Academy of Protectors (The Protector Guild Book 1) Page 18
Not to mention my father wouldn’t spill any information about her or where they’d been living for the last two decades. He wasn’t one for keeping secrets from me, which just made me want to know all the more. It was fucking infuriating. Instead, Max was dangled in front of me like a sexy carrot, perpetually out of reach.
“You hear anything from your aunt or the other researchers about the vamp that attacked Max, Dec?” Wade asked, glancing at her briefly while he stared out the window like a wide-eyed puppy. He loved flying. One of the many things I didn’t understand about the kid.
Declan’s eyes were closed and she was even more quiet than usual. She wasn’t particularly close to her aunt, especially since Sarah died, but she tried to check in every couple of weeks. Sarah loved her mom and it would’ve broken her heart to see Dec permanently pull away from the only family she had left.
Her aunt had been our strongest ally in the research quarters, so it sucked when she transferred to the European Headquarters after the funeral. Our base held too many memories of her daughter for her to stick around without losing her sanity. Truthfully, I had no idea how Dec could stand it. Or any of them really. I was the least close with the girl, and even I had trouble living down the hall from her old room.
She shook her head. “No man, she called several of the contacts here that she trusts but they said they still haven’t found anything unusual about the vamp or his venom. They’ve done a full autopsy and can’t understand how she healed so quickly. But they lifted her skin cells from his teeth, so she was definitely bitten.”
My stomach clenched at the last part, my blood boiling like lava through my veins. Would she have been attacked if I wasn’t fucking around, making her uncomfortable? My father asked me to watch out for her, to be a sort of guide into our life here. And my first night on the job she became a vamp snack.
“And the hound?” I asked, no longer even pretending to be engrossed by the game on my phone.
I met Atlas’s eyes and he frowned. Atlas knew that the researchers were going to town with tests on the creature. Like me and Cyrus, he was fighting to get the beast released. Or at least put on a longer leash. If Max kept sneaking down there, we’d have to alter the footage on the cams every night. It was dangerous. For all of us. And while Atlas, Wade and I were convinced that the beast wouldn’t hurt Max, my father and Declan weren’t so trusting.
Dec shook her head, the ripples of her hair catching a few rays of sun. “Nothing of interest, yet. They’re still running tests, but looks like for the moment, they’ve agreed not to put it down.” I shot her a look, my anxiety dislodged by anger. “Don’t look at me like I kicked your puppy, Eli. It wasn’t my decision either way. Aunt Jay said no protector has ever come across one and lived to tell the tale. Max’s beast is the first that’s ever been captured. Ever. I don’t blame them for wanting to be sure before letting that thing loose. The mythology of the creatures is gruesome and haunting. No one wants to take any chances.” She let out a long sigh, her voice softening slightly. “And Max is new to this world. She’s incredibly naive. Turning her into a hellhound guinea pig right now is just asking for trouble.”
“About Max—” Wade said, making eye contact with Atlas. When Atlas shook his head slightly, Wade ignored him and looked between me and Declan instead. “Have you guys noticed anything different? Felt a pull or anything?”
“Jesus, Wade,” Atlas grumbled, running a hand roughly over his face. “I told you to shut up about this ridiculous theory.” He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up, before sitting back down, every muscle in his body tensed. “You’re not bonding with her.”
Legitimate bonding? It was a ridiculous theory. Except why did my stomach drop when he voiced it? I’d been internally joking with myself that Max had a draw, but knowing officially that I wasn’t the only one to feel it? I didn’t know whether to be intrigued, jealous, or deny, deny, deny.
Declan arched one black brow, studying Wade with crystalline focus. “What do you mean, draw?”
“I mean,” Wade continued, his voice trembling slightly, “like the early stages of a bond. A real one.”
Atlas groaned, dropping his face into his palms.
I held my breath, feeling disturbingly like my heart had sunk to my stomach. “You’ve been bonded before, mate,” I said, keeping my tone light and disinterested. “This how it felt?”
