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

  “Esher?” Ares this time.

  Esher’s gaze snapped down to him.

  “You sure you’re alright, man?” Ares looked him over, not at all bothered by the glare he levelled at him. “You seem a little more tense than usual.”

  “Daemons attacked the gate. I… was injured and a mortal might have…” He couldn’t finish that sentence.

  Keras sighed. “You killed someone.”

  It wasn’t what he had meant to say. He had been teetering on the brink of bringing up the female, a desire to understand the conflict she caused in him almost convincing him to share her with his brothers, but then the thought of telling them anything about her had slammed his mouth shut.

  He didn’t want to share her with anyone.

  He shrugged. “He saw the daemons and me fighting.”

  A reasonable excuse.

  “You could have wiped his memory,” Marek volunteered, his tone distant as he typed on the keyboard of the silver laptop, his brown eyes on the screen.

  No, he couldn’t have. Wiping memories was a talent they all possessed, but to do it he would have had to touch the human.

  Which meant the male would have met the same end.

  Touching humans was a definite no.

  “You forget who you’re talking to?” Calistos offered with a grin in his voice, and Marek looked up from his computer, regarded Esher with a look that said he might have but he knew now what a mistake the suggestion had been, and went back to his work.

  He had touched the pervert on the train, and he had wanted to kill him too. He still wasn’t sure how he had managed to rein in that desire and claw back enough control to stop himself.

  What about the mortal female?

  Had he touched her?

  She had touched him.

  Ninety-nine percent of the time he hadn’t found it repulsive, or grounds to make her blood explode.

  The remaining one percent?

  He recalled her fingers had brushed his, and an electric jolt had lit him up inside, like Valen had just pumped fifty thousand volts into him for a laugh, only it hadn’t been unpleasant.

  He shook her out of his head and focused back on the room, because Daimon was intently staring at the bandage now and looking as if he was going to mention it. Again.

  Daimon mentioned it whenever he visited.

  Esher had refused to answer every question or suggestion.

  “Daemons attacked my gate that night too,” Daimon offered in a slow, measured way that made it clear to Esher that he was still debating mentioning the bandage again, pressing him for answers he didn’t want to give.

  “How many nights ago?” Valen looked from Daimon to him, his blue eyes bright with curiosity.

  “Three.” And Esher had gone over it from every angle. “It just felt like a regular attempt on the gate.”

  But now Daimon had mentioned an attack in Hong Kong at the same time.

  Keras exhaled a curse, which was never a good sign. “Shit… Paris and London were hit that night too. I went straight from Paris to help Cal in London.”

  Marek finally looked up from his laptop. “Seville had a couple of visitors. Nothing I couldn’t handle though. I hardly broke a sweat.”

  Everyone looked at Ares. His second-eldest brother was a wall of tensed muscle as he sat on the couch with fire in his eyes, the air around him shimmering like a heat haze as his face darkened.

  “Five hit the gate,” he growled, the flames in his irises burning brighter, and then said what was on everyone’s mind, “It was a coordinated attempt. They’re testing us.”

  “They must have hit the Tokyo and Hong Kong gates at the same time, to keep us both busy.” Daimon curled his fingers into fists, causing his black leather gloves to creak as frost glittered on them, a sign that Ares wasn’t the only one losing his temper as he considered the implications.

  “Paris and London were hit in the early hours of morning. It would have been dark still in Rome, New York and Seville.” Keras leaned forwards and rested his elbows on his knees, his black shirt blending into his equally dark slacks, and his fine jet eyebrows dipped low above emerald eyes that glowed a shade brighter than normal.

  Really not a good sign. It wasn’t like their fearless leader to let anything get to him.

  A coordinated attack by daemons wasn’t a threat. Daemons were weak. They could handle them.

  It certainly wasn’t a threat to Keras.

  His brother could have stepped to every gate and dealt with all the daemons at each one in the blink of an eye.

  Marek lifted his head again, his warm brown eyes reflecting his concern as he studied their brother. Daimon exchanged a look with Cal, and Cal casually leaned back into the couch, splaying his arms along the top of it, where Keras couldn’t see him, and shrugged, his expression shifting to show he wasn’t sure what was up with Keras.

  Valen moved, crossing his legs so his black fatigues stretched tight over his left knee, and slowly dipped his hand into his pocket and eased his phone out of it. Esher frowned as he rifled through the charms dangling from it, his actions slow and careful.

  So Keras didn’t notice.

  Valen’s thumb stopped on a familiar silver sword and shield, and he pressed it into his palm.

  Calling for back up?

  Keras wouldn’t appreciate it.

  Esher had half a mind to tell his younger brother not to meddle, but something was wrong, and the need to take care of his family had him holding his tongue and hoping she would answer.

  All of them had noticed that Keras hadn’t been the same since leaving the Underworld.

  Since leaving her.

  “You think testing us has something to do with whoever is behind sending the stronger daemons to attack us?” Valen slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  Just the mention of their enemy was enough to have the raging tide that Esher had been fighting to hold back for the past few weeks rising again inside him, surging through his veins and flooding his mind with a dark need.

  A hunger to hunt.

