Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,91

hand.

Needing her to choose him.

She drew down a breath, tipped her shoulders back and came to him.

Relief swept through him as she stroked her fingers over his palm.

His smile faltered, a frown flickering on his brow as his head grew foggy, thoughts spinning and colliding, and his body felt heavy.

He looked at her, his eyebrows furrowing as disbelief swept through him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice so low he barely heard her, her eyes shimmering with hurt and regret, and fear.

He tried to shake his head, growled through his teeth when it felt too heavy to move, and struggled to find his voice as the fog grew thicker, clouding his mind.

“Don’t…” He couldn’t manage any more than that, could only stare into her eyes and see she had heard the rest of what he had wanted to say.

Don’t do this.

Don’t leave him.

A smile wobbled on her lips and he silently cursed her for putting on a brave face, for hiding her true feelings from him and her coven. She didn’t want this. He was right about that. He had to be. So why was she doing this to him?

“Go do your duty,” she murmured softly, a hint of sorrow in it, “And I’ll be back as soon as I’ve done mine.”

Daimon cursed her again in his head and struggled against the effects of the spell, desperation mounting inside him, driving him to do something because doing her duty meant getting pregnant. He couldn’t bear the thought of her with another man, doing something she didn’t want, letting that male and her coven use her in that way.

“You… don’t… want… this,” he croaked, each word a labour that stole his strength.

Each word seeming to cleave a wound in Cass, pulling the pain she was trying to conceal to the surface of her eyes.

“I have to do it,” she said, nothing more than a throaty, pained whisper.

Her black eyebrows furrowed and she reached her hands up towards his face, stopped herself and flexed her fingers.

Before he could say another word, Belle seized hold of her and they all disappeared.

Pain tore through him, chased by fury so deep that the darker side of his blood howled for violence, for revenge, hurt by the thought she would betray him like this.

He wrestled against the spell she had hit him with, refusing to let it disable him any longer. She didn’t want this. He couldn’t let her do it. He had to stop her.

She would hate herself if she let someone do this to her.

A feeling hit him, rocked him so hard he was surprised he remained standing as the entire world seemed to tilt on its axis around him.

He more than cared about her.

He was in love with her.

He stared at her small home, feeling her in it and the garden, smelling her in the warm air, replaying over and over how she had looked at him when she had been in his arms.

Recalling how he had felt then.

Happy. Afraid. Excited.

It dawned on him that he had never really taken a risk in a relationship, even when he thought he had. He had always gone with the flow, never feeling anything he could label as true love, never willing to let anyone in too deep.

But gods, he wanted that with Cass. She was under his skin already, had burrowed her way deep into his heart, had done it without him noticing. Or maybe he had been in denial because he had thought a relationship with her was impossible.

Maybe he had been falling for her from the moment he had first set eyes on her.

It had been more than a craving he had felt then.

It had been the first stirrings of love.

And now his beautiful, enthralling, brave sorceress had left him.

But he wouldn’t let her go that easily.

He knew she needed to do her duty, that it was important to her, just like her family were, but he couldn’t stand the thought of her bearing another man’s child. There had to be a way to keep her with him. She was his and he needed her, more than he could ever make her see even if he had thousands of years with her.

An image popped into his head.

Cass pregnant, her gaze downcast at her swollen belly as she ran her hands over it, heavy with child.

His eyes stretched wide.

With his child.

He shook at the thought of that, wanted it but feared it so much at the same time. It would keep her with him, but it