Wade frowned, and shook his head. “Not quite, this feels sort of similar, but completely different at the same time.”
Declan squeezed Wade’s shoulder. She was always the most affectionate towards him, probably because along with Atlas, she helped raise him. Wade and Atlas had had a hard time after Sarah died. They weren’t romantically or sexually involved with her or anything, and their bonded ties were new, fresh, but still—that sort of loss took a toll. From my understanding, losing a bondmate was like losing a part of you. You never got over that sort of pain, like a phantom limb.
And in protector culture, bonds had a way of making your life purpose the protection of your bondmate group. Sarah’s death struck them hard and in different ways. Wade just seemed broken, burying his time in his studies, more standoffish and jaded than he used to be; Declan had become more cynical and detached than ever; and Atlas, well, Atlas was obsessed with tracking. He’d even gone out on his own, without us, several times.
I studied him, trying not to look too long at the silver scar on his arm. Atlas had been one of my best friends since we were teenagers, but not even I could get him to open up about Sarah. He’d become even more of a machine after that, obsessed with keeping the team on track and safe, determined to at least protect Wade—if not from their father, from everyone else.
Part of me was almost jealous of their shared bond, their shared grief. Which was extremely fucked up and I lost my appetite every time the feeling flitted through my thoughts, unwelcome as all get out.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. “Look, I’m not not saying I feel a certain pull.”
Declan’s head snapped over to me, a tense smirk across her face. “Eli, you feel a certain pull to literally every female you encounter.”
“Except to you, babycakes,” I winked.
“Small mercies.” The tension in her grin melted away into genuine fondness. Dec and I had a weird relationship. And she was living proof that I was capable of a platonic relationship with a woman. A shock to us all, because Dec was fine as fuck. It probably had more to do with the fact that we were both competing for female affections.
Atlas laughed, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Did he feel drawn to Max too? I narrowed my eyes at him, studying his even-more-tense-than-usual posture. He’d been an absolute prick since Max had arrived, and the way he’d been pushing her away? Maybe. It wasn’t impossible. But he was impossible to read these days.
“I know, I know, but in all seriousness.” I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I mean, I’m definitely pulled to her in terms of attraction. The girl’s hot. But there’s something else too, something I’m not used to.”
Declan’s expression darkened slightly, and I studied Atlas as he studied her. The two of them always had a way of talking in silence. It was a system of subtle cues and hidden depths that I wasn’t privy to. But judging by the blood draining from his face, he didn’t like the outcome of her thoughts.
Curious.
With a quick nod, as if giving himself a pep talk, Atlas straightened up, officially abandoning his notebooks. “Look, I don’t know what exactly it is about her, but I don’t trust it. Cyrus shows up after almost two decades, bringing with him two random orphans? Not buying it, especially since Eli’s dad has been trying to get him back here for years. Between that and the increased activities, I just don’t think it’s wise to act on anything.”
“But—” Wade opened his mouth, clearly ready to protest.
“I’m not saying she’s evil or anything, Wade. Just that things are complicated right now. Bonds are active creations, so even if you’re right—which I highly doubt in this case—we have the power to stop their manifestation,” Atlas said, cracking his neck side to side, like he was uncomfortable in his own skin. I didn’t blame him, the plane was starting to feel smaller than usual.
“I’m going to be real honest, dear old Seamus has hinted more than once that he wants me to consider bonding to her an option down the line,” I said, allowing myself to admit the possibility out loud for the first time. It wasn’t an idea that I was particularly comfortable with. I wanted the girl out of my thoughts, not forced more deeply into my very existence. Bonding with someone like Dec would be so much easier—we’d go in knowing exactly where we stood. The boundaries would be clear as day.
“Down the line could be years from now, mate” Dec said as she leaned forward, her elbows pushing down on her knees. “I agree with Atlas on this. She’s new. Rowan’s new. We need to keep them at more than an arm’s length.”
