Daimon: Guardians of Hades Series Book 6 Read online

  None of which she liked.

  Was it her fault?

  Gods, she felt as if it was.

  That haunted and pained look he had given her before he had teleported was seared on her mind, together with the state of him. What he had done to himself scared her. The sight of him drenched in black daemon blood, crimson seeping from the deep lacerations on his stomach and arms and legs, scared her.

  The thought that he had teleported when his stumbling steps had made it blindingly clear he was weakened by the battle, could be out there somewhere now, collapsed and vulnerable, terrified her.

  She needed to see him.

  She focused, lining up the incantation in her mind, piecing it together as she fixed her thoughts on a destination.

  Transported herself there.

  She appeared beside the pool set into the white terrace of Daimon’s hillside modern home, fatigue washing through her as the spell stole her strength. She gave herself a moment as she peered through the huge panes of tinted glass that were set between white concrete and steel pillars.

  As soon as her legs felt stable enough, she moved towards the building, her limited senses scouring the area for Daimon. She couldn’t feel his power.

  But he had to be here.

  She approached the glass door and didn’t hesitate when she reached it. She pushed it open, not surprised to find it was unlocked, and eased inside, her pulse picking up as she listened hard.

  She wasn’t sure whether Daimon would appreciate her coming after him, but he could be mad at her all he wanted. He needed someone to take care of him and she was determined to be that person.

  Just as she was determined to find out why he had allowed daemons to harm him.

  “Daimon?” she called, softly at first, nerves getting the better of her. When he didn’t answer, she put more force behind her voice. “Daimon?”

  She waited.

  Still no answer.

  She moved between the long couch and the immaculate kitchen area, heading deeper into the building, towards white doors she presumed led to bedrooms.

  The first one she tried was empty.

  “Daimon?” She backed out of the room and turned towards the other, the sickness growing stronger as she crossed the marble floor. She pushed the door open and looked around the huge bedroom, at the untouched dark blue covers on the king-size bed. “Daimon?”

  That last attempt to get him to answer felt pointless, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from calling to him again.

  He wasn’t here.

  She racked her brain, trying to figure out where he might have gone. He was hurt. He wouldn’t have gone to the orphanage in that state, and she didn’t know of any other homes that he owned. She doubted he had gone to one owned by his brothers, since they were all in Tokyo.

  Cass pulled together the incantation again, her heart drumming at a sickening pace as fear got the better of her. Someone would know where he had gone. Someone would tell her, even if she had to beat it out of them.

  She closed her eyes and finished the spell, opened them again as she landed back where she had been in the garden of the Tokyo mansion.

  She reached out with a tracking spell to pinpoint the brothers. Most of them were in Marek’s room, but there was one in the kitchen. Her legs wobbled as she headed in that direction, her steps unsteady. She breathed through the drain on her strength, refusing to give herself time to recover.

  Daimon was out there, injured and vulnerable. She needed to find him.

  Someone had to know where he had gone.

  They just had to.

  She entered the kitchen and drew up short as she spotted Calistos. He stood at the counter of the galley kitchen, clothed in a fresh T-shirt and jeans, his damp golden hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was already healing too, something she found curious since she hadn’t attended to him and none of the brothers could heal that quickly.

  She doubted he had allowed Megan to use her healing talent on him, not when he had refused her before. She also doubted that Ares would have allowed it.

  Calistos was quick to look at her, easing back from preparing vegetables and wiping his hands on a towel. “Something up?”

  His blond eyebrows knitted low over stormy eyes, ones that demanded an answer to that question as he stared at her.

  She pushed down her nerves, pulled up her courage, and refused to let him see that she was shaken.

  Because he would use it as ammunition against her for months.

  She could see it in his eyes as they slowly narrowed, suspicion and curiosity forming in them. He wanted to find a weakness in her, something he could use against her, a fault he could point out to Mari as retribution for all the times she had brought up his failings in front of her ward.

