Guardian Of Fate (Fate Series) (25 page)

CHAPTER ONE

I am running through the familiar woods, fear pulsating through my veins. My eyes dart back and forth, scanning my surroundings, frantically searching for something in the dense foliage. My arms bleeding, I swipe at branches that feel as if they are made of pointed nails, but I forge on, slicing my bare skin. I will not stop until I find what I am looking for.

Finally, my fingers brush against cement beneath a feathery wave of vines that emerge from the mossy grass under my feet and extend beyond my sight. A pungent smell hits my nose, its smoky nature competing with the woodsy smell of the forest around me to overpower my senses. My heartbeat racing, my breaths cause short, quick plumes of transparent smoke to form. The tough vine stalks prove more tenacious than they appear, as I struggle to pull them from the concrete behind, using all of my weight to bend and yank them away. After trampling the remaining pillared guardians, I step back to behold a huge mountain of stone, which to most might be confused with one of nature’s natural formations, but to me, it is much more than that. I recognize the solid wall as the barrier that blocks the world we live in from the evil that lies below the surface of human cruelty and error. This evil has a home — one that is hidden deep inside the very forest I have been running through for years.

It is what I was looking for all along, but now that I’ve finally found it, my instincts conflict with my will to stay. Half of me wants to run from the mass I see before me, while the other half feels that I belong somewhere beyond this wall. I place my hands against the cool stone, lightly rubbing its rugged surface, as if coaxing it into telling me how to enter its depths.

I close my eyes slowly, imagining what I think Hell would look like. A ball of fire manifests in my heart, stretching, radiating heat throughout the rest of my body, until I feel like the flames will consume my skin. I know I have changed inside, I can feel myself hardening. But as I open my eyes, the only thing that appears to have changed is my impression of where I was going — home.

With pure force and determination, I pound on the stone wall. Slowly, it slides aside, accepting me, waiting for me to return to its fiery halls.

Hell welcomes me home.

***

I woke up the same way as I always did upon having this dream: T-shirt drenched with sweat and stuck to my skin, while unruly, damp curls plastered my shoulders and face. Throwing the damp sheets from the bed, I got up and mopped the sweat from my forehead. Despite the perspiration that glistened on my skin, my body trembled from chills that would stay with me for the remainder of the day. To most people, this type of dream would be unnerving, to say the least. But they would be fortunate enough to allow it to fade like the morning sun, with the comfort of knowing it existed purely on another level of consciousness. I didn’t have that luxury. My dreams were never allowed to be forgotten. They were analyzed and deciphered because in time, they would become my reality.

Two kinds of dreams control my world. My Guardian visions consist of prophetic dreams, involving the death of a human whose soul is stolen by the shadowy demons from Hell. As a Guardian of Fate, it is my job to take the information from these visions and use it to save victims from untimely and evil-induced deaths. Without my intervention, their souls would be destined to an eternity in Hell. I have learned to live with these kinds of visions. They are very much a part of my life, what I consider now my responsibility.

There are other dreams that haunt my sleep. Although just as deadly as the Guardian visions, they are much more obscure to me and nearly impossible to comprehend. Just when the puzzle begins to unfold, they change, leaving me as confused ever.

I headed straight to the bathroom, and shut the door to avoid waking my roommate, Nora. She was well aware of my visions, but since it was two a.m., I did not really think it was a good time to bother her with my newest puzzle. Letting the water run cold enough to make me gasp, I splashed it onto my face. Its iciness chilled my body even more, shocking my system from its fuzzy musings. After wiping my face with a towel, I looked at my paled features in the mirror. The luster in my skin was no longer there, as if it had all washed out from everything I’d lost in the last year. The deep furrows weren’t etched from an abundance of smiles, but rather, a hardened air I’d recently developed in my determination to get everything back.

Silently, I asked my reflection what this latest dream might be telling me. For the past few months, I was making plans to go to the very place my subconscious carried me. Did it mean I was on the right track? Or were my actions of late now dictating my subconscious? For years, I’d only dreamt of Hunter, and then one day he appeared in my life. But even that felt like a dream to me now.

