Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,2

at the very least. Here, he was alone, even within the circle of his brothers.

The blood Valen had spilled on the gate absorbed into it, the colours that danced across its surface and curled into the air like faint smoke brightening again.

It was beautiful.

Beautiful and vulnerable.

Daimon’s stomach swirled as the daemons closed in, the foul coppery odour of them filling the air, drawing out his darker side. He wouldn’t let them near the gate.

He closed his eyes, drew down a slow breath that filled his lungs, and focused his power, calling on it. His blood chilled and he shuddered, huddling down into the tall neck of his long-sleeved sweater and his ankle-length black coat, trying to keep that cold at bay.

It never worked.

It was always there, always part of him in this world, a constant presence that drained him emotionally.

He flicked his eyes open and swiftly raised both of his gloved hands.

Around him, his brothers and the gate, hundreds of clear shards of ice shot from the earth and the water to form a circular wall forty feet tall.

Daimon sagged forwards and Ares came to check on him as Valen muttered an oath.

His older brother ghosted a hand over Daimon’s spine, the warmth that emanated from him giving Daimon a brief reprieve from the cold. Ares shared his problem. His brother’s power over fire had manifested in this world, meaning he couldn’t touch anyone without the risk of burning them.

Or at least he hadn’t been able to until Megan, a Carrier with the ability to heal, had come into his life. Megan was immune to Ares’s fire, and could withstand Daimon’s ice, and he and his brothers had surmised she was closer to her demigod ancestors than most Carriers.

“Can you get it done?” Daimon pressed his hands to his thighs and ignored the way the frost on his leather gloves spread onto his black jeans.

“Give me a minute.” Valen went back to work, holding his arm out over the gate and closing his eyes as his blood spilled onto it. Beside him, Eva, his brother’s mortal assassin girlfriend, shifted foot to foot, concern shining in her rich blue eyes.

“I’ll handle these guys.” Ares straightened and broke away from Daimon, heading for the few daemons that had ended up within the ice wall.

Daimon wanted to help him, but he needed to focus on the wall. Where it touched the water, it was in danger of melting, was weaker and vulnerable. The daemons had already figured that out and were beating it with fist and claw, attempting to break through. He focused there, summoning more shards of ice to reinforce it.

Wishing Esher was here.

His brother would have used that water to his advantage, would have drowned all the daemons in a heartbeat.

Daimon looked at the gate and fought the urge that suddenly sparked to life inside him.

Esher was on the other side of that gate, in the Underworld, hunting for one of the enemy who had slipped through the gate in Paris. He was alone. Lost to his other side. Daimon rose to his full height and drifted towards the gate, pulled to it as his heart filled with a need to find Esher.

Pain bloomed inside him, searing his bones in multiple places where an injury didn’t exist on his own body.

It existed on Esher’s.

Daimon could feel them, the depth of the bond they had forged over the centuries relaying not only the pain his brother felt, but the anger and frustration.

The rage.

The other side of Esher, the savage and cold one that had been born in the darkest of times, was firmly in control. Daimon could feel that too. He needed his brother back with him, not only because he needed to know he was safe and because he was worried about him—missed him.

He needed him back so he could bring him back.

Esher had confessed to him once that he feared that other side of himself, that he loathed it. Daimon could only imagine how his brother was suffering now, a slave to his darker side, driven to hunt and not rest until he had secured his prey.

The wraith.

Eli.

If they could get their hands on him, they might be able to find out who was behind this attempt to breach the gates. Once, they had believed it was purely the work of daemons, but then they had discovered a Hellspawn, what he and his brothers called the species of daemons who had been allowed to remain in the Underworld after the