The World Undone (The Protector Guild Book 8), page 3
These were the only injuries we weren’t sure how to heal.
The paralysis poison from the wendigo-like creatures would disperse with time, and Greta and some of the others here had been trained in the med wards at The Guild.
While she wasn’t familiar with every injury and torture the lab had applied in their recent months of desperation—she’d never spent much time with the prisoners of The Guild, her work had mostly been healing protectors who’d been attacked—she was able to ease most of the demons’ pain and symptoms.
Most of it was a waiting game, however. Demons and protectors were strong—time healed most things that could actually be healed.
But not those afflicted with Sarah’s torment.
Druden—Nightmares as they were also called—were uncharted territory for us all. So far Atlas was the only one who’d healed, and even then, I don’t know that I could really call him healed.
He wasn’t like the patients here, but he wasn’t like himself either.
I shoved my worry for him to the back of my mind. I’d make sure to check up on him this afternoon. If I let myself linger too long on his pain—a hollow, deep presence I could feel echoing inside of my own chest—I’d be of no use to anyone.
Sarah wasn’t on her bed. Instead, as she’d been each morning when I’d arrived, she was huddled in on herself, pressed into the corner of the room. Her dark hair fell in limp waves over her arms and knees, several strands caught in her eyelashes. She didn’t even have enough awareness to notice the nuisance.
Vacant blue eyes met mine.
With careful fingers, I cleared the stray hairs from her face. She didn’t flinch from my touch.
She didn’t react at all.
I set one palm against the side of her head, the other just under her collarbone.
I didn’t know Sarah particularly well, and my power always worked better the deeper my connection to whoever I was trying to heal.
Outside of the bonds, Ro was the only person I’d been able to actually successfully heal—my connection to him being ironclad. But even then, I’d almost died from the exertion.
Still, I had to try.
Closing my eyes, I reached for Sarah in my mind, visualizing an invisible tether, not yet formed, trying to filter the few memories I had of her into it. My power flared, tingling in my skin, but it was listless and erratic, like it was unsure of where to go—or how to get there.
It was a feeling I was growing familiar with. One that sparked anger deep in my gut.
My teeth ground together as I tried—and failed—to swallow the frustration. I was useless against this darkness shrouding her. It was like trying to catch smoke in my hands.
I hated feeling useless. Hated knowing that Sarah was locked in this battle by herself and none of us could figure out how to reach her. How to save her.
Eli pressed in against my back, his fingers lightly touching my shoulder. I knew my healing powers wouldn’t hurt him, but the brief possibility that they might pulsed through me all the same.
As if sensing my resistance, he doubled down and pressed his other hand to my other shoulder, his presence sturdy and strong as he worked out the tension in my muscles.
It took me a few minutes to notice, but slowly, I felt the invisible thread I’d conjured connecting me to Sarah—like, actually felt it. Not just imagined it like I had been for days. It was as tangible as any intangible thing could be.
A sharp breath pulled from my lips as I clung to it, trying desperately to shape and strengthen it, but it was like trying to shape a shadow without any light.
Still, it was something. More than I’d had any other time I’d tried to help her.
Eyes pressed shut, tight and eager, I called on what I’d learned about healing from Khalida—and, later, from Lucifer and Sam.
It was fractured and awkward, and something about my power couldn’t quite locate the pulse of Sarah’s, but I fought for collision all the same.
I opened my eyes and found hers locked on mine. They still looked vacant, not entirely recognizable as belonging to the girl I’d briefly known, but I had the distinct feeling that she was actually looking at me for the first time since we’d rescued her, rather than through me.
A breathy laugh of excitement pulled from my lips as I doubled down and pushed as much of my energy into her as I possibly could. I felt Eli’s presence radiating over us both, infusing me with his quiet strength.
“Max,” he whispered, but I barely heard it.
The brief flare of recognition I’d seen in Sarah’s eyes was gone, and a wave of frustration with myself threatened to drown me.
I fought to cling to the thread of power, but it was fading.
“Max, that’s too much.”
My fingers tensed around Sarah, like they were searching for purchase, for other entry points.
“Max.”
This time, there was a note of pain in Eli’s voice, and I stumbled back. His hands weren’t at my shoulders anymore—they were clutching his head, his face contorted in pain as he took deep, heaving breaths.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” I crawled towards him, pulling his hands away and replacing them with my own. Had I somehow pulled energy from him? “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did. I wasn’t thinking.”
Finding the thread tying me to Eli took almost no time at all. It was strong and thick and as familiar to me as my hand.
“No, don’t—I’m okay.”
I ignored his protests, healing him quickly. I hadn’t taken too much strength from him, and healing Eli from something so small came with an absurd ease when compared to my ragged attempts to heal Sarah.
The muscles in his face loosened. “Thanks, you didn’t have to—”
“Eli, shut up. This is nothing. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing—sometimes healing puts me in a weird sort of trance.” When I accessed that power, all I could think about was helping the other person, all self-preservation gone, every atom of my body ready to surrender for the cause if needed. Khalida had warned me of it—the power that came with healing others was addictive and all-consuming. Difficult to control. You lost yourself in it.