“Stop it!” I screamed at the mirror. “Get over him… it… and move on.” Throwing the towel into the sink, I yanked open the door and walked face-first into a chin.

“Owww… Damn it!” I cried, backing up into the bathroom. “Caleb, what the hell are you doing lurking outside the bathroom door?”

“I wasn’t lurking,” he said rubbing his chin. “I heard you get up and go into the bathroom, and then I heard you yelling.” Concern came over his face. “Who were you yelling at, Cassie?”

Holding my forehead, which took the brunt of the impact, I looked at it in the mirror. I didn’t really care whether a bruise formed or not, the bathroom just seemed a little too small at the moment. I was looking for something to make me feel less claustrophobic.

Caleb came closer. I kept my composure in front of the sink, despite wanting to jump out of my skin and hightail it out of there. He was the only one that could help me with my plan, so I needed to keep him around. But when he raised his hand toward my face, I instantly flashed back to his rough touch months ago, and flinched away from his fingers. He held my gaze, but withdrew his hand. The look in his eyes told me he understood, although I didn’t miss the sadness and regret that accompanied it.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly as he turned to leave the bathroom. “That’s not me anymore. When are you going to realize that?”

“Look, it’s going to take me a while, Caleb,” I said, pleading my case. “I mean, it wasn’t that long ago you were trying to take my soul to Hell and make me your love slav—,” I had to slap my hand over my mouth. I didn’t mean for the harsh words to slip out. I realized now how everything that happened those months ago was because
he
was someone different. No longer a demon, and most likely changed by my own blood, which now ran through his veins, he was a Guardian once again.

He swung around, stopping me mid-stride in the middle of the hallway. Leaning close, he grabbed my upper arm and whispered, “
My
soul status has changed, Cassie.
You’re
the only demon here, but I’ve decided to overlook that. Maybe you can try and overlook what I
used
to be. And, by the way, I’m still working toward making you my love slave.” 

His green eyes, recently changed from their “demon blue” stared at me while he waited for me to say…
What?
That I’d consent to become his love slave? No freaking way.

I pulled away from his grasp as I moved past him and out of the hallway. Nora’s room was too close. I was afraid our banter would wake her before I had the chance to map out my plan to Caleb. He followed me into the kitchen. As I got a glass from the cupboard, I said, “Look, if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have allowed you to stay here while we figure all of this out. It’s just hard for me to see you as a Guardian after everything we experienced. But I’m getting better.” I moved to fill my glass with water and purposely brushed against him near the sink. It was a feeble attempt to show him I could still stand to be close to him. “And for the record, I don’t like what I am anymore than you can endure thinking about what you used to be, so maybe in the future you could spare me the reminder.”

“Deal,” he said, leaning against the counter. “So, now that we’ve established once again who we are, will you tell me what you were doing yelling at yourself in the bathroom at two in the morning?”

Holding the glass in my hand, I leaned against the breakfast bar, blankly staring. I shook it just enough that the water swirled around inside. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to tell him. This man, who deceived me once before, hooking me with his good looks, kindness, and charm. He was a Seeker then, whose sole purpose was to turn me into one of Hell’s newest residents. As the last descendent of a high-ranking angel, I was a pretty hot commodity to the Underworld, so Caleb stood to climb substantially in the ranks if he claimed the turn. He was the epitome of evil, using my friends and family as bait to lure me into his trap. And he would have succeeded if I hadn’t been half-demon already, another fact I’d only recently learned, along with my angel ancestry.

Thankfully, Caleb had since transformed back into a Guardian. He believed it was from tasting my blood the last time we fought. Could it be possible that my blood, being half angel, was strong enough to transform the demons from Hell? Could their lost souls be redeemed by what flowed through my veins?
With no proof he was right, I nevertheless desperately wanted to believe it because my plan depended on it. There was a chance, however, this was all some trumped-up scheme to lure me into Hell, and very possible that Caleb was performing his greatest role. For now, I’d have to just take the chance.

