Forging the Guild (The Protector Guild Book 2) Read online

  Arnell nodded, tossing his leftover pizza crust back on his plate. “Yeah, we are one of the younger teams, so they tend to throw us softballs.” He got up, collecting everyone’s empty trays before leaving us to drop them all off. He cast Ro a quick, loaded glance, his lips turning down in a slight frown. Ro’s bright blue eyes immediately dipped to his lap as he started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

  Jer laughed quietly, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Plus, one of the younger recruits swears she saw a werewolf in the woods, so now security is tightening even more. I’m sure that means we’ll have to do extra rounds and whatnot until anxieties die down a bit.”

  “A werewolf? On campus?” Ro’s brows angled down, a fierceness emanating from his guarded expression. “Seriously?”

  “She probably just had too much to drink and confused a regular wolf with a supernatural one. No one else has seen one. Trust me, these sorts of false alarms get called all the time—half of our missions are based on faulty leads and misinformation.” Jer wiped some crumbs on his pant legs, pushing himself back slightly from the table.

  “Don’t worry, Max,” Sharla added, swiping on some clear lip gloss. Between her deep skin tone and blue eyes, the girl was stunning enough to grace magazine covers. “Once Headmistress Alleva is back, I think you’ll be allowed to observe or even participate in one of our missions, if you’d like.” Her fingers squeezed my forearm lightly. “I mean, you’ve already survived a vamp attack solo, which is more than anyone here has done. I’m sure they’re dying to get you paired up with a team as soon as possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually push you towards one of the top teams.”

  Outside of my family, Izzy, and Atlas’s Team Six, no one knew that I didn’t exactly survive the vamp attack off just my own merits. I was rescued last minute by a giant hellhound named Ralph. And I’d learned pretty quickly that hellhounds weren’t the norm for our world. As far as anyone knew, nobody had encountered one before and survived.

  So now, because of me, Ralph was currently housed in a creepy dungeon, while Guild researchers ran tests, trying to determine if he was dangerous or not. Rather than incite panic on campus, I was sworn to secrecy about his existence. I didn’t know enough people to struggle too much with the secret-keeping part. But I was having a seriously rough time pretending to be okay with how The Guild treated the hero of my story.

  I broke eye contact with Sharla, uncomfortable that I had to lie to my new friends about Ralph. And I was equally uncomfortable with taking credit for a win I hadn’t earned on my own. Surviving a vamp attack solo was no small feat. The entire campus was starstruck by Cyrus because he managed to survive fighting off two by himself. The guy was apparently a legend.

  Which was a weird thing to learn—that the grumpy guy who raised me was basically a celebrity in our world. It made his decision to live in the middle of the woods, away from his responsibilities, an odd choice.

  “Besides,” Sharla added, “with heightened vamp and werewolf incidents lately, I think Alleva’s in a rush to get new recruits out into the field.”

  Atlas’s half-brother Wade had mentioned something similar to me during our last tutoring session.

  “Cyrus and Seamus approved Ro to observe our mission tonight, so I’m sure you’ll be next—we’ve all seen you fight. And you’ll be nineteen soon, right?” Jer asked, his face lighting up with a flirtatious grin.

  “Shit,” Ro muttered. He ducked his head slightly, scratching the back of his neck. He caught my eye briefly before looking away again and fiddling with his nails. They were all bitten low, a nervous habit of his. He’d been trying to break it for as long as I could remember. “I was going to tell you,” he cleared his throat, “eventually.”

  “What?” I stood, staring down at him. “You’re going on a mission?” It was weird to see different rules apply to Ro. Sure he was a year older than I was, but I’d been so used to us being trained in everything together. Cy always made us seem equal in his eyes, and we’d always reached milestones in our training together. I wasn’t accustomed to the rush of jealousy that flooded my stomach. As soon as I saw the side of his lips pull down though, I swallowed it back. I refused to be jealous, not of Ro. “That’s amazing. You’ll have to tell me everything when you get back.”

