Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3) Read online

  When he frowned at her again, she looked away and kept her eyes off him this time, not wanting to upset him.

  His gaze moved away from her, but then came back to rest on her, and she kept hers fixed ahead of her, pretending not to notice the way he studied her.

  Because instinct warned he would react harshly if she made it clear she was aware of him staring.

  As they turned a corner onto her street and passed a small park, she swore he wanted to move closer to her, but he tensed and distanced himself instead, and his eyes left her. She looked at him, keeping her head forwards so he wouldn’t notice. His eyes scanned over the low buildings that lined the street, most of the windows dark.

  Aiko wanted to know his thoughts as he became absorbed in looking at everything but her, but held her tongue instead, not wanting to appear rude.

  She hadn’t met many foreigners, and had certainly never met anyone like him.

  When she crossed the road, he followed, and when she stopped in front of one of the square modern buildings, he halted with her. As she pulled her backpack off, he stepped backwards and looked up the height of the two-storey building.

  “Smaller than I thought.”

  She slid the key into the lock on the glass door and twisted it. “It’s only a clinic. We have a few beds, but mostly father treats local people and prescribes medicine.”

  She pushed the door open and walked into the dark room, years of living in the cramped building allowing her to move through the pitch-black space without hitting anything. When she reached the door to the office, she reached inside and flicked on the light. She turned to tell the man to come in.

  He stood right behind her, his eyes stormy again as he looked around, his shoulders tensed as he scanned the darkness, as if he was expecting trouble.

  “Father normally leaves this light on, but I prefer to turn it off when my parents are away.” She set her backpack down on the chair by the desk, and pointed to the gurney. “Have a seat.”

  The man eyed it with suspicion, but moved past her and arranged himself on the padded bench. Aiko didn’t fail to notice the way his lips twisted as he sat, or the way his left arm tightened on his ribs.

  “Is it just your hand that’s hurt?” She edged closer to him.

  His eyes darkened a full shade, but around his pupils they seemed to grow brighter, turning cerulean. Not the lights.

  She changed course, heading towards the white cupboards instead of him, giving him a moment to forget her question. He was hurt, but he didn’t want her seeing it.

  Because he didn’t trust her.

  Maybe it had been a mistake to insist on helping him.

  Aiko paused with her fingers on the metal handle of the top drawer. It didn’t feel like a mistake though. Helping him felt like the right thing to do. She had said she would take care of his hand, and that was what she would do. She owed him that much. She wouldn’t press him to let her see his other injury, or ask him how it happened, because now she felt sure it hadn’t happened on the train.

  He had been injured before saving her.

  Yet he had still stepped in to help her.

  “My parents are away visiting family.” She opened the draw as she rambled, filling the tense silence and giving him a clear sign that she wasn’t going to press him for answers. “I was going to go, but university is too busy right now.”

  She found the bandages and opened a fresh roll, and grabbed the scissors and tape too. She placed them on the black seat beside him and found the cotton wool and saline solution, and a tray to place all the dirty items in when she was done with them.

  When she pulled a pair of disposable gloves from the box and tugged them on, he frowned at her.

  “You seem used to this.” He nodded towards the items next to him when she looked at him.

  Aiko shrugged and removed her short black jacket, draping it over the back of the chair, and rolled up the sleeves of her dress. “I grew up in a clinic, and I’m studying medicine at university. Can you take your coat off for me?”

  He released his ribs and tugged the right sleeve of his coat up his forearm, making it clear he wasn’t going to be removing the garment. Because he didn’t want her to see the wound he was trying to hide.

  She pushed the need to see it and tend to it to the back of her mind and focused on the one he would let her see and treat.

  When she took a step towards him, he tensed and she flicked her eyes up to meet his. His were brighter, a sunny summer sky that deep inside she knew was a bad sign and not a good one. She kept still, watching the war rage in his eyes as his irises grew darker around the edges. She had never seen eyes like his, but then she had never met a man like him.

  When his eyes settled, and he released the breath he had been holding, she risked moving. He didn’t tense again as she approached him, keeping her eyes off him to give him time to calm himself.

  His voice was gravelly when he spoke. “Is university the reason you were out so late?”

  He was trying to fill the silence now, to take his mind off what she was doing, and she went along with it, wanting him to be as comfortable as possible. She soaked some of the cotton wool in the saline solution on one side of the tray, and then slowly turned towards him.

  As she reached for the makeshift bandage he had wrapped around the wound, she answered him so he would have something to focus on other than what her hands were doing. “I had work tonight, and afterwards I met my friends in Shibuya. I meant to be home earlier than this, but it’s so easy to lose track of time.”

  She drew the white handkerchief away from his arm and her eyebrows briefly knit as she looked down and spotted a tattoo peeking out of the blood on his wrist, just above a thin black bracelet that sat flush against his skin.

  He noticed where she was looking and tensed, and she swore he was waiting for her to mention it as she turned and placed the soiled cloth on the tray.

