One moment he would be lashing out at her verbally, as scathing as could be, and the next he softened and accepted her presence, would even go as far as speaking with her as if she was a normal human being.
Not something he wanted to wipe from the face of the Earth.
She remained where she was on the covered walkway, staring after him, trying to make sense of him and feeling as if she would never understand him. The temptation to follow him was great, especially when rather than entering Valen’s room that was directly in front of her, he banked right and headed towards the garden instead.
Cass held herself back.
Because he needed space.
It hadn’t taken her long into her study of him and his brothers to notice that he was closest to Esher, and it had taken her less than a second to see how deep that love ran when Esher had leapt into the gate in pursuit of the wraith.
Or perhaps it had taken her longer than that.
In the short time since Esher had been missing, she had witnessed a dramatic change in Daimon.
It was as if he was slowly falling apart before her eyes and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
There was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
He wasn’t going to be whole again until Esher returned.
What happened if he never came back?
It wasn’t any of her concern, and neither was Daimon’s state of mind. The reason she had studied these gods, and the reason she was here now, was for Marinda’s sake and to keep the vow she had made to Marinda’s father, Eric, who had been murdered by the brothers’ enemy.
A promise to keep Mari safe.
That was her priority.
Daimon was just a nice distraction, a bit of eye-candy that brightened things up while she was keeping an eye on her ward. He was nothing to her. Just some harmless fun.
He couldn’t be anything more than that.
Her gaze drifted after him and she idly tracked him as he crossed the arched vermillion and black wooden bridge that spanned the koi pond at the start of the lush rolling garden. He paused at the apex of it and gazed down into the water, his profile to her, too far away for her to make out any details.
Not that she needed to be close to him to know how he would look.
Lost. Adrift. Hurt.
Lonely.
It was none of her business. These gods meant nothing to her.
Daimon meant nothing to her.
She had to remember that, had to remember her duty, even when it felt like a sword hanging over her, ready to fall and sever her from her life, throwing her into servitude that grated and had her mood blackening whenever she thought about it.
Cass pulled down a breath and purged it, and all her feelings. When she was calm again, as empty as she could manage, all her worries and desires washed from her, she padded barefoot towards Valen’s room.
Eva looked up as Cass entered the sparsely furnished room, her blue eyes filled with concern and fear. It was strange seeing the assassin afraid of something. Cass shifted her gaze to Valen where he lay on top of a pile of blankets in the centre of the golden tatami mats that covered the floor, his violet hair in disarray but his face peaceful.
Beside him, Eva tightened her grip on his left hand, clutching it as if she feared he would slip away if she let go.
Cass eased down to kneel on the other side of him and looked him over. Someone had bandaged his right arm from his elbow to his palm. Crimson spotted it, a rather nasty patch of it over his wrist. She started there, holding her right hand over it as she closed her eyes and formed the words in her mind, a powerful incantation that would speed his healing process. Heat bloomed in her hand and Eva’s soft gasp rang in her ears as light shimmered from her palm.
As she was funnelling the healing spell into Valen, she probed a little, using another incantation to study his vitals.
There was nothing out of the ordinary on the surface, but as she summoned stronger magic to delve deeper, she wanted to bite out a rather unladylike curse.
This wasn’t good.
She needed to speak with Mari.
Cass withdrew her hand and met Eva’s blue gaze. She wasn’t sure what to say to the mortal, just as she was never sure what to say to Daimon, or to Aiko, Esher’s lover. She stared at her in silence, searching for the words that wouldn’t come.
When the silence began to grate, she pushed onto her feet, and forced a smile and a slight nod. “He will be fine.”
Did those words ring with the hollowness she felt in them?
It was the right thing to say, but it felt wrong of her to utter those four words, offering hope where she wasn’t sure there was any. Perhaps that was the reason she never knew what to say to Daimon or Aiko.
She couldn’t bring herself to lie to them to make them feel better.
She hurried from the room, striding straight across the front of the main living area of the house to the other wing of it. She turned right at the end of the corridor, passing the TV area, and her pulse picked up as she neared Cal’s room.
Mari was quick to stand as she entered, her blue-green eyes bright with unshed tears and her golden hair falling down from the twisted plait that arched over the top of her head. She ran her hand over it again as she hurried to Cass, hope surfacing in her eyes.
Cass caught her arm and pulled her towards the door, aware of the other two gods in the room with Cal, standing over him.
Keras and Ares, two men she had discovered were formidable in their desire to protect their younger brothers, and in their ability to fight.
What she wanted to tell Mari
