Dark before dawn the pro.., p.17
Dark Before Dawn (The Protector Guild Book 7), page 17
I heard Seamus grunt in pain, and felt Eli stiffen, his attention momentarily dragged to his father as mine was momentarily dragged to him.
It was enough for the girl to shove him to the ground while shaking me off.
With a wicked grin in my direction, she stepped with all of her force onto his leg, snapping his femur in half—the loud crack echoing around us all, blocked out only by Eli’s scream.
“Enough of this.” The girl from the sidelines spoke quietly as if she was watching a boring show instead of a deadly attack. “No more playing, you’ve had your fun. We’ve already lost two and my patience is wearing thin. Kill them and take the girl.”
Two? That meant Dec and Seamus must’ve taken out one of the wolves. Thank the gods.
We just needed to hold them off long enough for the others to get back and help—Darius would be here. He’d feel Eli’s pain. I knew he would. I just hoped he wouldn’t be slowed down too badly by the break, assuming that had mirrored in him as well.
The vampire turned to me with a wicked grin, then glanced at Eli. “Goody, you’ll get to watch me eat your boyfriend. Don’t worry though, I’ll be sure to save room for you.”
Gripping my bloodied blade, I used all the momentum I could muster to tackle her to the ground, both of us rolling in a mess of limbs and rage. Her teeth grazed me, just as my blade bent into her. I felt my back land against Eli, heard his groan of pain as it reverberated through all three of us.
The vampire clutched her thin fingers around my neck, the pressure making lights dance across my vision as I tried to pry them off.
Giving up, I wrapped my arms around her in a hug, wedging the tip of my blade through the bones in her back.
And then, everything seemed to freeze and speed up all at once.
The cold ground shifted and molded, until it felt like we were falling through the earth, the tanginess of the blood-soaked air dimming into something warm and familiar instead. The taste of magic coated my tongue, until I was suddenly aware of every atom in my body—atoms pulled apart and squeezed and reshaped until they came back together.
When the world re-righted itself, the girl was still on top of me, but her body had stopped moving, stopped fighting.
I heard Eli wretch behind me, his body shaking against mine.
“Well, this was two more bodies than I’d planned for,” a gravelly, familiar voice echoed around me.
“Lucifer?” I asked, my body sore and strangled from the trip. We were in hell? How were we in hell?
“The very same.” He pulled the girl from me, a look of disgust curling his lip as he tossed her aside.
Her eyes were open and wide—a shadow of wrongness in her expression, her body stiff.
“She’s dead.” Eli’s voice was little more than a whisper and I pulled myself from him as slowly and carefully as I could. His skin was clammy, pale. “How the fuck are we here?”
Lucifer’s brow furrowed as he glanced briefly at Eli, before cutting his gaze to the vampire who was indeed very dead. “I called Max here, through our oath.” He bent down, grabbed the girl’s chin, shifting her face from side to side, studying her. Then he turned her, pulling my blade from her back. “Interesting. Her body could not survive the shift here. It tore her apart, internally.” He shot me a chastising look, clicking his tongue. “Your blade only pierced her lungs, not her heart. Bad form.”
I turned to Eli, ran my hand over his chest, his arms, bridging them to his face so that I could see into his eyes, needing to know that he was okay, even though he was breathing, he was speaking.
He grabbed my good wrist. “I’m fine, Max. It’s just my leg and a little jet lag from the trip. I’m okay.”
“The boy is bound to you, however weak and tenuous that bond may be. He is fine. So long as I pulled you together, it would not kill him—I do not think.” Lucifer narrowed his eyes, his jaw muscles clenched as he studied me. “You’re welcome by the way. I gather there’s a very good chance you’d both be dead if I hadn’t pulled you when I did. Samael said Ralph had been especially antsy. Now I understand why.”
“The others—” my body tensed as I stood, still clutching my wrist to my chest, though I could feel the bones knitting themselves slowly back together. The process was absurdly painful. “We need to go back. The others are still there.”
