Dark Before Dawn (The Protector Guild Book 7), page 11
He arched his brow, expression blank, body frozen and rigid under my palm.
“Jackass.” Declan rolled her eyes and walked to the door, but I didn’t miss the way her lips pulled up at the corners. “You’ll get used to him, Ro.” She paused, hand on the handle, then turned back to us. “Well, I can’t promise that. He’s never really normal. But I can promise you’ll, at the very least, often be entertained. And a laugh is good when the world goes all wonky.”
She left.
Eli followed. His eyes lingered briefly on Max, softening with the sudden lightness in the atmosphere. It was the most relaxed any of us had been in days. “Stay inside. Get some rest.”
Rowan cleared his throat.
My hand was still crushing his shoulder.
“Off you go, Rowan,” I started peeling my fingers away from him but stopped. “No. Ro. I’m going to go with Ro from now on. More Jovial. Off you go, Ro.” I chuckled. “Rhymes, see?”
He ducked away from my grip, bemused, before running a hand roughly over Max’s head—the two of them locked in a silent conversation with nothing but an unbreakable stare and furrowed brows.
“Right,” he glanced from me to Wade. “Anything happens to her while we’re out, I’ll kill you both. That’s a promise. Even if I have to enlist the help of some other demons to get it done.”
With that, he left.
As in left me with his sister.
Yeah, we had a surly incubus supervising us, but he trusted me with her. Which meant he liked me. Or at least had very specific conditions about murdering me. Judging by Declan’s trajectory, that was adjacent to downright approval. Friendship, even. I was basically officially part of the family now. Declan fucking loved me. I was confident Ro soon would too.
I pulled Max against me, squeezing her bicep.
When I caught her eyes, I expected them to be bursting with excitement, like I was sure mine were, but she only looked confused and mildly amused.
Still, it was the lightest and most like herself she’d looked in days. Maybe even weeks.
Slowly, she made her way from room to room. She picked up the remote, ran her fingers over Cyrus’s pillow, grinned at a discarded paperback that was left open on Ro’s nightstand. When she got to her room, she went to the window, staring out at it for a long while, like she’d missed the view.
Wade and I watched, following quietly, reverently, as she took in the small cabin—watched as her body relaxed into the setting with every passing moment, like a huge weight was being lifted from her.
The circumstances were terrible, but I was glad to be seeing her in her home, in the place she’d felt most like herself.
I found myself wanting to watch her life, as if it were a TV show. What were her holidays like? Her favorite things to read? Her favorite ways to pass rainy afternoons, or sunny summer days? Did she always get along with her brother or did they occasionally fight in that way only siblings could?
“Does it get better?” she asked, her eyes still focused, unseeing, on some invisible point through the window.
“The magic?” I asked, taking a step further into her room. It smelled like her—even though she’d been gone for months—like time couldn’t erase her essence, no matter how improbable.
She shook her head and turned toward me, her eyes filmed with unshed tears. “The pain.”
I felt Wade tense next to me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something told me he’d felt deep pain too—beyond what he’d been through in that cell. That he’d felt the kind of grief that made breathing seem impossible.
“Grief doesn’t go away,” I said, wishing I could give her a better answer. “It’s heavy and it lingers with you. But, slowly, you grow stronger. You heal and you reshape yourself around it. And then one day, without even realizing it, the grief doesn’t feel as heavy.”
“Because it’s become easier to carry it with you,” Wade added, the words almost a whisper, “more like a companion than an enemy. A part of you that you learn to value because it’s tied to the parts of you that care.”
His eyes met mine briefly.
Maybe the dickhead wasn’t as awful and childish as I gave him credit for. That was almost elegant.
Max considered for a long while, then sat on her bed.
The comforter was simple, like the rest of her decor. Nothing that really screamed nineteen-year-old-girl. It felt almost like an adult’s taste—all neutral colors and minimalist-looking. Bare, even, but warm and cozy all the same.
“Your—” she took a deep breath, hands fisting into the comforter, and then she met my eyes, “your sister. That’s who you meant before? Claude mentioned that she died. Is she the reason you lost some of your magic before?”
A rock lodged in my stomach. I stared at the shag rug at my feet, trying to find the words.
It wasn’t often that I let my thoughts linger on her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words a rush, “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my place.”
For a moment, I considered her words, the edge of compassionate panic in her voice. I met her eyes and took a seat next to her on the bed. I could feel Wade watching us both, but didn’t bother looking in his direction.
“You can ask difficult things of me, Max. If answers are what you want, what will help you right now, then I want to give them to you. I’m just afraid of how you’ll think of me when you hear them. Nessa isn’t an easy thing for me to discuss.” I exhaled loudly, “I haven’t even let myself utter that name in years, if I’m being honest.”
She grabbed my hand in hers, twining our fingers together, and studied me in silence, urging me to continue. It wasn’t a promise. She couldn’t—and shouldn’t—forgive all things, but it was a commitment to listen.
It was more than I deserved.
