Something he was better off without.
He didn’t need a heart.
Cassandra and Daimon stared at him. Waiting.
“Get some rest,” Daimon said, his words carefully weighed, his gaze cautious.
Keras inclined his head and walked to the door, paused there to look back at the sorceress. “Keep him cloaked.”
She must have heard the thinly veiled threat in his voice because her spine stiffened and fire lit her eyes. “I know how to do this spell, thank you. It will not fail.”
When she looked as if she might strike him, he found himself lingering. His cheekbone heated with the memory of the blows she had delivered to it, dealing pain that had surprised him and caught him completely off guard. He knew she had seen one of his deepest, darkest secrets in that moment.
His gaze flickered to Daimon.
Another thing she hadn’t told his brother.
Perhaps the sorceress wasn’t so bad after all. She was strong, capable, and as much as it sickened him to say it, it was clear she felt something for Daimon.
All six of his brothers mated.
He pondered that as he walked away, heading for the main house across the moonlit garden.
If oblivion claimed him now, he could rest easy knowing they weren’t alone.
No, he couldn’t.
He still had a duty to fulfil.
Once it was done, so was he.
He couldn’t go on like this.
Shadows wrapped around him, cloaking him from the world just long enough that he could slide a pill from the box in his pocket and place it on his tongue. The effect was instantaneous, cold washing through him, spreading to erase the poison that coursed in his veins, and stealing some of his fatigue with it.
The shadows dissipated as he stepped up onto the wooden walkway that led to the bathhouse.
Ares leaned with his back against the stone wall of the showers, his long legs crossed at the ankle, his black jeans and T-shirt making him blend in with the night. The sparks of fire that danced in his dark eyes gave him away.
“There you are.” Ares’s deep growl rolled over him. “Thought for a moment I was going to have to come and get you myself.”
Keras stopped level with him and looked across at him. “The wraith will not speak.”
Ares shook his head, his wild tawny hair brushing his broad shoulders. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to let you go poking around in his head. It’s too dangerous, Keras. You’re too tired from having to cloak the bastard. If you tried to read his memories—”
Keras held his right hand up and Ares fell silent.
He knew the risks.
Eli was a strong daemon, an old daemon. He would be able to resist Keras’s mind probe and there was a chance it would drain Keras further, leaving him vulnerable.
But they were getting nowhere.
He had spent the last three days torturing the daemon, doing everything short of looking into his mind to get the answers he wanted. Aiko had even tried to read the daemon, but the male’s mind had blocks in place. Whatever Keras tried, Eli withstood it all, refusing to break.
Unlike his body.
Keras had broken bones, must have fractured every one in the daemon’s body at some point, and had stood by as Cassandra had used spells to put him back together, tearing agonised screams from him that Keras’s shadows had greedily absorbed.
Cal had even taken a shot at the daemon, intent on making him pay for what had happened to their sister. His youngest brother had revealed a dark streak as black as Keras’s own one, had revelled in using his power over air to choke the daemon, suffocating him and pushing him close to dying more than once.
Cal was hungry for another go at the daemon. All of his brothers were.
But Keras was determined to be the one to make him speak.
The only path left open to him was cracking the daemon’s mind open.
Ares remained hot on his heels as he strode into the main room of the mansion. Aiko was coming out of the kitchen to his right as he entered, a tray of food clutched in her hands.
The petite raven-haired woman paused and nodded at him. “Esher is looking brighter today. Cass helped me clean him.”
He could see the relief that gave her, even felt a glimmer of it himself, the barest hint of comfort that was there and gone in the blink of an eye as the pill erased it.
“That’s good.” He managed to layer relief into those two words, knowing she would want to hear it.
She smiled and bobbed her head again before continuing across the long living room, passing the low wooden dining table where the others sat and then the couches that formed the TV area at the other end of it. She disappeared around the corner and he caught a glimpse of her through the open panels to his left as she hurried along the covered wooden walkway, heading for Esher’s room.
He felt Ares’s gaze on the back of his head, was deeply aware of the others as they stared at him. Was he meant to say something? About Aiko? About Esher? About the daemon?
He was too tired.
Keras sank to his backside in an open spot at the long table and stared at the empty plate and bowl set before him. Ares was kind enough to fill them for him.
Although load them up might have been a more appropriate choice of words.
When his plate was overflowing with meat and vegetables, and his bowl held a mound of rice so high that it was in danger of toppling over, he looked at his brother.
Ares eased into the seat opposite him and hefted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “You need to eat.”
Keras stared at the food. None of it appealed to him. He was hungry for answers, not sustenance.
He picked at the food though, eating small mouthfuls to