  That ward came up behind her, briefly wrapped her in a hug from behind and then released her and stepped around her.

  She forced a tight smile as Mari looked at her. One that clearly failed to cover her worry because Mari’s beautiful face fell, concern replacing the smile that had been brightening her blue-green eyes.

  “Something’s wrong. What is it?” Mari’s blonde eyebrows furrowed as she took a step towards Cass.

  All of Cass’s strength drained from her as she looked into Mari’s eyes, as her soft words curled around her and sank deep into her, stripping away the stubborn part of her and pulling forth an urge to let it all rush out of her.

  “Daimon left. He was injured. Perhaps a little angry with me. I only wanted to help him. I don’t know where he’s gone.” She looked at Cal. “I was hoping you might.”

  Calistos pursed his lips, a thoughtful edge to his expression that didn’t mask the fact he was going to make her pay for the information he could give her.

  “What’s the deal with you and Daimon?” he said, his blue eyes gaining a victorious glimmer, because he thought he had her on the ropes, that she would surrender something he could use against her in some way.

  “There is no deal.” She tipped her chin up.

  Cal folded his arms across his chest, his black T-shirt tightening over his honed muscles. “I’m not telling you where he might have gone until you fess up to things. You’re crushing on Daimon.”

  Cass glared at him. “I am not.”

  She was.

  But she feared this was more than a crush.

  She had feelings for Daimon.

  And they ran deep.

  “It is pretty obvious—” Mari cut off when Cass turned her glare on her.

  “It’s complicated.” Cass didn’t want to say any more than that, not even when Calistos and Marinda both looked as if they were expecting her to do just that. She cursed herself when she couldn’t stop her nerves, her fears, from getting the better of her and ended up adding, “I’m not sure Daimon really likes me.”

  Gods, she felt like an idiot schoolgirl with a crush as those words leaked from her.

  Desperately hoping one of his friends would reveal his true feelings to her to allay her fears.

  Cal shrugged. “He must… since he can’t touch you. It can’t be lust.”

  “He can touch me,” she admitted, unable to hold that back too, and realised it was the crux of her fears.

  Did Daimon only like her because he could touch her? Before she had revealed that she could use magic to negate his ice, he had been attracted to her, hadn’t he?

  But he had changed after she had revealed that to him. She couldn’t deny that, and she had no way of knowing whether the knowledge that he could touch her had only unleashed him, freeing him and allowing him to act on the attraction he felt towards her.

  “Shit,” Cal muttered and looked at Mari, and then back at her. “I mean… I’d say it explains a lot because you’re hardly girlfriend material, but—”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Cass snapped, her hackles rising as she glared at Cal, daring him to admit he had been insinuating that his brother only wanted her because he could touch her, and that Daimon would n
ever consider her as a possible girlfriend.

  Not that she wanted to be his girlfriend or anything like it for that matter.

  Cal hiked his shoulders. “I’m just saying it as I see it. You, Cassandra, don’t strike me as the girlfriend, long-term commitment, type.”

  “You are hardly in a position to judge me, or must I remind you of the numerous times I have seen you seducing your way through a bar, targeting a whole slew of women?” She gave him a black look, one that she knew conveyed every ounce of her anger because he stiffened.

  Turned awkward.

  “Yeah, well… shit, uh, changes. I’m just saying, is all,” he grumbled and rubbed the back of his neck. His blue eyes filled with worry. “But this thing with Daimon… don’t make him think it’s more than it is, yeah? I don’t want to see my brother get hurt.”

  Cass threw her hands up, frustration getting the better of her. “That’s the second threat I’ve received tonight.”

  Cal’s right eyebrow jacked up. “Second? Who else threatened you?”

  She clamped her lips shut.

  He looked as if he was going to push the subject, and then sighed. “Fine. Truth is, Daimon is probably in Hong Kong.”

