Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,17

looped her arm around hers. “That one is a might prickly with me.”

She glanced at Daimon’s back. His shoulders stiffened.

“Because you prod and poke him,” Mari said, her French accent adding a lightness to her words that wasn’t really there.

Eric might not have been Marinda’s biological father, but the two had ended up with similar personalities. Mari was one of those sweet, forever kind of hearts too.

Cass preferred things to be more for now than forever.

Keras, Marek, Ares and Daimon stopped in a line and Keras looked back at her and Mari.

“The gate is over there. We can’t get any closer without influencing it. The rest is down to you.” Keras’s cold green eyes settled on Mari.

She nodded and drew down a deep breath that had Cass squeezing her arm, unable to hold back the need to reassure her.

Cass led her past the brothers, deciding to pick the route furthest from Daimon, just to irritate him. She hadn’t missed how he had looked when she had spoken of drinking ambrosia with Keras. She sidled close to the black-haired man who was a clone of his father, held a fathomless darkness in him that always warned her away from him.

And as predicted, Daimon’s gaze instantly seared her.

He didn’t like her near his only single brother.

She noted that and continued walking, the power that emanated from the hidden gate luring her towards it. When it buffeted her as strongly as the autumnal breeze did, she halted and looked at Mari.

“You’re up.” She released Mari’s arm and took two steps back, but refused to go any further, just in case Mari needed her.

The wind caught ribbons of Mari’s golden hair as she stood in the middle of the rooftop, her back to Cass. Tokyo stretched around her, a million buildings crammed together into one sprawling claustrophobic space bathed in fading evening light. She swore she could see all of the city from up this high, and it stretched for miles. Endless in all directions. A sea of rooftops with sparse patches of green.

She missed home.

Not the coven in Siberia, but her home in the Aegean.

It was quiet there, filled with long sunny days and few people to bother her.

Plus, everyone there adored and respected her.

Mari moved, pulling Cass back to the present as she raised her hands before her and her head lowered slightly. Cass waited, staring at the point where the power of the gate felt strongest and on high alert, just in case something bad happened.

She lined up a series of spells.

It always paid to be prepared.

Violet light flickered just beyond Mari, and Mari stretched her arms out towards it, her entire body tensing and then beginning to shake as she grunted. The pinprick of light glittered as it hovered a few feet above the flat roof of the towering building, but didn’t expand into the central disc of the gate.

Mari’s shoulders shook as she strained.

Cass focused on her and swore under her breath. This was taking too much out of her. She broke towards her, ignoring the muttered comments coming from their audience, and took hold of her.

“That’s enough.” Cass gripped her arm and lowered it for her, wrapped her other one around Mari’s waist as she sagged, breathing hard. She looked back at Keras. “Satisfied?”

He nodded. “Hopefully the enemy has also lost their ability to command the gate. Do you feel you would be able to open it if there were two of you?”

Mari wearily lifted her head. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

Cass’s gaze drifted to Daimon.

His ice-blue eyes slowly widened, his eyebrows rising as his lips parted.

But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking beyond her.

Cass whipped around to face that direction. Violet-black clouds billowed outwards from a point near the edge of the rooftop, sparking with green and purple lightning that chased between them as they expanded to fill an area five feet wide by seven feet tall.

A portal.

She grabbed Mari’s wrist and shoved her behind her, pushing her as she quickly backed away from the opening portal, heading towards the brothers and Caterina. Daimon appeared in front of her together with Ares.

“It can’t be the wraith.” Frost glittered on Daimon’s gloves as he curled his hands into fists.

“Gates are shut to traffic.” Ares didn’t take his eyes off the portal. “No way for Eli to get out of the Underworld. It’s them.”

“That’s worrying,” Mari said from behind Cass, and Cass couldn’t agree more. “I lost my ability to cast a portal and they