Together with the ridiculous scrap of leather she was apparently calling a skirt today.
“I thought for a moment there was going to be a war.” The disappointed ring to her regal voice was exactly what he expected of her. “But it was merely a massacre. Do you feel better?”
She studied him, her pale jade eyes bright with interest, surrounded by black make-up that only made them seem even greener.
Her red-painted lips offered a teasing smile.
He huffed, cleaned his blade of every last speck of blood on the body of one of the vampires, and then sheathed it. “They got what they deserved.”
She canted her head, surveying the carnage. “How many times a month do you feel the need to do this?”
Marek rolled his shoulders, because that was personal and he wasn’t in the mood to share. No one was meant to know about his little habit.
“Vampire numbers must be getting low now.” She uncrossed her legs and swung them back and forth, like a damned kid.
Not a several thousand year old goddess.
“I do have to keep going farther afield, but the vermin breed quickly, which is lucky for me.” He stepped to his villa in the hills near Seville.
Wasn’t surprised when she appeared behind him barely a second later.
He strode into his bedroom and stripped off his ruined shirt, dumping it in the trash, and quickly replaced it with a fresh black one, not because he gave a damn whether she saw him half-naked, but because someone else would if they found out about it.
And Marek liked breathing.
“Your aim is a little off again.” He tossed his blade into the drawer of the oak bedside table, and walked back into the living room, pretending not to notice the way she scowled at him now, her beautiful face as dark as the world outside. “Surely you meant to land a few hundred miles north of here?”
She casually seated herself in his dark cream armchair in front of the fireplace and kicked her feet up onto his coffee table, and he would have complained but he was guilty of doing that more times than he could count in Ares’s apartment. He could hardly tell her not to do it when it was another habit of his.
“No.” Her voice was light despite her dark appearance, no trace of nerves or any negative emotion in it as she casually flicked her long black hair over her left shoulder and tucked it behind her ear, revealing the three beaded braids that blended so well into her hair he rarely noticed them in her visits.
He moved around to her right, because he liked keeping an eye on what she was up to, and the way she wore her hair, parted off centre with the left side sweeping across her forehead and partially over her eye on that side, often concealed her face if she turned to her right.
She gave him a dazzling smile. “I am exactly where I mean to be.”
But not where she wanted to be.
He wasn’t stupid. He could read between the lines. Especially when the writing there was written in neon marker.
“How is business?” He walked into the kitchen that joined onto the living room, his boots loud on the orange terracotta floor, and grabbed two bottles of water.
He offered one to her as he slumped onto the couch on her right.
She wrinkled her nose at it and waved her hand in a refusal, and a silver flask appeared in it. He cracked open his water as she flicked her thumb up, uncapping her flask, and he caught the scent of the drink it contained.
Ambrosia.
She had vowed she had given it up a decade ago, but clearly she was back on the sauce. Because of what was happening with him and his brothers, and the fact their enemy was finally making itself known?
She was worried about them.
Him.
“So the other day, we all went out and Keras ended up having to protect us from suicide bomber daemons, which is something new.” He eyed her, and didn’t miss the way she clammed up, suddenly fascinated with her flask, as if she had never seen it before.
When she remained silent for more than five minutes, he rose onto his feet.
“What do you want, Enyo? I’m a busy man.” He set his water down and walked away from her, sure she would follow, because he could feel a need to speak brewing in her.
“I could see that.” She trailed after him, out into the night, and drew down a deep breath. “The stars are beautiful here.”
“You didn’t come to stargaze.” He turned, slouched onto the recliner and kicked his feet up, grimacing as his wounds stung. “Spit it out.”
It didn’t do to push a goddess, but he was tired and wanted a shower, and no damn way he could do that with her around.
“Something is brewing.” She kept her eyes on the stars, her head tilted back and her profile to him. “Word on Olympus is that it is coming in hot. Ares can feel it.”
Not Marek’s brother, but the real god of war.
Her brother.
“Our enemy?” He sat up now, needing to know more.
She shrugged. “Ares is not sure, but I believe so. They are strong if Ares can feel them.”
“Stronger than a daemon?” Because that would be bad.
There were plenty of creatures in the world who were stronger than daemons, including the beasts that protected the gates on the Underworld side, and other creatures of the Underworld, and Olympus.
Including Hellspawn and gods.
“He doesn’t know.” She lowered her gaze to him. “I will see if I can get more information from him. I just… wanted to warn you.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
When she didn’t leave, when she lingered and returned to looking at the stars, an awkward air growing around her, he waited for her to speak, because something was on her mind.
She remained silent again.
Typical of her.
She never had been very good at communicating her feelings.
But then, Keras sucked at it too.
“Are you just enjoying my company or was there another reason you came?” he prompted.
She squirmed, very unbecoming of a goddess and very unlike her, and then unfastened the black leather cuff around her left arm to reveal a silver bracelet. She held her arm up and the tiny shield and sword charm twinkled in the light coming from the villa.