  “He’s not there.” She didn’t hide the worry that tinged her voice. “I already checked. There has to be somewhere else he might go.”

  Aiko appeared at the other end of the kitchen, rubbing her black hair with a pink towel. “Where who might go?”

  Her brown eyes were ringed with dark circles, fatigue lacing them. Or perhaps depression. Cass had no experience of that herself, but she could see that Esher’s continuing absence was weighing heavily on the young Japanese woman.

  “Daimon.” Cass’s shoulders slumped as hope bled from her. “He was in a… mood. He left and I don’t know where he went, and I’m… worried about him.”

  Cal gave her a look. Not one of his usual smirking glances that said he was going to enjoy pouncing on whatever she had just said or done to use it as payback. He looked worried, and perhaps a little relieved. Because she had just admitted without so many words that she cared about his brother?

  “She checked Hong Kong.” Cal twisted and eased his backside against the counter, so he could see Aiko.

  Aiko’s nose wrinkled slightly as she frowned, her eyes dropping to the floor as the towel paused against her hair. When she lifted her gaze and fixed it on Cass, hope dared to bloom again.

  “I know where he might have gone.” Each word that left Aiko’s lips was carefully weighed, her gaze turning scrutinising as she looked across the room at Cass. “I heard them talking about it once… Daimon and… Esher.”

  Tears laced Aiko’s dark eyes, the pain that beat in them sounding in his name.

  “Where might he have gone?” Cass felt like a bitch for pushing, but she had the dreadful feeling that time was of the essence.

  Aiko’s lips parted and then closed, and she stared at Cass, studying her in silence for a long minute before she finally spoke. “He likes to go there when he wants to be alone.”

  Cass didn’t miss the emphasis Aiko placed on the last four words, the warning to give Daimon space.

  She couldn’t heed it, no matter how much she wanted to do that. Something was wrong with him, and he needed help with his injuries. She couldn’t let him be out there, alone, vulnerable, in a bad place. She feared he would do something reckless.

  More reckless than allowing daemons to hurt him.

  “Please, Aiko,” Cass whispered, her voice heavy with the fear that flowed through her.

  Cal and Mari exchanged a worried look. Aiko slowly nodded.

  “Try heading to Antarctica, to Halley Bay. They talked about it once.” Aiko’s words offered both a solution, and a problem.

  Cass looked down at herself, at her strapless corset and leather trousers.

  Hardly the clothing for Antarctica, even in summer.

  But she had been raised in the frigid remote reaches of Siberia. She had endured freezing winters. She was tough.

  She could handle a little cold.

  “Thank you.” She bowed her head to Aiko and hurried to her room, dug out the mundane black woollen sweater she had brought with her and pulled it on.

  She pulled open the drawers on the dresser, seeking more layers, anything that would keep the chill off her long enough that she could find Daimon.

  Nothing in them was of any use to her, so she went to the wall to her right and slid the panel open, revealing a cupboard. It contained a lot of shirts and some trousers. She hurried through them, pushing them down the bar, and breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the end and spotted something tucked in the far corner of the cupboard.

  A coat.

  She pulled it off the hanger and brushed it down, sent up a prayer that nothing was living in it because the black woollen jacket looked as if it had been sitting there collecting dust for at least a decade.

  Cass slipped her arms into it, pulled it closed and formed the incantation, hoping it would work. It was always hit and miss when she didn’t know the location she wanted to transport herself to. Sometimes, the magical pathways that connected every place in the world had a different name for the location, and she ended up somewhere she didn’t want to be.

  Sometimes, there were far too many places named the same thing and she ended up going nowhere.

  She focused on Antarctica, on Halley Bay, not knowing what to expect if the spell did work and transported her there.

  Magic hummed inside her, pulsed in her bones and flowed in her veins, wrapping her in a layer of warmth that quickly dissipated as she touched down.

