Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Read online

  It stung like a motherfucker as he dabbed at the wounds, using his ruined t-shirt to mop up the blood and reveal the slashes.

  More like grooves.

  They were pretty fucking deep.

  Esher needed his claws clipped.

  He scowled down at the wounds, trying to see whether they were healing yet and struggling to keep a leash on his mood.

  He couldn’t hold them against his brother.

  Esher had only given him what he deserved for daring to bring Eva, a mortal, into his home on tonight of all nights.

  “What happened to her?” Daimon said again, softer this time, and jerked his chin towards Eva.

  Valen stopped prodding at the healing cuts on his chest and glanced down at her, found her staring up at him with that blank look in her eyes, and sighed as he smoothed his clean hand over her hair, hoping it would soothe her and bring her back to him.

  “Uncle.” He knew he didn’t need to say any more than that when Daimon’s face darkened and he folded his arms across his chest, causing his muscles to flex beneath his tight top.

  Still, he had expected his brother to blame him for upsetting Zeus, to make out that he had done something wrong. It seemed even Daimon had his limits when it came to what he would try to blame on him, and his uncle taking a mortal and hurting her had crossed that line.

  “Why would he do that?” Daimon studied her, a cold edge to his pale blue eyes that Valen didn’t hold against him.

  It was rare for Daimon to look any other way.

  Valen blamed his power for that, and the fact it had manifested when they had entered the mortal world, the same as Ares’s fire, cutting them off from everyone in a way. What Valen now felt was the worst way possible.

  Not being able to touch others would certainly suck.

  Although, the Carrier that Ares had fallen for, Megan, could withstand their power. They still hadn’t figured out how, but Valen suspected it had something to do with her ancestors and whoever her power to heal had come from.

  Maybe that god or goddess was a little closer in the family tree than they had thought, and she was nearer to Hellspawn in status.

  Or higher.

  Was it possible she was a close descendent of a demi-god?

  If she was, it would explain how she could withstand Ares’s fire and Daimon’s ice.

  “He hates me,” Valen said at last, pulling himself back to Daimon and pushing the little Carrier out of his thoughts.

  “It was more than that,” Daimon shot back, not missing a beat.

  It was, but Valen was damned if he was going to tell his brother that he loved Eva and that was the reason Zeus had taken her.

  There had been another reason though, one that he was more than happy to mention.

  “I was out at the gate and the daemons were coming to snatch her from my apartment, so Zeus beat them to it.”

  Daimon looked as if he was having a hard time believing that.

  Valen shrugged.

  “It’s true. The old fart made a promise to mum that he would protect whoever I… ah…” This was going badly. Normally he could think of excuses at the drop of a hat and make his brothers believe them, and now he was on the verge of admitting the one thing he had just sworn he wouldn’t. He grunted, “He just made a promise, alright?”

  Daimon’s slow smile said he wanted to press the subject and get the truth out of him.

  Valen shot him a glare, daring him to do it, and felt his eyes shift, the gold growing brighter as his temper went from mellow to a need to lash out at Daimon and make him shut up.

  Daimon opened his mouth.

  Snapped it closed.

  His eyes burned bright white and frost glittered over his gloved hands, and then he jerked to face the main door of the house.

  “What’s wrong?” All thoughts of brawling with Daimon fled as Valen’s senses rang alarm bells and he was around the couches in a split second, heading towards him.

  “Esher.”

  Daimon disappeared.

  Fuck.

  Valen looked back over his shoulder at Eva, torn between following his brother and remaining with her. She stared at him, her blue eyes still distant and haunted.

  “Fuck,” he barked and growled, and she didn’t even flinch.

  “No thanks.” Ares’s deep voice rolled over him, laced with warmth for once, and a female giggled.

  He whipped around to face his older brother, and Keras appeared just beyond him, with Calistos landing a second later in a swirl of black smoke.

  “Esher,” Valen snapped and all three of his brothers tossed him blank looks. “Daimon… he felt something… Esher is in trouble.”

