Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,54
beside Cass, a wealth of worry in his dark eyes as he looked her over.
Eva and Caterina fell into conversation in the middle of the room, drifting towards the dining table as they discussed the pros and cons of living in the Tokyo mansion with everyone else. The cons list was far longer than the pros.
Daimon remained where he was as Cal came to Mari, and they slumped onto the other couch together, facing the wall that separated the TV area from the corridor outside Cal’s room.
Cass looked down at Megan’s baby bump.
Tried to imagine herself pregnant.
She just couldn’t picture it, even when she knew it would happen sooner rather than later. She wasn’t really getting a choice about that. She had put things off for long enough and the coven was getting annoyed with her now. Her time was up.
Tradition was about to take the reins in her life and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
She still wasn’t sure how she felt about it all—putting her life on hold for a year or more, bearing a child for the coven, leaving it there to be raised by them.
“What’s it like?” Cass had avoided learning about pregnancy, had buried her head in the sand, some part of her believing it would never happen to her.
Her maternal instincts weren’t exactly strong. Milos was her baby and she doted on him, and she loved Mari with all her heart and would do anything for her. Did that mean she would feel some degree of hurt when she gave up her child?
Megan settled her hands on her stomach as Ares kneeled before her, rubbing her thighs through her jeans. “I’m sick more than I’m not. I’m tired all the time. I get awful sleep. I have the weirdest cravings.”
Ares grinned at Cass. “She really does.”
Doting idiot.
He looked as if the entire world revolved around the woman before him.
“Can I… I mean… I know some women don’t like it… but could I touch it?” Cass glanced at Daimon as she asked that. A mistake.
A thought pinged into her head.
Would he ever look at her the way Ares looked at Megan?
Did she want him to?
Her heart whispered the answer.
She did.
“Sure.” Megan shifted her hands aside.
Cass gingerly placed her palm against the top of Megan’s belly. Power curled through her, emanating not from Megan but from the baby growing inside her. She focused on it and a smile teased her lips against her will.
“She’s strong,” she whispered, glancing at Megan.
Who went awfully still.
Megan’s chocolate eyes slowly widened and edged towards Ares. “She?”
Ares teared up like a fool. “A little girl.”
Megan choked on what Cass hoped was a happy sob, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Oh gods, you didn’t know,” Cass blurted. Was it too late to backpedal and say she always referred to babies with the female pronoun?
Ares grinned.
Megan laughed, a little hysterically. “I told you there was more than one sex.”
Ares ran a shaky hand over his overlong tawny hair, his smile fading. “Shit. A little girl.”
He looked as if he didn’t know whether to be deliriously happy or absolutely terrified.
Megan’s face fell. “We’ll keep her safe.”
And it dawned on Cass.
Ares feared his daughter would suffer the same horrible fate that his sister had.
“She is strong.” Cass palmed Megan’s belly. “Very strong. Forged by flame like her father, but she will be kind-hearted like her mother.”
Caterina and Eva joined the group, all smiles. Calistos moved in to crowd Megan with Mari, and Cass turned to look at Ares.
Her gaze caught on Daimon.
He still stood in the same place, his eyes holding that pain she hated seeing in them as he stared at Megan and Ares.
Why?
It wasn’t because he couldn’t touch someone the way Ares was touching Megan, because he could touch her if he would only allow himself that pleasure.
So what was holding him back? Why did he look so hurt as he watched her touching Megan’s belly, when everyone else looked so ridiculously happy about the situation?
He turned his cheek to her and walked into the garden without a word.
Cass watched him go, the joy of the moment fading into concern that ate away at her, had her filling with a need to rise and follow him.
She pushed onto her feet and trailed after Daimon, following the steppingstones that wound between the manicured pine topiary in the central courtyard. Moonlight bathed the garden beyond, shining on Daimon where he sat on a boulder on the far side of the koi pond.