A Demon's Dark Embrace: An Elite Guards Novel (29 page)

“I’m never going to learn if you keep undoing my mistakes,” she complained with her hands on her hips. She winked at Ristan and moved closer to Ryder, her king. “On to bigger problems, there’s a Guild Elder who has Olivia and we need to figure out what he’s doing here and what he really wants.”

“Then let’s be smart about it, and make a plan,” Ryder said as he pulled Synthia closer to him and gave his brother a reassuring look. “Let’s go Witch hunting, brother.”

Chapter Forty-One

Olivia was forced at knifepoint into a waiting van, and something was pressed against her face. The sickly-sweet scent made bile rush to the back of her throat, and blackness seemed to swallow her whole.

When she awoke, it was because rough hands carried her into a darkened cathedral, and she was placed on a cold mosaic floor. She feigned sleep, listening to Cyrus as he gave instructions in a language she’d never heard before. The men with him left to do as he’d bid them, or at least she assumed they did, since her eyes remained closed.

“You should have listened to me when I told you he was a monster,” Cyrus sneered and kicked Olivia in her abdomen, forcing her to give up the façade that she was still drugged.

She cried out as the pain assaulted her, and then he kneeled beside her and turned her face towards himself in a punishing grip.

“Stupid whore; I should have allowed them to kill you with the other worthless fucks in the Guild. Lucky for me you didn’t die in the chaos,” Cyrus said with his eyes drilling holes into her.

She felt nausea swirling in her stomach, and an anger churning through her that wanted justice for all of the innocent blood he’d spilled.

“You didn’t have to kill them,” she whispered through his hold on her chin.

“Oh, but I did. You see, new Elders will soon replace those who follow the old rules and one by one, each Guild will be replaced with a new world order. Instead of protecting the Humans from the Fae, we will eradicate the Fae, and the Humans will buy anything we tell them. Simpleminded fucks, all of them. Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he warned. “You know, the Guild actually thought it could make a difference and the truth is, they never have. They thought to police the Fae, but they’re weak. We all have Fae in our genetics, but some of us have more magic than others. Witches and Warlocks are just watered down bloodlines. They are created from a stupid Human whore fucking one of the monsters and the spawn of that union reproduces again and again.  Nothing like we have in our lines. We are stronger, faster, and more powerful than those of the Guild.”

“You’re making no sense,” Olivia gritted out. “We have done nothing to you!”

She knew now just how bad this monster was because there wasn’t just hatred in his eyes, there was madness. He smiled coldly, his mouth twisting coldly; the resulting smirk was full of hatred.

“You have no idea what I am, and neither did the Guild. They don’t know just how far embedded we are into their ranks. Harold, the Elder who runs the Seattle Guild, he’s just like me, Olivia. We started with the New Orleans Guild last fall; it was so fucking easy to take it from within. How do you think I knew your lover couldn’t have been from there? Because I was down there for business at the beginning of November, and by December, all of the Elders of New Orleans were dead or under our control. One month is all it took to change the leadership of an entire Guild, and the others will fall in line just as easily.”

Olivia quickly calculated the timing and grasped his meaning; for at least two weeks, Cyrus had known for sure that the requests from New Orleans Guild were false. No wonder he had been so meticulous in his monitoring of ‘Justin’s’ activities towards the end.

“Why are you telling me this?” she whispered, buying time. She knew the answer. He didn’t plan to let her live long enough to tell another living soul that all of the Guilds were in danger of being compromised.

“Do you have any idea just what kind of monster might already be brewing here?” he asked as he finally released his hold on her chin and moved his hand to her abdomen. “Did you even fight him? Or did you just spread these legs and welcome the beast between them?” his hand moved to her pussy and she froze.

“You don’t want a Demon’s leftovers, do you?” she taunted, chancing that it might send him over the edge, but she figured it was better to be dead than to let someone like him touch her.

“Bitch,” he said as his mouth curled with hatred. “Did you know the Guild breeds librarians specifically based off their parent’s gene signature? All of the others in your field had been matched by the Guild, except yours. Of course, your mother held the right genes, but your father, no one knew who he was. Like mother, like daughter? Was she as much of a whore as you?” he asked.

“My mother died giving birth, but you already know that,” she replied as she glared at him.

“Are you sure about that? The Guild has strict laws in place for the ones who don’t follow the rules. You wouldn’t be the first child to come from an emergency surgery due to the mother passing her expiration date.”