“I had a vision.”

“A Guardian vision?” He looked confused. “Why are you still here?”

“It wasn’t that kind of vision. This one was about me, specifically, me looking for Hell. I’ve had these dreams for the last few months and they’re driving me crazy. Lately, when I wake up, I feel like I’m running out of time.” I set my glass on the counter and got up close to him, determination in my eyes, as well as my tone. “I have to go to Hell, Caleb. Soon. You have to tell me how to get in, so I can get my dad.”

“Have you had dreams like this before? About you? About Hell?”

“No… well, not about Hell directly, but I dreamt about Hunter…” It was hard for me to think about him, even after so many months. I saw Caleb’s face fall after hearing his name. I knew it pained him to hear it almost as much as it did me to say it, only for a different reason. “I dreamt about him, and eventually you, before you came after me.”

He looked thoughtful for a minute, then his face turned angry. “If you knew what would happen, why did you sleep with him?”

Hunter was another Seeker assigned to steal my soul. Although his mission failed, he did manage to claim my heart. I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but I fell in love with him, and I think he fell in love with me as well. At least, that’s what he told me when our hearts bonded, along with our bodies. In the end, however, he betrayed me by not telling me that my father was still alive and being tortured in Hell. After becoming intimate with me, he allowed me to continue to believe that my father was a Guardian, when he was, and always had been a Seeker. My own mother, another Guardian, didn’t even know. We discovered that fact together before Hunter was returned to Hell by the king of the Underworld. He was sentenced to an eternity of torture for abandoning his mission to turn me, not to mention sleeping with me, which was treason in the highest order to them.  Ironically, he and my father held the same fate.

I didn’t want to think about what happened to Hunter, it was too painful. Not because I regretted it, but because my feelings for him were still so strong. I wanted to hate him for deceiving me; God knows I did when I first found out; but for the last few months, it wasn’t his lies that haunted my thoughts. It was the way he risked everything for me, the way he rebelled against everything he was to ensure that I kept my soul — regardless of its purity. Although I’ll never be able to forget his deceit, I have learned to accept it. There was no rulebook for our love, especially for those who weren’t supposed to ever experience it. Now it was too late for me to tell him I understood everything, and the only way I could bear the painful knowledge that he was being tortured, was to keep my mind on my own mission.

I lifted my chin and looked into Caleb’s accusing eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but these visions don’t work like that. I
didn’t
know Hunter was a demon, just like I didn’t know
you
were when we first met. The dreams are cryptic, and they never spelled out that you both would turn out to be liars.”

“The difference being that you chose to be with him instead of me.”

“No, Caleb. The difference being that Hunter tried to save me from Hell, while you did everything in your power to drag me there,” I argued through gritted teeth.

Standing opposite each other in the kitchen, caught in our silent standoff, we glared at each other for our own reasons, both knowing nothing more needed to be said. We had become so used to preying on each other’s weaknesses, knowing exactly how to hurt one another, the accusations now flew easily. It would take more than the few months we’d already spent together to completely ignore the fact that we were originally trying to kill each other. At least for me.

“Yeah, well, he’s still in Hell,” Caleb said. He closed the space between us and braced his hands on the counter behind me, jailing me between them, adding, “But I’m here.”

All I could do was watch as his face came down, stopping inches from mine. The Seekers were familiar with the use of seduction to lure the Guardians in. The power of attraction they held was undeniable and extremely hard to resist. Caleb still retained the beauty and charm that molded him into the sensuous weapon that originally attracted me to him. And during the last few months, he hadn’t shown even an ounce of his previously evil self. But it wasn’t any of Caleb’s qualities that now attracted me, it was the position we were in that caused me to slowly close my eyes, and savor the body heat radiating from him. Behind closed lids, I pictured a time when Hunter and I were in the same position. I could feel his fingertips brush my face, trailing down my neck. My pulse quickened as I felt his breath against my skin.