  “Rein it in,” Daimon said softly, a bare whisper that curled around him and pushed back against the tide. “We are all safe. Everything is good here. Remember?”

  Esher nodded slowly.

  But everything wasn’t good.

  His left side ached, cold with the memory of what the wraith had done to him and how close he had come to something worse than death.

  And how their beloved little sister had suffered that same fate.

  Give your sister my regards.

  Valen had filled him in on his theory when Esher had regained consciousness days after the attack. Days. He was still healing from the wound too, and it had been weeks now. Would it always bother him? Would he always bear this reminder that he had almost lost his soul, and owed a human his life?

  He had enough scars to deal with, enough pain to last an eternity without this adding to it.

  He rubbed at his side, his lips compressing as he gritted his teeth and anger surged again, a need to lash out and fight, to hunt down the wraith who had done this to him and make him pay for it, and for Calindria’s deathless state.

  Valen had broken it to him as gently as possible, but the idea that Calindria’s soul was missing, sucked from her by that fiend, and was still lost now, centuries later, had sent him into a rage so dark and consuming that Keras and Daimon had been forced to shut him in the cage.

  Esher shuddered as he closed his eyes and gripped his side, holding himself. Gods, he despised the cage. He hated feeling trapped and helpless, stripped of his ability to teleport and forced to endure confinement.

  For the sake of the fucking humans.

  It was their fault he couldn’t bear it.

  They should be the ones to suffer when he lost his fight against his other self.

  They should be the ones to suffer when the lunar perigee hit.

  Not him.

  But he was the one locked away, bound just when the pull of the mo
on made him strongest, unleashed all the fury he struggled to hold inside him every damned day, for the sake of a race who didn’t deserve it.

  “Esher!” Daimon’s palms hovered close to his face, framing it as best he could without touching him.

  Esher’s cheeks chilled anyway, just being close to Daimon enough to sap his heat. It was a bane both Daimon and Ares had to bear. Their powers had manifested in the mortal world, their ice and fire making them dangerous to touch.

  “I want to kill him,” Esher growled and pushed away from his brother. He paced a few feet across the open space between the TV area and the dining area, and then pivoted on his heel to face his brothers again. “He deserves to die. I want him dead. I need him dead… he should suffer for what he did.”

  He shoved the flat of his palm against his chest and dug his fingertips into his dark grey shirt.

  “I can’t settle until he’s paid for what he did… or until she comes.”

  “We all want to kill him, Brother, but we need information first, remember?” Ares’s careful words as he stood and moved to face him had Esher’s gaze flicking to Cal, a brief glance that he hoped their youngest brother didn’t notice.

  Cal didn’t know that the wraith had been responsible for what had happened to Calindria, and his brothers were right to keep him in the dark. He couldn’t know. Not yet. Not until they knew whether they could retrieve her soul or not.

  It would send him over the edge.

  Esher huffed and paced across the tatami mats to the opened panels opposite the entrance, and stared into the garden, trying to find peace there even when he knew he wouldn’t.

  There was only one path to peace for him now.

  Hunt the wraith.

  Once the wraith was dead, and whoever was due to come after him finally made her appearance, he would find peace.

  He needed to get it over with, needed to send them screaming into a black eternity of suffering.

  Into a hell of his own making.

  He would put their damned souls in the vilest, most horrific place imaginable, condemning them to rot there forever.

  Esher scrubbed his hand over his side, wrapped his arms around his stomach and toyed with the bandage on his forearm again as a feeling went through him, one that had been bothering him since he had come around after the wraith attack.

  Cal wasn’t the only person his brothers were keeping in the dark.

  There was something they weren’t telling him too, and it unsettled him, kept him on the edge and made it difficult to retain control. It pissed him off too, even when part of him knew that if they were keeping a secret from him, it was probably for a good reason.

  He tried to listen to his brothers as they discussed everything Valen had learned from the two daemons who had attacked him—an incubus and his succubus sister. Ares mentioned the daemon who had attacked him, one who had stolen his power. Both events had brought the wraith out of hiding.

  Maybe when the female due to come for him finally attacked, the wraith would make an appearance again.

  Esher would be ready for him.

  CHAPTER 4

  Esher tuned his brothers out as he sank into the glorious vision building in his mind, one where he overcame the wraith and captured him, not for information as Keras would want, but for the sheer pleasure of revenge. He would bind and torture the wretch until he broke and confessed what he had done with Calindria’s soul, and then he would send him screaming into the darkest pit in the Underworld, and would inform their father about what the wretch had done. Gods, Hades would see to it the bastard suffered eternally.

  His lips twisted in a slow smile.

  Fuck, he would beg his father to give him a front row seat for that show.

  A dark voice whispered in his mind, seductive words that tempted him to listen to them, coaxed him into ignoring his brothers’ wishes and obeying the gnawing hunger inside him—the need to hunt. He wavered as the city beyond the garden flickered to the otherworld, the future of Earth should he and his brothers fail to stop the calamity the Moirai had foreseen—a calamity their new enemy intended to bring about by doing something to the gates.

  A calamity part of Esher wanted to see.