I stood up, pulling him with me, as I turned back to Sarah. I studied her for a long moment, searching for the small spark, but finding the same blankness I’d tried to fight all week.
Had I imagined it?
“There you are, Max.” Charlie stood in the doorway. Her lips pressed into a grim sort of grin—the smile unable to quite reach her eyes under the weight of everything she was dealing with. She turned to Eli and nodded. “Eli. I’m sorry I haven’t been available to either of you for a few days. Things have been—” she scrunched her nose, “hectic, to say the least. As I’m sure you’ve both noticed.”
Charlie was one of the leaders here. She’d welcomed us in—along with everyone else who’d been ostracized by The Guild or the outside world, whether demon, protector, or human. Charlie was mostly the latter, though she had some protector ancestry. Her partner, Bishop, was ex-Guild.
And apparently Atlas’s cousin—long assumed dead. Small world.
I didn’t know either of them particularly well, but they’d treated us with respect and kindness, even knowing that we were keeping secrets from them. That counted for a lot. Especially when The Guild operated on a platform of distrust.
“Good to see you, Charlie,” I said and, surprisingly, I meant it.
We didn’t know the people here well—Eli and I especially. We hadn’t had the time here that Darius, Declan, Wade, and Ro had while we’d been briefly locked in hell.
Even so, I couldn’t shake the innate trust that Charlie and those she surrounded herself with seemed to inspire and demand from me. There was something about her that called out to me, a kinship that I felt deep in my bones, even if it didn’t make much sense from a logical standpoint. Trust was an expensive commodity these days.
But if I’d learned anything over the last few months, it was that I needed to trust my intuition.
“I heard you were going to see Seamus today. Thought I’d swing by and say hi, see how you were doing before I get on with the rest of my morning tasks, walk you down.” She turned to Eli, compassion almost leaking from her pores. “Greta says you’ve both been helping tremendously in the med center this last week, we really appreciate it.”
His fingers twitched in mine, and I knew he was uncomfortable under her praise. “Least we can do.”
Charlie and Bishop had taken in everyone who’d followed us here. Bishop was protective of this place, understandably, and had instituted a rigorous vetting and acclimation process for the new recruits—they needed to make sure everyone who was here wanted to be here and understood the rules, the magic of this small community. The need to keep it, and the people here, safe.
But even through his surly facade, they’d also used all of the resources at their disposal to help everyone who needed medical attention, treating them all with the same attention and care they bestowed on their regulars here—without even questioning the utility or cost of it.
There’d been a few fights I’d heard about over the week, a vampire attacking another, a few protectors lashing out as well, caught between disgust and mourning over what they’d learned about The Guild.
Unlearning was a difficult thing. And they’d been indoctrinated in Guild practices and beliefs their entire life. It wasn’t easy recognizing how many of those beliefs were built on lies. History was a fragile concept when you started to interrogate who penned it.
But it would all be worth it, all work out. I hoped, anyway.
The goal was, as Charlie had explained it, that this community could create a space for that unlearning—a space for people to come together and grow stronger through shared goals and values.
Even a trickle of hope could wield uncompromising power and strength, if given the chance to spark and grow.
Charlie nodded and turned out of Sarah’s room, signaling for us to follow.
Without further preamble, Eli and I did just that. She unlocked the padlocked door at the end of the hall—the tech here wasn’t nearly as advanced as what we were used to at The Guild. The lock wouldn’t keep many people here out, it was a signal more than anything. But everyone honored the rules, trusting that, unlike The Guild, the people here were doing their best to keep everyone safe.
And from what I understood of Seamus’s situation, these provisions were more for our safety than his.
The door opened into a dark stairwell that we descended in silence, until Charlie stopped at the base where another locked door stood. A single lightbulb lit the area, the glow of light warm and faint, highlighting the dust particles that floated in the air around us.
She turned around, her dark eyes latching onto mine. There was a spark of knowing there that I couldn’t quite name, a sadness that burrowed deep into my bones. “I assume that Eli’s been keeping you updated on him?” She grunted. “To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t break in here this week. Not like we could truly keep you out, even if we used every tool at our disposal to try. But I appreciate that you’ve been abiding by our protocol, as tedious as it may seem sometimes.”
I nodded, leaning into Eli at my back. “I recognize that I’ve thrown a wrench into a lot of your plans here—created a lot of work and rushed things along at a pace that probably none of us were prepared for. But I’m trying to honor your rules and requests as best as I can, when I can.”
She tilted her head, studying me, the smirk softening into something kinder, but still clouded over by a pervasive exhaustion.
“And as for Seamus,” I tightened my grip on Eli’s hand, “I’m up to date, yes.”
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be updated on.
Seamus was a werewolf now, but due to his age and the severity and location of the bite, he was not handling the transition particularly well. More than that, there seemed to be something different about the wolf that bit him—and no one had any ideas or explanations as to what that difference was.
“I was just visiting with him. His memory,” Charlie took a deep breath, her gaze cutting briefly to the thick door behind her before she turned back to Eli and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t even imagine—that must be very difficult for you.”
“Better faulty memory than dead.” Eli’s voice was hard, but not unkind.
