Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,29

relax.

Something which seemed impossible these days.

He pivoted at the wall, pressed his feet to the white tiles and kicked off, propelling himself back down the length of his pool. The heated water cooled around him, but not enough that he caused any icebergs to run into as he reached the end of the pool, twisted under the water and kicked off again. He wasn’t sure how many lengths he had done.

Or how many more he would need before he was too tired to think.

He wanted to forget the things Cass had thrown at him, but they echoed in his mind, filling it with thoughts of her. Her words troubled him, and so had the thought that had hit him in that moment.

No. She wasn’t a weak female he could order around, one who would do as she was told.

She wasn’t meek. Obedient.

She wasn’t Penelope.

He gritted his teeth and slammed his hands against the wall of the pool as he reached it, stopping dead.

He shouldn’t have thought those things about her. He shouldn’t have compared Cass to her.

It had been wrong of him.

He growled at himself and pushed off, floated backwards and stretched out on the surface, staring at the faint stars.

He couldn’t take that thought back though. No matter how much he wanted to. It had been wrong of him, but it was the truth.

Penelope had been the sort of woman to do as a man bid, but times had been different. Obedience in a female had been expected back then.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

That wasn’t true either.

His mother had never been obedient to his father, not really.

Calindria, his sister, had never been obedient to their parents or any of her brothers, not even her twin, Cal.

He hated himself for thinking badly of Penelope, finding fault in her when he should have loved everything about her, but all these centuries on, the fact that she had been that way, had been meek and accepting, rather than confident and challenging, still didn’t sit well with him.

He bumped against the edge of the pool. He lowered his legs and stretched his arms along the curved lip of the wall, stared towards the road beyond the gates of his garden. Was it wrong of him to find faults in Penelope? Was it wrong of him to find the things that she had lacked appealing in Cassandra?

Was it wrong of him to find Cassandra appealing at all?

Was it wrong of him to want her with a ferocity that shook him at times?

He flinched as a sharp pain stabbed his right arm just above his elbow and looked there, the city beyond the glass barrier a blur as his eyes focused on the mosquito. It was fat, sucking greedily on his blood. He raised his arm before him and frowned at the bug, cursing the fact he had been given such a warm place to protect. The damned things would eat him alive if they had the opportunity.

He didn’t swat it away.

He waited.

Watched.

Smiled as it slowly froze and dropped off him.

Sometimes, being ice-cold was a blessing not a curse.

Daimon tipped his head back and rested it on the smooth edge of the pool as he stretched his right arm out again. Small chunks of ice knocked against him, but they didn’t bother him. It was par for the course when he stopped moving, and tonight he wanted the cold.

Insect song filled the silence as he stared at the stars glittering above him.

Peaceful.

What he needed.

What he had been trying to find since Cass had come crashing into his life.

So why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

Why did he feel bad that he had left her in the city, in a part of it that could be rough at times—dangerous?

Why did he want to step back to the orphanage and try to find her?

She didn’t need his protection. She had made that clear several times now, grew angry with him whenever he tried to look out for her.

A shiver ran through him.

Not cold.

Heat. Incredible heat.

He slowly opened his eyes and lowered his head.

Cass stood at the other end of the long pool, her back to the black iron gate and her eyes on his body.

He frowned at her. “How did you get through the wards without me feeling it?”

He subtly braced himself for a fight when she lifted her pale blue eyes from his body, a frown marring her pretty face. He hadn’t sensed her breaching the wards, and he should have. He stretched his senses out