She would hate herself if she let someone do this to her.
A feeling hit him, rocked him so hard he was surprised he remained standing as the entire world seemed to tilt on its axis around him.
He more than cared about her.
He was in love with her.
He stared at her small home, feeling her in it and the garden, smelling her in the warm air, replaying over and over how she had looked at him when she had been in his arms.
Recalling how he had felt then.
Happy. Afraid. Excited.
It dawned on him that he had never really taken a risk in a relationship, even when he thought he had. He had always gone with the flow, never feeling anything he could label as true love, never willing to let anyone in too deep.
But gods, he wanted that with Cass. She was under his skin already, had burrowed her way deep into his heart, had done it without him noticing. Or maybe he had been in denial because he had thought a relationship with her was impossible.
Maybe he had been falling for her from the moment he had first set eyes on her.
It had been more than a craving he had felt then.
It had been the first stirrings of love.
And now his beautiful, enthralling, brave sorceress had left him.
But he wouldn’t let her go that easily.
He knew she needed to do her duty, that it was important to her, just like her family were, but he couldn’t stand the thought of her bearing another man’s child. There had to be a way to keep her with him. She was his and he needed her, more than he could ever make her see even if he had thousands of years with her.
An image popped into his head.
Cass pregnant, her gaze downcast at her swollen belly as she ran her hands over it, heavy with child.
His eyes stretched wide.
With his child.
He shook at the thought of that, wanted it but feared it so much at the same time. It would keep her with him, but it would also place her in even more danger. The daemons would target her, seeking to weaken him by taking her and their unborn child from his life.
He couldn’t survive that again. Not this time.
Losing Cass would kill him.
His love for her was soul deep, burning inside him, fierce and consuming. Absolute. He loved her.
The sort of love that made a god crazy.
He didn’t want to risk her, but he didn’t want to lose her either.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure what he wanted.
Did he want a child with Cass?
The image of her pregnant with his child was wondrous and addictive, warming him despite the cold that numbed him. He wanted to see her like that.
But it was too dangerous.
He cursed and fought to inch his foot forwards, shock rippling through him when he found he could move. His feet were heavy, muscles liquid beneath his skin, but he managed a few steps, reaching the terrace of her home.
Daimon clutched the wooden pole that supported the slatted roof and pulled himself up onto the terrace. He pressed his hand to the white wall to his right and supported himself as he trudged forwards, breathing hard with each step he managed.
A god on a mission.
He had to find Cass.
He wasn’t sure what he would do when he located her and he wasn’t going to worry about it. Finding her came first. He would tackle whatever came after that when it came.
Right now, he just needed to see her.
He just needed to speak with her.
Before it was too late.
Daimon made it inside and turned left, gripped her desk and pulled the drawers open. He grabbed all the papers she had stacked inside them and tossed them onto her desk. He ignored the ones that weren’t from her coven and read the ones that were, and something struck him.
They were all summons.
And they dated back years.
He pressed his hands to the top of the wooden desk and leaned forwards, over one letter in particular. The first one she had received and ignored.
She had been avoiding this for so long, and it boosted the feeling he had.
She didn’t want this.
What had made her change her mind now?
Him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his claws into the desk. She had gone with the witches to protect him, to stop them from killing him.
Daimon cursed her again.
And stepped.
Chapter 25
Black blood sprayed from the puncture wound in the male’s neck, splattered across the front of Keras’s shirt as he tightened his grip on the daemon, pressing claws into his flesh as he lifted him into the air. The thing writhed, legs thrashing as he desperately grappled with Keras’s arm, short claws tearing through his black shirtsleeves.
Keras grinned as his grip tightened further, as the wretch’s face reddened and his eyes rolled back, gasping breaths leaving his lips as his struggles slowed.
Pleasure rolled through Keras, sweet and intense as he watched the thing slowly die.
As he sensed the others in the shadows around him, twitching in the darkness, closing in on him where he stood in the middle of the broad swath of green in the heart of Paris.
When the daemon had gasped his last desperate breath and stared at him with sightless eyes, Keras casually discarded him.
Slowly turned and scanned the darkness, his heightened vision picking out all the daemons that hid in the bushes and behind the trunks of the trees that surrounded the edge of the park.
Keras canted his head.
Waited.
Anticipation hummed in the air around him, the night thick with it.
Buzzed inside him.
He rolled his shoulders and twisted his neck, loosening and warming up his muscles.
Waited.
A breath.
A shift in the air.
Keras pivoted, lips stretching in a grin as he slammed his palm into the throat of a female and grasped it, as shadows wrapped around her legs and she screamed, rending the silence with her desperate, pathetic shriek.
She died too quickly.
He tossed her aside and flexed his claws.
Waited.
Two
