If he had patience.
He huffed and stalked forwards. Fine. If patience was the price to pay for being able to draw out the wretch’s suffering, then he would pay it.
Although he made no promises that he would be able to control himself when he had the wraith within his reach again.
The irritating other side murmured to him, things about the Blessed Isles, about getting his sister there.
He focused on them as he tracked the wraith.
Let them flood his head with pleasing images, ones that leashed the black need to kill, harnessed and honed it into something else.
A terrible need to make the bastard suffer at his hands for centuries.
He wouldn’t kill him. Not even when the wraith had given up every drop of information. He would keep the fiend alive. To torture. To torment.
To keep locked in a cage for his pleasure.
He would do to the male what the wretches had wanted to do to him.
His gaze fixed on one black building, a small single-storey abode nestled among many others.
His grin stretched wider as he sensed the wraith inside.
He would make Eli his pet.
Chapter 21
Cass pressed her hand to her stomach, clutching it through her black corset as she stared at the onyx ribbons of smoke dissipating before her. Sickness brewed, the knowledge that Daimon had allowed daemons to hurt him rousing a thousand questions in her mind.
None of which she liked.
Was it her fault?
Gods, she felt as if it was.
That haunted and pained look he had given her before he had teleported was seared on her mind, together with the state of him. What he had done to himself scared her. The sight of him drenched in black daemon blood, crimson seeping from the deep lacerations on his stomach and arms and legs, scared her.
The thought that he had teleported when his stumbling steps had made it blindingly clear he was weakened by the battle, could be out there somewhere now, collapsed and vulnerable, terrified her.
She needed to see him.
She focused, lining up the incantation in her mind, piecing it together as she fixed her thoughts on a destination.
Transported herself there.
She appeared beside the pool set into the white terrace of Daimon’s hillside modern home, fatigue washing through her as the spell stole her strength. She gave herself a moment as she peered through the huge panes of tinted glass that were set between white concrete and steel pillars.
As soon as her legs felt stable enough, she moved towards the building, her limited senses scouring the area for Daimon. She couldn’t feel his power.
But he had to be here.
She approached the glass door and didn’t hesitate when she reached it. She pushed it open, not surprised to find it was unlocked, and eased inside, her pulse picking up as she listened hard.
She wasn’t sure whether Daimon would appreciate her coming after him, but he could be mad at her all he wanted. He needed someone to take care of him and she was determined to be that person.
Just as she was determined to find out why he had allowed daemons to harm him.
“Daimon?” she called, softly at first, nerves getting the better of her. When he didn’t answer, she put more force behind her voice. “Daimon?”
She waited.
Still no answer.
She moved between the long couch and the immaculate kitchen area, heading deeper into the building, towards white doors she presumed led to bedrooms.
The first one she tried was empty.
“Daimon?” She backed out of the room and turned towards the other, the sickness growing stronger as she crossed the marble floor. She pushed the door open and looked around the huge bedroom, at the untouched dark blue covers on the king-size bed. “Daimon?”
That last attempt to get him to answer felt pointless, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from calling to him again.
He wasn’t here.
She racked her brain, trying to figure out where he might have gone. He was hurt. He wouldn’t have gone to the orphanage in that state, and she didn’t know of any other homes that he owned. She doubted he had gone to one owned by his brothers, since they were all in Tokyo.
Cass pulled together the incantation again, her heart drumming at a sickening pace as fear got the better of her. Someone would know where he had gone. Someone would tell her, even if she had to beat it out of them.
She closed her eyes and finished the spell, opened them again as she landed back where she had been in the garden of the Tokyo mansion.
She reached out with a tracking spell to pinpoint the brothers. Most of them were in Marek’s room, but there was one in the kitchen. Her legs wobbled as she headed in that direction, her steps unsteady. She breathed through the drain on her strength, refusing to give herself time to recover.
Daimon was out there, injured and vulnerable. She needed to find him.
Someone had to know where he had gone.
They just had to.
She entered the kitchen and drew up short as she spotted Calistos. He stood at the counter of the galley kitchen, clothed in a fresh T-shirt and jeans, his damp golden hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was already healing too, something she found curious since she hadn’t attended to him and none of the brothers could heal that quickly.
She doubted he had allowed Megan to use her healing talent on him, not when he had refused her before. She also doubted that Ares would have allowed it.
Calistos was quick to look at her, easing back from preparing vegetables and wiping his hands on a towel. “Something up?”
His blond eyebrows knitted low over stormy eyes, ones that demanded an answer to that question as he stared at her.
She pushed down her nerves, pulled up her courage, and refused to let him see that
