Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,75
him to admit he had been insinuating that his brother only wanted her because he could touch her, and that Daimon would never consider her as a possible girlfriend.
Not that she wanted to be his girlfriend or anything like it for that matter.
Cal hiked his shoulders. “I’m just saying it as I see it. You, Cassandra, don’t strike me as the girlfriend, long-term commitment, type.”
“You are hardly in a position to judge me, or must I remind you of the numerous times I have seen you seducing your way through a bar, targeting a whole slew of women?” She gave him a black look, one that she knew conveyed every ounce of her anger because he stiffened.
Turned awkward.
“Yeah, well… shit, uh, changes. I’m just saying, is all,” he grumbled and rubbed the back of his neck. His blue eyes filled with worry. “But this thing with Daimon… don’t make him think it’s more than it is, yeah? I don’t want to see my brother get hurt.”
Cass threw her hands up, frustration getting the better of her. “That’s the second threat I’ve received tonight.”
Cal’s right eyebrow jacked up. “Second? Who else threatened you?”
She clamped her lips shut.
He looked as if he was going to push the subject, and then sighed. “Fine. Truth is, Daimon is probably in Hong Kong.”
“He’s not there.” She didn’t hide the worry that tinged her voice. “I already checked. There has to be somewhere else he might go.”
Aiko appeared at the other end of the kitchen, rubbing her black hair with a pink towel. “Where who might go?”
Her brown eyes were ringed with dark circles, fatigue lacing them. Or perhaps depression. Cass had no experience of that herself, but she could see that Esher’s continuing absence was weighing heavily on the young Japanese woman.
“Daimon.” Cass’s shoulders slumped as hope bled from her. “He was in a… mood. He left and I don’t know where he went, and I’m… worried about him.”
Cal gave her a look. Not one of his usual smirking glances that said he was going to enjoy pouncing on whatever she had just said or done to use it as payback. He looked worried, and perhaps a little relieved. Because she had just admitted without so many words that she cared about his brother?
“She checked Hong Kong.” Cal twisted and eased his backside against the counter, so he could see Aiko.
Aiko’s nose wrinkled slightly as she frowned, her eyes dropping to the floor as the towel paused against her hair. When she lifted her gaze and fixed it on Cass, hope dared to bloom again.
“I know where he might have gone.” Each word that left Aiko’s lips was carefully weighed, her gaze turning scrutinising as she looked across the room at Cass. “I heard them talking about it once… Daimon and… Esher.”
Tears laced Aiko’s dark eyes, the pain that beat in them sounding in his name.
“Where might he have gone?” Cass felt like a bitch for pushing, but she had the dreadful feeling that time was of the essence.
Aiko’s lips parted and then closed, and she stared at Cass, studying her in silence for a long minute before she finally spoke. “He likes to go there when he wants to be alone.”
Cass didn’t miss the emphasis Aiko placed on the last four words, the warning to give Daimon space.
She couldn’t heed it, no matter how much she wanted to do that. Something was wrong with him, and he needed help with his injuries. She couldn’t let him be out there, alone, vulnerable, in a bad place. She feared he would do something reckless.
More reckless than allowing daemons to hurt him.
“Please, Aiko,” Cass whispered, her voice heavy with the fear that flowed through her.
Cal and Mari exchanged a worried look. Aiko slowly nodded.
“Try heading to Antarctica, to Halley Bay. They talked about it once.” Aiko’s words offered both a solution, and a problem.
Cass looked down at herself, at her strapless corset and leather trousers.
Hardly the clothing for Antarctica, even in summer.
But she had been raised in the frigid remote reaches of Siberia. She had endured freezing winters. She was tough.
She could handle a little cold.
“Thank you.” She bowed her head to Aiko and hurried to her room, dug out the mundane black woollen sweater she had brought with her and pulled it on.
She pulled open the drawers on the dresser, seeking more layers, anything that would keep the chill off her long enough that she could find Daimon.