Grave Consequences (Hellgate Guardians Book 2) Read online

  Grave Consequences

  Ivy Asher

  Raven Kennedy

  Copyright © 2020 Ivy Asher and Raven Kennedy

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author, except in cases of a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Polished Perfection

  Cover by Sanja Balan of Sanja’s Covers

  Chapter Headings by Eerilyfair Design

  To that one chick we both blocked but forgot why. We still stand by our decision.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Hellgate Guardian Series

  Also by Ivy Asher & Raven Kennedy

  Also by Ivy Asher

  Also by Raven Kennedy

  Ivy Asher

  Raven Kennedy

  1

  A whimper escapes my lips and consciousness rubs against me like a purring cat. I try to bat it away. Fucking needy pussy. I already have one of those, I don’t need another. I try to fall back into the decadent darkness, but awareness butts up against me, refusing to be ignored. Which sucks because everything hurts and I have no idea what’s going on.

  Grumpily accepting that oblivion is now out of reach, I slowly blink open my eyes. Did I forget to close my curtains? I squint against the bright white light surrounding me and let out a groan. Damn, did the sun go supernova or something? It’s bright as hell today.

  I try to push up from my bed, only to quickly realize that the hard surface I’m lying on is not the semi-comfortable mattress I’m used to. Shit, did I hook up with someone last night? My brain is foggy, and my body is sore. Not the just had amazing sex kind of sore that would make sense given my unfamiliar and bright surroundings, but more akin to just survived a beating kind of sore.

  I groan as I get up from the pure white surface underneath me and look around to figure out where I am. My eyes keep stinging from the overwhelming radiance in the room, and I have to swipe at them to get the tears away. There’s nothing but bright white and nothingness as far as the eye can see, and unease fizzes in my stomach like carbonation in a fresh beer.

  Where the hell am I?

  The question bounces around my perplexed mind like it’s looking for a soft place to land. But instead of breaking things to me gently, the answers come pouring into me like boiling water, painfully scorching my insides all at once.

  Jerif.

  His name punches me mercilessly in the face, and then I take another hit and another as my thoughts recall Echo, Crux, and Iceman.

  Anguish roosts in my chest, and a pained sob crawls out of my shocked mouth. I lost them. One minute they were there, and then the next, Hell exploded around me, swarming with demons, and then I...I...

  I look around frantically, trying to understand what’s going on. I fell through the Nihil gate...didn’t I?

  My sterile whitewashed surroundings aren’t helping me make sense of anything. Did I die? Did I think I was falling through the portal into the Center Ring of Hell, when really, I was just dying? Maybe this is what happens when you try to go into Nihil when you don’t belong. You just become nothing?

  Another sob wants to break away from my throat as I try to straighten up on shaky legs. I turn in a circle, but only whiteness surrounds me with no end.

  Can a demon go to Heaven? Is this some in-between place that no one thought to tell me about?

  “Jerif?” I call out, the fear-laced yell racing away from me and quickly getting lost in the nothingness all around.

  “Iceman?” I try instead, but I’m met with only silence.

  If they died, wouldn’t they be in this in-between place too? My voice takes on a shrill, desperate note.

  “Crux...Echo!”

  Nothing.

  Tears drip down my cheeks as everything once again grows quiet around me. I’m alone. I don’t even bother to wipe the watery tracks from my face. Iceman said they’d have my back...always. But they aren’t here. They slipped right through my fingers, and it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been such a coward, if I had figured things out sooner, I might not be here. This is the consequence for my inaction. For my unwillingness to step up to the plate.

  The memories of the last time I saw each of them, fighting for their lives against hundreds of demons at once, makes my entire body shake with sorrow-sodden anguish. I feel damp with it, all the way down to my marrow. Like I was caught in a terrible rainstorm, my body soaking wet and trembling, unable to escape the onslaught.

  My knees give out as I’m pelted with emotion, and I look around one last time before letting my body slump down onto the cool milky floor. Tears drip from my cheeks and pool on the smooth ground, and I know without a shadow of doubt that I’m not in Heaven. This has to be Hell, and I’m being punished. Why else would I remember all these terrible things? Isn’t there supposed to be no pain in Heaven?

  I don’t know how long I lie there and let desolation leak out of me onto the pristine floor. I curl up into a pathetic ball and mourn the loss of what I could have had if I had just pulled my head out of my ass sooner.

  Those four demons...they meant something to me. More than friendship. In such a short time, they somehow became cornerstones to my life. I feel their loss in every pore, crack, and crevice of my body.

  I lie here, cursing fate for being so cruel and bringing me so low. I don’t know why the world hates me so much. It constantly takes every good thing from me, and I wish I knew what I did to deserve it. I wish I knew what I could do to make it stop.