“Yes, well, Levi has been taking good care of him. He’s in there now and has offered to guard during your visit today while Tex and Bishop tend elsewhere,” she said. Eli stiffened next to me, his tension slicing into me. “I know you both can protect yourselves, but sometimes that’s more difficult when it’s your own family that you need protection from. Seamus has been a little—” her eyes narrowed as she searched for a word, finally settling on “volatile.”
Eli’s hand gripped mine. He’d been visiting Seamus every day, in the brief stretches that he was permitted, and each time he’d emerged from this stairwell, he’d looked a little more fractured, the pain echoing deep inside of me.
I’d found scratches carved into his side, noticed a few discarded shirts that had blood belonging to him. But he never spoke the words out loud—that Seamus had attacked him.
Of course, Darius knew for sure—his body often mirroring the strikes against Eli, thanks to the blood bond. Surprisingly, he never called attention to it, never complained or even said a word. He’d just look at Eli with unspoken compassion—their bond shaping into something surprisingly tender, given all of their bickering.
“I should be going though. I want to check in with Greta again before lunch, see what orders she needs sent out. I know we’re low on a lot of supplies. I’m hoping we can send a team out for a run, now that things are settling down a bit.”
I bit back a grin at the sarcasm that lifted her voice at the end of that sentence. I wasn’t sure things would settle down here for a very long while. Maybe ever again.
With a soft smile and sympathetic glance at Eli, she left us there, waiting outside of the door.
I didn’t rush Eli.
Instead, I turned around and looked up. He was always taller than me, but I had to really crane with him on a step above mine. I cupped his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth—one he met me halfway for. Amber eyes swallowed my focus as he studied me—open and vulnerable in a way that I’d only seen him a handful of times.
My heart skipped in my chest, and I tried desperately to resist the urge to kiss him again, this time with more heat. It had been a while since we’d last been together in that way, and I could feel my body hunger for him—could feel that hunger mirrored in him too.
Something had shifted irrevocably between us in hell—an openness, a trust. It’s what allowed the bond to fully shape, and it was growing stronger every day—more solid, unwavering.
We’d wasted too much time hiding ourselves from each other, resisting the obvious connection between us. Now that those barriers were demolished, I wanted nothing more than to be consumed by him.
The heat in his eyes flared, the tension in the dim stairwell teetering on the edge. My stomach was tight, my breath quick.
I took a step back as he cleared his throat.
Later.
Seamus was waiting for us.
As was Levi.
I rapped my knuckles against the cool metal door, but the hinges creaked before I could repeat the gesture.
A soft glow of light washed over us as Levi stood before us.
Dark gray eyes locked on mine, the usual dark, mischievous gleam present in their depths, if clouded slightly by concern. “Max, good to see you again. Eli.” His eyes didn’t move from mine, like he was searching for something there. A chill ran up my spine at his perusal.
There was something strange about Levi, uncanny almost. In many ways, he reminded me of Eli—they both had a flair for arrogance, a desire to soften discomfort with teasing.
The same mouth.
But there was something else even more disconcerting about Levi, hard to place. A coldness that Eli didn’t share, something almost feral—dangerous—buried deep.
I dropped the intense eye contact, trying to see into the room. Levi, unhelpful as ever, seemed unconcerned about stepping out of the way to let us through the doorway. “How’s Seamus?”
“And why are you the one watching him?” Eli’s tone was clipped with ill-disguised anger. He took a step down until he was pressed against my side. “I highly doubt he wants you here.”
I stroked my thumb over the back of his hand.
Eli and Levi’s relationship was a deeply fraught one. I had no idea if they’d ever find a path towards mending it, but now wasn’t the time to lean into the inevitable explosion either.
Family trauma never really stayed truly buried, but hopefully they’d find a way to push it to the side with everything going on. They had no choice but to trust each other, to work together as well as they could.
Levi’s eyes narrowed, but his focus was still on me. “Actually, wolfy Seamus seems to like me quite a bit. I’m one of the few who seems able to calm him. I’m here most days, whenever—”
The rest of the sentence was swallowed into silence, but we all knew the conclusion—whenever Eli wasn’t around.
Eli definitely seemed to hate his brother, or what he represented to him at least, but Levi’s commitment to keep his distance took a different shape.
The muscle in Eli’s jaw twitched. If he clenched it any tighter, he’d crack a tooth.
I pressed my palm to Eli’s chest while I sent a glare at his half-brother. “Enough of the baiting. None of us have the time or the energy for this shit. Let us in, Levi.”
His lip twitched briefly into a grin, eyes narrowing on me for a long breath, but then he stepped to the side.
The room opened into a small cellar with dusty wine bottles lining one of the walls.
Seamus stood chained in the back corner, the thick metal rings around his ankles bolted deep into the concrete floor.
He was naked, likely from the constant warring with his wolf, shifting between bodies several times a day. The wound where he’d been bitten was still not healed all the way—it looked infected and deep. I kept my eyes on his face, noticing the dark lines of exhaustion creasing his eyes, the sweat coating his forehead. His breathing was ragged, his expression drawn in pain.
