Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 14

  On a vicious roar that sounded more beast than man, Cal launched at his brother. The two grappled, both fighting for the upper hand. She flinched as Cal cracked his forehead off Keras’s, the dull thwack of their skulls connecting turning her stomach.

  Keras didn’t react at all.

  His face remained placid, his eyes emotionless as Cal reared back and landed a hard punch on his jaw, knocking his head to one side. Cal was swift to follow it, his fist slamming into Keras’s stomach just above his left hip with enough force to leave a deep red mark.

  Keras grabbed Cal around the back of his head while he was bent forwards, shoved him down and brought his knee up, smashing it into Cal’s face. When Keras released him, Cal staggered backwards, breathing hard, and then grinned and launched back at his brother.

  Who was ready for him.

  She grimaced when Keras caught him with a swift right that split the skin on Cal’s left cheek. Blood trickled down it. Cal swiped it away and showed no sign of stopping, took another blow to the face as he worked to close the distance between him and his brother and find an opening.

  Neither looked as if they were going to back down any time soon.

  Sickness brewed in her stomach as she watched them fight, tearing skin and bruising bone. It was barbaric.

  “Stop!” She dropped off the bottom stair and risked a step forwards, towards them.

  Neither of them paid attention to her.

  Both seemed intent on killing each other.

  Her eyes widened when Cal smashed a fist into Keras’s cheek and a cut opened just below a small black birthmark on it.

  A cut that barely produced a drop of blood before it sealed before her eyes.

  They didn’t miss a beat, Keras throwing a punch that Cal blocked before attempting to land one of his own.

  There was something seriously wrong with these men.

  Cass’s words haunted her, a warning not to trust them.

  She had wanted to wait for her guardian here, but as the violence of the fight only began to escalate rather than ebb, that weird feeling triggered inside her, a cold that spread through her and roused a need that terrified her.

  She wanted to join in.

  No. Not her. Whatever this dormant thing inside her was. It wanted violence. She hated it in any form, refused to surrender to whatever caused that cold feeling inside her, that thing that whispered to her, goading her into hunting her father’s killers.

  Demanding justice be served to them.

  She tunnelled her fingers into her hair and pulled it back.

  She had to get out of here, away from these people.

  She wanted to know what she was and believed Cal when he said he would help her, but she wanted nothing to do with what they were doing. She didn’t want to be attacked again. She didn’t want to be bait as his brother had suggested, a way of luring their enemy to them.

  She didn’t want to be around this violence that fed the darkness inside her, and only made it hungrier.

  Blacking out had been terrifying, haunted her every second. She didn’t want to experience that again, lived in constant fear of it, afraid that she would lose control and would do things she couldn’t remember.

  Terrible things.

  She still had nightmares about what she had done, twisted replays of what had occurred in that street.

  Her right hand fell to her chest and she pulled her T-shirt into her fist.

  She hadn’t done that. It was the thing inside her that had done it, the black malevolent thing that bayed for blood.

  Cal and Keras broke apart, both of them dripping sweat and panting. Keras reached the bench near her first and tossed a towel at Cal, who caught it and rubbed himself down as he came to her.

  When he smiled, he was missing a tooth.

  He must have caught the horrified look on her face, because he said, “It’ll grow back. We heal fast.”

  She wasn’t worried about him missing a tooth. She was worried about all the other damage that had been done to him and the fact he had been fighting in the first place, attacking his own flesh and blood.

  “What was that all about?” She fought the cold, driving it back, refusing to let it spread and consume her.

  The fight was over. No more violence. Just Cal, looking as if someone had run him over with a steamroller.

  Cal shrugged.

  Keras took one look at her and disappeared in tendrils of black smoke and shadows. She found that creepy. Or maybe she found him creepy. There was something seriously wrong with him. He hadn’t shown an ounce of pain when they had been fighting.

  “It isn’t what you think.” Cal rubbed the towel over his chest.

  His very bare chest.

  She diligently kept her eyes off it. If she looked at it, she would start thinking about that moment in the kitchen again, and then she would be blushing. She was beginning to hate how easily he made her blush. Cass had told her once that she had a terrible poker face and let everything she felt show. Did that mean Cal was aware of how attractive she found him?

  She hoped not.

  “We were just blowing off steam. We do it all the time.” He tossed the towel onto the bench and planted his hands on his trim hips, and she swore he was doing it on purpose, trying to lure her gaze down to his body.

  She wasn’t going to blush.

  He was just a very good-looking man that she happened to find appealing. It was perfectly natural, and he wasn’t the first man she had found attractive. She could speak to him like an adult, without blustering and getting nervous.

  “I’m not sure Keras was blowing off steam.”

  “Ah, he’s always like that. Takes a lot to squeeze an emotion out of him. I secretly think Dad just cloned himself and passes Keras off as his firstborn son.”

  She had a flash of a pale, impossibly tall man wearing black armour, a crimson cloak and a black horned crown.

