normal.

  Ire nuzzles my cheek, but I get the distinct impression that he’s holding back because I’m not wearing my face. I’m both softened by that and frustrated.

  “I had a pretty good ass too,” I mutter, which makes Ire chuckle against me, the vibration of it coming up through his chest.

  “Yes, how could I forget that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I tease, trying not to sound as breathless as I feel. “I should probably feel offended.”

  “Mmm, I should warn you, you’re going to feel lots of things when it comes to me, Snarls.”

  I bite on my bottom lip as we look at each other, and I debate asking him to just close his eyes and kiss me anyway, to just picture my real face instead, but all of a sudden, Delta comes barreling over. “I can’t find Medley anywhere!” she hisses.

  I jump from her sudden appearance and realize that I’m doing a really crappy job of keeping tabs on things. Ire is a terrible distraction.

  Ire finally steps away. and I grab Delta’s arm as her words soak into me. “What do you mean?”

  She’s out of breath, probably from running up here, and I feel so bad because I’ve been so busy flirting with Ire and wishing he’d make a move that I didn’t notice what the hell is going on around me.

  “I looked all over the place down there. I can’t find her,” Delta repeats, worry clouding her expression.

  “Are you sure you checked everywhere? I mean, this place is huge. Maybe she’s in line for the bathroom or something?” I offer, but even as I say it, anxiety grips me.

  “I can go look for her if you tell me what her disguise looks like,” Ire offers.

  “No, I’m telling you, I looked everywhere. She’s not down there,” Delta says.

  At her insistence, I immediately search inward, checking my connection with Medley, but I don’t detect anything is wrong. She’s still feeling calm and focused, but...that no longer feels relieving to me, it’s more like a cause for concern.

  “Do you think Morax got to her?” Delta asks, sharing a nervous look with me.

  If Morax has her, she could be feeling calm because of his compulsion. Or maybe—

  Pain suddenly slams into me, tearing the second half of my thought from me and making me gasp. Beside me, I hear Delta curse, but I can’t look at her because my body jerks and I fold over, clutching at my cheeks as agony radiates from my face and tears blur my vision.

  “Sable!” I hear Ire call, just as the sharp pain shoots down from my face and throughout the rest of my body.

  I feel Ire swoop in and pick me up, cradling me against his chest, his frantic voice asking me what’s wrong. But I can’t answer.

  The bones of my body are breaking and reshaping. I know what’s happening, but the why has me terrified, and the pain has me incapable of doing anything but biting back my screams.

  Something is happening with our magical guise. Which means something happened with Shateel. Either she’s dead or she escaped, and now she’s revoking what she did to us before.

  Agony courses through my every cell as my mind thrums in time with the worry gripped around my heart.

  Vudu was watching Shateel.

  Please, please let him be okay.

  32

  With adrenaline coursing through me, the agony ebbs, and I try to just breathe through the last ripples of hurt as they travel through my limbs.

  My dark purple wings are back, as though Ire’s desire to see them again was laced with enough power to bring it to fruition, but I’m terrified my change back into myself has other more fear-inducing reasons. Morax will know something’s up now.

  We just lost whatever advantage we had.

  I look over at Delta and see that she’s shakily straightening up and clutching her stomach like she’s trying very hard not to hurl. Her electric purple hair and wings are back in place, and her ser
vant’s dress is suddenly too tight and short for Delta’s real body. I don’t even bother to check what my situation is. I have bigger issues than a nip slip.

  Where’s Morax?

  Is he coming for us? Does he somehow know that we’re not under his compulsion? I look over to the Sins and see that they’re watching Delta and me, but their expressions are a mixed bag.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Delta says through a grimace as she yanks on the hem of her dress and wipes some sweat from her brow.

  “I don’t know,” I reply with a wince of my own. Damn, my jaw even hurts just to talk.

  “You okay?” Ire asks, and I look up at him, noting that I’m still in his arms.

  “Yeah,” I say, and he puts me back on my feet, though he keeps a hand on my waist to make sure I’m steady enough to hold myself up.

