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 last rebellion against Hades, was involved, and now there were goddesses on the enemy side.
Where did it end?
Someone was behind all of this, and all they had to go on was that it was a female.
Their father had sent them a long list of possible enemies currently residing in the Underworld, far too many for Daimon’s liking. Discovering which of them, if any, were behind everything would take too long. It was quicker to get their hands on the wraith and make him talk.
An ominous creaking noise drew Daimon’s gaze to his left. His eyes tracked the jagged fault line spreading up the ice from a point where several daemons were clawing at it. Was he imagining it, or were there even more daemons now?
“You guys got this?” Valen said.
“Sure.” Daimon readied himself, shoring up the wall of ice but aware it wouldn’t hold, not against that many sets of claws.
The daemons’ black blood streaked the clear ice, the foul stench of it filling the air. Disgust rolled through him and he curled his lip.
Ares grunted in response from the right side of the pond as he slammed a daemon into the pavement that encircled the water.
“Good, because I’m not sure I can do this.” Valen sounded tired now, and when Daimon fixed his senses on his violet-haired brother, he felt it too. “Not without a little more juice.”
Daimon looked back at him.
Valen’s golden eyes glittered, glowing in the light shining from the gate as he raised one of his blades.
“No,” Ares snarled, pivoted towards him, and kicked off.
He wouldn’t make it. Neither would Daimon, not even if he stepped.
All he could do was watch as Valen ran the blade across his wrist and blood gushed from the wound.
“Stronzo!” Eva barked and lunged for him, her short black hair flying out of her face as she reached for the blade.
Valen sagged as blood poured from his wrist, splattering across the surface of the gate and spreading outwards, and Eva grabbed him instead of the knife. She caught him as his knees gave out.
He breathed hard from between gritted teeth, his eyes rapidly darkening as they narrowed.
Eva muttered soft words in Italian, sweet chastising ones coupled with a few strong swear words that Daimon decided his brother deserved.
Valen leaned heavily on her slender shoulders, his arm shaking as he tried to keep holding it out over the gate. Eva took hold of his arm for him, helping him, and he looked at her, a hell of a lot of love in his eyes that was still strange to see. Valen’s default