  I stare numbly at the tiny puddle of tears I’ve left on the ground, tapping it with my fingertip. I haven’t felt this gutted since the night I got the news of my parents being killed. I never wanted to feel that again, and yet, here I am. Grief is acting as my gravity, holding me right down on the ground.

  It takes me a minute to recognize that the sound filling my ears isn’t the rhythmic beating of my own battered heart, but rather, distant footsteps. I lift my head slowly to try to track where they’re coming from, and spot a small figure in the distance. They’re moving hurriedly through the chalky nothingness, as if they came from some secret door and have to traverse this endless space to get to another. The figure’s steps have purpose, and for some reason, that gives me hope.

  “Hey!” I call out as I push up from the ground.

  The figure jumps and releases a startled shout.

  “Can you help me?” I ask, squinting as I try to make out what they look like as they balk
and stop in their tracks.

  I stand all the way up and then awkwardly wave like I’m in a crowded room and I’m trying to help them identify that I’m the body attached to the voice that just scared the shit out of them. Being that I’m the only thing in this place, it’s easy for their shrouded attention to land right on me.

  I pause and wait for them to respond, but instead, the figure turns and sprints away like their life depends on it, disappearing into nothingness.

  Panic rises up in my throat.

  “Hey!” I shout after them. “Come back!” I plead, hopelessness once again resuming its stranglehold on me. “Please!” I try, my voice frail and wounded. I don’t want to be alone, stuck in this place forever.

  When the figure doesn’t come back, frustration bleeds into my sorrow, and the combination makes me heady with anger.

  “Fuck you then!” I yell at nothing, pissed that after everything I’ve been through, this is what I get.

  I look around, the need to rage taking hold of me, but there’s nothing to break or throw. I bend down and wedge off my shoe. I throw it as far as I can, on a grunt-scream that oddly makes me feel better. I pull off the other one next and chuck that too. It lands with a hollow thump, but instead of feeling satisfaction, it just reminds me of my hollow heart.

  Heaving out a sigh, I feel like a weight of regrets has settled on my shoulders. But then that weight at my back isn’t just emotional. It’s physical too. It feels like I’m wearing a backpack.

  With a frown, I turn to look over my shoulder, but I spot my scythe about ten feet away and rush to get it, the weight forgotten. I scramble for the Hell weapon like it’s my last hope. I wrap my hands around it and pick it up, but as soon as I see the ash still on it, I’m slammed again with more painful memories.

  I bring the black wood and silver metal-ringed staff to my chest and hold it like it’s precious. The faces of the Hellgate Guardians flash past my eyes. I thought I was going to spend my life connected to the four of them, but that reality was just yanked away, and an overwhelming feeling of drowning takes over.

  Iceman’s patient blue features and crown-like horns swim forward in my mind. Crux’s twinkling, mischievous green eyes and beach bum good looks fight for my attention next. I can practically feel the heat radiating off of Jerif as I recall the look on his face when the lava demon told me to run. I wish more than anything right now that I could crawl into the deep abyss of Echo’s eyes and live the rest of my life there with him in the shadows that he commands so expertly. I miss them. I want to be where they are. Anything would be better than this white nothingness all around me. I hate this.

  I hate it.

  I stare at the scythe in my hands and shake my head. Like I’m some fucked up, possessed human Uber not in my right mind, I wrap both my palms around the staff and then slam the end of it against the smooth, colorless ground. I want to smash this place into smithereens. Break it until it resembles what I feel on the inside.

  I slam the scythe down again and again, the hits reverberating up my arms and into my chest, like they’re trying to soothe me. With inky black rage bleeding into my vision, I scream like a banshee and fling the tears from my cheeks as I do my best to gouge the snowy floor under my feet.

  Bam!

  For my mom.

  Bam!

  For my dad.

  The scythe thunks loudly as it connects with the ground again, and I picture each of my demons’ faces and demand retribution. I won’t stop until this place is as cracked as my heart.

  Bam!

  “For me!” I shriek out as my arms grow heavy and my body tired from the fury I’m expelling and the abuse I’m delivering to the only thing I can punish in this place other than myself.

  “Excuse me!” The voice thunders all around me, making me jump. “Exactly what do you think you are doing to my meditation room?” the smooth arrogant voice demands.

  I whirl around, shocked, and find a breathtakingly beautiful winged man stomping toward me. I’m so stunned by his presence, that it’s like my brain just stutters to a stop, in need of rebooting. Tanned skin and a chiseled body quickly closes the distance between us. He has long flowing golden blond hair, and the massive wings behind him are the same lustrous tones of sepia-gilded feathers.

