Valen and Cal shrugged at the same time. Sometimes, the similarities between them were frightening. Same athletic build. Same moody personality. Same recklessness. The only thing that had made them stand apart once was the colour of their eyes. Even their hair had been the same golden colour until Eva had decided to dye Valen’s a neon shade of violet.
Marek was too quiet, and Daimon wasn’t the only one who noticed it.
Keras twisted the silver band on his thumb around it as his green gaze settled on their brother.
Marek must have felt the weight of expectation on his shoulders, because he looked at Daimon and then Keras, and said, “The wraith.”
“What about that bastard?” Daimon snarled, the darkness getting the better of him as it conjured images of Esher in the Underworld, hunting that daemon.
“Eli stabbed me with his blade. He must have taken my memories as he did with Esher.” Marek looked at Keras, his dark eyebrows furrowing slightly above his earthy eyes as he shoved his hand through the wavy lengths of his short hair, pushing it back. “It was after we changed the wards after Eli penetrated them to save Lisabeta… When we all picked a ward and kept it secret.”
“Where did you place your ward?” Keras’s deep voice was calm, but held a note of concern that echoed in his eyes.
“The maple in the south-east corner.”
Keras looked to Daimon.
Daimon nodded. “That was the one that went down.”
“I can pick another ward,” Marek said.
Keras shook his head and worried his lower lip with the pad of his thumb as his black eyebrows drew down, his green eyes falling to rest on the golden mats beneath his feet. Something was troubling his brother, and he wasn’t the only one who could see it. Ares watched Keras closely, the concern that filled his eyes growing.
“I will send a Messenger to Father to ask for a new one.” Keras spoke those words slowly, and something dawned on Daimon.
He was worried about admitting to their father that they had messed something else up, and Daimon couldn’t blame him. As the oldest brother, Keras had taken on the role of leader of their small force, and with that role came the responsibility for everything that went wrong as well as right.
Hades didn’t look favourably upon failure.
He had drummed that into all of them from an early age.
Marek looked at everyone in turn, and Daimon couldn’t recall the last time his older brother had looked as if he felt he had fucked up.
“Don’t sweat it.” Ares’s deep voice rolled over the room like a calming tide and seemed to set Marek at ease. “Nothing bad happened and it wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could have done about it.”
Keras continued to stare at the mats.
“We could have changed the ward sooner,” Marek put in.
Keras finally lifted his head, settling his gaze on Marek. “We could have, but none of us thought to do it. This is on all of us.”
But Keras would be the one to take the full force of their father’s disappointment and anger.
Marek looked as if he wanted to say something, but Ares shook his head, and Marek’s face crumpled. Ares was right. Offering to be the one to tell their father about this wouldn’t change the outcome. As far as their father was concerned, Keras was responsible for what happened, and he would lay the blame squarely on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.
The air in the room turned gloomy, oppressively silent.
Daimon looked at Cass and Megan, and then back at his brothers. “I think everyone should move into the mansion.”
That didn’t meet with the resistance he had expected.
Everyone nodded.
Well, everyone except Keras.
“We can layer in new wards, enough to keep the daemons out.” Cal glanced at Keras, who dipped his head this time.
“I will ask for several.” Keras’s green gaze slid to his left to land on Cass, who was still too pale for Daimon’s liking. “You cast a barrier around this place?”
She shifted to face him and nodded, plastered on a façade that couldn’t hide her true feelings from Daimon. She was worried. He was worried too. He didn’t want the enemy near her, and the thought that they were after her had him on the verge of losing himself to the darker side of his blood, the protective and possessive side that had come from his father.
“What other magic can you do?” Keras said.
Cass stood, waving away Marinda when she tried to help her, and walked on what she probably thought were steady legs towards his brother. In Daimon’s eyes, she looked ready to collapse again, stoking that need to go to her, to make her take his support and not let her push him away as she had with Marinda.
Now wasn’t the time to be prideful.
She had taken a hit, was shaken by it, and that was fine. It was okay to be weak sometimes. It didn’t mean she wasn’t strong. No one here would question her strength or think less of her if she let her true feelings show, revealing how badly this had shaken her.
“Offensive magic, defensive too, like the barrier.” She sounded distant, as if she wasn’t quite there in the room with them.
Daimon took a step towards her, driven by a need to be close to her, and she looked across at him. “Is there any other magic you can do, anything not classified as offensive or defensive?”
Her black eyebrows rose, her gaze unfocused as she looked right through him, a thoughtful edge to her expression.
“You healed Mari.” Cal rubbed Marinda’s arm through her dark orange sweater. “Maybe they want you for that.”
Cass tensed.
It was the smallest tightening of her shoulders, but Daimon noticed it.
“Whatever you just thought, spit it out,” Daimon said as he took a step towards her.
Her blue eyes shifted to his and she looked as if she wanted to tell him ‘no’, but then she sighed and her shoulders relaxed. “There is magic