  Seeing the Sins still watching us, Delta’s eyes flash, and she strides angrily over to them. Ire and I share a look before we trail after her.

  One of the female Sins with red wings and hair looks over at Delta’s approach, and a slow smile spreads over her face. I thought my dress was revealing with the plunging neckline, or the gauzy gown worn by Miss Sheer Nips who was all over Ire earlier, but no. This female takes revealing to a whole new level. She’s not even wearing a dress. She’s wearing linked chains over her, but instead of being made of metal, they’re made of some sort of gemstones, and they sparkle like crazy where they’re wrapped around her, draped very carefully over her intimate bits.

  “Ooh, role play,” she purrs as she looks at Delta’s maid outfit. “Positively wonderful.”

  “Elle, not now,” Taz snaps.

  I lean in toward Ire. “Is that…”

  “Lust,” he confirms. “Careful around her. People tend to overlook the Sin of Lust and think that she’s not dangerous. But you know that saying, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Well, that’s about her. You don’t want to see Scorned Lust when she’s not satisfied. It’s not pretty.”

  “Good to know,” I say warily as she looks my way, her eyes travelling up my body like she wants to eat me up. Ire places a possessive arm around my waist.

  “Look, we don’t have time for you guys to keep having your little team huddle,” Delta snaps as she stops in front of them. “In case you didn’t notice, our damn guise just wore off, either purposely or not, which means if there’s a move to be made, it needs to be made now.”

  A male with bronzed skin, wings, and hair raises a brow at her. He’s nearly as shiny as Lust, though instead of a gemstone chain dress, he’s rocking bracelets up to his elbows, several necklaces, and all ten of his fingers are adorned with multiple rings. It’s like he’s obsessed with wearing as much priceless jewelry as he possibly can. He must be Avarice—materialistic greed.

  “But we did just make a move,” he tells Delta with a smug grin.

  She frowns. “What?” she asks, the two of us frowning together as we look over at Taz to explain.

  “Your disguise didn’t fail because of Morax or his followers. We broke the illusion,” Taz says.

  Delta and I both blink at him.

  “What the fuck? Why? Why would you do that without telling us first? Medley is still out there!” Delta demands, staring daggers at Taz.

  But it’s a gorgeous bald male who answers this time. He’s holding a comically large goblet in one hand and a big donut-looking thing in the other, and there’s a short imp beside him with a full pitcher of more wine just for him. “Did you think we threw this gathering for no reason?” he asks before downing his drink and holding it out to the imp for a refill.

  In Delta’s words: Fucking Gluttony.

  Delta grits her teeth with impatience. “Can you guys stop talking in circles and tell us what the hell is going on? We need to find our sister!”

  “Pride’s progeny is right,” another female says, whose wings look like smooth wood. “Do we have what we need?” she asks, looking at the others.

  Lust nods. “We have confirmation. The room is sealed.”

  “Perfect, then the lure worked. We have him,” Gluttony grins.

  “The lure?” I ask, taking a moment to look around and let the meaning of that statement sink in. “You mean you purposely threw this gathering so that Morax would come?”

  Taz looks right at me. “That’s precisely what we did.”

  Delta curses. “Of all the arrogant, fucking dum—”

  “Quiet, girl,” Acedia says boredly, making Delta seethe. He looks to the others. “Let’s get on with it.”

  They share mutual nods and then the seven of them walk to the railing of the balcony. With growing apprehension, my sister and I watch as they each raise their hands in front of them and then with a strange flourish, something in the air wavers like a mirage in an overheated desert.

  The next thing I know, the raucous noise of the party below is just...gone.

  I don’t mean that the noise suddenly died down. I don’t mean that the musicians took a break. I mean that it’s completely, utterly quiet. The change is so startling that Delta and I both immediately rush forward to the railing and peer over.

  The hundreds of dressed up Abdicated, the dancers, the fountains, the tables of food...it’s all gone too.

  What the heck?

  No one is down there anymore, save for a few dozen Abdicated who are looking around with shock. Morax’s followers. And there, standing right in the center of the room, his disguise dissolved, is the Ophidian himself, staring up at us. But instead of seeing panic or rage in his white, slitted eyes, I see cunning amusement.

