Keras’s hand landed gently on his shoulder. “We are not doing nothing. We are doing something. Marek has been working with Caterina to get information from Guillem about possible safehouses the daemons are using.”
“One of them is close to London,” Marek put in as he looked up from a shiny new laptop. “We’re working to locate it now. Caterina believes it’s the same place they took her when she teleported Eli and Lisabeta away from the gate in Seville.”
Just the mention of the illusionist’s name had Esher snarling.
Daimon moved closer to him, offering a comforting smile when Esher scrubbed his hands over his black hair, an apologetic edge to his expression. Cal couldn’t blame Esher for still being angry with the daemon, even though his brother had killed her. The bitch had tried to make Esher her pet.
Aiko took hold of his arm and gently rubbed it through his dark grey shirt.
“Why can’t Caterina just teleport you there?” Cal frowned at Marek.
“She tried. Her powers are growing stronger, but they’re still unreliable.” Marek leaned back on the couch, weariness crossing his features and shining in his earthy eyes as he shoved fingers through his tousled dark hair, pushing the rogue waves back from his forehead. “Training them has been rough on her and she’s still having bad days, when it’s all too much for her. Plus… she only saw the place briefly. We think she needs to come to know a place before she can easily teleport there.”
Caterina had been given a cocktail of daemon blood by Eli, and promised that if she helped them bring down Marek that they would give her the cure and save her brother, who she had believed to have been turned into a vampire.
It turned out that Guillem had been a wraith all along, and Eli’s version of saving him had been completing his transition by feeding him a soul.
Caterina had also transitioned, becoming a hybrid of sorts, one with daemon blood that granted her a whole slew of abilities. Teleporting was only one of them.
The worst one was the fact that she had succubus blood in her veins now.
Which meant whenever she felt a little frisky, or thought wicked things about his brother, she secreted a pheromone that affected all males in the vicinity, even Cal and his brothers.
Cal felt sorry for her. She rarely attended the meetings, and not only because she felt embarrassed if her succubus side slipped the leash as it had at the last meeting. It had taken a few of his brothers time to accept a hybrid into their ranks, and sometimes Esher still had a difficult time with the part-daemon being in his home.
He glanced at Marinda again, deeply aware of her and the similarities between her and Caterina. Would Marinda feel better about her transition if she could speak with Caterina and spend some time with her? He could see the two becoming good friends, bonded by circumstance, and he imagined both Marinda and Caterina would enjoy being included in the true power circle within their side.
Not him nor any of his brothers could compete with the women. They were a force to be reckoned with, brought even the strongest of them to their knees with only a look.
Megan proved that as Ares fawned over her, kneeling beside her where she sat on the couch, her cheek to him as she watched TV.
Trying to get back into her good book.
Cal made a mental note to suggest a girls’ night soon. He was sure Megan would leap on the chance to lure the ladies over to her side, fortifying her defences against his brother. With an assassin, a hybrid and a furie on her side, Ares would find it hard to deny Megan whenever she wanted to heal someone, and Esher wouldn’t stand a chance against Aiko. As much as he wanted to growl about endangering the babe, Esher would crumble and relent if Aiko flashed him a sweet smile.
“What did Thanatos have to say?” Keras moved to rest his backside against the rear of the cream couch and folded his arms across his chest.
Cal filled him in on everything the big guy had told him about necromancers, and then everything he had learned about Marinda.
“A furie?” The black slashes of Keras’s eyebrows rose. “It does explain the need for vengeance.”
Ares nodded in agreement as he finally won Megan over and lured her back to the group. He settled against the back of the couch beside Keras and tucked Megan closer to him, his palms coming to rest on her baby bump. “We’ll need to look into them.”
“Already on it,” Marek said.
“What happened when you returned to London?” Keras’s green eyes turned grave. “You said you were ambushed.”
Cal touched his side.
Megan went to break free of Ares’s grip but his brother held her firm.
“I’ll heal. I swear. No need to worry about me. It’s already closed. I just lost a lot of blood… courtesy of the twelve daemons waiting inside my fucking home.” Cal’s blood still burned over that. “I didn’t feel them break in, and I should have felt it, even in the Underworld.”
“Eli,” Esher muttered and when everyone looked at him, his pitch-dark eyes narrowed on the tatami mats. “Eli knows our wards. He can make them… use them.”
“Yeah, but…” Ares trailed off, whatever he had been about to say dying on his lips as his eyebrows knitted hard above dark eyes that gained flecks of gold and red. “He’s more powerful than we thought.”
“He negated the wards.” Calistos put it out there. As much as he hated that a daemon had the same abilities as he possessed, he had to face facts. “He knew all my wards and exactly how to undo them, and then he created new ones to stop me from teleporting or portaling out, and it dampened my powers too.”
“Everyone needs to switch up their wards now. Use ones none of us have before. The strongest ones you know. Go in pairs and be on your guard.” Keras looked at the others, who all nodded, and then at Cal. “We have to treat your home as a loss. Stay here. Watch them.”
His emerald gaze slid to Cass and Marinda.
