Forging the Guild (The Protector Guild Book 2)

by Gray Holborn

  As I turned, I caught the eye of the hellhound. It seemed as if its breathing was normalizing, ever so slightly—far too small a change for a protector to notice. Curious.

  Without a word, I grabbed a scalpel from the counter, and grabbed the girl’s wrist. Without waiting for her to react, I sliced a long, thin incision. It was deep enough to encourage quick blood flow, not so deep she wouldn’t heal from it within a minute or two. I watched as the blood spilled onto the hound’s face, more than enough making its way between the creature’s parted lips.

  My nostrils flared as I breathed in her scent—she was overwhelming. It took everything I had not to sink my teeth into her neck, to feel the rush of her blood over my tongue. My eyes blurred just from the thought.

  Her dark eyes filled with fear and determination. I pulled away just before her blade reached my neck, another annoying smile spreading across my face.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes were wild. “Jesus, Max. He’s a vampire. Of course he’s going to fucking attack you. What the hell were you thinking?”

  She was talking to herself now, and something in me warmed at the thought. Such an odd girl.

  I shot her a wide-eyed look and pointed down to her beast. The creature was standing now, acting as a barrier between me and the girl. Its lips were pulled back, a menacing noise emanating from his chest. I wasn’t ignorant enough to goad a hellhound, so I stepped back, my hands raised in surrender.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, bracing my shoeless feet on the linoleum, in case I needed to run for my life. “Could you call him down, please? Death-by-hellhound is a really undesirable way to die.”

  She ignored me. Her fear, anger, and grief seemed to evaporate in an instant as she threw herself onto her hound, all but forgetting my presence.

  “How?” Her face was buried into the creature’s fur, and I pushed down the unwelcome jealousy stirring my gut. I needed to leave this place—these protectors had addled my mind enough through the years.

  “It’s bound to you,” I said, cocking my head to the side and listening to distant echoes. “It was a hunch.” I reached down and grabbed her hand, cringing as the hound snapped at me. “I’m not going to hurt her, you ungrateful brute. But we need to go. At least three more protectors are coming. So unless you want to stand by and watch me have another feast—which, to be clear, I’m more than willing to indulge—we need to leave. Now.”

  Indecision warred across her features, but she didn’t pull out of my grip. If anything, her fingers tightened around mine. “Thank you.”

  Genuine gratitude laced her words, and my breath stuttered at the sincerity coloring her features.

  Without a response, I pulled, leading the girl and her protector out of the labyrinth.

  “You promised you’d alert me before they destroyed the hound,” a man said, his voice wavering with menace. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”

  I had heard the voice once or twice before, but it was otherwise unfamiliar to me. Max’s breath hitched, so I assumed she was better acquainted.

  “I’m sorry, Cy. I didn’t think they were going to actually do it tonight. My safehouse only just confirmed they’d take him.” Another voice, this one I knew.

  “He was here to protect her, and we were supposed to protect him.”

  Just a moment before they rounded the corner, I pulled Max into a small closet, the hound following close behind. She was pressed flush against my body, and I struggled to keep from pulling her closer. It took all of my focus to ignore the smell of the drying blood that coated her wrist and palm. We listened in silence as the protectors ran through the halls. I needed to hurry if I wanted to make it out of here alive. But even after I could no longer hear the two men, I couldn’t seem to disentangle myself from the girl.

  “That was Cyrus,” she said, a layer of concern and confusion in her words. Her head shook against me, like she was tossing the frustration aside. “What—what’s your name?”

  I could feel, rather than see her chest pressing into my stomach as she looked up at me.

  “We need to go now,” I said. I pushed open the door and dragged her down the hall, not stopping until we reached an exit sign. When I turned back to look at her, she had a hand fisted in the hellhound’s thick fur.

  Another mystery. Hellhounds hated to be touched, and to be treated like a common house pet? What kind of magic did this girl weave?

