Dark Before Dawn (The Protector Guild Book 7), page 24
But hope was not the same as reality, and I could sense the world shifting, the realm collapsing, the stability and balance wavering. I knew that even if he wasn’t telling the whole truth, he wasn’t completely lying about what was happening either. It was hard to deny the truth when I was met with it at every turn.
“It’s an honor, you know?” He cocked his head to the side, studying Ralph. “How that hound is with you. A mark of pure trust—something not often found in this place. The hellhounds here rarely let anyone but Sam within arm’s reach of them. And they aren’t even like this with him.” His lip curled as Ralph nudged me with his head, preening at the compliment. “Then again, perhaps this one is defective.”
Ralph growled, head bent forward as he turned towards Lucifer.
Would Ralph attack Lucifer? Probably not. But I didn’t want to wait around to see if it was a possibility. Something told me that Lucifer’s patience with the hound only extended so far.
“And the nexus?” I asked quickly, drawing his attention back to me and away from the staring contest with Ralph. “It’s the third thing you mentioned.”
“It is.”
“Well—” I bit back a retort at Lucifer’s deliberate resistance to offering anything that wasn’t explicitly asked. It was one of his most infuriating qualities. Of which there were a fucking lot. “What is it?”
“The origin.”
“Of what?” My jaw locked into place as I tried to melt the frustration simmering in my bones.
He was silent for a long time—so long that I actually started turning back towards the castle, tugging gently on Ralph to follow me.
If good old Lucy wasn’t going to answer, there was no use wasting time out here when I could be training. I had to meet Sam soon for our session anyway.
“Of the realms,” he whispered, stopping me in my tracks. I got the feeling he was trying to keep me around for a little while longer, though I had no idea why. Maybe even the devil grew lonely in this realm. “I believe it will be where the original ritual took place, during the creation of this realm. That kind of power leaves an indelible imprint. It is a power that will need to be channeled again—once more.”
I turned around slowly, like any sudden movements would remind him of his general need to be cryptic and unhelpful.
“Believe?”
He shrugged. “That kind of power—where and how it settles, what it’s connected or chained to—is unpredictable. I don’t know that I would necessarily call this kind of magic sentient, but it has a way of staying hidden, revealing itself only when—and to whom—it sees fit.”
Great. More unpredictability and half-answers.
“I’ll need to find that too, won’t I?”
His dark eyes found mine as he nodded. “I thought I would be able to handle that part. But with things as unstable as they are, I have a feeling I won’t be able to leave this realm again until the ritual is completed. I’m now beginning to question whether the brief glimpses of your realm that I’ve allowed myself in the past year have caused things to,” he gestured absently, “shift with more haste than they otherwise might have. It was reckless of me—I should’ve assumed that would happen.” He shook his head, a shadow hollowing out his expression. “Even I make the occasional mistake out of eagerness, out of yearning. I’ve been searching for another way for me to leave this plane again, but I’m now quite certain that there isn’t one.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to parse the flicker of something in his as they stared into me. Lucifer had a way of making it feel like he could not only peel back each layer of my thoughts until they were bare to him, but also rearrange and control them if he so desired. It clearly wasn’t a skill that I’d inherited.
His secrecy made sense now. Perhaps his position was more vulnerable than I’d realized. He was always traveling, always on some secret mission. Was this why? Because he was stuck here, imprisoned again just when he thought he’d been granted his freedom out?
This was, perhaps, the first weakness of his I’d identified. The kind of information that could become a powerful tool down the line.
“Why?” I asked, greedy for more.
But his face relaxed into its typical mask, and I knew I’d get nothing more from him right now.
It was okay. For once, I felt like I’d emerged from a conversation with him the victor. Not only did I learn about his limitations, but I knew the exact things he was after—my power, the abraxas, the nexus.
And so long as he wanted me at my most powerful, I also knew he wouldn’t harm my friends.
Not when they were so instrumental in obtaining that goal.
My power, the abraxas, the nexus.
