Marek didn’t bother to write that down. Enyo had already warned him that her brother could sense something coming. Something powerful.
“The twin gate activated.” As those words left his lips, her green eyes widened. He looked down at his knees. “I know. It came as a shock to us too. When I went there, only daemons were waiting. Our enemy. We suspect that a Hellspawn, or possibly even someone like a demigod might be involved. Ridiculous, right?”
He kept hoping it was nothing more than a wild theory, but everything was pointing towards it being a very real possibility, and that had him worried. What if this was more than a few daemons taking a shot at claiming the crown?
Daemons they could handle. Hellspawn and demigods would prove more of a challenge, and they couldn’t be sure some of them weren’t already in the Underworld, working right under his father’s nose to manoeuvre the pieces into place to cause his downfall.
Enyo was silent for a long time, so long he had to listen to the song of the insects and the birds to calm his nerves. He wanted her to say his theory was foolish. Impossible.
He willed her to say it.
“Whoever Ares can feel… they are growing stronger each day,” she said and he closed his eyes.
That wasn’t good.
“It seems unlikely though. Who would dare implement such a plan against Hades?”
He shrugged. “Father does have his enemies. The two previous rebellions proved that. I have a theory that this relates to one of those times, but that would mean whoever is behind it was alive then.”
“And that would mean they are not a daemon.” She crouched at the edge of the patio.
Marek averted his gaze, bringing his hand up to block his view for good measure, just in case Keras decided to take a peek at his memories later. “Exposing way more than I want to see, Enyo.”
“I am wearing undergarments.”
“I know that, but I do not want to see them. I like breathing.”
“I would not kill you.”
He huffed and muttered, “You might not. Someone else will.”
“Is this more acceptable?”
He wasn’t sure it was wise to risk looking at her, part of him expecting her to be in a worse position now, one that was sure to sear itself onto his mind and therefore get him killed.
He cracked one eye open and gingerly peeked over his hand.
She was sitting on the edge of the patio, her knees firmly shut and absolutely nothing on show.
He nodded. “If you are going to insist on coming to see me, please wear more clothing.”
“Do you find my armour exciting?” She glanced down at herself, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows.
“No. I find it terrifying.” It was strange being so candid with her. “It’s like facing a death sentence and you never know quite when it’s going to happen, but you feel sure it will at some point.”
He blamed Caterina.
Amazing sex clearly loosened his tongue.
Either that, or it had fried his brain. He did still feel a little frazzled. He shook himself back to Enyo, before his thoughts could traverse paths that would only make him look as if he did find her armour arousing.
“Can you do a little digging for me?” Changing the subject seemed like a sensible course of action, one that might keep him alive. “Any information you can get would be greatly appreciated. Just listen in on conversations or try to get more out of your brother. We need an inside man… or woman… on this one.”
She nodded. “Of course. With all the tension on Earth right now, I can come and go quite easily. Would you like me to do some… digging… in the Underworld too?”
He thought about that. “If you can manage it without alerting my father to our suspicions. You know Hades. The last thing we need is him finding out there might be more than daemons involved.”
She smiled. “He would probably evict everyone from the Underworld.”
“And our enemy would go to ground. We need them to think they’re on course to achieve their goal. If they go to ground, it could be centuries before they resurface.” And Marek had been in the mortal world for centuries already. He wanted to go home.
Caterina spun into his mind in a blur of silver, her sword swinging as she fought invisible foes in the dark, mesmerising him.
Maybe he didn’t want to go home.
Not yet.
He could stand to live here a little longer.
But he wanted it to be his choice.
There was a vast difference between being stuck in the mortal realm, banished from his home, and choosing to live here while being able to visit the Underworld and his parents, free to come and go between the two worlds.
He wasn’t sure he could live with another two centuries of this.
Not only because he missed home.
If Caterina became something to him, the only way to make her live as long as he needed her to would be to take her to the Underworld.
Which would mean parting from her while he was trapped on Earth, protecting the gates.
That would probably drive him mad.
Ares and Megan would face the same fate too, separated by duty, and so would Valen and Eva. Valen had only just started becoming more bearable, some of his rougher edges smoothed off by his woman. Marek could live without him becoming caustic and quick to fight with everyone again.
“This troubles you greatly,” Enyo said, and he cursed himself for getting lost in thought, forgetting she was there.
He nodded. “It troubles us all.”
“I will do my best to find out who is behind this, Marek. You have my word on that.” She stood slowly, and he was thankful she was careful to keep her underwear hidden, smoothing her skirt down as she rose to her feet.
“Thank you.” He waited for her to teleport.
She lingered.
Rolled her lower lip inwards as if she wanted to bite it but had thought the better of it.
Her gaze drifted away from him, roaming towards the distant hazy hills across the ochre olive tree spotted valley.
“How is your brother?”
Those words, softly spoken, laced with a wobble of uncertainty, told Marek how difficult that question was for her to ask.