Lucifer shrugged, reaching for my wrist and examining it in his hands, his fingers unexpectedly gentle. The flare of pain quieted and then disappeared entirely. He let my arm drop to my side, the break now unbroken. “The others are of no concern.” When I opened my mouth to argue, his nostrils flared with annoyance, “and if they were dead, you would know it. The death of a bond is an unbearable—impossible to ignore or miss—pain.” An unreadable emotion flickered briefly in his eyes before his face froze back into its typical marble mask—notable only because the mask always seemed immovable. “Why did a single, measly vampire leave you so close to death? You should be practicing your powers. You could’ve easily incinerated her, or—as a last resort—at least teleported yourself away from danger. This was a careless brush with danger. Do you not yet understand the stakes of your existence? The role you must play in this war?”
“Can you heal Eli too, please?” I rolled my wrist around, the bones cracking and popping as they settled.
“He’s yours, do it yourself.”
Mine. I hated that a shiver ran down my spine at the thought of that—at the thought of us being permanently and irreparably connected. There was an ache in my chest that preened at the idea and clamored against my protest.
“I can’t,” I whispered, my jaw and teeth locked.
“I’m fine,” Eli leaned forward and stood up on his good leg, his face looking green as he gripped the arm of a large leather couch. We were standing in what I guessed was generally used as Lucifer’s study. It was one of the only rooms in his creepy castle I’d actually gotten to see. “What are we doing here?”
Lucifer ignored him and took a step closer to me. “You’re regressing?”
“That’s one word for it,” I bit out, though I couldn’t tell if I was angrier at Lucifer or myself. After a moment, I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to owe this man anything more than I already did, but maybe he could help, maybe he’d have a way to wake up my powers, bypass the waiting period Darius seemed certain I’d require. “After Cy—” I cleared my throat, trying again, “the man who raised me was killed recently. And since then, my powers seem to be locked—there but not accessible, like they’re trapped inside of a safe I can’t open. Or even find.”
Lucifer’s hand touched my chin, just barely, and turned my face towards him. I got the idea that he didn’t like touching me. He dropped his hand as soon as he had my full attention.
His dark eyes weren’t legible to me—I could tell there were hidden depths there, that if I had the tools or language to tug at the seams of the man in front of me, I’d find more than cruelty. But I didn’t.
“Grief?” He shook his head once, lips twisting into a dangerous, angry smirk. “I don’t have time for grief.”
I wasn’t exactly a fan of it myself, but I swallowed the retort shaping on my tongue. Not now. Messing with this man when he had that dangerous gleam in his eyes would never bring us any good, I’d learned that lesson by now.
He fidgeted at his side briefly before pulling out the strange dagger he carried with him. My attention locked on to the iridescent, blue glow that emanated around the blade as he held it before me. I knew now that this was a shadow blade—a blade crafted from the very magic that wove the realms together—or perhaps partitioned them apart, I wasn’t very clear on which.
Shadow magic.
Atlas, Reza, the bonding ceremony. I’d located the shadow magic stores, or at least one of them.
But when I parted my lips to tell him as much—that, though everything else had gone to shit in our lives, we’d made progress on the mission he’d sent us on—he shoved the blade into my abdomen.
“Oh,” is the only word my lips could form as he buried the strange dagger until the hilt met my flesh. And then he twisted it in further, carving up.
“I’m sorry, my girl, but there is no time,” he whispered, but it was almost entirely edged out by the tenor of Eli’s angry, agonized yell.
The world went black around me, cushioning me in its dark embrace. And then, there was nothing.
11
ATLAS
There was only pain.
Pain and a radiating fear that burrowed far deeper than anything physical ever could.
I closed my eyes, trying to erase everything from my vision, and when I opened them again, all I saw was hope.
Warm brown eyes, wide with worry, an oval-face framed by dark wavy hair, full pink lips that were moving and shaping words, though I couldn’t process them.
My breathing slowed, the pain easing slightly—not gone necessarily, but like it was compartmentalized for a moment.
