Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,135
then it was gone.
Meadow scrambled onto her feet and glared at where the gate was hidden.
A pinprick of purple light burst back into existence.
“Shit,” Ares muttered and raced past him, Valen hot on his heels. “I’ll handle this.”
Daimon nodded and pivoted, hurried to Cass and helped her onto her feet.
She continued to stare up at the sky, watching Mister Milos as he fought the furie. More than just her blood was splattering them now. The guardian was taking heavy damage too. He willed Milos to fight harder, and to survive. As much as he couldn’t stand the cat, he had to make it through the battle. Cass would be devastated if something happened to him.
Someone whimpered.
And then Melody plummeted out of the sky, landing hard on her back on the grass, blood bursting from her lips as her body jerked upwards.
Daimon figured the goddess was done for.
She was still for a tense minute and then she coughed and rolled over, pressed her hands and knees into the dirt and shook her head.
Damn.
Twin orbs of twisting green and purple light shot past Daimon and slammed into the goddess, sending her flying.
“Bitch,” Cass muttered and sagged in his arms.
He clutched her to him with one arm and raised his other one, and ice shot up from the ground as Melody ran at him. The furie managed to dodge the first shard, but the second caught her calf, and the third pierced her thigh, sending her toppling forwards.
Just as the fourth jagged spear of ice shot up from the ground.
One he had intended to use to block her path to Cass.
The thicker shard impaled her chest, crimson swift to roll down it as it sliced clean through her and the pointed tip emerged from her back.
“Melody!” Meadow yelled, pain and fury in that one word.
Together with fear.
The furie cast one last look at her fallen sister and then spun on her heel, sprinting for a portal that formed just a few feet ahead of her. Ares growled and hurled a fireball at her, and lightning shot up from the ground just in front of her. She threw herself to her left, rolled and came onto her feet, kicked off and leaped.
Straight through the portal.
Keras snarled, a black growl that had Daimon focusing on his brother to see what had him so upset.
The daemons were fleeing.
It was over.
At least for now.
He gathered Cass to him, held her close and pressed a kiss to her messy black hair, a thousand feelings crashing over him as his battle instincts waned. Fear was at the helm, had him clinging to Cass as his mind filled with all the ways things could have gone differently.
Gone wrong.
He had come close to losing her too many times tonight.
When she pulled back and looked up into his eyes, pain shimmering in hers together with tears, he knew that feeling echoed inside her too.
Mister Milos landed as his brothers strode towards him, Keras helping Marek as he pressed a hand to his thigh, and Valen and Ares arguing about who had let the other furie escaped.
Cass slowly turned towards the winged lion, tense at first. Fear ran through her and a glow lit her palm, chasing back the night. He smiled as he realised she didn’t know who had been the one to save her.
As the beast limped towards her, blood tracking down his left front leg, and the light of her spell washed over him to reveal scars on his face and the notch in his ear, recognition dawned in her eyes.
“Milos,” she breathed, her face crumpling as she broke free of Daimon’s grip and hurried to him.
The guardian deity shrank back to his other form as she rushed to meet him, his wings disappearing into his back and white splotches growing on his fur.
By the time Cass had reached him, he was a cat again, purring loudly as Cass swept him up into her arms and fussed over him, using a healing spell on his injuries.
She looked at Daimon. Frowned.
“You don’t look surprised.” She glanced at his brothers. “None of you do.”
Ares and Valen shrugged. Marek grimaced as he applied pressure to his thigh. Keras didn’t react at all. He was too busy scouring the darkness, where shadows lashed at the bodies of the daemons, devouring them and leaving nothing more than withered husks behind that broke down in the gentle breeze that swept through the park.
“How long have you known?” Her gaze drifted back to Daimon.