Keras
Guardians of Hades Series Book 7
Felicity Heaton
Contents
THE GUARDIANS OF HADES SERIES
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Also by Felicity Heaton
Keras
Keras is darkness. It sustains him. It strengthens him. It offers relief from the pain born of his feelings for a goddess of Olympus, a bewitching and beautiful female placed beyond his reach—one who stole his heart and broke it. Centuries of enduring that pain have left him tired, and the temptation to surrender control to that side of himself grows each day.
Even when he knows that darkness will destroy him.
Enyo has regrets. Hundreds of them. But the one that has plagued her for centuries, is the moment that shattered her friendship with the firstborn of Hades and her own heart with it—a moment that changed her and set her on a new path. With the battle between the sons of Hades and the daemons turning more dangerous for the man she loves, she can no longer stand on the side lines.
It’s time for this goddess of war to risk everything to fight for what she wants.
As the battle to save the Underworld and the mortal realm rages to dangerous new heights, will Keras be consumed by the darkness or will Enyo be the light that saves him?
THE GUARDIANS OF HADES SERIES
Book 1: Ares
Book 2: Valen
Book 3: Esher
Book 4: Marek
Book 5: Calistos
Book 6: Daimon
Book 7: Keras
Book 8: Thanatos - Coming in 2021
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Chapter 1
A fist ploughed into Keras’s jaw, smashing his lips against his teeth, flooding his mouth with the coppery taste of his own blood.
He leaned to one side and spat on the pale flagstones of the terrace, stared at the splotches of dark liquid that caught the lights that illuminated the white basilica of Sacré-Coeur, casting a golden glow over the façade and its three domes.
A slow grin stretched his lips as the darkness writhed in his veins, jittery with excitement.
Finally, a worthy opponent.
He had cut his way through sixteen daemons, using his shadows to eradicate the wretches, keeping them from the Paris gate that linked the mortal realm to the Underworld. Not one of them had put up a fight.
At least, not a fight he had enjoyed. It had been a massacre, too easy for him, lacking the thrill he was chasing tonight. The high he craved. The pain he needed.
The only thing he wanted to feel.
The only thing he was willing to let himself feel.
The sudden white-hot fire of a well landed blow. The burn that spread outwards from the point of impact. The dull ache of bruised bones. The sharp sting of split flesh. The dance with death. The sweet scent of blood spilling.
His blood. His pain. His pleasure.
Heat rippled through him at just the thought of it, had his head growing hazy as that need bloomed stronger inside him, goading him into clashing hard with the daemons.
Into letting them strike him.
But that pleasure never quite hit the mark. It was always lacking. Always a disappointment in the end when it had promised to be perfection.
This wretched beast that stood before him promised pleasure that would be everything he needed tonight though. Pain that would satisfy the darkness coursing through him.
Behind him, his younger brothers hollered orders at each other, battling the other thirty daemons to keep them from the gate. His senses fixed on them and he checked they were occupied and unlikely to interfere with his fight. He locked them on Ares first, and then Marek and finally Daimon.
It had been a month since Daimon had almost died, and three weeks since his brother had closed the New York gate, condensing the power that flowed between them down to only three—Hong Kong, Paris and Tokyo.
Keras had thought the enemy would make their move then, desperate to breach the gates and fulfil their mission.
Things had remained too quiet.
Until tonight.
Keras casually wiped the knuckles of his right hand across his lower lip, clearing the blood away, and straightened, coming to face the large dark-haired male who had managed to land a blow on him.
The daemon rolled broad shoulders, his heavy muscles rippling with strength as his bare torso flexed. Behind him, two smaller daemons waited, warily watching Keras, an opaque membrane flickering over their eyes. They were of the lizard-like breed, able to summon scales to protect them from damage in a fight.
His gaze edged back to the larger male.
This one was something else.
One of the more demonic breeds his father, Hades, god-king of the Underworld, had banished from his realm centuries ago?
Exiling them to the mortal realm, just as he had banished Keras and his brothers here when the Moirai had foreseen a great calamity involving the gates between the Underworld and the human one.
For two centuries, Keras had been forced to live in this world, waiting for the enemy who would bring about the calamity to finally make themselves known.
Two centuries of hell.
This daemon would pay for every year of his exile, every hour, every minute.
Every second.
Keras rolled the sleeves of his black dress shirt up his forearms as he stared the daemon down, assessing him.
Waiting.
Beyond the towering male who had at least five inches on Keras, had to stand around seven-foot tall, Ares hurled a ball of fire that cut across the night-time panorama of Paris that stretched below the hill of Sacré-Coeur.
