The same spell Cass had used to taunt him in Hong Kong.
He focused his senses, grinned as he felt her, and twisted and launched his hand out. His hand clamped down on her forehead as she appeared, icy talons curling around to pierce her flesh and draw blood that stained her blonde locks.
“Belle!” another witch shrieked and fire slammed into his back, shoving him forwards and heating his skin to an unbearable degree for a moment before his ice kicked in again.
He stared into Belle’s dark eyes and grinned at her to flash fangs as he tightened his grip.
But still couldn’t bring himself to kill.
He glanced at Cass, caught the pain and fear in her eyes as she stood as still as a statue, saw the conflict that ran through him as it ran through her too.
Belle’s irises brightened to silver-lilac and she grabbed his arm in both hands.
He bellowed, entire body juddering as pain lit him up, fire that felt as if it was searing his insides, melting them.
His icy talons shattered.
“Daimon!” Cass’s voice rang in his ears as he struggled against the next wave of fire as it wrapped around him and consumed him. Her voice gained pitch. “Please don’t hurt him.”
She said something else, something muffled by the sound of his own agonised roar as it tore from his lips.
And then the fire ceased.
The witch released him.
Daimon sagged to his knees, breathing hard, entire body still aflame as he called on his ice, desperate for the cold to soothe him and steal away his pain.
“Stop and I’ll go with you,” Cass said.
For a sweet moment, he thought she was speaking to him.
“Very well.” Belle’s voice cut through him, had him surging to his feet as he heard the victory in it.
She hadn’t won this battle.
He mustered his ice, fought the lingering effects of her spell to reform the crystal talons over his fingers, and locked his knees, refusing to let the weakness invading him send him back onto them.
He had to stop the witches.
This time he wouldn’t hold back. He wouldn’t. Cass would hate him if he hurt her family, but he would bear it, because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Or the thought of what would happen if she returned to her coven.
Cass stepped between him and Belle.
“Move aside, Cass,” he said, his eyes remaining locked on the witch she was protecting. “You don’t need to go with them. I can handle this.”
“Daimon,” Cass murmured and he glanced at her, meant only to check on her but lingered as he saw the hurt in her eyes, the pain she tried to mask with a smile.
She didn’t want to go. It was right there in her eyes for him to read, all of her feelings about her coven and what was going to happen to her laid bare.
“Just come to me, Cass. We can leave. Never come back.” He extended his hand to her, let the ice melt from it as he turned it palm up, reaching for her, silently begging her to take it.
Sorrow flitted across her face, and he wasn’t sure whether it was because she was going to do as he asked and was sad that she was turning her back on her family, or because she was going to leave him.
“Cass,” he whispered and stretched for her, needing her to take his hand.
Needing her to choose him.
She drew down a breath, tipped her shoulders back and came to him.
Relief swept through him as she stroked her fingers over his palm.
His smile faltered, a frown flickering on his brow as his head grew foggy, thoughts spinning and colliding, and his body felt heavy.
He looked at her, his eyebrows furrowing as disbelief swept through him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice so low he barely heard her, her eyes shimmering with hurt and regret, and fear.
He tried to shake his head, growled through his teeth when it felt too heavy to move, and struggled to find his voice as the fog grew thicker, clouding his mind.
“Don’t…” He couldn’t manage any more than that, could only stare into her eyes and see she had heard the rest of what he had wanted to say.
Don’t do this.
Don’t leave him.
A smile wobbled on her lips and he silently cursed her for putting on a brave face, for hiding her true feelings from him and her coven. She didn’t want this. He was right about that. He had to be. So why was she doing this to him?
“Go do your duty,” she murmured softly, a hint of sorrow in it, “And I’ll be back as soon as I’ve done mine.”
Daimon cursed her again in his head and struggled against the effects of the spell, desperation mounting inside him, driving him to do something because doing her duty meant getting pregnant. He couldn’t bear the thought of her with another man, doing something she didn’t want, letting that male and her coven use her in that way.
“You… don’t… want… this,” he croaked, each word a labour that stole his strength.
Each word seeming to cleave a wound in Cass, pulling the pain she was trying to conceal to the surface of her eyes.
“I have to do it,” she said, nothing more than a throaty, pained whisper.
Her black eyebrows furrowed and she reached her hands up towards his face, stopped herself and flexed her fingers.
Before he could say another word, Belle seized hold of her and they all disappeared.
Pain tore through him, chased by fury so deep that the darker side of his blood howled for violence, for revenge, hurt by the thought she would betray him like this.
He wrestled against the spell she had hit him with, refusing to let it disable him any longer. She didn’t want this. He couldn’t let her do it. He had to stop