He smiled, hoping to calm her nerves as she glanced at him. “Which one?”
She scowled. “You know which one.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” He meant that playfully, but grimaced as she looked away from him, her brow furrowing.
She turned on her heel.
Panic lanced him and he shot to his feet. “Wait.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, green eyes filled with emotions. Hope. Despair. Pain. Love. It was all there, mingled with other feelings, ones that seemed to increase the strength of some and weaken the rest.
Marek was going to get into trouble for this, but she needed to know.
“Keras hasn’t been the same since leaving home. You should go and see him. I’m sure he would like to see you, Enyo.”
A swift shake of her head was exactly the response he had expected.
Her words, however, were the opposite.
“He would not want to see me.”
He found that hard to believe. “You want to bet on that? My brother won’t admit it, but he’s lonely.”
And he constantly played with the ring Enyo had given him.
“Lonely?” Her eyebrows rose high on her forehead. “Keras could have any mortal he chose.”
Her voice wobbled on his brother’s name, betraying how deeply saying it had affected her, together with the way the pain in her eyes grew stronger.
Although maybe that had something to do with the fact she clearly and wrongly believed his brother had been unfaithful to his feelings for her.
“He hasn’t touched a single one, Enyo. Maybe he doesn’t want any mortal. If you would just go and—”
Her eyes narrowed and the world swiftly darkened, night seeming to close in as black clouds boiled overhe
ad. “You presume too much. Do not think to meddle in affairs that do not concern you, boy.”
She was gone in a flash of white-blue smoke that lingered in the air where she had been.
He presumed too much? He laughed. Did she think he was the only one who had noticed that she loved Keras? The only one who was blind to it was Keras himself. Neither of them had a clue about the other’s feelings.
Or maybe they did and they had stupidly been waiting for hundreds of years for the other one to make the first move.
Marek looked at his laptop, pursed his lips and shrugged.
Maybe Keras and Enyo just needed a damn push.
He pulled his phone from the pocket of his black linen trousers, fired off a message and then stepped, landing on the porch of the Tokyo mansion. The warm light from the huge stone lanterns spaced along the path at his back illuminated the white walls and darkened the ancient wood to black. He looked over his shoulder at the garden and the wall that surrounded it, breathed in the cool night air and steeled himself for what was to come.
This was foolish. Insane. Reckless.
But someone needed to make Enyo and Keras face their feelings, and he felt sure that Keras wouldn’t kill him if all their brothers were present.
At least, he hoped he wouldn’t.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
He considered stepping back to Seville and then stopped himself, the curious part of him demanding he stay and see it through.
He had provoked a reaction from Enyo tonight. He wanted to provoke one from his brother too. He wanted confirmation of Keras’s feelings to see whether they really did match the ones Enyo had revealed.
He toed his sandals off and set them on the rack, taking his time about it as a series of high giggles rose from the other side of the door, together with a few husky murmured words.
A phone jingled. The giggling ceased.
A snarl cut through the late-night air. “Fucking Marek.”
Charming.
Although, Marek would have been angry too if someone had disturbed his alone time with Caterina.
Caterina.
Gods, he wanted to see her again.
The urge to track her down was strong, rousing a fierce need to obey it. He wanted to kiss her again, wanted to hear his name on her lips as she found release, but more than that, he wanted to fight at her side, with her at his back, chasing the ultimate high.
The one that came from slaying vermin.
Someone slapped him on the back, jerking him forwards.
Calistos laughed. “Not like you to space out.”
Marek shrugged it off. “I’m just tired. Research is taking longer than expected.”
Ares eased around both of them to place his leather boots down on the rack to the right of the porch. “You’re causing a queue. Any reason you’re standing out here?”
“They were… uh.” Marek tried to think of a delicate way to put it.
“Doing the nasty,” Valen chimed in, a grin in his voice. “Makes me shudder. Thought of my big bros going at it like rabbits.”
“You’re one to talk.” Ares tossed Valen daggers, his eyes faintly glowing as his mood shifted. “I’m not the one who has angry sex.”
Calistos covered his ears. “This is so disgusting. I don’t want to know about any of this.”
“Virgin.” Valen shoved Cal in the shoulder, sending him into Marek, and then went flying across the garden, narrowly avoiding clipping one of the lanterns. He jerked to a halt an inch from the wall, his head whipping backwards and the longer lengths of his violet hair flying upwards before falling down over both of his eyes. They narrowed on Calistos and burned gold. “Keep pushing me, brother. See what happens.”
Calistos flipped him off. “Keep calling me a virgin and see what happens. I’ve had my share of women and I’m getting sick of you all treating me like a kid.”
Valen dropped to the gravel as Calistos released his hold on him and casually dusted his black combats and T-shirt off, even though no dirt had gotten on them. “Don’t tell me. You met all these girls at camp and they live in another state?”
Marek wasn’t sure what that meant, but it firmly pressed Calistos’s buttons.
He flew at Valen.