It blasted two daemons, sending them flying. Their shrieks rose above the sounds of the battle raging around him.
The male before Keras kicked off and dropped his shoulder, slammed into Keras’s stomach and lifted him off the ground. Keras grinned and reached his right hand down, gripped the back of the fiend’s neck and sank short claws into his flesh. The wretch grunted, the same pained sound bursting from Keras’s lips as his back hit the flagstones and the daemon landed on top of him.
Keras didn’t release him, not even when the male reared back and smashed a fist into his face, hitting him hard enough that he actually felt it.
Instead, Keras called on his shadows.
They poured from beneath him, eager to feed, hungry to join the battle. They were never satisfied.
Neither was he.
T
he two lizard-like males ran at him, joining the fray as they nimbly dodged his shadows, twirling to evade each sharp slash of them as they lashed at the daemons, keeping them away from the one they had decided to protect.
That male bore down on him, grinning to reveal razor-sharp fangs.
The light of victory in his dark eyes.
Foolish male.
Keras dragged the daemon towards him. The male resisted, straining to maintain his position atop Keras, but it turned out he wasn’t strong enough after all. Keras gritted his teeth, his muscles clamping down on his bones as he yanked the male down to him, so they were nose to nose.
“Who sent you?” he whispered, malice lacing his deep voice as the darker side of his blood writhed faster, eager now, anticipating what was to come.
The daemon managed to shake his head.
Keras sank his claws in deeper, ripping a grimace from the male.
“Who sent you?” he repeated, his tone gaining darkness as his shadows finished tearing apart the daemon’s two comrades and turned towards him.
They rose up around the daemon, who flicked fearful glances at them as they circled him, snapping at the ground beneath Keras, waiting for his next command.
“Speak and I will spare you.” Keras held back his smile, kept his green eyes fixed on the male even as they wanted to grow hooded, the pleasure that coursed through him at the thought of obliterating this daemon almost too much for him to conceal.
He searched the male’s eyes, seeking the answer there instead. The world dropped away as he fell into the daemon’s mind, as he sifted through wave after wave of memories, seeking the one he desired to see.
A face shimmered into being in the darkness.
Tropical blue-green eyes.
Blonde hair.
Feminine.
The furie—Meadow.
Keras seized hold of the memory, and snarled when it slipped through his grasp and he found himself staring up at the night sky, at the faint pinpricks of stars that blanketed it.
He looked to his left, at the daemon as he tumbled across the pavement and struck a wall.
“We talked about this.” Ares loomed over Keras, a shadow in the darkness in his black jeans and T-shirt. The heat that shimmered over his big body caused the stars to wobble, his brother’s ability to command fire manifesting itself as his mood blackened and his control slipped. Flames lit his brother’s dark eyes with sparks of crimson and gold. “No more probing minds. Not after last time.”
Keras frowned at him, not hiding his anger for once as it surged through him. He pushed onto his feet and glared at his younger brother, staring right into his brightening eyes.
“We did talk about this.” He tipped his chin up. “I believe you know what I said.”
That Ares had no place ordering him around.
He was the firstborn of Hades. The leader of their side. A position he hadn’t wanted but one he had taken on—one that came with a weight of responsibility that was a constant burden on his shoulders.
Ares huffed, causing his black T-shirt to stretch tight over his broad chest, and his dark eyebrows met hard. “Fine. Whatever. Break your mind. Go ahead. Be as reckless as Cal or Valen.”
He gestured towards the daemon.
Keras fixed his senses on the male as he lumbered onto his feet.
And hesitated.
As much as he wanted to ensure that Ares stopped questioning his authority, he couldn’t probe the daemon’s mind again. Not because Ares was right and it was dangerous.
But because he was damned if he was going to appear as undisciplined as his two younger brothers.
Daimon and Marek strolled through the carnage to stop behind Ares. Daimon wiped his hand across his brow, smearing black daemon blood across it and over the soft spikes of his white hair. Marek’s earthy eyes fixed on Keras, concern shining in them. Both of them were waiting to see what he would do.
Keras shifted his gaze to Ares.
Behind Keras, the daemon bellowed as shadows tore into him, snaking around his limbs to tug at them, ripping him apart.
“Satisfied?” Keras said with an arched eyebrow.
Ares arched one of his own as he leaned left and looked beyond Keras to the dead male. “One of the finer examples of just how much like Father you are.”
Daimon nodded in agreement. “Couldn’t have just decapitated him or something?”