  I knew that true mirth and excitement were missing from my voice, but I couldn’t be expected to be that big of a person. I would definitely be talking to Cy later, convincing him to let me observe as soon as possible.

  Part of me was just frustrated that Ro was fitting in with a new team—and doing so without me being a part of that puzzle too. But it wasn’t Ro’s fault that I wasn’t included.

  Before Atlas and the rest of his team left, he’d made it abundantly clear that as far as he was concerned, I would never belong with their group. So between that flat-out rejection, and now Ro’s new place with a team, I was feeling left behind and unsettled. I’d missed out on way too much recovering from the vamp attack.

  ***

  After twenty-four hours of nonstop training and reading, I was getting restless. Atlas and the rest of his team still weren’t back and Cyrus changed the subject every time I brought up Ralph or asked to go see him. Ro’s mission wasn’t nearly as exciting as either of us thought it would be—he didn’t run into a single other realm beast and instead spent most of his evening camped out on a concrete building, just to return back to Headquarters early in the morning. Still, while it sucked that he was bored and disappointed, I was beyond relieved when he showed up back home in one piece.

  They’d been given false information about some werewolf activity. They didn’t even run into a single werewolf, let alone a pack. So basically we’d seen more monster activity in our tiny town before even joining The Guild.

  The only cool thing Ro learned on the trip was that The Guild owned several small planes that teams got to take out if they were heading more than two hundred miles away from the base. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but neither of us had been on a plane before, so it was still exciting to live vicariously through his experience. My fingers were crossed that my first mission would be a decent way away.

  And somewhere warm.

  Or anywhere, really. I’d been to exactly two places: our old cabin and The Guild. I was ready to start collecting some stamps in my passport.

  Jer was the primary person in charge of my training and Arnell and Sharla had taken over the private lessons that Wade was supposed to be leading. After taking down Jer during more than half of our spars, I was almost missing having Atlas and Eli around. Almost.

  Jer was a lot nicer and much more receptive to my friendship than the members of Six had been. And he didn’t cause my temper to rise nearly as often as the others did.

  Izzy, Ro, and I were eating dinner with Ten, laughing about that afternoon’s training match, in which Izzy had taken down Jer, who was still overcoming his exhaustion from the night before, when Cyrus abruptly rose from his seat across the cafeteria. Something about his rigid posture instantly caught my eye, and I knew without the shadow of a doubt that the temporary peace over the last few days was about to shatter.

  He quietly looked around the room, his long black hair swinging around him. His face looked drawn and paler than usual. In a quick flurry, he left through the wide front doors, texting furiously on his phone; which was unusual because I think he had used a phone maybe twice in all the time that I knew him.

  I met Ro’s eyes immediately and could tell that he’d been tracking Cy too. We both stood up at the same time, without a single word needed, before discarding our trays and swiftly leaving the cafeteria. For once, our stack of pizza slices lost all appeal. Which was something that I didn’t think was even possible under most circumstances. Apparently tracking Cyrus down and seeing what was going on was the best way to limit my caloric intake. At least temporarily.

  “Oh no you don’t, I’m not getting left behind. I’m going too,” Izzy said, huffing out a breath as she caug
ht up with us. Shaking her head, she glanced between the two of us and let out a musical chuckle, small laugh lines creasing at her eyes. “Wow, you totally forgot I was even sitting with you, didn’t you? Well, whatever the rush is, I’m in. You get into all sorts of trouble without me. So let’s go stalk your prey together.” With a wink, turn, and a skip, she led the way out into the night. Ro glanced at me and shrugged before following her.

  “Any idea what this is about?” she whispered, after we followed Cyrus past most of the buildings we were familiar with.

  The night was dark, a soft glow from the moon lighting our path as he wove around trees and old vine-addled buildings. We were far away from where most of our classes were housed, so I had a feeling we were winding our way through a lot of private residences for transient Guild members.