I repeated the three things in my mind over and over again, until they were stuck there on an infinite loop.
Fire flared along my skin, climbing the flesh of my fingers until it kissed its way along my forearms.
“Good. That’s better. You’re getting your control back.” Sam prowled around me, his striking blue eyes tracking every flicker of flame, every muscle I flexed with a heady focus. “Again.”
I sucked in a deep breath, fighting my urge to resist the request. It had been over an hour of this—me calling my fire, faster and easier each time. Then he’d have me throw it, get it to emerge around me, without touching me. Sweat caked my forehead, but I nodded, pulling and quenching the flames and then flickering them to life again.
When I thought I’d collapse from the effort, he handed me a small cup of water, expression stern as he studied me. “Five minutes to break and then we work on teleporting.”
My stomach sank at the thought, knowing that using that power took far more from me than summoning hellfire. And while I’d tried on my own a few times since feeling the renewed strength pulse through my veins, I hadn’t been able to so much as move my body an inch.
Atlas.
Teleporting was the key to getting him back to us.
“No break,” I said, panting as I finished the water. “I can start now.”
“Very well.” He leaned against the wall, the flicker of hellfire in the sconce above him licking strange colors of light against his face. There was a darkness there, in the depths of his eyes. And though Sam was often more teasing than Lucifer, I reminded myself that I’d do well not to assume that meant that he carried less power. That he was less dangerous. Something told me that the two men were evenly matched—otherwise, I had a feeling one of them would be dead by now. “When you’re ready.”
Twenty minutes of straining, and I’d managed nothing.
Ralph was growing restless as he watched me from the doorway, occasionally releasing small whimpers when I fell over or gripped the wall for strength. I felt his head nuzzle under my arm, providing a solid foundation to lean on after a particularly painful attempt.
“I’m okay.” I scratched behind his ear, ignoring Sam’s glower as he watched us. “Go back. I’ll be fine.”
Again. I’d try again and again until I was nothing but a husk. I wasn’t leaving until I had at least some control of this power back.
My legs shook under my weight as I strained to reach for it, to visualize the sensation of my body dissolving and reforming into something new, to feel the air shift as I materialized in a new environment.
I fell on my ass, my chest heaving in deep breaths. “Fuck.”
“Your frustration with yourself is making it worse.” Sam’s voice was void of emotion, but somehow that just made me angrier. It wasn’t like I could turn off my own—like I could simply stop being frustrated just because he said so.
I used to be able to do this. And now, when someone I cared about depended on it, I couldn’t. Frustration didn’t even begin to cover the rage coursing through me right now.
“Go get the boy.” At first, I thought Sam was speaking to me, but when I turned and saw Ralph heading to the door, turning back with one hesitant look in my direction, I realized he wasn’t.
The boy?
“Why do you need Eli?” One hand digging into the wall nearest me for purchase, I drew myself back up to full height. I ignored the tremors pulsing through my body, the way nausea turned my stomach, and met his eyes with as much confidence and power as I could channel.
Sam and Lucifer hadn’t been opposed to using my team against me in the past—harming them in order to motivate me.
As if reading my mind, Sam shook his head. “The last thing you need right now is more pressure. I’m hoping the boy will lend you strength. If—”
The soft echo of footsteps announced Eli’s presence. The moment he saw me, his posture tensed, jaw muscles clenching as he threw a glare at Sam. Without a word he ran to me, his hands holding my face with a gentleness so at odds with the pure fury emanating from him now.
“What the fuck are you doing to her? She needs a break. You’re going to kill her like this.” Without moving away from me, he turned to Sam, teeth grinding as his heavy stare watched him. “Neither of you give a fuck about her, do you? You just keep pushing, hoping she’ll get strong enough to save your asses. You don’t care that you’re running her into an early grave in the process.”
