Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,113

eyes on hers.

Just the way she liked it.

She liked having him and his brothers on their knees.

At her mercy.

“Kiss me, and I will halve that number.”

He scowled at her. “No.”

She inspected her nails, a dark edge to her crimson eyes. “So loyal to your little sorceress. She has you well under her spell.”

He wanted to ask her what that was supposed to mean too, but held his tongue, because there was no mistaking the emotion that surfaced in her eyes as they shifted back to lock with his.

She was jealous.

He lowered his gaze to the metal ring and his bound hands, focused on it instead of her, hoping she would get the message that he was done talking. He could see where things would go if he let her have her way. She wanted to turn him against Cass, would probably say anything to get him to break up with her, spouting lies about her that were bound to involve his enemy and her being a member of them. Cass wasn’t. She was loyal too—loyal to Mari, and to him.

The gritty black floor bit into his knees through his jeans as he waited. Seconds stretched into minutes.

Nemesis finally huffed.

A whirr cut the thick air and he gritted his teeth, adrenaline coursing through him as he braced himself. He grunted as the metal whip cut down his back, catching his spine.

Muttered his first apology.

She struck him again, forcing another from him, and then again, this one catching him from his left shoulder all the way down to his right hip. He arched forwards, barely stifling the cry that rose up his throat.

Apologised again.

Daimon tried to keep count of the lashes as she hit him over and over, focused on Cass to help him bear the pain of each strike, filling his mind with something pleasant to counter the torment.

But the pain began to win, blurring his thoughts as his entire body ached, heat throbbing across his back and his shoulders in sickening waves as blood rolled down his skin and drenched his jeans.

As sweat stung the lacerations.

Nemesis stopped.

They weren’t done.

His head was a little foggy and it was near impossible to focus, but he swore she had only delivered two thousand lashes.

Was she giving him a breather? It wasn’t like her. She had whipped him close to four thousand times once without giving him a break.

He grimaced and clenched his teeth as she drew her fingers across his shoulders, fire rolling in their wake as she caught each deep laceration.

She rounded him and he looked up at her, found her staring at her fingers.

At his blood.

A distant look in her crimson eyes.

“Such power in something so…” She didn’t finish that sentence, just lifted her fingers to her lips and tasted his blood, her tongue darting over her fingertips. Her eyes rolled back and she moaned.

That was a first.

She had never tasted his blood before.

He frowned at her, a glimmer of suspicion forming inside his weary mind, pushing through the pain and the fatigue that wracked him.

Her gaze dropped to meet his.

She seemed strangely upbeat. He would go as far as saying she was a little giddy about something. It wasn’t there on the surface, on her placid features, but it was there in her eyes as she towered over him.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Nemesis leaned over, her breasts threatening to spill from her black dress, and stroked his cheek.

Daimon stared into her eyes. “Can we get on with this? I have somewhere I need to be.”

He knew he was pushing it, but he wanted to be away from her. Far away from her. Something wasn’t right about her today. She was always strange, but she had never tasted his blood before and had never been like this. Was it because of Cass?

Or something else?

That feeling that it was about something else only worsened as she smiled.

As she peered deep into his eyes, a sick satisfied edge to hers.

“Oh… sweet Daimon… you are not going anywhere,” she murmured, voice dripping honey even as it sent ice skating down his spine.

He reared back, breaking contact between them, and frowned at her. “What do you mean by that?”

Her crimson smile only widened.

“A change of plans, but perhaps for the better.”

She raked her scarlet eyes over him, twisted satisfaction and darkness filling them.

“It is such a shame I cannot be there to see your downfall.”

She leaned in close and hissed in his ear.

“But I will be here to welcome you with open arms when you return