  Slowly, the snake-haired male raises his hands and gives a loud, slow clap, the sound echoing sharply. “Well done,” Morax says as he looks around the nearly empty room. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting the mirage part. It was very convincing.”

  Taz braces his hands on the railing and leans over, looking down at him with a fierce glare. “Your coup for Hell is finally over, Morax,” Taz declares, his strong, proud voice easily carrying down to him. “You’ve lost.”

  As soon as Taz says that, Morax’s Abdicated bolt. Male and female alike, they rush for the doors in the ballroom to escape. The Sins don’t move, and neither does Morax, but I watch, my adrenaline spiking, as the Abdicated try to wrench open the doors, only...the doors don’t open.

  They quickly grow desperate. Some of them shove each other aside and try the handles on their own. Morax’s pawns try to rush the doors next, hoping to break them down, but they don’t budge even under the strongest, heaviest body.

  “Can I kill them now?” Wrath asks, and I look over to see that her face is alight with excitement.

  One of the Abdicated panics, running around like a mouse in a maze, while another group moves to the windows and tries to shatter them, but that doesn’t work either. I guess the Sins weren’t kidding when they said they had this place sealed.

  “They’re trying to shift,” Delta mutters beside me, and I follow her gaze and see that she’s right, some of them do look like they’re trying to shift out, but that doesn’t work either.

  “As if I would allow anyone to shift in and out of my own house,” Gluttony says with a roll of his eyes.

  “Wrath,” Taz says under his breath.

  The orange-winged female grins. “Finally,” she breathes.

  In the next instant, she spreads her ginger wings out on either side of her and leaps off the balcony. Two gleaming weapons appear in her hands, a double-ended long sword in one and a wicked-looking chain mace in the other.

  She lands on the ballroom floor with an ominous thud, and a wrathful, dark cloud appears around her like a vengeful aura. I swear, the very air changes as she unfurls, legs straight, arms poised, wings out. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and the temperature in the cavernous room rises like a flame. Wrath isn’t cold and calculating. It’s a fervor of violent, passionate heat that feels like fire licking at my limbs.

  And then, Wrath moves.

  I can’t
even track her completely, that’s how fast she is. I see her chain mace swinging and her sword glinting as she pounces. Running, flying, spinning, flipping, she starts cutting down the Abdicated with ruthless intent faster than the blink of an eye. It’s graceful. It’s brutal. It’s hard to watch but impossible to look away from.

  I hear the screams and the heavy sounds of bodies falling, but my eyes and ears can’t keep up with her. All I can do is follow the trail of death left in her wake.

  Within seconds, she’s slaughtered every single one of Morax’s followers.

  And then it’s over, just like that. Not a single one of those Abdicated even left to sputter out a dying breath.

  “Holy. Fucking. Shit,” Delta exclaims beside me.

  I couldn’t agree more.

  “Some of them might’ve been under compulsion,” I hiss over at Taz.

  He looks at me without remorse. “They were not. They acted of their own free will,” he says. “And the Sins of Hell will always punish the sins of Hell,” he says, stressing the secondary use of the word.

  I look back down below at the carnage, not sure how I feel about it. It should bother me, and yet for some reason, it doesn’t...but that bothers me. I feel Ire come up beside me, and I lean against him slightly, grateful that I have his presence to help ground me so I don’t look at my lack of reaction as proof that something is wrong with me. Blood and body parts are everywhere, and Wrath is drinking it all in, reveling in the punishment she just meted out.

  The Sins on the balcony wave their hands again, but this time, instead of it making a mirage melt, they all suddenly get transported down to the ballroom, right in front of Morax, who still hasn’t moved an inch, even when his demons were being cut down all around him.

  The Ophidian stands there, not even flinching when all Seven Sins suddenly appear in front of him. Delta and I watch from above, both of us barely breathing. My fingers curl into the stone railing.

  “Where’s Medley…?” I whisper, my eyes dipping around the room as if she’ll suddenly appear. She doesn’t.