Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,25

have the space he needed, all he felt was concern.

Worry about a witch.

He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

A single thought flowing through him.

No good could come from that.

Chapter 7

Cass remained with her back to the wall at the end of the corridor near the kitchen, lingering long after Daimon had stepped, his power disappearing from the tangle that filled the air.

She inwardly cursed.

She should have known better than to approach Daimon when he had been seeking solitude, but some ridiculous part of her had needed to be near him.

Had needed him to know he wasn’t alone, even when he felt he was.

The same ridiculous part that had hoped he would show her that the same was true for her.

She wasn’t afraid, not of anything.

She wasn’t.

She didn’t feel this pressing need to be close to him because she wanted him to protect her, to save her from the fate that loomed on the horizon ahead of her, casting her future in a black shadow.

She could protect herself. She always had. She didn’t need anyone.

She didn’t.

Yet she couldn’t stop herself from hurrying through the main room of the mansion to Calistos’s room, poking her head inside, looking at Mari and saying, “I’m going to rest for a while if you don’t mind.”

Mari shook her head. “No. Of course. I’m a little tired myself.”

Mari was absolutely that, if tired was a synonym for horny. Her friend was restless, fidgeting with folding clothes and idly cleaning the sparsely furnished room. When Cass lingered, Mari gave her a look that screamed that she wanted her to go away so Cal would come to her.

Cass had far too much dignity to be a cockblocker. It was beneath her. Mari was her ward but she was a grown woman, and Cass accepted that grown women had needs.

Especially when a handsome god was in the vicinity.

Where had her handsome god gone?

She dipped her head to Mari, turned and rounded the corner, and strode past Calistos, murmuring, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

For some reason, he shuddered.

She supposed she had been on his case since meeting him. He wasn’t used to this side of her—the one that didn’t want to string his entrails around the mansion like bunting.

The moment she reached her temporary quarters in Keras’s room, she slid the panel that acted as a door closed and focused, checking her surroundings. All the brothers were far away enough.

She muttered an incantation, one that would give the illusion she was in the room, and then followed it with another spell.

One that transported her to Hong Kong.

The moment she touched down on the winding road that cut up the side of the steep hill of Victoria Peak, she paused. What was she doing? Hadn’t she already disturbed Daimon’s solitude? She stood there on the narrow road, the only sound the trees rustling in the gentle breeze and her heart beating in her ears.

Why couldn’t she leave him alone?

She stared straight ahead of her, up the slope that would lead to his impressive modern home perched on the side of the hill, one she had visited more than once during her study of him before she had met Calistos.

Before she had really met Daimon.

Back then, everything had been so uncomplicated. He had been nothing but a target, someone to study and catalogue so she could be sure he was worthy of being one of Mari’s protectors as Eric had wanted.

Now?

Now she wasn’t sure what he was to her, but she knew what he couldn’t be.

Now everything was too complicated.

She told herself to leave, to give him the peace he needed, but her feet carried her forwards against her will.

She needed to see him.

Just needed to see he was all right and then she would go.

She would keep her distance so he wouldn’t sense her, would watch over him to make sure nothing happened while he was lost in his thoughts. Ares wasn’t the only one who had noticed that the disappearance of Esher weighed heavily on Daimon and despite his best efforts to do what he felt was right, taking care of the family home that Esher cherished and Aiko, sometimes it became too much for him.

During her study of the brothers, she had watched Daimon taking care of Esher, always there for the beast, always watching over him, always ready to bring him back from the edge. She had mused that the fates had gotten their entrance into this world the wrong way around, and that Daimon