Had they teleported away?
Had he won?
That was easy.
He almost grinned.
“Daimon.” Cass lunged for him, panic lacing her voice.
Before she could reach him, one of two brunette witches appeared between them and shoved her back while launching an orb of twisting blue and violet light at him.
Daimon stepped and reappeared on the flat roof of the small white house, exhaled hard when the spell tore up the garden, leaving a huge crater in the dirt where he had been.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy after all.
He growled and threw his hand forwards, launching shards of ice at the witch as she made a grab for Cass. The brunette gasped and shot backwards, snatching her hands to her chest as the ice shards slammed into the earth between her and Cass, creating a wall between them.
“Please, I am only helping this god. It’s a contract—” Cass’s voice cut off as she threw a panicked glance at him, her gaze colliding with his.
He tensed as he sensed power behind him, stepped and snarled as fire raked down his back, flames licking around him in the darkness of the teleport.
“Daimon!” Cass shrieked, her fearful scream following him into the black abyss.
When he landed behind Cass, he grabbed her arm in one hand and swept his other one upwards. Great spears of ice shot up from beneath the witch on the roof. She nimbly dodged them but he kept them coming. They rolled in a wave towards her wherever she ran, the ice shattering a few feet behind the tip of the wave.
A tip that caught her in the calf and ripped an agonised cry from her as she went down.
Daimon grinned and focused his power on the witch, on dealing a killing blow.
“No!” Cass seized his arm and pulled him backwards, and he faltered, looked at her and caught the fear in her eyes.
Fear for her fellow witch now.
He hesitated and the witch was swift to make her escape, disappearing into the ether.
“Shit,” he muttered as he sensed the conflict in Cass, saw it shining in her eyes as she glanced between him and the remaining witches where they were regrouping, forming a wall between him and Cass’s home.
As much as he wanted to do it, he couldn’t kill these witches. If he did, it would only upset her. He could see how torn she was as she turned to the witches, her dark eyebrows furrowing as she stepped in front of him. They were Cass’s family, and he would hate it if someone killed one of his family.
“Please, this is just a contract.” Cass cast him a pained look when the lead witch looked as if she didn’t believe that, as if she knew that Daimon was something more to her.
He hated that look in her eyes, because he had the terrible feeling she was considering going with them to stop the fight.
He couldn’t let that happen.
He couldn’t let them take her.
Darkness surged through him, had his nails transforming into short claws and his canines aching as they elongated into fangs. Ice rippled over his fingers, hardened and transformed them into long talons as the air chilled around him. He flexed them and snarled at the witches as colourful light glowed from their palms, magic that laced the air with a tremendous feeling of power.
Cass didn’t want them to fight, but neither he nor the witches were willing to back down.
He didn’t want to hurt Cass, but he was going to have to in order to keep her with him, because he couldn’t let these witches take her. He wouldn’t. She belonged with him.
She was his.
Mine.
The darkness within him snarled that word, it drummed in his blood with every hard beat of his heart as he prepared himself.
He would do his best not to kill any of the witches, but he was going to fight.
For her.
The witches hurled the spells at him as one and he stepped, appeared behind one. He grabbed her by the back of her neck. She shuddered and cried out, the sound harrowing as it echoed across the sea before them. Ice rapidly spread over her shoulders and back and he released her as she went down.
Out of action but not dead.
He wasn’t sure if these witches knew the same spells as Cass did, or how long his ice would be effective against them when he was using it to drain them of their strength and knock them out rather than kill them. All he knew was that he needed to protect Cass.
That need blazed inside him, controlling his actions, commanding him to deal with the witches in the only way he could without hurting his sorceress.
He stepped again and landed near the next witch, roared as pain ripped up his side and he staggered backwards. Violet smoke poured from a wound above his hip, the same place he had taken a nasty hit from the daemons last night.
He bared his fangs at the blonde witch who had her arm outstretched towards him and cast his right hand at her before he could consider what he was doing, rage getting the better of him. Five spears of ice formed and shot towards her.
The witch didn’t move.
She casually raised her hand, her palm facing him, and the ice spears shattered as they struck an invisible barrier.
“Deal with him.” The witch turned imperiously away from him, as if he was nothing more than a gnat, insignificant and unworthy of her time.
He was a son of Hades. A god. He would teach her to show him more respect.
The darkness pouring through his veins surged stronger, claiming more of him, and he was swift to give in to it.
He leaped at the lead witch on a vicious snarl.
One of the other witches shot into his path and he grabbed her by her throat, didn’t even look at