  Cal’s father, she presumed.

  The similarities between him and Keras were striking.

  The only emotion she could distinctly remember witnessing in Keras had been anger, and that was the only emotion she recalled that man revealing to her as well.

  A lot of anger.

  Marinda rubbed her temples, not really listening to Cal as another killer headache built like a thunderstorm in her head.

  “I need to hit the shower. I probably stink.” He moved past her.

  Another flash of the blood-soaked street hit her. She stood among the carnage, satisfaction rolling through her as she surveyed the battlefield, a glorious sight to behold.

  Bile blazed up Marinda’s throat.

  She needed some air.

  She spotted a door off to her right and hurried in that direction, into a dimly lit room. She passed straight through it to a set of twin doors and pushed them open, relieved to find them unlocked.

  She gulped down air as evening light washed over her. It was crisp, soothing. She filled her lungs with it, purging that lingering taste of blood.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood there on the patio of the small, elegant garden, basking in the fading light, focused on breathing to rid herself of the black urge to not only find the men who had killed her father and hand them over to the police, serving them justice.

  She wanted to kill them.

  Faint stars pricked the darkening sky and she drifted among them, hoping to shake that feeling.

  Needing to shake it.

  She wasn’t a killer.

  “Here you are.”

  She stiffened and pivoted to face Cal where he stood in the doorway, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, his wet hair pulled back into a ponytail. His blue eyes turned wary as he looked at her, as he eased off the step and slowly approached her.

  As if she was a cornered, petrified animal.

  She felt as if she was one.

  “I’m going out of my mind.” She barked out a laugh and her face crumpled as she looked up the towering height of the townhouse.

 
Her father had told her to be strong and have faith, but how could she do that when she was still spinning, when she was feeling things that just weren’t her, wanting things that weren’t like her? She slowly shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her hands down her biceps to keep the chill off them.

  How could she have faith and be strong when all her life, her father had been holding things back, keeping her in the dark?

  He hadn’t trusted her.

  And that hurt.

  She lowered her eyes to Cal.

  His were open and honest, beckoning her, drawing her to him again, filling her with the sensation that he wanted her to talk to him.

  God, she wanted to talk to him.

  She needed to talk to someone.

  Confide in someone.

  Trust someone.

  “I feel caged here.” Her gaze flickered to the pale stone building behind him. “I’m going out of my mind. I don’t know what’s wrong with me… I’m angry my father kept things from me… and… and I feel as if I’m drowning in it all. I feel as if I can’t breathe.”

  “I know exactly how you feel.” His solemn tone and the brief flare of pain that lit his blue eyes told her he wasn’t just saying that, not like many people would have in an attempt to make her feel better.

  He meant it.

  He held his hand out to her.

  Smiled softly.

  Rolled his fingers in a way that tempted her to take his hand and take a leap by trusting him.

  “I have the perfect medicine for you.”

  Chapter 14

  The ‘perfect medicine’ that Cal had prescribed hadn’t been what Marinda had anticipated, but as she began to relax, she had to admit it was thrilling.

  Freeing.

  She sat with her arms around Cal’s waist, her front pressed to his spine, his warmth seeping into her to keep the chill of the evening air off her skin together with the black leather jacket he had given her. Wind rushed against her, cutting around Cal as he gently eased the motorbike through the traffic on the Champs Élysées.

  At first, she hadn’t wanted to ride on a contraption that looked like a death trap to her—a sleek black motorcycle with golden detailing. Mostly because it looked as if it would be more at home on a racing track than a road. But it hadn’t taken Cal long to cajole her into giving it a go, and into trusting him.

  His hand came down on hers where they locked over his stomach, not the first reassuring touch he had given her since they had set out from the townhouse. This time, his hand lingered, warming hers, filling her with heat that had her relaxing further.

  Pressing closer.

  She mourned the loss of the feel of his skin against hers as he removed his hand and navigated the bike around a taxi, cutting across the lanes to the slower side of the traffic. Lights chased over her, illuminating the trees that line the broad street, and she took to watching the world fly by as she found the courage to rest her cheek against his back.

  He responded by easing back on the throttle, slowing the bike down until they were going at a leisurely pace, something she doubted he did very often. He liked fast bikes, had confessed he had a collection of them in London when he had disappeared on her and returned with this one, managing to teleport it to her.

  This was more her style. She wasn’t into taking risks, and motorcycles had always looked like a dangerous form of transport to her, especially when she was riding one without a helmet.

  Although with Cal in contact with her, she felt safe perched on the back of his bike. He had assured her that if anything happened, he could ‘step’ with her, which was apparently what he and his brothers called teleporting.

  It had definitely had the desired effect on her, getting her onto the back of his bike for a ride through Paris.

  She watched the stores flying past, the people as they came and went along the busy pavements, and soaked up the feel of Cal against her, how his hand came back to hers, covering it again.

  Holding it.