  I leaned into the heavy door, pleased when it opened to an unoccupied field, not far from a tick line of trees. Freedom was so close my mouth salivated. I gave myself one moment, just one, to savor the scent of the air, to feel the lush grass between my toes, to hold the hand of a pretty girl. It had been so long since I’d had any of these sensations, that my most vivid fantasies had not done them justice.

  “Where will you go?” she asked.

  I turned to her, her forehead creased with concern as she pulled her hand from mine. For a moment, I was tempted to tighten my grip, to pull her closer, to bring her with me. I wanted to unravel the mystery that had woven her in its web. But I didn’t think I could do that without kidnapping her. And if I wanted to escape the protectors for good, bringing along one of them as my hostage—particularly one of their women—was not a great start.

  Her words filtered through my mind as I let those thoughts float away. Where would I go? My contacts and friends would be difficult to trace down after all of this time. The world was different and I would need time to reorient myself. My world, and the people in it, changed quickly. Who knew what the state of things was now?

  I shrugged, unable to offer her more explanation. I’d figure it out as I ran. And I’d run quite possibly forever.

  She turned to her hellhound, and I watched in awe as the creature nudged her with its enormous head. Strange that the force didn’t immediately knock her down. She was stronger than she looked. Good, she would need strength. The world had a lot in store for her, of that much I was sure.

  “I’ll make sure your hound gets out safely,” I found myself saying. And again, I surprised myself by meaning it. While I agreed to lead her to the hound if she let me out of my cage, I suddenly wanted to see it through. It would be a piece of this place that I could take with me, maybe the only piece that wasn’t filled with pain and absolute boredom. And the beast was important to her. I found myself wanting to give it a chance at survival if possible.

  Her dark, almond-shaped eyes narrowed, her face twisted with distrust. I didn’t blame her. Our species did not interact, did not offer allyship. Of course to be honest, even if I were to go back on my word, she didn’t have much to worry about. Vampires were strong, and I was as wily as the best of them, but we didn’t stand a chance against a hellhound bent on our destruction.

  “Just, you know, make sure the beast doesn’t try to eat me,” I added, offering a smirk even though I was only half in jest. Maybe she really could communicate with him, I’d seen stranger things.

  She nodded once, resolve morphing her features into an expression of stunning fortitude. “I’ll see you both to the edge of campus then.”

  We walked in silence for a long mile, just breathing in the clear night air. It was exhilarating and I almost regretted having to leave my unlikely new partner-in-crime behind. I found something about her quiet presence simultaneously soothing and motivating.

  When we reached an unremarkable middle point in the forest, she stopped. She looked from me to the hound, her eyes lingering on the beast briefly before she collapsed all of her weight against it. I could hear soft weeping and tried to give them privacy. She mumbled empty platitudes like “be safe,” and “thank you,” and all sorts of nonsense. I had to physically keep from rolling my eyes, but the beast seemed to be soaking the attention up and I was unwilling to get on his bad side this close to freedom.

  When she pulled back from the hound, her dark, watery eyes landed on me. “You too. Be safe,” she said, and suddenly the words didn’t feel so empty or meaningless. “And tr
y not to, you know, eat people.”

  Figuring this would be my last chance to explore her odd draw, I stepped up to her, my heart picking up as she swallowed a gasp, and pressed my lips to hers. I’d had many women in my time, and maybe it was just the dry spell, or the invigoration of a prison escape, but something about the taste of her lips, the feel of her body pressed against mine, felt like being reborn, like my world was realigning in some fundamental way. Briefly, I thought she might give into the moment, but just as her lips started to respond to mine, she pushed away. She looked at me with confusion and betrayal but also with a lingering heat. Interesting.

  I touched her face softly once more, smiling when she pulled away further. Her heart was racing, even more so than it had been while we were breaking out. She was more affected by the kiss than she was willing to let on.

  And then, suddenly, I was aware of another heartbeat, not five hundred feet from us. “My name is Darius,” I said, digging my feet into the dirt, ready to spring. “Until we meet again, little protector.”