“Hong Kong?” Daimon said and Esher stepped. Daimon followed him.
“I’ll head to Rome and see what Valen is up to. He should have been here. He can help me with my wards.” Marek closed his laptop, carefully set it down on the couch cushion, and stood.
He disappeared.
Megan turned in Ares’s arms. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Ares bit out.
Megan’s face contorted in pain and she clutched her stomach. Cal’s heart lurched into his throat. Was something wrong with the baby?
She reached a shaky hand out and seized Ares’s arm, her fingers pressing into the corded muscles of his forearm.
“God, Ares, he kicks like an ox. Make him stop!” She doubled over, breathing hard.
Concern washed over Ares’s face, changing him completely. He was a different man from the hardened warrior Cal knew as he gently gathered her to him, twisted her in his arms so her back was to his front, and pressed a kiss to the top of her dark hair.
Ares slipped his hand beneath her violet flowing top, settling it on her stomach, and murmured, “Shh, settle down now, little man. Daddy’s here.”
He placed his other arm around her and rubbed his cheek against the side of her head.
Megan bit out a vicious curse.
Ares frowned and soothingly whispered, “Come on, you’re making your mother swear now. Take it down a notch.”
Megan’s features slowly relaxed and she sagged against Ares as more wild flowers sprouted and blossomed around her feet.
“That’s more like it. There’s a good boy.” Ares continued to stroke her belly. He kissed her temple. Sighed. Shut his eyes as he held her close and whispered, “I love you, baby.”
Keras looked as if he wished he were already in Paris or New York, far away from the public display of affection.
Cal found it quite sweet, and he didn’t think he was the only one. Marinda was looking their way too.
Ares glanced at Cal and then Keras. “He really does kick like a minotaur.”
Megan muttered, “We’re never having sex again. I can’t go through th
is more than once.”
Ares smiled down at her. “You say that, but I bet you’re all over me again before long.”
“What makes you think that?” She leaned to one side and gave him a black look.
He grinned. “Because I’m irresistible.”
Megan gently slapped his hand. “More like incorrigible.”
“Come on.” He eased her up and took hold of her hand. “Have a rest while I’m away. I won’t be long.”
“He doesn’t like it when you’re not near me.” Megan rubbed her stomach as she walked, heading towards the dining side of the room, to the corridor that led to the bedrooms in that wing of the house.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” Ares tossed her a worried look. “You want to sleep?”
She nodded wearily.
Ares looked back at Keras.
Keras nodded and followed them.
How many times had Keras been enlisted to send Megan into a deep sleep? It worried Cal. Megan was strong, but she was mortal. What if the baby became too much for her?
He reassured himself that it would never get that far. If things looked dangerous for her, Ares would take her to the Underworld, where she would be stronger and their mother could help her.
He grew aware of Marinda as her eyes landed on him, and he looked over his shoulder at her. She turned away again, and Cass gave him a black look, as if he had managed to do something wrong just by standing there in the middle of the room.
Or maybe she considered him breathing and being alive a black mark against him.
As much as he didn’t want to leave Marinda alone with Cass, he didn’t want Esher chewing him out about dirtying the house and he really did want that shower. He kept his senses locked on Marinda as he strode past the TV area, banked right in the corridor and went into his room. He quickly grabbed a fresh T-shirt and combats, and backtracked to the main room.
Cass issued another standard glare in his direction. He tamped down the urge to flip her off and felt Marinda’s gaze on him as he passed them, heading down the corridor Ares, Megan and Keras had disappeared down.
Instead of taking a right at the branch in the corridor, he went straight on, to the bathing area. The huge pool to his right steamed, the hot spring water inviting in the warm light that chased over the rippling surface. A nice soak while enjoying the zen garden that ran the length of the wing of the house, wedged between it and the white wall of the garden, would be bliss, but it was going to have to wait.
He wasn’t willing to risk more than a quick shower.
He dumped his fresh clothes, stripped off and stepped into the shower. The hot water stung the lacerations on his back, chest and side, but it cleared his head. It filled with Marinda, with ways of making her see that he wasn’t as Cass painted him.
Or at least he wasn’t that way anymore.
She had changed him for the better.
He shut the water off as soon as it ran clear around his feet and towelled off, careful to avoid disturbing his healing cuts and the gash in his side. Blood seeped and beaded along it. He pulled his clothes on, grabbed one of the small white squares of cloth from the pile near the spring bath, and lifted the hem of his black T-shirt. He pressed the material to the wound as he strode back towards the dining room.
Towards Marinda.
She glanced at him as he passed, concern shining in her tranquil tropical eyes. He couldn’t muster a smile as his thoughts weighed him down and Cass curled her lip at him.
He went to the couches and slumped onto the one facing the TV, doing his best not to listen in on their conversation as he pondered what he could do to narrow the distance between him and Marinda back down again.
Or abolish it entirely.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Cass murmured, followed by a sniffle that he found hard to buy because it meant there was actually a heart beneath that cold exterior of hers.