“I received a message from Valen.” Her words were low, cautious, edged with the smallest trace of fear. “Something happened.”
Marek knew what she was talking about, because Valen had mentioned it to him too, and all of them were worried.
He sighed. “Valen wanted to face the enemy alone after Esher was almost killed and Keras lost his temper a little.”
Her beautiful face softened, her pale eyes glittering with concern.
“Go to him, Enyo,” he whispered, urging her softly, half of him hoping she would do it even when he knew she wouldn’t. “Speak with him.”
Her eyes closed, and she frowned as she lowered her head away from him, clearly pained by what he was asking. Her black hair fell over the left side of her face, and she turned her head to her right, hiding it from him.
“Keras needs you.” He felt close to getting through to her, close enough that this time he wouldn’t give up.
She was worried about Keras, and Keras needed her. If he could get the two idiots together, even if it killed him, it would be worth it.
She shook her head. “I cannot.”
He wanted to ask her why not, but being so forward with her would only cause her to lash out at him. The last time she had lost her temper, he had come close to losing his arm.
He knew that parting had hurt her and it had hurt Keras too, even when both of them always insisted they were only friends. That was true, but it was utter bullshit too. They had been more than friends, were more than friends, but neither of them had made a move or said a word, and then Keras had been sent to the mortal world with him and their brothers.
Marek also knew what would happen if Keras lost control, and it wouldn’t be pretty. Things had been a little rough when they had first arrived in
the mortal realm, before their father had found a way to inhibit Keras’s powers. They would be more than a little rough if Keras lost control and those powers manifested at their full strength. He wasn’t sure the mortal world would survive it.
Keras was under too much strain, was pulled too tight by events and worry for his brothers, and it was only a matter of time before something snapped.
“Visit him.” Marek knew he was pushing his luck when her eyes flicked open and she narrowed them on him. “Just speak with him. I’m sure you can give him the strength he needs.”
“No!” The ground shook with the force of that word, jolting him and cracking the white wall of his villa, and a flash of regret followed by pain crossed her face. She disappeared, her whispered words lingering in the warm air. “It hurts too much.”
He couldn’t understand that. He had never loved anyone that deeply.
His heart called him on that lie.
He had loved someone that much, with all of himself, had given her every drop of him.
And in return?
She had betrayed him.
CHAPTER 21
Her scream was the first thing that hit him on landing on the rooftop, tearing his world asunder.
Esher launched forwards, shoving the female daemon aside and sending her flying as he hit the edge of the roof. His heart plummeted in time with Aiko.
“No!” He vaulted over the edge and stepped, reappeared in the air but not close enough.
He teleported again, desperate to reach her before she hit the pavement, and reappeared closer to her this time.
Her brown eyes held his, tears flowing from them as she sailed through the air, the wind whipping her hair upwards as her arms flailed towards him. Love shone in her eyes, love and fear that ripped at him, screamed at him to save her, to take that fear away for her.
He stepped again, wild as he roared and his fangs emerged, darkness swirling around him. He blasted out of it below her this time, the pavement coming at him fast, and twisted in the air.
Reached for her.
His boots hit the pavement, legs buckled as fire burned up his bones, his right tibia fracturing from the impact. He crumpled and growled as he reached for Aiko.
He caught her arm and kicked upwards, countering her movement to slow her descent and calling another teleport at the same time.
Shadows flickered over him but her weight pulled him out of the teleport as she slammed into him, her legs against his chest.
He hit the pavement, and she struck it a split-second later with such force that her mouth snapped open as her head flew upwards and blood burst from it. His lungs burned, the impact sending the air rushing from them, sending a wave of pain rolling through him that had him numb, but he sucked down a breath and roared.
“No.” He gritted his teeth and shook his head as he struggled to sit up, forced himself to move and pulled her into his arms. Her blood instantly covered his hands, making it hard to keep hold of her. It drenched her pale blouse. He gently shook her. “Open your eyes, Aiko. Look at me. Please look at me.”
When people crowded him, he snarled at them and flashed his fangs. Screams rose as shadows flickered around him, racing outwards across the wet pavement to snap at the humans, driving them away.
He rocked with Aiko, his eyes glued to her face, tears burning in them as he leaned over her and smoothed his right palm across her ashen cheek.
“Open your eyes, Aiko,” he whispered. “Please?”
Rain hammered down, washing the blood from her skin, making it swirl across the pavement beneath her.
He tried to listen, finding it hard to hear over the thundering rush of his blood and that of the rain. His relief as he heard her heart beating was short lived, lasted only as long as it took him to realise it was slowing.
She was dying.
“No, no… no… you can’t leave me.” He brushed trembling fingers across her cheek and along the street, water exploded from the drain covers, gushing like geysers, sending a river swirling around her and him. “Look at me, Aiko.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
His heart missed a beat.