“Big surprise there.” I muttered, not bothering to hide the frustration from my laugh.
Her fingers gripped the arms of my chair. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged, cocking an eyebrow and turning towards her. “Nothing, just that first of all, you always agree with Atlas, and second of all, it’s not exactly difficult to convince you to push people away. Sort of your MO, mate.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt, tension visibly clawing through her body. She and Atlas were so similar sometimes, so uncomfortably blocked up. They both could do with an emotional laxative.
“Enough,” Atlas said. “This is what I mean. The stakes are too high for us to lose focus right now.”
Wade opened his mouth to argue again, but Atlas turned to him. “Besides, it’s not safe for Max to get too close with our group right now.”
Understanding filled the suddenly crowded cabin, and Wade and I backed off a bit, though I could tell that he was still silently stewing in his seat.
I exhaled, bouncing my knee a few times. “Sorry, Dec, heat of the moment. Didn’t mean to be a dick, think my sleep schedule has just been off. Or I need to get laid, let off some steam or something.”
She nodded, turning back towards Atlas. “Fine, from here on out, Max is one of our recon projects, but nothing more. We get an in, try to learn something, keep an eye on her, but nothing deeper than that. She remains at arm’s length.”
That was that then, it was agreed upon. My chest tightened. This was what I had wanted all along, a reason to force her out of my thoughts, so why did I suddenly feel so uncomfortable with the idea of not pursuing her?
Chapter Eighteen
Wade
The four of us had been silently waiting on top of an old industrial building for what felt like hours. Boredom didn’t even begin to describe things.
I dug my fingers into the cold metal lining the roof, trying to stave off the evening’s chill. The neighborhood was largely abandoned, with walls painted in graffiti tags and crumbling cinder blocks. So abandoned, that the only movement we’d seen took the form of an obnoxiously drunk dude pissing on the side of the building across the street. He sang loudly while trying to draw some sort of smiley face with his urine. The zoom lenses on our cameras meant that we could see every detail while we studied the area around us, and the microphones we’d rigged around the neighborhood meant that we could hear every splatter. The smell was pungent as fuck, even from here. Times like these, I hated having heightened senses.
Sure, humans wanted supernatural powers, but they didn’t consider the bad along with the good.
After the plane ride over, we’d all agreed to stop talking about Max. Judging by the tension in the group though, I was convinced that no one had stopped thinking about her. Myself included.
Seeing her in that hospital room after the attack, so vulnerable, it was like seeing Sarah all over again. Which was weird, because they looked nothing alike. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being interested in Max in a way that I was never really interested in Sarah. At least not to that level.
I’d agreed to stay away from Max as much as possible, but I didn’t know how realistic that was if I was being honest with myself. It was weird, having this intense desire to protect someone. Especially since Max could damn well protect herself. Hell, she’d survived a vamp attack and made best friends with a mythical beast all on day one. I was placing bets that she’d be as powerful as Alleva one day, maybe even more so. And unlike Atlas, I wanted to bond to someone again, wanted to feel that sense of purpose. To be needed. Hell, maybe even to be wanted.
As the newest member of the team, I was still in the famed disappointment stage. During my training, I half expected to be fighting down vamps left and right with every mission. I wasn’t really prepared for how fucking boring these recon sessions could be. So much waiting. My muscles were tense from trying to move as little as possible, while shoving my orbital bones against various lenses, trying to catch a glimpse of...something.
But I was bored, and antsy. We were gone for a handful of hours and I was already itching to get back. Something just didn’t feel right, not about this mission, and not about leaving Max unprotected at The Guild. I couldn’t put my finger on it. She’d survived the vamp attack, I’d gotten lucky with that. I didn’t want to drop the ball again. Seamus put us in charge of her safety for a reason, and it felt like we were abandoning our primary assignment for something ephemeral. Hell, at this point, who even knew if we’d end up seeing any action at all. Our sources had been wrong before. Many times.
