Mari had talked her down, convincing her to remain in the mansion when all she wanted to do was transport herself to the gate. She knew staying tucked within the wards was the safe thing to do to when the enemy was targeting her, but the thought of Daimon out there, fighting those goddesses and the gods only knew how many daemons, turned her stomach.
Had her burning with a need to go and help him.
Mari patted her knee. Cass looked down at her hand as it came to rest on her black leather trousers and then up into her friend’s blue eyes, catching the worry she tried to hide with a soft smile. Calistos was out there too, and Mari had suffered the same benching as Cass had.
Only Mari hadn’t taken out her frustration on the sole brother left in the mansion.
Tremendous power suddenly pressed down on her and she stiffened and twisted at the waist to look over the back of the couch, her eyes locking on the door.
It opened and Keras strode in, darkness rolling off him, fiercer than she had ever felt it. Had something happened? Calistos followed hot on his heels. Mari was on her feet in a heartbeat and rushing to him.
Cass rose more slowly, her heart fluttering in her throat, blood thundering in her ears. “Where are the others?”
Because she couldn’t sense Marek and Valen.
Or Daimon.
Keras’s green eyes fixed on Ares rather than her. “Marek is going to seal the Rome gate.”
The anger that had been burning at a low simmer in her blood flared into an inferno.
Keras had sent Marek, Valen and Daimon to close a gate straight after they had defended one? She levelled a glare on him and then looked at Calistos, worry tangling inside her as she spotted all the bruises and cuts on him, and how tired he looked.
Was Keras trying to get three of his brothers killed?
She glanced over her shoulder at Ares, silently demanding he say something.
He glared at Keras too, the fires of the Underworld burning in his eyes. “It couldn’t have waited?”
Keras shook his head. “We need another gate closed. Daimon offered to close New York too, but one gate at a time now. We shouldn’t rush this.”
Shouldn’t rush it? He had rushed it by sending three of his brothers straight to a gate fresh from a battle, when they were probably tired and in need of rest.
Keras’s cold green eyes slid to meet hers. “I would like a word with you.”
Cass tipped her chin up and stared right back at him, not hiding any of the anger she felt as his words ran around her head, and as she thought about Daimon. Why had he offered to close a gate? Doing so would render him unconscious for days, if not weeks.
She recalled what he had said to Calistos about being unable to sleep. Was he so desperate to escape reality and snatch the sleep that eluded him that he would endanger himself to achieve it? She knew the disappearance of Esher weighed heavily upon him, but placing himself at risk to escape that was foolish. Reckless.
The anger that burned inside her only blazed hotter. She was going to be having words with him when he returned.
Just as she was going to have words with his brother.
She followed Keras out through the white wood-framed panels that had been pushed back to reveal the garden. He banked left, following the wooden walkway that ran around the courtyard. He moved like a shadow in the darkness, his steps unnervingly silent. The boards creaked beneath her weight from time to time, cutting through the tense silence, but he never made a sound.
When he reached the end of the walkway near her temporary quarters, he stopped and stepped down onto the wide stone slab that had been placed there. He slipped his feet into a pair of slippers and she did the same, and followed him into the garden, her anger giving way to nerves as the darkness encompassed them and the voices of the others drifted into the distance.
The moonlight cast faint silver highlights in Keras’s black hair and over his shoulders.
When he reached the bridge that spanned the koi pond, he stopped and pivoted to face her. The moon cast his face in shadow, but green flecks glowed in his eyes. She moved around him, forcing him to turn his profile to the moon, because something about the way his eyes glowed unnerved her and had her pulse quickening.
When light bathed the side of his face, those nerves settled and her courage rose again.
She spoke before he could.
“Sending your brothers to seal a gate straight after a fight was reckless. Dangerous.”
His features remained flat, unreadable, as he stared at her in silence.
As time trickled past, she struggled to keep her nerves at bay, to keep her chin tipped up and confidence shining through. He wasn’t the first one to attempt to impose some sort of command over her by looking at her in such a way, and he probably wouldn’t be the last.
It didn’t bother her. She wouldn’t be cowed by him. She wasn’t afraid of him.
She really wasn’t.
She was about to demand that he say something when he finally spoke.
“I have seen you with Daimon and I witnessed the effect you are having on him on the battlefield tonight.” His voice turned colder, chilling her as she subtly curled her fingers into fists at her sides, steeling herself. Keras took a step towards her, and she barely resisted the urge to back off one. Darkness rolled off him in menacing waves, blackening his eyes, and the power he always emitted rose, wrapped like shadows around her that felt as if they were choking her. His eyes narrowed slightly, a cruel twist to his lips as he leaned towards her and whispered, “If you hurt my brother, I will see to it that not only you but your entire coven suffer for it.”
Her spine stiffened.
“How dare you threaten my family.” She slapped him hard, her hand flying before she could consider the consequences, her heart jacking up into her throat as her blood thundered and adrenaline surged.
He didn’t even flinch.