  Cy was about fifty feet ahead of us when he whipped his head back, his intelligent eyes combing through the landscape. We pushed forward a few paces before landing behind a tree just as Cy’s gaze reached where we’d been standing a moment before. It wasn’t the most stealthy move I’d ever done, but if Cyrus knew he was being followed, he didn’t let on.

  “Nope,” I answered, my whisper probably a few notches too loud. “But Cyrus looked worried, and he’s been keeping things quiet since we got here, so I’m not going inside until I have some answers.”

  In my short time at Headquarters, I felt like the Cy I knew and loved was slowly slipping away from my reach. He’d kept so many secrets and been so busy with mystery missions with field teams that I hardly even saw him anymore. And when I did, I got little more than a few grunts and demands that I behave and stick to the rules.

  “Agreed,” Ro echoed, his voice the right amount of quiet and stern. I was usually the troublemaker of the two of us, so I beamed at him with approval. Clearly he was just as fed up with Cy’s secrecy and avoidance as I was.

  Cyrus hurried along into an open field, hobbling slightly. The pace he was setting was a bit too much for his injury and my belly filled with concern that he would push himself too far. We watched from afar, behind a cluster of trees while Seamus joined him, along with a few other protectors I hadn’t encountered during our stay here. Even from our distance, I could practically feel the nervous hum of energy buzzing around them all. Where had all of these protectors come from so suddenly and why the hell were they meeting out here in the middle of the night?

  Just beyond them, was a large truck, the engine lulling quietly as if waiting for something. Izzy pulled us further into the forest, away from the bath of light the headlights carved through the trees. The air was layered with a sense of foreboding and urgency—so much so that I could feel individual hairs standing up on my arms.

  “Do you know those other protectors?” I asked, belatedly smiling in thanks for her quick thinking.

  She nodded, her grey eyes focused hard in their direction. It was impressive, the way that she could turn off her typically giddy personality and trade it in for such extreme diligence. “That’s Barn,” she pointed to a tall Black man, lined with lean muscles and a quiet strength. “He’s one of Headmistress Alleva’s bondmates. She must finally be back from her trip.”

  A shudder ran through me, imagining Alleva as a more adult, more powerful version of her daughter, Reza. Of everyone I’d met at The Guild, Reza seemed to hate me the most. Almost every time we’d interacted, she’d drenched me in vitriol and made it abundantly clear that she didn’t think I belonged here. She was also ridiculously attached to Atlas, so I wasn’t surprised that they shared an opinion of me.

  I just wished that the opinion was a pleasant one.

  Hopefully Alleva was more tolerable, or at least didn’t hate me as much as her daughter seemed to. Because while Reza was mostly harmless, I had a feeling her mother could legitimately make my life miserable if she wanted to.

  The man, Barn was glaring at Cyrus, an unreadable expression on his face. Judging from the rigidity in his posture, and the way his face was scrunched up as if he’d just consumed something from a sewer, it wasn’t a pleasant emotion rolling through his body.

  Which was weird. I was used to most people I’d met around The Guild fawning over Cy, so it was particularly strange to see him looked on with such bridled anger.

  “What’s his deal with Cyrus?” Ro asked, giving voice to my own curiosity.

  Izzy shook her head briefly before looking at us, her brows turned down in thought. “I don’t know. And there are a few protectors out there that I don’t actually know. I think I’ve seen one in passing down in the research labs, but I don’t know her name. They might be transients who operate in one of the smaller bases. There’s a handful scattered throughout the country, and even bigger bases on other continents. Alleva was visiting the one in South America.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, curious about the politics and systems of power operating throughout the world with various guilds, but a sudden, strong blast of air flattened the grass around them. Looking up, I saw a large plane descending, and noticed for the first time a long, paved runway a few hundred feet away from the crowd gathered in the field. Was this one of the planes that was used for missions?