  “Remain here.” Keras stepped, the haste of his teleport disturbing the black vapor trail that he left behind.

  Marek appeared in the middle of it, looked around at everyone and ran a hand over his tawny wild hair, a confused crinkle to his brow that echoed in his deep brown eyes. “Did I miss something?”

  “Esher flipped his shit at me and left and now Daimon has gone after him, but… I think Esher is in trouble. Keras has gone too.” Valen looked back at Eva and then at Marek. “The daemons after Eva… do you think they can teleport?”

  Marek shook his head, approached him and held out a thick wedge of paper. “It’s all the information I have on their species.”

  Valen stared at it, and then his brothers, torn between remaining in the mansion with them now he knew Eva would be safe from Benares and Jin, and going after Esher with Keras and Daimon.

  This was all his fault.

  If he hadn’t brought Eva here, Esher wouldn’t have left and he would have been safe.

  He glanced at Ares, who shook his head slightly, a warning not to do it.

  Gods. It was his fault though. He should be the one out there trying to locate Esher. What if something happened to him, something he couldn’t heal?

  What if something happened to him that stirred up the past?

  He flicked a glance at the door, the need to go after Esher and bring him home safe pounding in his blood, but another desire pushed back against it, keeping his feet planted to the tatami mats.

  Keras had ordered him to remain here, and disobeying him would land him in trouble.

  And he was done being a pain in his big brother’s arse.

  Who the fuck was he kidding?

  He focused to step.

  Keras landed hard in the middle of the room, shaking the wooden structure of the house, and Valen whirled to face him. He laid Esher down on the golden tatami mats and the room collectively tensed. Keras looked down at his blood-stained hands and then up at Daimon as he appeared.

  Blood covered him too.

  Valen was by their sides in an instant, his brothers joining him to surround Esher.

  Esher’s eyes snapped open and he snarled as he lurched off the floor, his back arching. His mouth opened on a roar of sheer fury as Keras pinned his shoulders, keeping him in place. Valen grabbed his ankles, fighting to keep him contained as he struggled, kicking at him and catching him hard a few times. Esher could kick him to death and he wouldn’t let go.

  “Calm down,” Daimon whispered and kneeled above Esher’s head.

  Esher didn’t listen. His fight grew more frantic, his snarls more desperate as he tried to break free of Keras and Valen. His boot connected hard with Valen’s jaw as his leg shot up and Valen grunted as he fell backwards, his head spinning from the blow.

  Marek was on Esher’s feet before he could kick out again, nodding to Valen. Valen nodded back to let him know he was fine. He glanced at Esher’s face as Calistos joined Keras in holding his shoulders down. None of them dared to speak, but it was clear all of them wanted to bring Esher back from the dark place that had consumed him.

  “Esher,” Daimon whispered, his voice low and soft, the only damn thing that could calm their brother now.

  Valen felt more than useless as he tried to help Esher, aware of just what little power he had in this sit
uation. He glanced around his brothers and their sombre faces said it all, relaying how he wasn’t alone in his feelings. They all felt useless, unable to do anything but hold Esher down and wait for Daimon to reach him.

  “Esher.” Daimon ghosted his hands over Esher’s head and Esher snarled and snapped at him, his eyes shooting open.

  “Shit,” someone whispered and Valen seconded that.

  Esher’s eyes were verging on red.

  “Esher!” Daimon snapped and Esher jerked to a halt, stared up at Daimon as he leaned over him, so Esher could see him. “Come back.”

  For a heart-stopping moment, Valen thought that he might.

  Esher lurched up and snapped fangs in Daimon’s face. The action sent blood pumping from the wound in his left side, and crimson seeped across the golden mats, spreading fast.

  He was losing too much blood.

  Valen stared at his face as he fought to keep Esher’s legs contained with Marek, willing his brother to respond, to shake the darkness and come back to the light.

  Gods help them all if he didn’t.