“You sure this is the spot,” I asked, impatience making my skin crawl. “Maybe it’s a few streets over?”
Atlas shook his head, not even bothering to look at me. I hated being written off like that, and he was better than most at making me feel like a useless addition to the team.
“No, it’s here,” he said, his words the ghost of a whisper. “I’m sure of it.
Maybe he could hear something we couldn’t. His senses far outstripped ours, so all I could do was bite my tongue and get back to crouching against the gravel and broken slats of the roof floor.
Eli met my eyes, concern coloring his features as he locked eyes on Atlas’s scar. He swallowed hard before he nodded once. “Then we wait.”
We both knew the truth, that Atlas had been obsessing over this particular wolf pack since Sarah’s death. He’d lost her and a part of himself to them and while he liked to pretend he didn’t give a shit about Sarah, I didn’t think he’d let himself process his pain until he took this pack out. Grief was a fickle bitch; it took you down in unimaginable ways, no story of pain the same.
“Holy shit,” Declan muttered, pulling the binoculars flush against her eyes. “Are those vamps?”
She nodded towards a building a block or two away, her lenses pointed at a window on the second floor.
“What?” Atlas asked before grabbing her binoculars away with force.
No fucking way. Vamps and werewolves working together? Since when? As far as protector intel went, they seemed to be apathetic towards each other at best, sworn enemies at worst. They killed each other with more success than we could boast. This, this was new. And big.
I saw the decision flash across Dec’s face about a nanosecond before she started to run towards the fire escape.
“Fuck,” I muttered, going after her. Where Atlas had a weakness with wolves, Dec was the same with vamps. Quite the group we were, with enough personal vendettas to go around and get us all killed. “Declan!” I whisper-shouted, trying to catch her attention without broadcasting our position. This was not how the plan was supposed to go. We needed to call into The Guild, figure out next steps. We were barely prepared to handle a whole pack of wolves, let alone vamps. And we were on strict recon for this mission. If we spotted the pack, we weren’t supposed to attack until backup showed up. "Atlas, let’s go,” I yelled back behind my shoulder.
“Fuck,” Eli echoed, his feet pounding behind mine.
We were temporarily banned from vampire missions, explicitly because of Declan’s poor impulse control. Talk about unfinished business. This mission was going south. Fast.
I caught up to Declan outside of the warehouse she’d seen the vamps in. We looked through the first floor windows, able to see what appeared to be six creatures. It was almost impossible to distinguish between vampires and werewolves, unless fangs were descended or a partial shift was occurring. Hell, if Atlas hadn’t gone so silent when he stole the binoculars from her, I would’ve bet money on her seeing things. People saw their demons in everyday moments all the time. But Atlas was better at identifying the different species than we were.
“That one, there,” Declan whispered to me, her finger discreetly pointing to a tall guy with red hair, brown eyes, and a poorly groomed beard. “He’s vamp, I’m positive. I saw tooth.” She exhaled softly, no doubt trying to relax the adrenaline coursing through her body. “Flaccid now though.”
“You sure?” I asked, squinting into the room, trying to catch a glimpse. We liked to jokingly call humanoids in pre-shift position flaccid. When they were, werewolves, vamps, succubi, and incubi all pretty much looked the same. They just looked, well, human.
“She’s right,” Atlas said, annoyance lacing his tone. “I caught a glimpse, must’ve been feeding. We should call this in.”
He was spewing the party line, but I could see the tension in his neck. He was aching for a fight. We all were. I hadn’t been on a proper mission in months, our father had made sure of it. And I was so fucking sick of being coddled.
“Or,” Declan started, nervously glancing between the three of us. “We can just go in there and knock them out. Try to bring back one of each to Headquarters, get them to figure out what’s going on?”
“Might not get another chance,” I added, cocking an eyebrow. “We’ve never seen factions working together before.”