“She is plenty strong, she’s just untrained.” Sam arched one of his brows, amusement flashing briefly as he studied us. “It would take far more than this to kill her. And what she needs is to not be coddled. She is not fragile, weak—treating her as such is a disservice to the power flooding her veins. There are more dangerous things than a training session coming for her—the sooner she’s equipped to handle them, the safer she’ll be. Now,” he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head forward, “why don’t you make yourself useful and channel that rage you’re flaring in my direction into something that can help her.”
“I—” Eli opened his mouth, closed it, the lines of his face softening into confusion, and then, determination. “How?”
“Your bonds, as they are forged and strengthened, will ultimately allow you to transfer power—you will strengthen each other. It is one of the reasons they are so coveted, one of the reasons The Guild tries so hard to craft them in their own way.” Sam turned to me. “Try again. Focus on your connection to him.”
I pulled Eli’s hands from my face and crossed to the other side of the room, not wanting to accidentally teleport half of him with me. I was still kind of murky on the dangers of teleporting and I’d seen enough sci-fi and fantasy movies to scare me into exercising care.
Closing my eyes, I searched within the compartments of my mind—I’d created so many different rooms in the past weeks, so many different boxes, that it was becoming cluttered and difficult to move through. But this time I didn’t just hunt for my ability to shift through space—I hunted for Eli. It only took a few seconds for me to find the tether between us.
I usually saw it as a rope, my mind creating visualizations of a magic I didn’t fully understand—manipulating it into something I could feel, reach for, use. This time, it wasn’t just a rope—it was a thick, intricately-braided golden tether, flexible and strong. Impenetrable.
I reached for it, clasped my hands around the warm, soothing material, let it travel down to my toes, and then I gave it a tug.
“Okay,” I said, feeling the smile in my voice—it was impossible to hide from the heady warmth now that I was holding onto it. Searching for Eli was like searching for the sun in the dead of winter—the light reflecting and refracting against the snow until it pulsed everywhere, the warmth fresh and intoxicating as it hit my cheeks. “I’m ready to try.”
“Try?” Sam snorted. “You’ve done it.”
I opened my eyes and found a familiar amber stare meeting mine—the flecks of gold shot throughout them not dissimilar from the shade of our bond in my visualization. “It worked?”
Eli’s face split into a grin that made my knees wobble from more than exertion. “It worked.”
“Again,” Sam barked, still leaning casually against the wall—as if he was simply watching a boring chess match and not someone literally materializing through space.
I did it again. And again. And again.
I was exhausted and drained, but Sam was right. Having Eli with me helped, like there was a new store of energy that I could pull from.
Things were different between us now—stronger—and it felt like my power flared in his presence, like it wavered between us, not entirely his and not entirely mine.
Once I got the hang of it, once I became familiar with relying on our bond, I could even bring him with me when I teleported. It took considerable effort, but I could do it over short distances without dying from exhaustion.
Though when I tried to teleport with Sam, he didn’t budge from the spot. Instead, I drained my strength as I pulled only myself to the other side of the room, my focus split on him and the distance between us.
It was a start.
And as much as I hated it, I knew Sam and Lucifer were right—it was a muscle. One I could grow strong through steady, consistent work. I just needed to nurture it.
Thanks to Cy and a lifetime of training, I was no stranger to this kind of work.
That night, curled into the warmth and safety of Eli’s embrace, I reached for Atlas in my dreams. Dream-walking across realms was always more difficult, but I seemed generally able to do it when I focused on the energy bonding me to Six, to Darius.
This time, the moment I cracked into the seams of his dreamscape, I instantly felt the dark wrongness from before. I got little more than a glimpse—of Atlas curled in the fetal position, screaming as his fingers clutched at his head—before I was edged out, black curling smoke dissolving the image from my head.
I woke with a startle, my body coated in sweat, lungs gasping for breath as the sound of Atlas’s anguish rang through my head.
Eli shifted next to me. “Max?” He sat up, hair tousled from sleep, and ran his arms frantically over me. “Are you okay? What happened?”
His hand reached for a blade under the pillow, but I grabbed his thigh, calming him, ignoring the flare of heat from his skin. “Atlas. It’s Atlas.”