  With one last lingering look, I took off in a run, pulling the crisp night air into my lungs, mildly aware of the four-legged beast following in pursuit.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Atlas

  I stopped dead, prepared to lunge. The vampire’s hand was threaded through Max’s hair, it’s vile lips pressed against hers. Anger boiled through my blood and I breathed in and out, focusing on the air around me as it filtered through my lungs, trying to maintain control for as long as possible. What the hell was she doing, allowing that fucking creature to touch her?

  When Seamus alerted us that the hellhound escaped, I knew that Max-fucking-Bentley would be the root cause of it. I knew that she had a soft spot for the hound, but a vampire? What the hell was she thinking?

  And how was she standing there now, still alive? I stood as still as I could, for fear the creature would rip her throat out and drain her dry in front of me. Every muscle from my head down to my toes wanted to decapitate him. Right here, right now. Instead, I fought every urge, every instinct I had, and waited. It was only a moment—one second she was in his arms, and then she was pushing him away—but in that time, my stomach turned to stone and I bit a fresh wound into my tongue, the taste of copper and the warmth of blood filling my mouth.

  The vamp’s eyes locked on mine, an arched brow over mismatched eyes like he was issuing a challenge. My limbs shook, begging to rip him apart, but I had to be smart about this. If I made the wrong move, Max would be collateral damage. And I wasn’t exactly fighting at one-hundred percent tonight, my body exhausted and drained from our earlier mission. I wasn’t sure if I could take him on solo.

  Before I could decide what to do, the vampire and hellhound took off at a pace I could never match, not in my current state, not alone.

  I took a step forward, tempted to at least try a pursuit, but the twig snapping underneath my foot startled Max. Her now-familiar dark eyes tore into me, a mixture of fear and confusion. Was she afraid of the vampire or afraid of me?

  The thought that she could be in the arms of a vampire one moment and afraid of me the next stung like a bullet.

  I stilled instantly, and raised my hands in surrender. I didn’t have the composure to deal with this shit in a helpful way. Wade was awake and home and all I wanted to do was sink into a chair by his bed and linger in my relief. Just one fucking night of peace—was that too much to ask?

  “Atlas,” she said, the word coming out on a heavy breath. “It’s not what you think. I swear.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t keep the anger from my tone, but I balled my hands into fists to keep it as subtle as I could. “Because it looks like you broke out two dangerous creatures and made out with one of them.”

  She shook her head, her long hair sending a plume of her uniquely frustrating scent into the air. Her legs moved back slowly, one after the other.

  She was scared, terrified even. And moving away from me and towards the vampire.

  “They were going to kill Ralph. I had to get him out of there. And I needed Darius to help.”

  Darius. She called the fucking vampire by its name?

  Her long, thin fingers unconsciously traced her bottom lip. Part of me wanted to erase that memory from her mouth, remove his touch from her skin.

  I tilted my head, my jaw clamped tight with tension. My lungs filled with a deep breath and I counted to five, clocking the chill of the air, the dark shadows of the forest, the smell of—her.

  I took a step towards her and nodded in the direction of the cabin. I couldn’t do this out here, not like this. I needed to get her safe, get her home. And then we’d start up a hunt. Until then, I was on babysitting duty. And I was not returning home unless she walked through that door with me. Not now, not tonight.

  “Atlas, are you okay?” she asked, moving towards me suddenly in a rush. She reached one of her small hands towards my side, her face the fucking picture of concern. “Did you find the wolf tonight? Are you hurt?”

  I lurched away from her touch, hissing through my teeth as pain coursed through my body. “We’re going home,” I said, turning to walk away, each step in sync with my racing heartbeat. “Now.” I didn’t bother turning around, I knew she would follow.

  Neither of us spoke a single word during the walk back, but I could hear her heart pounding. I kept my ears peeled just in case the vampire or hound doubled back for her or initiated an attack, but on some level, I knew that they were long gone. Good, the chase would be better if I had to work for it.