  It would be a massacre.

  Valen sensed Eva moving closer and held his right hand out behind him, warning her to keep back.

  Too late.

  Esher lashed out, his fight growing fiercer, and slashed sharp claws across Keras’s arm, ripping through the sleeve of his long black coat. Keras huffed, grabbed Esher’s wrist and shoved it down hard, pinning it to the mat. It only made Esher fight harder, and his eyes shifted to his left as he bared his fangs.

  Eva.

  She gasped and Valen felt her move back.

  Ares moved Megan away too, taking her as far as the dining table.

  Esher growled low in the language of the Underworld, causing the ground to shake beneath them and tearing pained gasps from Eva and Megan that only drew his focus to Eva even more. “Mortal must die… they all must die… vile bitch. Start with her. Make her pay. Tear her apart and feast on her screams, and show the others what will become of them. She will be my standard in this war.”

  Valen flashed his own short fangs at his brother.

  “Fucking try it.” He couldn’t hold it against Esher, because the pain had pushed him into his memories and now all mortals were threats to him and his family, but he wasn’t going to stand by and let him say shit about hurting Eva. He glared at Daimon. “About time you did something, don’t you think?”

  Esher kicked harder, catching him in his gut, and he grunted as his breath left him.

  Twisted the bastard’s leg and tore a satisfying grunt of pain from him.

  Keras tossed a black look over his right shoulder at him. Like hell he was going to apologise for it. Esher was on a warpath and his woman was the first target.

  Fucking Keras would have done the same thing if it had been a certain goddess in the room being threatened by Esher.

  Daimon growled, his eyes shone bright white, and remorse flickered across his face a second before it hardened in determination.

  He pressed his gloved palms against the sides of Esher’s head.

  Esher roared, jacking up off the mats again, his skin paling as Daimon’s ice spread glittering frost across his cheeks and his black hair. His lips turned blue and he slowed, still snarling but his fight was leaving him, his actions weaker as the cold sapped his strength.

  “Enough,” Keras barked and Daimon yanked his hands away.

  Esher collapsed against the tatami mats, lying in a pool of red.

  Too still.

  Had Daimon overestimated how much Esher could take in his weakened state?

  Valen held his breath, staring at Esher and willing him to respond now, to give them all a sign that he would be alright, because they couldn’t lose him.

  He couldn’t lose another sibling.

  He lifted his head and looked at Calistos, keeping an eye on his youngest brother as he stared at Esher, hope flooding his sky blue eyes and his blond hair hanging in long tangled threads around his shoulders and cheeks, pulled from his ponytail by Esher’s frantic struggling.

  Black warred against the blue, Calistos’s struggle visible in his eyes as he fought for control.

  Valen risked taking one hand off Esher’s left leg and pressed it to Cal’s shoulder, squeezing it through his black t-shirt, needing to let his youngest brother know that Esher would be fine and they weren’t going to lose him.

  Not as they had lost Calindria.

  Cal sniffed and cleared his throat, and nodded as he closed his eyes. Valen kept his hand on his shoulder, offering him the only comfort he could while they waited for Esher to respond.

  “Come on,” Daimon muttered, tension bracketing his mouth in deep lines as he stared down at Esher. He grabbed Esher’s shoulders and shook him hard. “Come back, you bastard.”

  Esher gasped, his chest expanding rapidly to stretch his grey-blue shirt across it, and then sank back against the mats.

  “Fucker,” Valen whispered.

  Marek shot him a look that said he seconded that one and sat back on his heels, his hands still clutching Esher’s right leg and his strength visibly leaving him as he sagged.

  Keras followed suit and Cal’s trembling subsided beneath Valen’s hand and he curled forwards, muttering curses aimed at Esher.

  Valen stared at Esher’s left side. Blood still trickled from the wound. Something was wrong here. Esher should have been healing by now, even with all the struggling. His body should have started to repair and seal the wound, stopping the bleeding.