Marek ran a hand through his unruly dark waves, preening his hair back as he said nothing. Marek always had been the wisest of his brothers.
The darkness coursing through Keras, a gift from his father’s blood, bared fangs at Marek, urged him to strike the male down. Keras clenched his fists and denied that urge, the action drawing Ares’s eyes there as the flames in them faded. The edge to his brother’s gaze as he lifted it to lock with Keras’s told him that he knew he was holding back his darker side, and he knew why.
Thankfully, Ares didn’t call him on it.
“Did you see anything?” Ares muttered, his tone telling Keras that he didn’t like that he had probed someone’s mind but that he wasn’t going to berate him about it anymore.
“I saw Meadow. I believe she gave this male the order to come to this gate tonight.” Keras looked beyond his brothers, to the point where the gate remained hidden.
The otherworld flashed over the panoramic view of Paris, turning pristine buildings into crumbling flaming ruins in the blink of an eye. A gift from the Moirai. He and his brothers were cursed to see the future of this world should they fail. Over the past four weeks, they had all been seeing it more frequently.
A sign that the final battle was close?
Keras wished the enemy would make their next move. He was growing impatient and he wasn’t the only one. All his brothers were on edge. Even their father was restless. Hades had his legions scouring the Underworld for the traitor goddess Nemesis, one they had learned was with the enemy. The female had gone to ground, but Hades would find her. She couldn’t leave the Underworld, not with the gates to the mortal world closed to traffic. There were only so many places she could hide. Sooner or later, she would be caught.
“We need this gate closed.” Keras looked back at his brothers.
“You can’t be serious.” Daimon moved a step closer and flicked a glance at Ares and Marek as he adjusted the collar of the navy turtleneck he wore beneath his long black cotton coat. He frowned when he found a rip in it and pulled it away from his neck, looked at it and then huffed, one Keras was sure was aimed at him rather than his ruined top. “We can’t close this gate.”
“We can and we will.” Keras wasn’t in the mood to argue with his brothers about it either.
Ares had challenged him once tonight. The next one to challenge him was going to be taught to never do it again.
He lowered his hand to the pockets of his black slacks and subtly skimmed his fingers over the small box in his right one, just the feel of it enough to take the edge off his mood. It promised a different sort of pleasure, one that would satisfy the itch steadily building inside him now the fight was done.
“Closing the Paris gate is dangerous.” And Ares was pushing his luck.
Keras turned a look on him, one that didn’t deter his brother.
“Hong Kong is still unstable because of its connection to Esher. Esher’s still struggling to recover from his other side taking control. He’s circling the drain.”
Daimon’s pale blue eyes turned glacial, his irises blazing white ringed with navy as he snapped, “He isn’t. He’s getting better.”
His brother had been on edge since his sorceress, Cassandra, had argued with him about coming with them tonight. Daimon was always on edge whenever Cassandra wanted to join them in a fight, or on a patrol, or anything that involved her leaving the grounds of the Tokyo mansion, stepping outside the powerful wards that protected it from daemons.
While Keras didn’t care about their frequent lover’s spats, he did agree with Daimon. The enemy were targeting Cassand
ra for her ability to use necromancy magic. It was better she remained locked away in the mansion where she would be protected by the wards that stopped daemons and their enemy from entering the grounds. Just as it was better Marinda, one of the two remaining furies, stayed there too. There, they could protect Cassandra and Marinda and keep them out of the enemy’s hands.
If the enemy got their hands on them, and on the body of the wraith and the third furie they had in cold storage on the mansion grounds, then it could turn the tide of the battle against Keras and his brothers. The enemy would force Cassandra to bring the wraith and the furie back from the dead. With that furie back on the field, Meadow would grow stronger again, and with Marinda in their possession to complete the cycle of power that flowed between the three goddesses, the Erinyes, it would be a catastrophe.
The air chilled around him, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Daimon stood toe to toe with Ares, glaring up at his face, his irises glowing white in the darkness.
Because Ares was speaking ill of Esher. Esher and Daimon were close, the closest out of all his brothers. Badmouthing Esher in front of Daimon was always a good way of causing an ice storm.
Frost flowers bloomed and glittered on Daimon’s black leather gloves as he stared Ares down.
Ares huffed, his breath fogging in the air. “We need to face facts. Esher is struggling. His blood bond with the Hong Kong gate is proof of that.”
Daimon opened his mouth as if to argue and then snapped it closed.
Keras: Guardians of Hades Series Book 7 Page 1