  I threw open the door, alerting everyone to our presence, to my anger. Declan and Eli came hammering down the staircase within moments, Eli’s hair mussed up from his pillow. Declan looked as alert and moody as ever with that don’t-fuck-with-me expression she always wore, even to bed.

  “Max?” Eli said, his voice still raspy with sleep. “How’d you get down here so fast?”

  “She was already down here,” Declan said, running a frustrated hand through her long hair, pulling in frustration when her fingers latched onto a tangle. “She fucking snuck out like a damn twelve-year-old.”

  I could feel Max shuffling to the side, cowering a bit in my shadow, like I’d protect her from Dec’s wrath.

  “No way,” Eli said, and then he turned back up the stairs, disappearing from sight. “I literally checked up on her half an hour ago.” His voice was muffled as he combed through the house, likely storming into Sarah’s old room. “Pillows? Seriously? I can’t believe I fell for that. Wait until my dad hears.” He came jogging back to the stairs, a disbelieving grin on his face. “He’ll be so pleased someone’s pulled that trick over on me—after all the times I’ve had him pulling his hair out from the same thing.”

  “How’d you find her?” Declan asked, taking a few steps towards us. She was glaring daggers at Max. I’d been on the bad end of that glare enough times to understand why Max was sinking back towards the door.

  Max took a large breath in, like she was talking herself into something, and then she stepped out from behind my back and into the entryway. “Look, I’m sorry that I snuck out. You’re right. That wasn’t cool.”

  Eli started to nod, opening his mouth to agree, but slammed it shut when she continued.

  “But none of you are my parents, nor are you my keepers. You all made it more than clear you didn’t want to deal with me tagging along.” She shook her head, flinging her hair out of her face. “And that’s totally fine. Really, I mean it. I get it. I came into your home and was inserted into the team, however temporarily. And you didn’t ask for that. So I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you I was leaving before I left. But I’m not sorry that I left, and I’m not going to pretend that I am.”

  I bit back a grin as she crossed her arms defiantly, at the way that Declan’s nostrils flared at her stubbornness. About time someone gave her a run for her money. In fact, I was halfway to forgiving her myself until I remembered the vampire and the whole reason she snuck out in the first p
lace.

  “So,” Eli said, “where were you then? Some party in a dorm we didn’t know about? Or did you go back to Jer?”

  Jer. Just the name of that entitled asshole had my hackles rising. When you knew someone their entire life, it was easy to know all the parts of them—even the truly vile ones.

  “I broke into the lab to let Ralph out,” Max said, her chin jutting up, a challenge in her eyes. She was holding her own, no longer sinking back, I’d give her that much.

  Eli arched a brow, clearly impressed. And he had reason to be, we all did, considering all the times we’d snuck down there over the years to spy on the creatures we’d be tasked with capturing. “Who’s Ralph?”

  “My hellhound,” she said, rolling her teeth gently over her bottom lip. She seemed to do that a lot when she was nervous.

  I hated the fact that I noticed, that my eyes snagged on the gesture every single time.

  “She succeeded,” I said, watching their eyes widen in shock. “And,” I added, “she intentionally let one of the vampires out too.”

  “She fucking did what?” The fury on Declan’s face sharpened her already otherworldly features. She looked like an angel of death. I hadn’t seen her this angry in a long while. Not since we were kids.

  Max unconsciously took a step back in my direction. She didn’t understand her reaction, which was part of the problem. Naive girl was new to this world and she went around trusting everyone and everything she encountered. She had no idea what surviving in our world required. Honestly, she was lucky she’d made it as long as she had.

  “Seriously?” Eli said, his neck reddening with anger. I was surprised to see him so pissed. He was definitely the most laid back of all of us, and usually found it exciting when someone survived a close call. “You could’ve been killed, Max. I get wanting to save the hellhound or whatever. But a fucking vampire? Do you have any idea how lucky you are? How could you be so reckless?” He paced up and down the entryway, shaking his head as he spoke, his body practically vibrating with anxious energy.