  We waited silently, tension pulsing around us, while the plane descended. My breathing was coming out steady and slow, which was odd considering my heart was hammering against my ribcage with excitement. The side door opened and I watched as a lean, hourglass figure came running down the steps, waving her hands towards Cyrus’s group.

  Declan.

  My spirits lifted at the sight of her, happy to see that Six was back. But that excitement disappeared almost as soon as it arrived. Her bright eyes were like small flashing orbs in the distance, and I could tell from the strain in her stance that something was wrong.

  Declan was always more serious and reserved than most of the protectors and students I’d encountered here, but something about the energy unfolding around her seemed so much more so now.

  Suddenly, an unexplainable need to see the other members of the team went through me in deep waves. What had happened out there?

  My hands gripped tightly into rough bark, and I watched as Atlas, Declan, and Eli carried a stretcher down the stairs. Their steps were hurried and determined. Even from this far away, I could practically feel the fear coursing through them all. A realization alone that nearly destroyed me. They weren’t a fearful group.

  “Can you see who that is?” Ro asked, his neck craning slightly as he swept a few stray strands of hair from his eyes. Izzy pulled him back. He’d stepped over the tree line and if any of the group looked our way, he would be visible.

  “No,” she said, “but stay hidden. This looks bad and we really shouldn’t be here. Punishment at The Guild can be quite...intense. Everyone has a place, and this is not ours. And insubordination can be dealt with ruthlessly.”

  Her typical upbeat demeanor disappeared almost instantly, and I watched as an intelligent focus washed over her. She was in protector mode and I knew immediately that she would be a force to be reckoned with on missions. Not for the first time, I wished desperately to be on her team when we graduated. She ducked low, her head tilted in focus—it was like her mind was running a mile a minute, studying every detail in the group.

  “This is bad,” she whispered with a small, indiscernible shake of her head. “Sharla mentioned earlier that they were due to check in hours ago but didn’t. Something went really, really wrong. Atlas’s group is known for finishing tasks on time, early even. They either broke protocol or encountered more trouble than they were expecting.”

  Scanning the crowd, I waited for one more familiar body, but after the pilot descended, radio in hand, I realized no one else was leaving the plane.

  “It’s Wade,” I whispered, my heart dropping into my stomach. Something drew me towards the group, a desperate need to make sure that Wade was okay, and I had to physically ground my body to keep from running out there to check on him.

  We watched as they rushed
Wade through the open doors of the truck, Declan and Eli hopping in to join him. Atlas stayed back, though I watched as his steady eyes followed his team until the vehicle was almost completely out of sight. He was huddled in deep conversation with Cyrus and the other protectors, a thick tension encasing them all.

  My focus was caught between the disappearing truck and worry for Wade, and a deep desire to hear what Atlas was telling them. I wanted desperately to know what had happened on their mission, and I wanted desperately to know that Wade was okay. It took a lot to kill or even seriously injure a protector, and something about the heaviness rolling through the group told me that Wade was in trouble. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill scratch. Unlike Ro’s mission with Ten, It was clear that Atlas and his team definitely encountered whichever supernatural beast they were hunting.

  Cyrus and Seamus led the group towards the opening of the woods, a few dozen feet away from our hiding spot. We fell back deeper into the shadows of the trees, the three of us collectively holding our breath. Atlas trailed behind, his shoulders stiff and angular. Wade was his brother. Why wasn’t he the one in the truck with him? If it were the same situation and Ro was the injured one, not even Cyrus could keep me from his bedside. But the Atlas standing bathed in the moonlight seemed different from the one I was used to, broken somehow, like a shadow of his usual self.

  As soon as the thought filtered through my mind, Atlas’s dark eyes met mine, the fear settling on his face turning to anger.

  “Shit,” Izzy muttered, her eyes widening with fear.

  We were busted.

  Chapter Three

  Max