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

threw at her. It wasn’t like the sorceress to shrink away from someone, especially him.

“I just want to help,” she bit out, a little too sulkily for him to not feel anything other than like a royal dick. “Let me help with Valen.”

“Fine,” he muttered, and took some of the bite out of his tone as he added, “I’d appreciate that.”

He turned to his right, towards the southern wing of the house where Valen’s quarters were.

Cass murmured, “It wouldn’t kill you to let me help you too.”

He knew that, but he couldn’t. He needed to keep his distance from her.

He’d made a promise.

He drew his long black coat back and slipped his right hand into his pocket, and clutched the pendant hanging from his phone.

A promise he intended to keep.

Chapter 2

Cassandra could feel Daimon withdrawing, pulling away from her as he turned his back to her and strode towards the wing of the house where she had been sleeping in Keras’s room. She wanted to push him, wanted to know why he did that. He changed so frequently she couldn’t keep up.

One moment he would be lashing out at her verbally, as scathing as could be, and the next he softened and accepted her presence, would even go as far as speaking with her as if she was a normal human being.

Not something he wanted to wipe from the face of the Earth.

She remained where she was on the covered walkway, staring after him, trying to make sense of him and feeling as if she would never understand him. The temptation to follow him was great, especially when rather than entering Valen’s room that was directly in front of her, he banked right and headed towards the garden instead.

Cass held herself back.

Because he needed space.

It hadn’t taken her long into her study of him and his brothers to notice that he was closest to Esher, and it had taken her less than a second to see how deep that love ran when Esher had leapt into the gate in pursuit of the wraith.

Or perhaps it had taken her longer than that.

In the short time since Esher had been missing, she had witnessed a dramatic change in Daimon.

It was as if he was slowly falling apart before her eyes and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

There was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

He wasn’t going to be whole again until Esher returned.

What happened if he never came back?

It wasn’t any of her concern, and neither was Daimon’s state of mind. The reason she had studied these gods, and the reason she was here now, was for Marinda’s sake and to keep the vow she had made to Marinda’s father, Eric, who had been murdered by the brothers’ enemy.

A promise to keep Mari safe.

That was her priority.

Daimon was just a nice distraction, a bit of eye-candy that brightened things up while she was keeping an eye on her ward. He was nothing to her. Just some harmless fun.

He couldn’t be anything more than that.

Her gaze drifted after him and she idly tracked him as he crossed the arched vermillion and black wooden bridge that spanned the koi pond at the start of the lush rolling garden. He paused at the apex of it and gazed down into the water, his profile to her, too far away for her to make out any details.

Not that she needed to be close to him to know how he would look.

Lost. Adrift. Hurt.

Lonely.

It was none of her business. These gods meant nothing to her.

Daimon meant nothing to her.

She had to remember that, had to remember her duty, even when it felt like a sword hanging over her, ready to fall and sever her from her life, throwing her into servitude that grated and had her mood blackening whenever she thought about it.

Cass pulled down a breath and purged it, and all her feelings. When she was calm again, as empty as she could manage, all her worries and desires washed from her, she padded barefoot towards Valen’s room.

Eva looked up as Cass entered the sparsely furnished room, her blue eyes filled with concern and fear. It was strange seeing the assassin afraid of something. Cass shifted her gaze to Valen where he lay on top of a pile of blankets in the centre of the golden tatami mats that covered the floor, his violet hair in disarray but his face peaceful.

Beside him, Eva tightened her grip on his left hand, clutching it