  It had surprised her, but she wasn’t one to hold with the traditional view of tattoos. She doubted he was yakuza.

  Aiko focused on her work, carefully wiping the blood on his arm and hand away with the saline solution until she could see the wound—a three-inch-long gash that ran at a diagonal across his forearm a few inches above his wrist.

  And his tattoo.

  A beautiful dark blue trident on the inside of his wrist.

  “You shouldn’t be out so late at night,” he muttered as she dabbed the gash with the solution, making sure it was completely cleaned.

  Clearly, he shouldn’t be out so late at night either. It meant bad things for both of them, but at least she hadn’t ended up with what looked like a knife wound. He must have been in a fight. Under the bright light of the inspection lamp, she had spotted more cuts on his neck, and a few on his face. Plus there was the one he didn’t want her to know about.

  How deep was that wound?

  She risked a glance at his right side as she turned to toss the used cotton wool on the tray and reached for the bandages. His black coat was wet from the rain, making it impossible for her to judge how much blood he had lost. She frowned as she spotted a single tear in it, barely an inch long.

  A stab wound.

  He needed treatment, and she wanted to give it to him, but she kept her tongue in check and didn’t mention it.

  The wound on his arm must have been from the same fight, and it was already sealed and healing. The one he was hiding might be healing just as rapidly. Which only made the feeling she had grow stronger. He hadn’t come with her for treatment. He had come with her to ensure she reached her home safely.

  “This looks good.” She carefully wrapped the bandages around his arm. “It should heal nicely. Hold this.”

  He placed his fingers on the end of the bandage where hers had been. She picked up the scissors and cut the ribbon of cream material, and then grabbed the tape and snipped off two long pieces.

  She placed one just below his fingers, brushing them.

  He snatched his hand a
way as if she had burned him.

  Aiko pretended not to notice that too, or his sharp intake of breath and the way his eyes drilled into her, and that feeling rose again, warning her to move away from him. She refused and placed the second piece of tape, and smoothed them both down carefully.

  Her fingers slowed as she looked at his arm.

  Silvery scars spiralled around his forearm, from halfway down to his wrist.

  She reached out to touch one.

  He shoved the sleeve of his coat down, stealing them from view, and she jumped, her entire body tensing as she quickly drew her hand to her chest.

  Words warred on her lips and in her heart, an apology battling a desire to question him, to know what sort of life he led to have such deep scars, to end up wounded and act as if it was nothing.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, the word hollow and devoid of the emotion that normally accompanied it.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  He was off the gurney before she could even finish that question, his long black coat swirling around his legs as he strode from the office.

  “I should go.” He was in the doorway of the clinic by the time she left the office, his figure nothing more than a silhouette in the light coming in from the street. He looked back at her. “But thank you.”

  He was gone.

  Aiko stared at the doorway for a heartbeat and then hurried forwards, but there was no sign of him in the street. It was as if he had simply disappeared.

  It wouldn’t surprise her if he had.

  His words rang in her head, his deep voice a soothing sound as she replayed them, focusing on the last three.

  A thank you that had been genuine.

  He had reluctantly thanked her for tending to his wound, but then she had offered him tea and he had thanked her from the heart?

  Or was that thank you for something else?

  She closed her eyes and relived that moment, and the way he had looked at her.

  The way his blue eyes had glowed in the slim light.

  It struck her that he hadn’t been thanking her for the offer of tea.

  He had been thanking her for not breaking his trust.

  For not hurting him.

  Aiko tipped her head back and watched the patchy clouds racing across the inky sky, revealing hints of stars between them.

  Strange man.

  If she could call him a man.

  CHAPTER 3

  Esher stood near the outside wall of the main room of the mansion, the tatami mats warm beneath his bare feet, the slight roughness of them soothing as he listened to his oldest brother, Keras, drone on about the latest intel they had managed to gather on daemon movements.

  He picked at the bandage around his right arm as his brothers began to file their reports, and Marek made dry comments as he noted them all down on his laptop from his perch in the cream armchair that stood to Esher’s right and completed the rough semi-circle of seating around the TV in the corner beside him.

  Keras sat on the couch opposite Esher, their youngest brother Calistos shifting to his left to give him room. They were a contrast, Keras’s black hair the darkness to Calistos’s blond light. Where Keras was neat and orderly, his hair kept short and immaculate, and his tailored black dress-shirt and slacks pressed, and even his black socks perfect, Cal looked like the tempest he was, his fair hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, and a worn khaki t-shirt that had more than one hole in it hugging his chest and faded black fatigues encasing the long legs he stretched in front of him, resting his feet on the coffee table.

  Cal’s pale blue eyes flicked towards the TV to Esher’s right, and he could almost see his brother itching to grab one of the controllers and fire up the console to knock out a few rounds of one of the first-person-shooters in his collection.

  Cal hated them treating him like a kid because he was the youngest, but he acted every second of the one hundred and seven year age gap between them. Fuck, it was better than being seventy years Esher’s junior and acting twice his age like Daimon though. More than once, Daimon had remarked that he felt like the older brother to Esher and not the other way around.