  He pushed Esher’s soaking shirt up and the dark grey t-shirt he wore beneath it.

  Cal gasped.

  Keras swore.

  It was that bad.

  The wound was nothing more than a two inch puncture, a clean cut.

  It was the skin around it that had them all cursing and the air growing heavy again with the fear they still might lose Esher.

  Black surrounded the wound by at least another two inches in all directions, slowly turning into purple at the edges and transforming into tendrils that spread across Esher’s body.

  They writhed and shifted like a living thing, growing as they all stared.

  Ares bit out, “Wraith.”

  A chill went through Valen.

  He tore Esher’s shirt open and shoved his t-shirt up his chest, needing to see how far it had already spread.

  The tendrils snaked across his stomach, past his navel, and up his chest to his left nipple.

  “Fuck,” he snarled.

  Megan appeared between him and Calistos, pushing them away from Esher. “Give me room.”

  “Sweetheart,” Ares said, a note of caution in his deep voice, and she shot him down with a glare.

  “I’m doing this. Just back off and give me room!”

  Valen didn’t know what to say. Ares had explained that healing them drained her and left her weak, that she had come close to death once when trying to aid him.

  Valen admired the fuck out of her as he knelt beside her, watching her assessing the wound, knowing that she was about to risk her life to save Esher’s.

  Ares moved around behind her, sank to his knees and placed his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them through her light black cotton jacket.

  She pulled her chestnut hair from her face and secured it with a black band, her fingers shaking as she struggled to tie it in a ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  She was afraid.

  Valen couldn’t blame her. Using her power wasn’t the only risk she was taking. She was taking a huge one just being close to Esher when none of them knew when he would come around. If he woke with her near him, a mortal in his eyes, he was liable to kill her.

  Valen wouldn’t let that happen. The grim look on Ares’s face said he wouldn’t either.

  Megan reached a trembling hand out and placed it on Esher’s stomach just above the wound. When she added a second, below the wound and close to Esher’s hip, Ares growled and she tensed.

  “Sorry,” he muttered agai
nst her hair and pressed a kiss to the back of her head. “Knee-jerk reaction.”

  Valen understood why. If it had been Eva touching one of his brothers in front of him, he would have lost his shit too.

  He looked over his right shoulder at her. She stood near the couches, her bottom against the back of one, and had her right hand tucked against her chest. Concern filled her expression as she looked at the group. Her blue eyes shifted to meet his, and relief that she looked normal again now flowed through him and straight out again as his worry for her was replaced by worry for Esher.

  Valen pulled his focus back to his brother.

  Megan closed her eyes and hung her head forwards.

  The room filled with an air of expectation as everyone stared at the violet tendrils, waiting to see a change in them.

  Their writhing slowed, but they didn’t stop spreading.

  Fight.

  Valen willed Esher to hear him, to do as he pleaded.

  Fight harder.

  Because it was his soul on the line.

  A wraith’s blade was deadly to all creatures, a method of slowly extracting a soul through an excruciating death.

  This was all his fault.

  A wraith wouldn’t have been able to do this to Esher if Esher hadn’t been preoccupied with calming himself, and he knew that was exactly what his brother had gone to do. He had driven his brother out by bringing Eva here, and had placed him in grave danger.

  “Do not blame yourself,” Keras said, as if he had read Valen’s mind.

  Maybe he had. Keras was a pain like that, always sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.

  He shrugged it off, but couldn’t deny the relief that flooded him as Keras’s comforting words sank in and the tendrils spreading across Esher’s body finally began to reverse, shrinking back towards the patch of black around the wound.

  Ares kneaded Megan’s shoulders. “You’re doing great, Sweetheart.”

  She nodded and swallowed hard, sweat beading on her brow and her skin draining of colour as she kept going.

  Healing Esher.

  Valen couldn’t believe it.

  He had never seen her heal before, and while he had heard the stories from Daimon and Ares about the times she had healed them, part of him hadn’t quite believed she possessed that talent.