“We made a deal, years ago, when we left the hell realm,” I said, needing to start somewhere, but knowing there was no good start to this story, “Nessa was in trouble and we wanted to get her out. Back then, it wasn’t easy leaving—especially with all of us together—and the portals were incredibly difficult to find and navigate. As were the guardians who controlled them. When you did, a sacrifice would need to be made, a ritual or trial completed, the balance maintained in some fundamental way. I suspect one of the reasons that the barrier between realms is so messy right now, is because with the new tears, there is no way to maintain that balance. But at the time, Claude and I, as twins, became guardians on this side of the realm. That was the sacrifice we made to protect Nessa.”
“How did you become guardians?” Wade leaned against the wall and studied me, but there was no animosity in his tone.
Still, I flinched.
“We took over the previous pair’s post. Most guardians do not last long in their positions—Claude is, well, Claude is a special case.” I left out the part that in doing so, that pair chose death, to be consumed completely by the shadow magic that corrupted them. It was the future Claude and I would one day succumb to. “Nash and Nika took over the duties from the other side.”
“Nash as in the guy we met in hell?” Max’s voice was soft, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of my palm. I wasn’t sure she was aware she was even doing it, but it was comforting all the same.
“The one and only.” I grinned down at her, but it felt stiff, stilted. Nash and Nika’s story was not one I wanted to dwell on at the moment. “In exchange, Nessa was permitted to come with us, with no risks or sacrifices made beyond that. Things were fine for a while. The shadow magic was intoxicating. It was like a constant high, feeling that kind of power flow through my veins. But shadow magic has its own motivations and can’t be controlled, even through conduits. I started to spend a lot of time lingering in the portal, being consumed by the magic. Too much time.” I looked down and saw that I was now squeezing Max’s hand, so I eased the tension in my hand, took a deep breath. “I started to hear voices and, eventually, just one voice. A girl—something about it sounded almost like Nessa.”
“What did she say?” Wade asked, and I noticed that he’d moved several inches closer to where we sat.
“She was stuck.” I closed my eyes, trying to recall anything else about her, but it was like trying to catch a dream in the morning, the memory running away at a pace I couldn’t match. “I don’t know much more, but I remember seeing these horrible visions. Nessa, Claude—both of them being ripped apart by the portals. At first, I tried to brush them away, but it became all-encompassing, any time I came near the shadow magic, the visions would get darker, more visceral, more detailed. The voice suggested that I leave, that in doing so I could save them both.”
“That’s why you left?” Max whispered, her eyes wide and watery and filled with a kindness that I couldn’t accept.
“It was reckless, but yes. That’s why I left. The voice had convinced me that if I wanted to save them, I needed to go. I thought I was making a valiant sacrifice—giving up the allure of the shadow magic, the power, to save my family. I know now how naive I was. That voice was no prophecy, it was the cruel game of a drude.”
“A drude?” Wade asked. “What’s that?”
Max furrowed her brows. “I heard you say that word during the ambush. There was a drude there, wasn’t there?”
I nodded, my stomach tightening with disgust that one had been released on this realm. I wasn’t certain Max’s hellfire could truly kill one of them, but I hope that one burned to a crisp anyway. “Nightmare demons.”
“Like an incubus?” Wade sat on the floor, no more than a pace from our feet, like a child in school.
“Darker,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “more vicious, more powerful. I’d only ever heard whispers of them. They weren’t in hell. Or if they were, they weren’t in my pocket of hell. We’d always been taught that they became extinct when hell’s prison was created. They feed on a person’s worst fears, can trap you inside of them until you don’t know what reality even is anymore. When they’ve controlled you enough, they use that gap in reality to create their own—they possess their victims and control them. Their existence otherwise is ephemeral, like shade.” I took a deep breath, tried desperately to suppress the building darkness from leaking out of my pores. “The fact that one made it here—” I shook my head, “I don’t know who was leading that ambush, but they managed to mobilize wendigos all while accessing a drude. It’s not good. If even one drude is unleashed, I can’t imagine what else will unravel.”
“And so you left,” Max said, the sound of her voice pulling me back from the edge, “and Claude said Nessa tried to take over, right? For your post? That’s when she died?”
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. It took me a few moments before I could find my voice again. “She was related to us, so she and Claude must have tried to fill the gap I left, after they couldn’t find me. But while she was our sister, she wasn’t a twin. Eventually, the balance broke, the magic turned on her, and she died.”
“You never returned, did you?” Wade asked, his stare stripping me until I was bare bones and flesh. “That’s why your brother hates you so much. Your sister was killed—her life sacrificed to maintain the disturbed balance—and you never returned.”
I leaned over, elbows on my thighs, and ducked my head down, to hide my face. I nodded, unable to respond with even a single word.
“Does he know?” Wade asked, “Claude, I mean? Does he know that you were just trying to protect her? That you were trying to protect them both? Losing her—I can’t imagine that, but it wasn’t like you killed her. You were trying to save her life, not end it. How could you’ve known what would happen? That the creature was using you? Hell, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was true. Maybe if you’d stayed you would have lost them both. There’s no way to know.”
