He would do his best not to kill any of the witches, but he was going to fight.
For her.
The witches hurled the spells at him as one and he stepped, appeared behind one. He grabbed her by the back of her neck. She shuddered and cried out, the sound harrowing as it echoed across the sea before them. Ice rapidly spread over her shoulders and back and he released her as she went down.
Out of action but not dead.
He wasn’t sure if these witches knew the same spells as Cass did, or how long his ice would be effective against them when he was using it to drain them of their strength and knock them out rather than kill them. All he knew was that he needed to protect Cass.
That need blazed inside him, controlling his actions, commanding him to deal with the witches in the only way he could without hurting his sorceress.
He stepped again and landed near the next witch, roared as pain ripped up his side and he staggered backwards. Violet smoke poured from a wound above his hip, the same place he had taken a nasty hit from the daemons last night.
He bared his fangs at the blonde witch who had her arm outstretched towards him and cast his right hand at her before he could consider what he was doing, rage getting the better of him. Five spears of ice formed and shot towards her.
The witch didn’t move.
She casually raised her hand, her palm facing him, and the ice spears shattered as they struck an invisible barrier.
“Deal with him.” The witch turned imperiously away from him, as if he was nothing more than a gnat, insignificant and unworthy of her time.
He was a son of Hades. A god. He would teach her to show him more respect.
The darkness pouring through his veins surged stronger, claiming more of him, and he was swift to give in to it.
He leaped at the lead witch on a vicious snarl.
One of the other witches shot into his path and he grabbed her by her throat, didn’t even look at her as he tossed her aside. In the distance, water splashed as she hit it. He lunged for the blonde witch, growled when the woman evaded him, too fast for him to grab.
The same spell Cass had used to taunt him in Hong Kong.
He focused his senses, grinned as he felt her, and twisted and launched his hand out. His hand clamped down on her forehead as she appeared, icy talons curling around to pierce her flesh and draw blood that stained her blonde locks.
“Belle!” another witch shrieked and fire slammed into his back, shoving him forwards and heating his skin to an unbearable degree for a moment before his ice kicked in again.
He stared into Belle’s dark eyes and grinned at her to flash fangs as he tightened his grip.
But still couldn’t bring himself to kill.
He glanced at Cass, caught the pain and fear in her eyes as she stood as still as a statue, saw the conflict that ran through him as it ran through her too.
Belle’s irises brightened to silver-lilac and she grabbed his arm in both hands.
He bellowed, entire body juddering as pain lit him up, fire that felt as if it was searing his insides, melting them.
His icy talons shattered.
“Daimon!” Cass’s voice rang in his ears as he struggled against the next wave of fire as it wrapped around him and consumed him. Her voice gained pitch. “Please don’t hurt him.”
She said something else, something muffled by the sound of his own agonised roar as it tore from his lips.
And then the fire ceased.
The witch released him.
Daimon sagged to his knees, breathing hard, entire body still aflame as he called on his ice, desperate for the cold to soothe him and steal away his pain.
“Stop and I’ll go with you,” Cass said.
For a sweet moment, he thought she was speaking to him.
“Very well.” Belle’s voice cut through him, had him surging to his feet as he heard the victory in it.
She hadn’t won this battle.
He mustered his ice, fought the lingering effects of her spell to reform the crystal talons over his fingers, and locked his knees, refusing to let the weakness invading him send him back onto them.
He had to stop the witches.
This time he wouldn’t hold back. He wouldn’t. Cass would hate him if he hurt her family, but he would bear it, because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Or the thought of what would happen if she returned to her coven.
Cass stepped between him and Belle.
“Move aside, Cass,” he said, his eyes remaining locked on the witch she was protecting. “You don’t need to go with them. I can handle this.”
“Daimon,” Cass murmured and he glanced at her, meant only to check on her but lingered as he saw the hurt in her eyes, the pain she tried to mask with a smile.
She didn’t want to go. It was right there in her eyes for him to read, all of her feelings about her coven and what was going to happen to her laid bare.
“Just come to me, Cass. We can leave. Never come back.” He extended his hand to her, let the ice melt from it as he turned it palm up, reaching for her, silently begging her to take it.
Sorrow flitted across her face, and he wasn’t sure whether it was because she was going to do as he asked and was sad that she was turning her back on her family, or because she was going to leave him.
“Cass,” he whispered and stretched for her, needing her to take his hand.
Needing her to choose him.
She drew down a breath, tipped her shoulders back and came to him.
Relief swept through him as she stroked her fingers over his palm.
His smile faltered, a frown flickering on his brow as his head grew foggy, thoughts spinning and colliding, and his body felt heavy.
He looked at her, his eyebrows furrowing as disbelief swept through him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice so low he barely heard her, her eyes shimmering with hurt and regret, and fear.