“Max?” My voice was cracked and ragged, my throat raw.
Her hands pressed into the sides of my face forcing my gaze to lock onto hers. I shivered under her touch. “Atlas? Are you okay? Where are we?”
Okay? I wasn’t sure that was a word I could use to describe myself right now, so I chose to ignore that question.
Where were we?
I forced myself to drag my eyes away from her, to focus on our surroundings instead of on her. The room was dark, cold. A bed in the corner, a simple desk next to it. Nothing was out of place.
I licked my lips, preparing for my throat to protest against every word. “My room.”
She paused, lost in thought, then shook her head. “Atlas I’ve seen your room, this isn’t it.”
My focus latched onto her lips as she bit the bottom one, studying our surroundings, and me with equal focus.
“My childhood room.”
How had we gotten here? Where was Sarah? The monster?
The questions drifted away as soon as I thought of them—concerns for later.
She was here.
She leaned back, scanning the room with a renewed interest, lingering on the empty walls, the perfectly-made bed. I wondered if she saw what I did—a sterile, cold place.
I’d only spent a few years in this room, before dorming at the academy, but I didn’t have particularly fond memories of it. It was a place for study and sleep—nothing more.
When I wanted company, fun—I went to Wade’s room, or hung out at Eli’s. There was no warmth here.
“Atlas.” Max’s hand was back on my face, tilting it towards her. I leaned into the soft pressure, my breath hitching at her familiar scent. “Atlas, I think this is a dream.” Her thumb ran a circle along my cheek, her face scrunched in concern. “I need to know what’s going on—if you’re okay. Where they’re keeping you. What can you tell me, to help us find you?”
I straightened. Find me? Were they coming for me? Hope and fear battled in my chest.
Where were they keeping me? Who were they? What was going on?
“Max?”I repeated, panic constricting my chest as I tried to reach for the answers, the memories floating away like balloons in the wind.
She grabbed my hand and stood. I followed her bonelessly as she moved to my bed and sat down. I sat next to her, but my body didn’t feel fully in my control, didn’t feel like mine.
With a single nod, she met my eyes again. “You’re alive. We’ll start with that. It’s not the worst place to start at least.”
“Where are you?”
She opened her mouth and closed it, her brows furrowing. “You know, I’m not entirely sure? Things feel a bit fuzzy. A bit disoriented.” She ran the hand not holding mine over her stomach, checking for something though I wasn’t sure if she found it or not. “Why did you choose this room?”
The question seemed entirely disconnected from the previous one, but I tried to follow the pathway of her mind, to anchor myself to her, since my own was less steady.
“I’ve been hiding here. I think.”
“Hiding? From what?”
A chill unfurled down my spine. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
She sighed, nodding again. “This conversation isn’t getting us anywhere, is it?”
With a small grin, she bit her bottom lip, shaking her head.
She might have said something else, but my focus was locked on the small imprint of her tooth on her lip.
Suddenly I had an impossibly strong desire to trace that mark with my tongue.
So I did.
“Oh. Atlas I—” Her words were unintelligible around my mouth, but they created soft vibrations that hummed along my skin, lighting me on fire.
I pressed my lips against hers, sliding my tongue into the seam of her mouth, my mind going fuzzy and clear at the familiar taste of her.
“Atlas,” she said, her voice breathy now. I swallowed whatever else was going to follow that with my tongue sliding against hers, until the only sound she was making was a soft moan.
I pressed her closer, a feverish need suddenly taking over as I pulled her onto my lap. My fingers combed through her thick hair, tugging at the base of her skull, tilting her head so that I could go deeper.
More.
I needed so much more than this.
I needed her all around me, consuming me.
I was hard as a rock, my head growing dizzy as she tilted her hips forward, her body sliding against me, teasing.
Why was it like this with her? Why was just being in her vicinity enough to make me feel like I was going to combust?
Slowly, I slid my hand down the front of her pants, desperate to feel her, to be consumed by her. My fingers were soaked as I slid against her, circling her clit. She was more than ready for me, but I teased and pinched for a minute, savoring the delicious gasps she made as her body spun out of control.