  Frigid cold blasted her, the icy wind slicing straight through the layers she had donned, numbing her flesh and freezing her blood. She huddled down into the coat as she squinted against the bright vast white that encompassed her, shuddering as the wind felt as if it was cutting her to the bone, flaying the flesh from them.

  Snow battered her, saturating her hair in an instant, turning it to tangled black ribbons that sapped even more warmth from her skin. She turned and winced as the wind drove the icy flakes into her eyes, twisted away again and looked around her. Her legs shook beneath her, her feet so cold that she couldn’t feel them.

  Cass scoured the area, expending valuable energy using a spell to seek out Daimon, a small voice at the back of her mind telling her this was reckless, dangerous, and that she had to go back. She couldn’t see more than a few feet through the blizzard and she was already dangerously low on energy. If she lingered, the cold might steal enough of her strength that she would be stranded.

  But she had to find Daimon.

  A stronger blast of wind hit her in the back, sending her stumbling forwards. She trudged in the direction the wind was pushing her, eyes darting as she tried to make things out. Fear rolled up on her, making her doubt each step she took as her heart pounded, thoughts that she might walk right into a crevasse or off a cliff ricocheting around her mind.

  This was foolish.

  She had to leave.

  She couldn’t withstand such harsh elements for much longer. If she tried, she would lose her ability to teleport.

  She would die out here.

  Alone.

  She pulled the jacket closed even tighter, burrowed down into it as a thought struck her, rising from her heart.

  She didn’t want to die without seeing Daimon’s face one last time.

  She wanted to see his heart through his eyes again, see him open to her, needed it and refused to give in until she had it. She ached for the feel of his arms around her, his skin heating her.

  Cass pulled her right hand away from her coat and coaxed fire into her palm. It warmed her a little, but the flame was small, kept stuttering out in the wind.

  She shuffled forwards.

  Was it growing darker?

  She looked around her, flinching as ice battered the side of her face. It was definitely growing darker. Her steps slowed. Her feet grew heavy.

 
The flame hovering above her palm died.

  Cass’s knees gave out and she sank into the snow, teeth chattering as her heart clenched. Mother earth. Sweet gods. She curled over, hugging herself, desperate to get some heat back into her body. She just wanted to see Daimon again.

  Would give her last breath to see that he was alive and safe.

  The darkness closed in and she tried to fight it, panic lancing her as she realised it wasn’t night falling, but her body failing.

  The cold that gripped her worsened, sapping the last of her strength.

  But then warmth touched her face.

  Something lifted her, cradled her gently against a hard chest. A heart beat steady and strong against her ear, loud in spite of the roaring icy wind. Wind that no longer touched her.

  The sound died, spun away with the cold and the pain.

  Leaving her dizzy and sleepy.

  “Don’t sleep, baby. Stay with me.” Those words roused her, gave her the strength to open her eyes and catch the glimpse of Daimon she had prayed to mother earth to receive.

  He leaned over her, his white hair slicked back, his cheeks pink, not concern in his beautiful intense eyes but fear—cold, stark fear that did nothing to warm her.

  He bobbed up and down in time with her, kept glancing towards her lap. To her hands. Why? She tried to lift her head to see but it felt too heavy and she collapsed back against him.

  Sleep beckoned again.

  “Stay awake.” He jostled her, jerking her left and then right, moving her arms.

  The chilling cold of her coat and sweater disappeared and she tried to look at herself to see what he was doing.

  Her eyes slid down to her hands as they felt different. Warmer. He was rubbing them. Her eyes widened, horror flashing through her. Her fingers were mottled, black and red, blue in places. Fear seized her, sank claws deep into her to steal her breath.

  Daimon leaned over her and blew on her hands, hot and moist, chasing some of the numbing cold from them, and then he was lifting her again.

  The sound of bubbling water filled the deafening silence and she looked down as he eased her into it, her fuzzy mind struggling to comprehend what was happening. The water felt cold, but there was steam rising from it. The fog in her mind gradually cleared as heat began to seep into her.