  The darker part.

  The part that had been born centuries ago, and had whispered to him ever since, rising to steal control at times when he wasn’t strong enough to hold it at bay.

  A beast he fought to keep locked inside him.

  A monster he had failed to contain more than once.

  It had been hard enough to fight it when the only threat to his family had been the daemons and the humans, but it was growing impossible now that he knew the wraith had been responsible for Calindria’s end. His war with it was constant, and he wasn’t sure he could win.

  He needed to avenge his sister.

  His eyes narrowed on the flames that spiralled high into the black sky beyond the pristine white wall of the mansion grounds, sparks dancing like golden fireflies as the wind caught them, looking as if they were rising on the screams of the mortals whose flesh burned and the shrieks of the creatures who hunted and preyed on them.

  A shudder wracked him, a shiver of pleasure that rolled through him as their screams surrounded him, creating a symphony that tugged at the darkness in him, made him yearn to make this future real so he could bask in the glory of it.

  “Esher.” The male voice intruded, shaking the vision of beauty before him.

  He snarled, launched his left hand out and wrapped it around the offender’s neck, squeezing it hard.

  The male growled and countered him, and icy cold gripped his throat, burned like fire as it swept over him beneath his clothes.

  “Get a fucking grip,” Daimon snarled and shoved hard, sending him staggering backwards onto the raised wooden walkway that enclosed three sides of the smaller courtyard garden and shaking Esher’s grip on him.

  His back slammed into one of the thick square pillars that supported the overhanging roof.

  His breath exploded from him as the timber cracked.

  The sound of dropping water had his head snapping to his right in time to catch a glimpse of brightly coloured koi suspended in the air for a moment before they dropped back into the pond.

  “Fuck,” Esher muttered and got a grip on himself, pushing out the damned voice that still taunted him, told him to take pleasure in the destruction he wrought, not be ashamed of it, tempted him with thoughts of heading beyond the protective walls of the mansion to the city and unleashing the fury he had bottled inside him on the weak creatures who inhabited it.

  It would be glorious.

  “No.” He grasped the sides of his head and squeezed until it hurt. “No!”

  He didn’t really want that. He was just tired and weak from the wraith’s attack, worn down and vulnerable. Yes, vulnerable. He was too susceptible right now, not strong enough to shut out the damned voice and the things it wanted him to do.

  “Listen to me, Esher,” Daimon whispered, and he focused on his brother, using the sound of his voice to shut out the darker one just as they had practiced. “You’re all good. Everything is fine. Everyone is fine.”

  But they weren’t.

  He saw that as he lifted his head and spotted the unmistakable trace of red beneath his brother’s nose where Daimon hadn’t quite managed to wipe all the blood away to hide it from him, and the dark bruises emerging around his throat just above the collar of his navy turtle neck.

  “I’m sorry,” Esher murmured, pain closing his throat as he considered what he had done.

  He had hurt the ones he loved.

  The ones he had vowed to protect.

  The only ones who mattered.

  “I’m fine.” Daimon managed a smile and rubbed at his throat. “No harm done.”

  A lie.

  He noticed the way Daimon’s fingers trembled as he neatened his spiked white hair, acting casual when he was shaken.

  Esher averted his gaze, but the pain and guilt lingered
as he looked at the pond and the koi that were flapping around on the gravel surrounding it. He stepped off the walkway, crossing the pebbles without feeling them biting into the soles of his feet, and stooped to carefully pick up the fish and place them gently back into the pond.

  He breathed easier as he counted them all, checking each one in turn, and saw none of them had been hurt.

  His brothers’ voices filled the silence behind him as he watched the fish, their words distant and lost on him, and he sensed them departing one by one.

  Until only Daimon remained.

  Had he harmed any more of his brothers? Gods, he hoped he hadn’t.

  It was getting harder to control himself.

  His rage should have been directed solely at the daemons and the humans, not at his family. His family were the only ones who mattered. The Underworld was the only place that mattered too.

  This world could burn for all he cared.

  But if it burned, then the Underworld burned with it.

  He watched a black and white koi he was particularly fond of, one he’d had for decades, swim past to join the group waiting near the walkway where it jutted out over the pond to his right, by his quarters.

  An ache started behind his breast, one that was familiar to him.

  He wanted to return to the Underworld.

  He couldn’t handle things here anymore. Today was proof of that. He wasn’t strong enough to hold back the darker part of himself that viewed all the mortals as a threat to him and his family, and his world.

  Just thinking about hunting them, watching them suffer, had been enough to have him slipping.

  Hurting the ones he loved.

  “You alright?” Daimon eased into a crouch beside him, his long black coat pooling around his feet on the pale gravel.

  “Sorry.” He kept his eyes on the fish, shame eating at him as he thought about what he had done.

  Daimon had given as good as he had got. Esher’s throat was sore, and it stung a little to breathe and speak, but the pain didn’t make him feel better about what he had done.

  “The moon is just fucking with you. It’s almost full.” Daimon ghosted a hand over his shoulder.

  Esher wished he would touch him, because he needed to feel it, needed someone to hold him together right now because he felt as if he was falling apart.