He cupped her cheek. “Look at me.”
Her eyelids lifted, revealing the dull brown of her irises and red where the white should have been in her beautiful eyes.
He wanted to scream at that, wanted to throw his head back and roar again, but he forced himself to hold it together, even as a need to tear down this world rose inside him.
It was cruel.
Vicious.
It had given him something beautiful, and now it was going to steal it away.
He couldn’t bear it.
“I’ll get you to Megan,” he whispered, voice hoarse and tight. “Megan can fix this.”
But he couldn’t bring himself to move. Fear froze him in place, the thought of hurting her by moving her, of killing her by trying to teleport her to Megan in the mansion locking his muscles up tight and chilling the blood in his veins. He stared down at her, fighting to convince himself to move, to do something, because she was going to die if he didn’t. Despair joined the fear as instinct whispered she was going to die anyway.
He couldn’t save her.
The rain fell harder, pounding the pavement around him, and a torrent swept past him as he held her, gazed down at her and told himself to move, because if there was only the tiniest chance he could save her, it would be worth it.
But, gods, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her by moving her.
She tried to lift her hand, but it fell weakly into her lap as she coughed, and blood streamed from her lips. He gripped her hand and lifted it for her, pressed it to his cheek as tears streamed down it, an unstoppable flow that dripped onto her face, cutting through the fresh blood.
“Don’t leave me.” He shook his head, his insides tearing apart, his heart shattering into a thousand pieces. “I’m sorry. I should have come quicker. I should never have left you. Please don’t leave me.”
The corners of her lips wobbled and fresh tears came, hot and fast down his cheeks as he realised she wanted to smile for him.
This world was cruel. Vicious. It would see just how cruel and vicious he could be in return.
The ground shook, the rain coming faster, but it didn’t touch her now. It curved above him, striking the pavement around them instead.
“I love… you,” she murmured, and he leaned towards her so she didn’t strain herself trying to speak with him. He pressed his forehead to hers and pulled her into his arms, clutching her tightly as he shook from the force of the pain building inside him. Pain that needed out. She managed to brush her fingers over his cheek, her touch light, killing him. “I’m not scared for me… I’m scared for you… I don’t… want you… to be… alone… again… never.”
She slumped in his arms.
His lower lip wobbled and his face crumpled, and he held her closer, tighter. “I love you too.”
But she would never know.
She would never know how much he loved her, would always love her, because she was gone.
Stolen from him.
He threw his head back and roared, and every drop of rain exploded, bursting to form a haze that swamped the city before it began falling again, harder than ever, a torrent that turned the streets into raging rivers.
The ground shook beneath him as he stumbled onto his feet, lifting her into his arms, and looked down at her.
Sirens wailed, a tsunami warning.
Not the only one.
By now, they would be ringing along the coast of Japan, and around the world.
Because the only light in this dark world was gone.
He stepped with her, landing in the middle of the main room of the mansion, and stood there staring down at her as the television talked of flash floods across the globe and tidal waves hitting south-east Asia already, wiping out villages in their paths.
Ares and Megan rushed to him.
“Oh, Esher.” Megan choked on a s
ob as she saw Aiko’s lifeless body in his arms.
But he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“There’s nothing we can do now.” Ares reached for him.
Esher evaded him and backed off a step, because there was something he could do.
He wanted to destroy this world, wanted to see it all burn, bring it to a painful bloody end, hungered to obey the darker part of himself that said to unleash all of his agony on it, to return it a thousand-fold.
But Aiko wouldn’t want that.
She would want him to go on without her, to protect this world for her.
But he couldn’t do that either.
He couldn’t live without her.
Even if she grew to hate him, he needed her, and that meant she had to live.
“Heal her body.” He gently set Aiko down on the floor and growled when Megan didn’t move. “Fucking heal her.”
“Calm down.” Ares stepped between him and Megan. “She’s gone, Esher.”
No. He wouldn’t accept that. Couldn’t. There was something he could do, and it meant a fight he probably wouldn’t win, but he couldn’t give up without trying.
“Heal her.” He looked to Megan. “Please?”
She clearly had more heart than his brother, because she nodded, even though he could see she didn’t understand what use it would be to heal Aiko’s body now.
He turned to Ares. “Protect her.”
Not Megan. Aiko. He needed his brother to protect Aiko while he was gone.
“What are you going to do?” Ares tossed him a worried look, one that had a hefty dose of wariness in it that said he knew what Esher was going to do but didn’t want to believe it.
Esher pressed a kiss to Aiko’s lips and smoothed her matted hair from her face. “Wait for me… just as you promised.”
“Esher, where are you going?” Ares moved a step towards him, a measured one that warned his brother was trying to close the distance between them in a subtle way.
He knew where Esher was going.
And he wanted to stop him.
Hypocrite. If it was Ares in his shoes, and Megan in Aiko’s place, his brother would be long gone already, risking everything for her.
Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3) Page 22