Keras appeared in his path, pressed his palm to Calistos’s chest and stopped him dead.
“Temper.” Keras looked over his shoulder at Valen, his green eyes looking black in the low light from the lanterns. “If I have to tell you one more time not to provoke him, we will fall out, Valen.”
Valen waited until Keras had his back to him again before he pulled a face at him, mocking their older brother.
Keras looked from Calistos to Marek, and Marek braced himself.
It wasn’t the light from the lamps that made Keras’s eyes look black as they narrowed on Marek. The storm raging in his brother’s eyes passed quickly though, disappeared in a blink that left them green again.
That was disappointing.
Keras strode to the porch where Marek stood and he waited, sure his brother would say or do something.
“You have information to report, I presume. Let us not waste time.” Keras removed his black polished shoes, placed them neatly on the rack and moved past him, entering the mansion ahead of everyone.
That bad feeling Marek had felt in the shower days ago returned, unsettling him.
He looked at Ares as the others filed past him, meeting his gaze and catching the concern in it. He wasn’t the only one who had expected more of a reaction from Keras, and he wasn’t the only one unsettled by how easily Keras had let it go.
Ares jerked his chin towards the open door behind him. “Give him another go.”
“Why?” It sounded like suicide to Marek, although maybe not.
He wasn’t sure what to feel as he thought about it. Barely an hour ago, he would have stepped back to Seville rather than making another attempt to get a reaction from Keras, afraid of his older brother losing his temper. Now, part of him needed to push him.
He needed to get a reaction from him.
“Something is wrong.” Ares looked beyond him. “I don’t know what it is… but I know it’s wrong.”
Marek risked a glance over his shoulder, into the long room where his brothers all waited on the crisp golden tatami mats, deep in discussion already.
His gaze tracked Aiko as she hurried from the kitchen to the left with a tray of drinks for everyone, Esher hot on her heels.
The daemon that had managed to escape them, the one they called the illusionist, had imitated Esher in order to get to Aiko.
He shifted his focus to Keras.
“It can’t be the illusionist. The wards are new, unknown to them.” Marek looked back at Ares.
His brother shook his head, his deep brown eyes solemn as he ran a hand through his tawny hair. “I don’t think it’s that. I don’t know what it is… but something is up.”
“Are we having this meeting or not?” Valen barked as he leaned forwards to peer through the door at Marek.
“Sure.” Ares came up beside Marek, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Just don’t push too hard.”
Marek nodded, unsure this was a wise idea but onboard with it. Keras hadn’t reacted to the scent of Enyo on him, not really. With their blood, a passing flash of darkness was nothing in their world. It certainly wasn’t on par with the reaction Marek had gotten the last time he had come to a meeting fresh from a visit by Enyo.
He followed Ares into the house, nerves rising as he joined the circle of his brothers in the centre of the main living area.
Keras stood opposite, his green eyes clear and calm, no trace of emotion in them. “What new intel do you have?”
“I checked the files, some of them. So far, I’ve turned up nothing.” He hesitated and Ares gave him a look that told him to get on with it as he came to a halt beside Keras. Marek focused on Keras, watching closely, seeking a reaction in case it was as subtle as before and he missed it. “Enyo reported that
her brother is no longer the only one who can feel something coming, and that whatever he is feeling, it is getting stronger every day.”
Keras’s eyes remained eerily flat and empty. “Very well. Anything else?”
What the hell?
He was tempted to take a step towards his brother and ask what was wrong with him, but kept his bare feet planted to the mats. Beside Keras, Ares looked worried, his gaze on his brother’s profile and his brow furrowed.
Marek tried again. “I told Enyo our theory and asked her to help us, and she agreed. She will keep an eye and ear open on Olympus, and even offered to scout the Underworld.”
Keras still wasn’t affected.
Ares was right—something was wrong.
It was almost as if whatever feelings Enyo visiting normally evoked in Keras had been numbed or crushed out of existence, which couldn’t be right. He knew that Keras felt something powerful for the goddess. The fallout from the last time she had visited was proof of that.
So what had happened between then and now?
He studied his brother in silence as they all discussed theories and how Enyo might be able to help them, not missing how Keras’s eyes remained devoid of feeling the entire time, or how his voice was too calm, distant almost.
Keras slipped his hands into the pockets of his black trousers and that strange calmness seemed to grow.
Ares wasn’t the only one who looked concerned now. Valen stared at Keras, and then at Ares and finally at Marek, the look in his golden eyes telling Marek that he had noticed Keras had changed too.
Marek subtly looked at everyone and caught the same worry in their eyes.
Had he pushed Keras too far, causing him to withdraw into his thoughts?
Or was there another reason he felt as if he was looking at a shadow of his brother?
Chapter 11
Caterina jostled the bags of groceries, swapping hands to stop her fingers from going numb. Guillem had promised to try to eat something, so she had gone to the store via the butcher and purchased him a container of pig’s blood. It was the best she could do, although she doubted that it would help him.
Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4 Page 11