Cass struck him again, the sound of her palm connecting hard with his cheek ringing in the still night air.
His pupils widened for a heartbeat before they shrank back to normal.
She hit him a third time, catching his mouth more than his cheek.
He exhaled hard, the sound breathy as his pupils dilated and contracted again, but she felt no anger in him, no sense that he would retaliate.
There was only the strange feeling that he wanted more.
She stared at him, scratched out the thought she’d had about him when he had moved like a shadow along the walkway.
This side of him unnerved her the most.
Something was seriously wrong with this god.
He lifted his right hand and brushed the pad of his thumb across his lower lip, catching the blood there. He sucked it from his thumb and stared at her, silent and still, an air of expectation surrounding him.
Because he wanted her to strike him again.
She stood her ground despite her nerves, despite the fact half of her wanted to leave and the rest wanted to slap him again.
“I would never hurt Daimon so there’s no need to threaten my family,” she bit out, emphasising each word as she stared into his green eyes.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there in the garden, her flesh chilling as the night dragged on, locked in a silent battle with Keras.
But it was growing light and she was cold to the bone when the scent of snow and spice hit her.
Warmed her.
Daimon.
Keras must have sensed his return too, because he blinked and when he opened his eyes again, it was as if nothing had happened. His perfect features lost all the darkness they had held and his eyes lost the twisted hungers that had filled them.
He turned away from her and strode towards the house, and when he reached it and stepped up onto the walkway, he said, “I will tend to him.”
He took Marek from Valen and carried him towards his room, turning his profile to Cass.
She stared at him, studying his features and the feelings she could sense in him, and
frowned. He was the calm and collected god she had always witnessed, not even a lingering trace remaining of the person who had been standing here with her, craving violence from her.
Taking pleasure from it.
Did his brothers know about that side of him, the one who had looked ready to provoke her just so she would strike him again?
She edged her eyes towards the main room of the house.
Cursed in Russian when she saw the state of Daimon.
Her heart lurched into her throat as he hobbled onto the walkway, his right arm banded around his stomach and blood covering the left side of his face.
The urge to strike Keras blasted through her, coupled with a desperate need to go to Daimon, and a foolish hope he would accept her help.
Because she needed to take care of him.
She sent a prayer to the gods that for once, Daimon wouldn’t fight her.
Even when the darkness that shone in his eyes as they met hers said that he would.
Said more than that to her.
It whispered a terrible truth.
Keras wasn’t the only one who courted pain.
Daimon had let the daemons hurt him.
Chapter 19
Darkness was a living, writhing thing inside him. It whispered, coaxed and seduced, and Daimon did his best not to listen to it, not to be swayed by its black magic.
To ignore the craving for violence that blazed inside him.
But it was strong.
Far stronger than he was in his current state, his mind fragmented, torn in two directions.
Images stuttered across the darkest corners of that mind, taunting him with flashes of Cass with another man, a faceless and nameless one who was her destiny.
Who she was apparently resolved to go to even though he had seen the doubts in her eyes.
Daimon stared at the daemons surrounding him, singling out all the males, his mind labelling them as Cass’s intended. He cut through them, a whirlwind of ice and steel, taking some down with spears and shards of glittering crystal and others with a swift stroke of a blade over their throats.
Valen’s lightning shook the ground, lashing down from the heavy black clouds like white-purple whips to light up the darkness. Each strike filled the air with the scent of daemon blood, rousing Daimon’s darkness, keeping it at the fore.
It seeped deeper into him, snaked around his heart and murmured to him, whispering taunts about the males around him, about them and Cass.
About how she would never be his.
Daimon slid across the dry grass of the ancient Stadio Palatino and used one of his throwing knives to slice across the shins of a female daemon as her claws cut through the air above him. She shrieked and leaped backwards, into the path of a lightning strike. Blood and bone exploded outwards and Daimon was swift to step, avoiding being hit by it.
He landed in the middle of a group of six male daemons.
All of them turned on him, their eyes glowing with sick hunger in the darkness.
He was sure his looked the same.
From the ends of their fingers, long claws grew, four-inch talons that promised pain if they caught him.
Their dilated pupils narrowed into thin vertical slits as he faced them, rising to his full height, showing them that he wasn’t afraid of them. Six or sixty, it didn’t matter. They would never win against him.
Rain hit in a heavy downpour, turning the grass to mud beneath his boots, saturating him in a heartbeat. He casually ran a hand over his white hair, slicking it back.
His heart beat steadily, a hard drumming against his chest as he waited.
Beyond the six, in the middle of the long rectangular courtyard of the monument, Valen fought another half a dozen, keeping them away from Marek. Beyond Valen, Marek stood facing the gate that hovered a few feet above the floor of the Stadio Palatino. The colourful light it emitted shimmered over the broken columns that lined all sides of the grass and the crumbling walls of the ancient Roman buildings that enclosed it.
Two of the daemons nearest Daimon twitched, one shifting foot to foot as the other licked his lips, his forked tongue flickering over them.