“Me neither. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.” Marinda sounded heartbroken, her voice hoarse and tearing at him, filling him with a need to go to her and somehow make her feel better. “It’s like I lost a piece of myself.”
A feeling Cal knew well.
He sank lower on the couch, staring at the blank television screen. Gods, he missed his sister. It never got easier. It only ever got worse. He hoped that the pain Marinda felt now didn’t fester as his did, that it would fade in time and she could look back fondly on her father and the times she’d had with him.
“Oh my God.” Marinda’s sharp voice had him shooting up on the seat and checking her to make sure she was all right and he grimaced as the wound on his side pulled, sending fire rushing outwards over his stomach and down his hip. “My cello. I can’t believe I forgot it.”
It dawned on him that she had left it in London.
And then something else dawned on him.
He wanted a way to obliterate the distance between them and show her that Cass was wrong about him, that he was good and he could take care of her, and that he had her best interests at heart, not his own.
He smiled victoriously at Cass.
And stepped.
Chapter 24
Marinda wasn’t sure where Cal had gone, and she wanted to know. One moment she had been aware of him looking at her, and the next that feeling had disappeared.
Leaving her cold.
She idly stroked her fingers over the dark wooden dining table that barely reached elbow height as she sat on a cushion on the floor beside it, trying to focus on what Cass was saying to her.
She had lost interest when her friend had started talking about the brothers again, painting them in a light that was a contrast to how Marinda saw them. Cass only knew rumours about them, things she had apparently researched since Marinda’s papa had witnessed a vision of Marinda with them. Cass had only ever experienced them from a distance.
To top that all off, Cass seemed intent on seeing the worst in Cal.
Marinda had figured out for herself that he was a bit of a player, and she hadn’t particularly liked his easy-going attitude when they had first met.
But then she had dug beneath the surface to find a man struggling with his past and to prove himself to his family. A man who believed himself guilty of things that had been beyond his control.
A man who cared deeply about those who were close to him.
Who cared deeply about her.
She had only realised that in the last day.
And today, she had realised the depth of her own feelings.
They were strong, like nothing she had ever felt before.
And now it felt as if he was pulling away from her, and she didn’t like it.
“I suppose if Eric saw you with these so-called gods, I will have to accept their help in protecting you.” Cass didn’t sound at all happy about that.
Cass always had been overly protective of her, more like a big sister or a mother than a friend.
Cass lifted her hand and brushed the hair from Marinda’s forehead, a tender look in her pale blue eyes. “You look like your mother, you know?”
Marinda nodded. She couldn’t count the number of hours she had spent leafing through the photo albums her father had kept, staring at pictures of her mother.
“Apparently I’m just like her too.” She idly traced a circle on the polished top of the dining table, her gaze tracking her index finger. “What was she like? What things could she do? Was she…”
She trailed off as that question lodged in her throat and frowned, fear of what she was becoming rekindling in her veins.
Cass lowered her hand to her cheek and smoothed her palm across it. “Mari, sweetie, don’t be afraid of yourself. You’re powerful, and that power needs training, but you’re still you. Still the sweet, kind-hearted, ridiculously studious girl I watched grow up.”
Marinda smiled at that.
“I only knew your mother a short time, and she never really displayed any of her powers.”
Marinda didn’t m
iss the guarded edge to Cass’s eyes when she lifted hers from the table. Was Cass afraid of scaring her further by telling her what she did know, or was she telling the truth? Marinda reasoned that her mother had been pregnant with her and in hiding. She probably hadn’t felt any burning need for revenge, to dispense justice, in that time.
“Eric was protective of her and she didn’t speak much about herself… what she was… if at all. Eric preferred she kept her secrets. He feared someone discovering her before you were born.” Cass’s voice gained a solemn edge, one that made Marinda feel she was telling the truth.
She knew her father. He would have done all in his power to keep her mother, and her, safe. He had done all in his power.
“She was strong though. Ridiculously strong.” Cass smiled fondly. “I remember her lifting Eric as if he weighed nothing more than a feather. He always scowled whenever she did it, which only made her laugh.”
Laugh.
A sound Marinda would never know.
She cast her gaze down at her lap.
“You laugh like her too. Eric’s eyes used to light up whenever you ran around his legs, laughing like a mad little thing.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes and her nose again. “I miss him so damned much. I wished he’d told me… About me. About what I am. About him and my mother. About the fact he wasn’t my biological father.”
Cass shook her head. “I know you’re hurting, Mari, but he only wanted to protect you. He had sworn to tell you the moment he felt you were ready, had wanted to tell you more than once. Eric loved you. He loved you like a daughter. You were his daughter. You know that in your heart, don’t you?”
Marinda nodded, sniffled, and pushed away her pain, because Cass was right. Eric had been her father, and she had been his daughter.
“I’d known Eric a long time before he met your mother, and I had never seen him so in love or so happy.” Cass’s smile returned, her eyes glittering with it. “Your life with him was real. All of it. Every moment. I know things are probably hard for you right now, but never doubt the love he had for you. You were his world. His everything.”
Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 24