Adrenaline eased into anxiety as his dark eyes darted between mine. “Is he okay?”
“No.” I shook my head, my voice cracking. “No, he’s not.”
He wrapped his arms around me, hand cradling my face until I met his stare. “Max, you’re doing everything you can. When we get back, we’ll create a plan with the others, and we’ll get him out. It’s going to be okay.”
Uncertainty echoed in his voice, like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.
“I—” I settled back down into my pillow, pulling him around me again. “I think I know someone who might be able to help?”
“Who?” His husky whisper caressed the shell of my ear, and I squeezed my thighs together.
Not now. My senses were heightened from letting the succubus flex inside me, but now was not the time to engage her other skills.
“Serae,” I whispered, closing my eyes until the wave of lust dissolved into sleep.
The room was stunning, which shouldn’t have surprised me. Serae was the type of person who dripped taste. She could probably make a paper bag look artistic and lush if she wanted to.
Dark velvet lined the modern furniture, one wall painted black and another pressed with an elaborate wallpaper that could have looked tacky under less a refined touch. Black and green plants carved paths down the shelves and bookshelves with their vines—pulsing with life as they wrapped around each other.
During my few sessions with her, we’d met in this room and I watched as she crafted it, using her power to mold the dreamscape as she desired.
“You’re back.” Her voice was a sultry whisper that trailed down my spine like a caress.
One second I was alone in the room, the next she was lounging on an elaborate chair, her full lips lifted in a small smile.
Today, she was dressed in a simple ivory silk slip that contrasted against her deep brown skin. Her dark hair was worn in long, intricate braids, pulled up in a tall bun.
Her skin seemed to glow with a vitality most people spent thousands trying to attain.
“I’m back.” I smiled, taking her in, genuinely happy to see her after our time apart. Wade and I had trouble dream-walking to the hell realm when we weren’t actually residing in it.
“That’s good. Means you’re still alive, still fighting. Don’t lose that.” She stood, crossed the room with a few graceful steps, and wrapped her hands around mine, pressing softly as her eyes narrowed with a playful mischievousness. “And my nephew? How is he?”
I studied her for a moment, considering, before she turned and dragged me over to sit on the burgundy couch.
With a soft, almost sad smile, she patted my knee. “What’s troubling you? Is he alright?”
“He’s,” I searched for a word that would ring with truth, not wanting to deceive her, but not wanting to frighten her either. There was very little she could do for him from here. “Adjusting, I think. It’s a lot, coming back into his whole world, feeling entirely divorced from it.” It was a feeling I understood well. “I can tell he’s still processing what Lucifer put him through.” My teeth clenched at the thought of him locked in that cell for months on end. And for what? Just to draw me out and use him as a pawn? “That kind of trauma takes time to unpack.”
“Mmm,” she said, eyes narrowing as she nodded. “Yes, the boy has been through his fair share of changes recently. Time will heal. I hope.”
“His father also learned the truth about him—or at least knows that he’s not just a protector. He’s always felt rejected by him, unwanted to some extent—in the shadow of his older brother. I think that being confronted with that rejection in such a tangible way, struck him with a precision, solidifying an insecurity that had never been truly confirmed before, if that makes sense?” Something about Serae’s presence loosened my tongue, massaged my memory, allowing me to see my interactions and memories with Wade from an angle I hadn’t noticed before, buried under my own shit. “And his brother, Atlas, was taken into Guild custody because he was protecting the rest of us.” I took a deep breath, chest tightening at the memories of that day—it was as if I could see them play out before me again. “Wade holds a lot of guilt, a lot of anger.” The words flowed from me as I told her things that I had only briefly allowed myself to consider. I’d been so involved in my own shit since Cy’s death that I hadn’t given Wade the consideration and time that I should have. I’d seen glimpses of course, here and there, echoes of the shadows clouding his mind, but he always tried so hard to mask his troubles, to protect us from them—to put me first. “I don’t know how to help him, not when I can barely help myself.”