He tried to shake his head, growled through his teeth when it felt too heavy to move, and struggled to find his voice as the fog grew thicker, clouding his mind.
“Don’t…” He couldn’t manage any more than that, could only stare into her eyes and see she had heard the rest of what he had wanted to say.
Don’t do this.
Don’t leave him.
A smile wobbled on her lips and he silently cursed her for putting on a brave face, for hiding her true feelings from him and her coven. She didn’t want this. He was right about that. He had to be. So why was she doing this to him?
“Go do your duty,” she murmured softly, a hint of sorrow in it, “And I’ll be back as soon as I’ve done mine.”
Daimon cursed her again in his head and struggled against the effects of the spell, desperation mounting inside him, driving him to do something because doing her duty meant getting pregnant. He couldn’t bear the thought of her with another man, doing something she didn’t want, letting that male and her coven use her in that way.
“You… don’t… want… this,” he croaked, each word a labour that stole his strength.
Each word seeming to cleave a wound in Cass, pulling the pain she was trying to conceal to the surface of her eyes.
“I have to do it,” she said, nothing more than a throaty, pained whisper.
Her black eyebrows furrowed and she reached her hands up towards his face, stopped herself and flexed her fingers.
Before he could say another word, Belle seized hold of her and they all disappeared.
Pain tore through him, chased by fury so deep that the darker side of his blood howled for violence, for revenge, hurt by the thought she would betray him like this.
He wrestled against the spell she had hit him with, refusing to let it disable him any longer. She didn’t want this. He couldn’t let her do it. He had to stop her.
She would hate herself if she let someone do this to her.
A feeling hit him, rocked him so hard he was surprised he remained standing as the entire world seemed
to tilt on its axis around him.
He more than cared about her.
He was in love with her.
He stared at her small home, feeling her in it and the garden, smelling her in the warm air, replaying over and over how she had looked at him when she had been in his arms.
Recalling how he had felt then.
Happy. Afraid. Excited.
It dawned on him that he had never really taken a risk in a relationship, even when he thought he had. He had always gone with the flow, never feeling anything he could label as true love, never willing to let anyone in too deep.
But gods, he wanted that with Cass. She was under his skin already, had burrowed her way deep into his heart, had done it without him noticing. Or maybe he had been in denial because he had thought a relationship with her was impossible.
Maybe he had been falling for her from the moment he had first set eyes on her.
It had been more than a craving he had felt then.
It had been the first stirrings of love.
And now his beautiful, enthralling, brave sorceress had left him.
But he wouldn’t let her go that easily.
He knew she needed to do her duty, that it was important to her, just like her family were, but he couldn’t stand the thought of her bearing another man’s child. There had to be a way to keep her with him. She was his and he needed her, more than he could ever make her see even if he had thousands of years with her.
An image popped into his head.
Cass pregnant, her gaze downcast at her swollen belly as she ran her hands over it, heavy with child.
His eyes stretched wide.
With his child.
He shook at the thought of that, wanted it but feared it so much at the same time. It would keep her with him, but it would also place her in even more danger. The daemons would target her, seeking to weaken him by taking her and their unborn child from his life.
He couldn’t survive that again. Not this time.
Losing Cass would kill him.
His love for her was soul deep, burning inside him, fierce and consuming. Absolute. He loved her.
The sort of love that made a god crazy.
He didn’t want to risk her, but he didn’t want to lose her either.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure what he wanted.
Did he want a child with Cass?
The image of her pregnant with his child was wondrous and addictive, warming him despite the cold that numbed him. He wanted to see her like that.
But it was too dangerous.
He cursed and fought to inch his foot forwards, shock rippling through him when he found he could move. His feet were heavy, muscles liquid beneath his skin, but he managed a few steps, reaching the terrace of her home.
Daimon clutched the wooden pole that supported the slatted roof and pulled himself up onto the terrace. He pressed his hand to the white wall to his right and supported himself as he trudged forwards, breathing hard with each step he managed.
A god on a mission.
He had to find Cass.
He wasn’t sure what he would do when he located her and he wasn’t going to worry about it. Finding her came first. He would tackle whatever came after that when it came.
Right now, he just needed to see her.
He just needed to speak with her.
Before it was too late.
Daimon made it inside and turned left, gripped her desk and pulled the drawers open. He grabbed all the papers she had stacked inside them and tossed them onto her desk. He ignored the ones that weren’t from her coven and read the ones that were, and something struck him.
They were all summons.
And they dated back years.
He pressed his hands to the top of the wooden desk and leaned forwards, over one letter in particular. The first one she had received and ignored.
She had been avoiding this for so long, and it boosted the feeling he had.
She didn’t want this.
What had made her change her mind now?
Him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his claws into the desk. She had gone with the witches to protect him, to stop them from killing him.
Daimon cursed her again.
And stepped.