Every inch of my skin tingled, my body somehow just as sensitive as hers, like I could feel the pleasure raking through her core too.
She tensed, her hand pressing into my chest as she looked up. The dazed look in her eyes cleared as she came into focus.
“No, this—” she shook her head, closed her eyes tight as she climbed off of me. “This isn’t what we should be doing. This isn’t right.”
Panic stabbed through my chest. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt—”
She shook her head, cutting me off. “No, no it’s not that. It’s just, Atlas.” Her eyes met mine, only now instead of glazing them over, it was the glassy sheen of tears. “Atlas we can’t do this. You bonded to Reza. You made that choice. You didn’t want whatever,” her hands waved between us, the movement jagged and filled with her frustration, “whatever bond is—was—developing between us. This is just the haze of a succubus dream.”
Reza. I’d all but forgotten that she existed. What was she even talking about?
A cold, sharp stab pierced my chest at the expression on her face.
I stood, adjusting my pants as I tried to focus. “Max, I don’t want Reza. I’ve never wanted Reza. From the moment my wolf tracked you down in that town, I’ve wanted no one but you. I’ve thought of no one but you—” I exhaled sharply, trying to contain the emotion clogging my throat, “I tried everything I could to resist it—I tried to stay away from you, to protect you—but I can’t. You’re all I fucking see.”
For a moment, something in her face softened, but she reconstructed the hard mask she’d learned to wear almost instantly. It was a new skill she’d developed, her thoughts and emotions no longer displayed on her sleeve for all to witness and dissect. It was a hardness The Guild manufactured quickly. It would serve her well, protect her—but I hated that she needed it in the first place, that she needed to shield herself like that. The thought that she’d been forced to abandon the gentle openness she had when we met made me sick. “Atlas, no. You bonded to her.” She let out a frustrated laugh. “I was there. I watched it happen.”
“You—” I paused, trying to understand what she was saying. The ceremony came flooding back into my mind with the force of a train. My memories of the last few weeks were hazy at best, but I was certain that Max wasn’t there. I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it if she was. It was hard enough already. “I— Max, I was trying to protect you.”
The lines of her jaw sharpened, her posture stiffening as she studied me. “Hurting me wasn’t protecting me.” She let out a frustrated sight. “You ended things between us, Atlas—you chose to stop whatever connection was solidifying between us. You made that choice. Not me. And I— I’m not interested in being your plaything whenever you deign to allow it. I deserve more than that.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “And, honestly, Reza deserves more than that too.”
“I feel—” My jaw was tight, but I forced the words out anyway, tight and angry, “I feel nothing for Reza. The bonding ceremony did nothing—whatever paltry magic The Guild uses to forge bonds between protectors is nothing compared to the connection between us. Nothing.” It was laughable to even think of those bonds in the same breath. I ran a frustrated hand through my hair, took a step towards her but paused when she met that step with one of her own—away from me. I swallowed the hurt, pressed past the way the fury on her face burned through me, flaying me alive. “I was trying to protect you, Max. My father—I didn’t want him to find out about you. I was fucking terrified that he’d kill you, that I wouldn’t be able to protect you from him. I made a sacrifice—”
“No one asked you to protect me. I’m pretty damn good at protecting myself. And no one asked you to make that sacrifice, Atlas. That’s the point.” Her teeth rolled over her lip, her onyx eyes animated by her rage. Why did she look so fucking beautiful when she was angry. And why the fuck was I focusing on how beautiful she was when she was pissed off at me? “You made that choice on your own. You make every decision on your own—you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and then get pissed and lash out because it’s so fucking heavy. You could have talked to me. We could have discussed your fears about your father. We could have made a plan—together. All of us. And now—” her jaw clenched as her eyes cut away from mine, locking my access to emotions she wasn’t willing to show me. “Now you’ve damaged something between us.” She shook her head. “And I’m not sure it’s damage that can ever be repaired.”