“What the hell does that mean?” she asked.

“They kill their own people more often than any of you thought. In fact, young Adam was supposed to die on the mission to the Dark Tower because no one knew who his parents were and the Guild doesn’t chance unknowns. Synthia was kept close after the Fae attacked her parents, or who we thought were her parents. They kept their little secret well, but then their station within the Guild allowed them to do so. You were kept close, in case anything evolved from the man who donated to your DNA. How many of your friends went missing while you were kept in that library?” he asked as he stood back up, towering over her.

“Only a few,” she whispered, but they had been sent to other Guilds, right? It wasn’t strange for people to be shuffled around to other active Guilds. “The Enforcers who left for Seattle?” she whispered the question.

“That was me. I sent them to their deaths. Couldn’t have them mucking up my glorious win when I took down the Spokane Guild ahead of schedule. Alden was growing suspicious and the Spokane Guild took a lot longer to infiltrate because of the old bastard. Years—it took us years to break into the ranks and become what was needed to earn the trust and respect of everyone there.”

Olivia was about to curse when one of the men returned. “We found it,” the man announced, his eyes moving to where Olivia was on the floor. “We still need her?” he asked, his own eyes morphing from green to blue and back again.
Mages.

“Unless you got another Witch in this place, her blood is the only thing will open the doors.”

“Get up,” the second man said as he reached down roughly and pulled her up to her feet. “Try anything and I’ll slit your fucking throat,” he warned, waving a black folding knife at her that looked like one of the Benchmade Bedlam knives that the Guild issued to Enforcers.

“Jeffery, we need her alive. The blood of a dead Witch won’t open the doors to the catacombs.”

She knew it!

There were catacombs beneath the cathedral!

She cried out in alarm as Cyrus pulled her to her feet by her hair. Tears burned in her eyes from the pain as she forced herself to move. Her mind was numbed against the blade Cyrus once again held against her flesh, and her feet moved automatically, as if autopilot had taken over. She was being used once again, this time, though, she’d be damned if she gave them what they wanted.

Last time she hadn’t been the only one who had suffered for their actions; these sick, twisted assholes had escaped any sort of prosecution because no one knew they were responsible. She’d been taken prisoner. They hadn’t suffered at all. She’d been accused of the treachery that these men had been guilty of. They had lied to her, used her, and innocent people had suffered for it.

Marie used to say that life was funny in the way that the guilty often never were accused of their crimes and oftentimes ended up being the winner of whatever game they’d played. That sometimes you have to turn the odds to your favor, play the same game as the enemy, and make yourself the winner of their game.

“The catacombs are real, then?” she asked, her mind processing what she could do to change the odds to her favor without her ending up skewered at the end of the knife Cyrus held to her back.

“They are,” he said roughly as they started down a set of stairs that led to the lower level of the cathedral. “The first of our kind helped build this cathedral. They kept the catacombs a secret, even though it took a large effort on their part. Imagine building this back then, and all of the work they would have had to do to make sure it remained hidden. The catacombs are so vast that it’s believed they also run through to the college,” he explained, and for a brief moment, Olivia knew why she’d so easily believed him.

She’d trusted this man because he’d been with the Guild since before she had been born. People who helped raise you weren’t supposed to turn on you. Life wasn’t supposed to be that cruel. It wasn’t supposed to turn your mentors into your enemies, and have them dragging your ass down an eerie set of steps by knifepoint; it just wasn’t.

“Why did you turn on us?” she chanced the question.

“I was never with you to begin with,” he answered harshly. “I was born here in this world. My mother was a whore, much like you have become. She thought she could make one of the Fae love her, but he didn’t care for her in the end. She even told him about me, and he beat her until she bled out; luckily, the Guild found her as she lay dying and cut me out of her corpse. So you see you and me have similar situations. Both of our mothers were worthless whores, but where I went along the right path and joined with the Mages, you took the path of our mothers. Did you even fight him?” he repeated coldly, “or did you just spread those legs and invite the enemy in with welcoming eagerness?”

“You left me to die, and yes, I did fight. Right up until I learned that he wasn’t the enemy—you are. You killed hundreds of innocent people. You didn’t have to do it; we trusted you. We were on the same side!” she said, her eyes moving over the stone walls as she processed the rooms they walked through.