Chapter 25
Black blood sprayed from the puncture wound in the male’s neck, splattered across the front of Keras’s shirt as he tightened his grip on the daemon, pressing claws into his flesh as he lifted him into the air. The thing writhed, legs thrashing as he desperately grappled with Keras’s arm, short claws tearing through his black shirtsleeves.
Keras grinned as his grip tightened further, as the wretch’s face reddened and his eyes rolled back, gasping breaths leaving his lips as his struggles slowed.
Pleasure rolled through Keras, sweet and intense as he watched the thing slowly die.
As he sensed the others in the shadows around him, twitching in the darkness, closing in on him where he stood in the middle of the broad swath of green in the heart of Paris.
When the daemon had gasped his last desperate breath and stared at him with sightless eyes, Keras casually discarded him.
Slowly turned and scanned the darkness, his heightened vision picking out all the daemons that hid in the bushes and behind the trunks of the trees that surrounded the edge of the park.
Keras canted his head.
Waited.
Anticipation hummed in the air around him, the night thick with it.
Buzzed inside him.
He rolled his shoulders and twisted his neck, loosening and warming up his muscles.
Waited.
A breath.
A shift in the air.
Keras pivoted, lips stretching in a grin as he slammed his palm into the throat of a female and grasped it, as shadows wrapped around her legs and she screamed, rending the silence with her desperate, pathetic shriek.
She died too quickly.
He tossed her aside and flexed his claws.
Waited.
Two broke cover and rushed him. Another two following hot on their heels.
Keras let them reach him, let them land a blow.
Because it was nice to let them feel they stood a chance against the darkness.
Against him.
The last of the four reached him and he began to fight back, raked claws over the thigh of one as he dropped and spun his leg out, catching the ankles of another. The two collided and grappled with each other as they went down. He spun up onto his heels and grinned as he backhanded the only female, sent her flying across the grass to slam into a tree. Wood cracked. Black blood gushed from the point where a branch impaled her.
Five more daemons charged him.
Keras ducked beneath the blow of a large male and twisted, slammed his fist into the daemon’s gut and lifted him off his feet with the force of his blow. He pulled back and before the wretch’s feet could touch the earth again, he smashed his other fist into the fiend’s face in an arcing blow that drove him into the dirt on his back.
He kicked his right foot forward, the heel of his black leather shoe hitting its target—the wretch’s cheek. A wet crunch broke the silence and the male went limp.
Keras’s green eyes flicked to his next victim.
The one he had clawed, who was spilling foul smelling blood all over the place as he tried to limp away, heading for the treeline.
Keras tilted his head back. Looked down his nose at the thing. Grinned.
Shadows shot up around the male, twisted and branched into a hundred vicious barbs that pierced the male all at once.
He didn’t even get the chance to scream.
The hideous mash of feelings inside Keras still refused to dissipate.
He glared at the five daemons and took them all down in one exhilarating blast of shadows.
He needed stronger opponents.
Worthy opponents.
He needed this tangled, twisted web of feelings out of him.
Needed to purge.
A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, too many to handle. A hundred unwanted emotions followed them.
Calistos. Valen. Marek.
All harmed because of his decision to seal the gates.
Esher.
Missing because he had failed to close the gate here in this very city—a gate he was meant to be in total control of and should have been able to shut down before his brother had recklessly chased a daemon into it.
Eli.
A bastard daemon now roaming the Underworld because of that failure to control the gate.
Keras sucked down a breath, and then another, but the weight remained pressing heavily upon his shoulders. A weight that refused to lift. A weight he knew he should bear.
The welfare of his brothers rested on his shoulders.
What happened to the gates was his sole responsibility.
His father had made that painfully clear.
Together with something else.
Failure was not an option.
And he was failing.
A grin stretched his lips as he punched a hole through the chest of a daemon, as he pulled his fist free and the male fell.
But he felt nothing.
So he did it again. Cutting down another daemon. And again. Devouring one with his shadows.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Until twenty dead daemons formed a circle around him, another dozen scattered across the grass at a distance.
And it still wasn’t enough.
It was never enough to purge the pain.
The one that festered deep inside him.
Eternal.
More daemons broke from the shadows.
Keras didn’t pay them any heed as he looked down at his bloodstained hands, as the plain silver band on his thumb caught the slender light and glinted at him. He rubbed his other thumb over it, clearing the blood away, feeling the warmth of the metal.
Metal of the gods.
Forged on Olympus.
Where she was.
Images flashed across his eyes. Images that had haunted him for weeks now, a constant presence whether he was asleep or awake. They tormented him.
He saw her.
Sleek black hair twisted in braids knotted at the back of her head. Curves clad in black and silver armour. Pale green eyes soft and warm, and rose lips curling with a smile.
Daimon: Guardians of Hades Series Book 6 Page 23