Daimon had always hated the more lizard-like of the daemon breeds. None of these six had a scratch on them thanks to the tough scaly skin they could call in a heartbeat to cover their more delicate human-looking flesh.
One to his left hissed through razor-sharp teeth.
And suddenly all of them were on him.
He grinned and hunkered down, called on his power and savoured the rush as shards of ice shot up all around him, managing to catch at least one of the males and spill blood. He attacked the moment the daemons backed off a step, lashing out with the throwing knife he clutched in his left hand, pumping his power into it so the blade caused ice to ripple over the surface of every daemon it struck.
These daemons might be able to shield themselves with scales, but even that wouldn’t protect them from his ice.
One daemon went down, hissing and snarling as he clutched as his arm. Ice cascaded over it, glittering in the light of the gate as it took hold, thickening and growing to encase the male’s entire arm.
Daimon spun and brought his leg up, struck the male’s arm with his boot.
It shattered.
The daemon howled and backed off, desperately clutching at the stump left behind.
The remaining five daemons looked at their comrade and then at Daimon.
He smiled slowly.
Waited.
A daemon behind him was the first to make a move, lunging for him rather than fleeing as Daimon had expected. He twisted to face the male, brought his arm up and blocked the daemon’s attack. He grabbed the male’s wrist with his other hand and went to throw him.
Daimon bellowed as claws raked down his back and he arched forwards, pain searing him like an inferno.
Bastards.
He spun on his heel and hurled his right hand forwards, unleashing the blade he clutched in it. It nailed the daemon in his shoulder, but the male didn’t go down.
Daimon cursed.
In his haste to retaliate, he had forgotten to imbue it with his power.
Two daemons piled onto him, claws slicing through his roll-neck long-sleeve, the scent of his blood joining the vile coppery odour of daemon blood in the air.
The darkness he had been fighting to hold back surged forwards, the intoxicating rush of it consuming him in a heartbeat.
Daimon grinned and grappled with one of the daemons, grabbing his wrists and hurling his head forwards. His forehead cracked off the daemon’s one and the male grunted and reared back. The second male attacked, slamming into Daimon’s side and taking him down.
Pain erupted in a wave as he hit the slick grass.
And he relished it.
He grinned as the daemon pummelled him, not bothering to block his blows. He took every one of them as the darkness rose inside him, twisted tighter and devoured more of him. Daimon grabbed the daemon and rolled with him, pinned him beneath him on the wet grass and slammed his fists into his face, knocking his head left and right. Wherever Daimon’s fists struck him, scales erupted and ice covered them.
He bore down on the male, his lips peeling back off his fangs in a wide smile as black blood flowed from the lacerations on the daemon’s face, quick to freeze under Daimon’s assault.
He didn’t feel the pain in his side, didn’t notice the heat spreading across it.
But he did notice the way the daemon laughed at him, his eyes lighting up with sick glee.
Daimon slammed his right fist into the male’s head, bone cracking beneath the force of the blow.
Silence reigned.
He shoved onto his feet and stumbled, twisting to face the other wretches. Heat bloomed and spread down his left hip, fire pooling at the apex of it. It wasn’t enough.
He bared his fangs at the daemons, goading them, needing more.
Two were quick to take him up, launching at him in tandem. He danced with
them, his grin still in place as he pivoted and turned, ducked and dodged and landed blows.
And let them strike him.
Each kick, punch or slash of claws sent a ripple of satisfaction through him, had the darkness purring inside him, pushing him to seek more.
He did.
He surrendered to the dark wave, let it pull him under and savoured each blow they landed, every flare of fire and searing jolt of pain that struck him.
Leaving him only wanting more.
Daimon fought them, holding back his power as best he could, wanting this battle to last.
He gave up blocking them, closed quarters and took every blow.
He closed his hand around the front of one of the daemon’s throats and frowned when the male withered before his eyes, skin turning blue and eyes rolling back in his head.
No.
He wanted more.
He shook the dead male, growled when he didn’t respond and turned on his comrades, hurling the body at them. One took the bait, but another ran, leaving him with only two. He left himself open, inviting the pain, the darker side of his blood at the helm. Each slash of the male’s claws only made him grin.
Impudent wretch.
As if this thing was strong enough to best him.
He shot a hand out and seized the second male, hurling him at the first, knocking them both down.
The urge to leap on them was strong.
Daimon fought it.
Staggered back a step and tried to rein the darkness in, to bring it back under control.
But he didn’t want to. He wanted this pain. This oblivion. He needed it, because it was better than the other thing that awaited him if he regained control. Physical pain he could bear.
Emotional pain he couldn’t.
The two daemons leaped on him.
He closed his eyes.
Welcomed the pain as they ripped at him, snarling and hissing.
No.
He growled and ice shot up all around him, the shards so close that they cut him as well as impaling the daemons.
He breathed hard and the ice shattered, freeing him of its cage. He stumbled backwards, shaking his head, driving back the darkness, clawing back control.
Daimon: Guardians of Hades Series Book 6 Page 17