“I was never on their side, not even as a child. I wanted them to all suffer because they were weak!” he said cruelly. “They could have killed so many of them, but instead they only sought to punish them. The deaths in Spokane were necessary for the greater good. We needed public goodwill so the Humans will support us when we eradicate the Fae. They are monsters! They are nothing more than heartless beings that feed off of humanity. They deserve to be slaughtered and you know it! The Mages have iron mines, and soon they will move the iron into Faery to weaken her even more, and then the war will start. I will not be on the losing side, ever, so shut up and move,” he growled as he pushed her hard enough to make her lose her footing and fall to the cold ground.

Once again he used her hair to pull her up, but at least they were done with the stairs. They stood in front of a wall that had been built with stones. She was so busy looking at it that she didn’t see the attack until it was too late. He released her hair and reached for her hand, using the other one to slice through the palm of her hand with a combat knife. The knife was ridiculously sharp as it left a deep gash across her palm, and blood spattered on the floor. She yelped and fought his hold as he gripped her wrist painfully and pushed it against the wall, smearing her blood over the stones in the process.

“You asshole!” she sobbed as pain shot up her arm as her palm was pressed against the stone wall again. Another of the men punched her in the side of the head, causing her to see blackness, but it was short-lived as the room started to tremble, and the wall began to crumble, revealing a wooden door.

“We did it,” Cyrus said, ignoring the hand he still held that was dripping blood profusely. He eventually dropped it as glowing words appeared on the door. “What does it say?” he demanded as she brought her hand up and cradled it protectively to her chest.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” she lied.

“Stupid bitch, what does it say?” he muttered as he reached for her hand and pushed on her wound viciously with his thumb.

“Ahh! It says only those true of heart can open the passageway!”

“Open it now, Grant,” he said to one of the men.

Olivia stepped back, or tried to. Jeffery held her captive as Grant placed his hand on the door and tried to force to open. He turned after a moment to say something, but his scream was the only thing that came out.

His body jerked in pain and he fell to the floor as his skin turned red as if he was being burned alive. The smell was horrific, and his eyes met and held hers as the whites turned blood red, and smoke escaped from his nose and mouth as he burned from the inside.

“Open it!” Cyrus snarled as he gripped Olivia, ignoring the man who was dying a horrifying death at their feet, and shoved her hard against the door.

Her heart raced painfully as she did as she was told, and the moment her fingers touched the ancient wood, it glowed and she felt calmness from within. She heard a bolt on the other side groan and slide and was able to push the door open. Cyrus shoved her haphazardly out of the way, into the room beyond the doorway.

The wood stopped glowing, but it didn’t matter because the walls inside the room glowed with the writing of the Guild or whoever had created this place. It didn’t look like any Guild she’d ever heard of or seen depicted. Skeletal remains littered the floor against the walls, as if the inhabitants had rested against it, and just died.

“It’s true, the believers died after sealing the secrets inside!” Cyrus said, answering her unasked question. “Do you have any idea what this place is?” he asked excitedly.

“No, but I’m sure you plan to tell me,” Olivia answered as she looked back to the man who remained on the floor still screaming for mercy.

The vast room they now stood in had numerous passageways that led to places unknown; each one had golden writing that glowed above it. Cyrus had been right; one was marked with a painted Gaelic symbol for the Holy Trinity, which she figured was the tunnel that would eventually lead to the college, as Trinity College was built over the former Priory of All Hallows.

She felt at odds, as if by opening that door, something bad had happened. Something worse than letting this monster inside this secret place; her stomach coiled with unease. Her palm burned from being cut with the blade, and her body thrummed with power that wasn’t hers.

Books lined shelves, along with skulls that had been painted in spelled ink. A few even glowed with the same mysterious words and ink that lined the walls. Water sounded in the distance, probably from where the builders had rerouted it away to form the catacombs.

The smell of the room was nothing compared to the man who was burning from the inside out; it stank of rot, dust, and mold. Piles of ancient scrolls lay abandoned beside those who had died inside the room, but she didn’t have time to examine them.

“Which one leads to the Fae relic?” Cyrus asked coldly, his eyes filling with greed as he turned to her.

“That one,” she said, pointing at the passageway that had a painted depiction of what the ancient texts had shown as the symbol for the Fae in the early days. It was a rough painting of an incredible beast that had extended wings, and looked as if it had been depicted by cavemen.