  He’s terrifyingly beautiful and clearly very pissed. His gray-wash skinny jeans hug the thick muscles in his thighs, and the white Henley he’s wearing looks damp like he just threw it on after a shower.

  “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” he demands. As he gets closer, I can see his eyes are gray with gold flecks around the pupil. If looks could kill, I’d be dust already.

  Instinctually, I tighten my hold on my scythe, and the slight movement immediately draws his attention. His aristocratic features and sharp jawline tense, and his eyes take on a wary caution as he studies me.

  “Has your tongue been cut out?” he asks haughtily. His unimpressed eyes rake over me. “You’re not a Grim,” he declares more to himself than me. “I demand to know what you’re doing in my house. Who let you in?”

  The word house forces me to look around with confusion. How is this a house? All I can see is endless white. Unless...

  “Are you...God?” My tongue nearly sticks to the roof of my mouth.

  I was expecting God to be older and less pompous, but what the hell do I know about anything?

  A wry smile sneaks across his handsome face. “No, but if you’re here to join my menagerie, be sure to scream that out when I visit you,” he tells me, one eyebrow shooting up in invitation. Did he just...proposition me for sex? I frown, studying him. His lips go a little too Zoolander to be considered attractive, in my opinion. I’m not sure who this is, but I feel like I’m suffocating on the conceit that’s wafting off his heavily muscled body.

  I mean, I guess he might scratch an itch for a certain kind of girl, but I’m not her. My brow furrows, and I take a step back like his arrogance might be contagious. This seems to puzzle the angel-guy even more.

  “Um, if you’re not God, then who are you?

  He puffs out his chest with indignation, his wings flaring out behind him. “I asked you first! This is your last chance, or I’ll have you hung by your wings and flogged at Luce’s next revelry,” he threatens, like I know what any of that means.

  Wait. Wings?

  I twist and look back over my shoulder, but all I catch is a lot of purple. “What the…” I reach over my shoulder to push my hair out of the way, but instead, my hand lands on the crest of a wing that appears to be covered in soft bright violet feathers.

  What the fuck!

  I lift my shoulders nearly to my ears, and the wings fucking move with them. I snatch my hand away like I touched something gross and snap my face forward, my eyes wide and horrified. “I have bright purple wings!” I shriek.

  “Any imp could see that.” Not-God snaps, clearly fed up with my lack of answers.

  “Get them off me!” I try to lean away from the feathered appendages that are evidently attached to my back. “Get them off me right now!” I squeal, like it’s a spider attacking me and not bird parts fused with my parts.

  “How dare you!” Not-God bellows, his face reddening as my panic climbs to an all-time high.

  The sound of flapping wings and the feel of beaks pecking at me fills my mind. I tried to throw the last of the food in my hand as far away as possible, but the peckerhead doves were too stupid to realize that I didn’t have anything for them anymore. In a matter of seconds, I was swarmed. The vile beasts were intent on ending my life one flap and nip at a time. I screamed for my mom, terrified. But by the time she cleared all the evil doves away from me, I was traumatized for life.

  Not-God yells at me, but I’m stuck in the horrible memory. I keep turning around to look at them, like I can try to find a way to get them to detach. I barely make out the fact that he yells for someone else. I’m clearly too freaked out to do anything but lose my shit over the fact that I have wings now attache
d to my back. I fucking hate birds, and now the parts I hate the most are the parts of them that are stuck to me.

  I run my fingers through my hair as anxiety pumps through me, but I scream when my hand brushes a wing again.

  “Oh, God, gross! So fucking gross! Get ’em off!” I demand again, and something in my tone sends Not-God into a panic too.

  “Get what off?” he yells at me, his golden blond wings snapping irritably behind him as he looks all over my body, like he’s expecting to find a bug crawling on my skin.

  Another panicked shriek rips out of my mouth as I watch his wings move closer to me, and it’s like I’m right back in the park, ten years old again and screaming as the flock descends on my body.

  Someone else comes running toward us, but I’m hyperventilating at this point and have to put my hands on my knees and force myself to breathe, so I’m unable to make out who’s here. My disgusting wings are heavy on my back, making me feel like I might topple over. They make their presence known like a whispered threat telling me I’m never going to get away now.

  “Is Lucifer pranking me?” Not-God asks of whoever is also in the room.

  I don’t hear what they say, because the sound of my heart in my ears is too loud. The black spots around my vision aren’t the inky rage I’m used to, but an indication that I’m not getting enough oxygen in my lungs thanks to the panic attack I’m currently suffering from.

  “They’re not there. It’s just a fuzzy backpack,” I tell myself, like it will convince my brain it’s true. “I’m just carrying stuff, that’s all. Just a backpack. A big purple one.” It’s not working.