I stiffened. I was expecting the frustration and ire in his voice, but I wasn’t expecting it to be mobilized on my behalf. “There was no point in telling him,” my voice cracked, “she was gone. Nothing I did or said could have brought her back. The best gift I could’ve given my brother was to disappear from his life, to stay away. I was clearly too easy to manipulate, too weak to be trusted with such an important position, with such power.”
“So the first time you saw him since that happened was when you brought us to the bar?” Max’s face was expressionless, her focus on the wall across the room as she processed the truth—of what I was, of who I was.
Did she finally see it? That she deserved so much better than me? So much more than my cowardice? My selfishness?
“Shit.” Wade let out a single, humorless chuckle. “No wonder he was so pissed.”
Max turned to me then, her palms raising to cup either side of my face. It took every ounce of courage I had to meet her dark stare but, when I did, all I saw was an empathy so strong it ripped the air from my lungs. “What happened to her—you couldn’t have known. A decision you made may have led to her death, but it was not a path you chose knowing all the options.” Something flashed in her eyes, her body tensing, and I wondered if she was applying the same nuance to her own story. To Cyrus’s death. She closed her eyes briefly and tightened her hold on my face, before meeting my gaze again with unflinching demand. “You went through something horrible, Darius. But it doesn’t define who you are. I know you, and I know you’re good. That’s all that matters to me.”
When she dropped her hands, letting the weight of her words sink in, Wade kicked my foot with his.
“Your brother deserves to know the truth, when you’re ready to tell it. You shouldn’t have to lose him too. Not now. Not when,” he ran a tired hand over his face, “not when we need every motivation—every connection—we can find to fight this battle. To win. Not before it’s too late.”
As his eyes met mine, I felt something shift in the room—like any residual animosity and distrust between us was slowly evaporating away. Maybe it wasn’t all gone yet, but for the first time since we’d met, it felt like it one day would be. One day soon, even.
And I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with warmth and gratitude. For my bond with Max, more than anything. But also because, for the first time in a long time, it felt like I had a family again.
8
MAX
I woke up to a dark room and a heavy, warm weight pressed into either side of me. A quick, cursory glance showed Wade on my left, the side closest to the wall, Darius on my right, his arm curved around my body, pulling me into him.
Heat pooled low in my belly at the thought of both of them in my bed. With me. Tangled together like we’ve been sleeping like this for our whole lives.
I wasn’t sure when we’d fallen asleep, but I sensed the others were long back. And by sensed, I meant that there were now three water bottles left on my nightstand. They were placed carefully on a pile of old paperbacks, alongside an unopened box of crackers and some over-the-counter pain medicine.
Whoever grabbed that had read my mind before I could. My head was pounding, a dull, ever-present ache.
I wasn’t sure what the cause was, mostly because there were a million to choose from:
Crying for hours? Check.
Emotional conversations? Check.
Losing my powers? Check.
Very little sleep? Check.
Long journey to my childhood home? Check.
Honestly, at this point, with the way things were going, I was happy that I woke up with any head at all.
For a moment, I considered reaching over and grabbing the pills—I could do with some water too—but the thought of disturbing either of them in the process kept me still.
I wasn’t ready to disentangle myself from the two men who’d come to occupy way too much of my brain space. It was a rare, coveted moment of peace.
And I never really got to see either of them like this.
Darius’s brows were relaxed, his lips curved slightly, like his perpetual smirk followed him even in slumber—any remnants of his earlier distress erased by sleep. His skin was smooth, pale in the soft moonlight glow shining in from the window.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think him just a man. Not a vampire, not a demon or former portal guardian carrying his weight’s worth of guilt. Just a man. And a goddamn beautiful one at that.
He’d removed his shirt at some point, the heat of three bodies in one bed likely too much for him, and I traced the gentle swells and sharp planes of his shoulders, his arms, his chest with my hungry eyes.
His arm tensed around me. “If you keep looking at me like that, little protector, you’ll make it impossible for me to get any sleep.” His voice was a soft caress, barely a whisper, his eyes still closed—as if he could feel the way I was drinking him in with my stare. “Your scent changes when you’re aroused. It’s subtle, but I find myself often hunting for it like a parched man in the desert chases the illusion of just one drink of water.”
I froze—the shock and guilt of being caught enough to send a bolt of electricity through my body. But then as I processed the rest of his muffled sentence, my stomach clenched with a different feeling altogether. “Looking at you like what?”
“Like you want to eat me alive.” He grinned and I wondered if that subtle scent was growing stronger.
My desire certainly was.
“Sorry,” I murmured, trying to keep my voice as quiet as his, so that I didn’t wake Wade up too.
Darius’s lips curved into a sharper grin, his thumb drawing lazy, featherlight circles against my shoulder where it lay. Intoxicating tingles spread out in a web from his touch, like my entire body was an instrument only he knew how to play.
“I don’t mind. I’m yours to look at. Yours to devour.” He opened his eyes, the contrast between black and yellow as startling as ever, even in the grayish hues of the dark room. “I’m yours to do whatever you want with. Whenever you want.”
Something about the cover of dark, the silence of the cabin, made me feel suddenly bold—like I could turn off the problems the day would bring, if only just for a few moments.