  She didn’t stop him when he slipped his fingers between hers and curled them over.

  Didn’t fight how good it made her feel.

  She didn’t feel even a hint of nerves as he held her hand.

  The first man to do such a thing. Or not a man. A god. A god of the Underworld. But that didn’t frighten her. They weren’t so different. According to her father, she came from that world too.

  Cal squeezed her hand.

  She lifted her head and he jerked his towards something in front of him, sliding her a sideways look at the same time.

  Marinda looked there.

  Ahead of them, the golden Arc de Triomphe stood proud against the dark sky, the trees that lined the avenue seemingly guiding her gaze towards it.

  It was beautiful.

  She smiled when Cal looked at her, nestled closer to him and tried not to think about the fact his hips were between her thighs.

  He smiled right back at her, and her belly fluttered. He was handsome, despite the bruises and some cuts that were still healing after his fight, and now that his joker façade was beginning to fall away, she was starting to find it hard to deny the heat that swept through her blood, igniting it with a powerful need.

  He shifted his focus back to the road in front of him, allowing her to study his face at her leisure, without feeling embarrassed about it. He was a contradiction, and the more layers she peeled away, the more attracted to him she became.

  Cal guided the bike around the Arc de Triomphe, doing a full lap and then another one. She had never been around it before. She had been to it, and she had been up it, but she had never circled it like this, able to see it from so many different angles and study it in full from a distance that allowed her to pick out all the details in the delicate carving and the statues.

  She was about to settle her cheek against Cal’s back again and soak in the view when a sharp sensation shot down her spine and she stiffened.

  That weird instinct she now possessed had her looking over her shoulder, sure that someone was there.

  Cal must have felt it too, because he did the same.

  He cursed low.

  “Daemons.” He released her hand and squeezed hers together. “Hang on tight.”

  She locked her hands tightly around his waist and pressed against him. The second he released her, the engine of the bike roared and they lurched forwards, speeding across the lanes of traffic towards one of the busy roads heading away from the monument.

  “They following?” Calistos hollered as the wind buffeted them and parked cars streamed past them.

  Marinda wasn’t sure what she was looking for.

  She glanced back and it turned out she didn’t need to worry about not knowing how to spot a daemon.

  But she really did have to worry about the two human-looking men on motorcycles that were chasing them down, flanking a black Mercedes SUV.

  “Yes, they’re following.” She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “Can you go faster?”

  “Baby, I can leave fire in my trail on this bike.” He gunned the engine and she shrieked as they suddenly accelerated, the gap between them and the daemons growing.

  She didn’t want to know how fast they were going, but apparently it wasn’t fast enough. The two on bikes sped towards them, gaining again.

  Her eyes widened as something caught the streetlights, drawing her gaze up.

  “Cal?” she breathed, unable to believe what she was seeing. “Can daemons fly?”

  Because it looked a heck of a lot like there were two scaly humanoid things with wings chasing them too.

  “Ah, fuck.” Cal swerved around a car and back again, cutting past traffic.

  She flinched and burrowed against his back as they sped across an intersection and car headlights came at her. Cal hit the throttle again, the bike lunging forwards just as a car closed in on her. It cut past the back of the bike, blaring its horn at them.

  “Are you insane?” She wanted to slap
his back, but was too afraid of falling to remove her hands from his waist.

  “I can outrun them.” Cal just rode faster, his reflexes amazing as he dodged and weaved, slipping the bike through the heavy traffic.

  Riding the damned thing like he had stolen it.

  She wasn’t immortal. Not that she knew anyway. Keras had healed that cut so quickly, and Cal was healing fast too. Any time she had injured herself, it had taken her days to heal it, just like a human.

  She didn’t think she would survive if they crashed into any of the cars. She could see it all playing out before her eyes, how she would tumble like a ragdoll across the tarmac, breaking so easily.

  How a car would probably mow her down and finish her off.

  A scream burst from her lips as they narrowly avoided being hit by a car as it cut across the lanes.

  The high roar of the engine and the wind that deafened her as it blasted against her did nothing for her nerves either. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, deciding she didn’t want to see what was happening, but she couldn’t stop staring at every car they whizzed past, or the daemons who were hot on their heels, weaving their bikes through the traffic with the same skill as Cal.

  Her gaze drifted up. The winged fiends were somehow closing in on them.

  Creatures that no one else on the street seemed to see.

  Cal sped onto another intersection. Car horns blared as his left arm slammed against her ribs, forcing her to lean right. She had only a split-second to react before he was turning the bike at a sharp angle, his knee coming down and almost grazing the road. She leaned right, desperately countering the weight of the bike, a silent scream lodged in her throat.

  The bike fishtailed as he straightened out, the back wheel kicking left and right.

  Marinda clung to him and did scream this time.

  Right down his ear so he knew how close she had been to having a heart attack.

  She mentally crossed herself several times as Cal sped down the new road, a narrower one with less traffic on it.