  Daimon was just lucky that he loved him most out of his six brothers, otherwise he might have been inclined to take him up on those fighting words, like their older brother Ares did whenever Daimon threw barbs at him.

  Fire and ice.

  Esher didn’t miss the days of them brawling in the Underworld. He’d had quite enough of coming close to being flambéed or frozen.

  Daimon scrubbed a black-gloved hand over his frosty-white hair, his blue eyes cautious as he gave his report to Marek.

  “Speed up,” Valen muttered from the couch nearest Esher. He toyed with a knife, flipping it end over end, his impatience showing. “This is taking too long.”

  His blue eyes fixed Keras with a glare when their oldest brother looked at him and sighed.

  “You’d complain too if you had a woman waiting for you.” Valen flashed a grin at Keras, who only sighed again and rolled his green eyes.

  “It’s bad enough I have to hear complaints from him.” Keras jerked his chin towards Ares where he sat beside Valen.

  The brunet had a death grip on his knees, his knuckles white as his fingertips pressed into his black jeans and his warm brown eyes flickering with amber sparks. Tension radiated from him, his broad muscled shoulders tensed beneath his black t-shirt, and Esher knew the source of it.

  Megan.

  His older brother wanted to return to his female.

  Just as Valen wanted to return to Eva.

  Esher had denied them entrance the last time his brothers had tried to bring them to the mansion. With the wound the wraith had given him still healing, he couldn’t stand having the mortals present in his home. Ares had understood and complied immediately, taking Megan back to his apartment in New York to wait for him.

  Valen had kicked up a fuss.

  When Esher had threatened to butcher the human assassin, spelling out the exact reason he didn’t want her near him, and Keras had been forced to restrain him, his brother had backed down and taken her away.

  And refused to attend the meeting.

  Esher wasn’t sure he should be grateful for his attendance this time.

  It had taken him five minutes to start complaining. He brought up the female at every opportunity, making it clear she had been working with him to protect the gate. As if that would curry any favour with Esher.

  It only made him want to kill her even more.

  Mortals had no place being near the gates, so close to his home.

  Valen pushed his fingers through the overlong top of his blond hair, brushing it down over the right side of his face, so it almost concealed it from Esher’s view. While Esher’s haircut was similar, with short sides and back, and the long lengths on top swept forwards, the hair on the sides of Valen’s head had been crudely cut, and it was longer on top, reaching his jaw.

  He folded his arms across his chest, causing his biceps to tighten against the sleeves of his black t-shirt, and grumbled to himself about Eva.

  Mortals had no place in this house.

  Esher teased another thread free of the bandage around his right arm as he stared through the opening between the wood-framed white paper panels across the room to his left.

  Sunlight played across the garden and the wing of the Edo period mansion beyond it, where more paper panels closed off the rooms from the covered wooden walkway that ran around the three sides of the horseshoe-shaped building. It reflected off the ribbed grey tiled roof that swept downwards and chased over the manicured bushes that dotted the small courtyard garden.

  A few pebbles of the gravel beneath them were out of place, and one was resting on a stepping stone.

  One of his brothers had been walking out there.

  His brows drew down as he charted a series of footprints, his fingers fraying the end of the bandage. He would have to go out with the rake when his brothers were gone. The topia
ry had a few pine needles out of place too, and perhaps he could enjoy the cherry trees blooming in the larger garden beyond the pond while he fed the koi and soaked up the silence.

  “Esher?” Daimon’s voice cut into the peaceful image building in his head, shattering it, and he looked at his younger brother, his frown sticking. “You alright?”

  He nodded, and looked around at his other brothers. They were all staring at him as if he had two heads.

  Or was about to rampage through Tokyo.

  “Someone walked on the gravel.” Esher drew down a deep breath to calm himself, reining in the urges they had all spotted in his eyes, and probably in the favour mark on his wrist too judging by the way Daimon was looking at it.

  Esher looked down, but the trident above his black bracelet that matched the ones his brothers wore on their wrists was a steady pale blue, not giving his feelings away.

  He followed Daimon’s gaze again and realised his brother wasn’t looking at his wrist. He was looking at the bandage around his arm. A bandage Esher had been playing with.

  He still couldn’t believe he had gone with the human, or that he hadn’t wanted to kill her when she had been tending to the wound.

  Or that he couldn’t get his mind off her.

  It had been three days since they had met, and he kept thinking about her, kept replaying small moments of his time with her. Only eighty percent of the time, an urge to harm her rose inside him.

  The other nineteen percent?

  He wasn’t sure how he felt then.

  And the remaining one percent was reserved for a thought that had left him cold and confused.

  He wanted to see her again.

  He had ruthlessly shoved that desire out of his head and his heart, banishing it. It wasn’t going to happen. She was human. Untrustworthy. Dangerous. A wretch.

  So why did he despise himself whenever he thought of her like that?

  Why did he feel as if he was the one who couldn’t be trusted, the one who was dangerous, a wretched beast?