Daimon: Guardians of Hades Series Book 6

her new method of attempting to break down his walls.
He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“Keras will have a drink, won’t you, Keras?” She smiled sweetly at his older brother, and for some reason, Daimon felt a powerful need to flash fangs and snarl at him.
Keras just arched a black eyebrow at her and stepped, leaving ribbons of black swirling in the air behind him.
Valen raised his hand. “I’ll drink with you.”
Ares loosed a deep sigh. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Getting drunk, Valen? I thought you were sick?”
“I’m feeling a little better.” Valen shrugged. “I could handle a shot or two.”
Cass pouted. “I don’t feel like drinking anymore. You’re no fun.”
She aimed that at Daimon, but Valen answered.
“I’m more fun than you can handle.” That earned him a smack around the back of his head from Eva. He looked at her as she wriggled off his lap, caught her around the waist as she twisted away from him and pulled her back onto it. “I don’t want to play with the bitch-witch, baby. Let’s wait till she’s gone and then sneak some ambrosia from the bottle and get wicked.”
“The bottle is sealed with a spell.” Cass tipped her chin up, and Valen reacted like she had announced the end of the world was coming.
Daimon looked out at the garden.
Which it probably was.
The otherworld flashed over the present, the future of this world should he and his brothers fail in their mission. The Moirai had made sure they knew what fate awaited the realms if the enemy won, taunted them with visions of it. Beyond the crumbling walls of the mansion, buildings burned, the sky blazed orange, and harrowing screams cut through the thick smoky air.
Many in this world believed the Underworld was hell.
Hell was what awaited both this world and his one if he and his brothers failed.
“It doesn’t look great, does it?” Valen sobered, his deep voice turning serious as he stared in the direction Daimon was.
“It got better a little while ago, but now it’s worse. I figured we were winning. Now I’m not sure.” Cal sounded worried.
Marek gripped his shoulder. “We’re winning. It’s in a state of limbo right now. We just need to score another victory and it will get better again. You’ll see.”
Cal looked up at him and nodded.
Daimon found it hard to believe that, even when he wanted to.
“Are you sure you don’t need a sip of ambrosia?” Cass drew his focus to her and he frowned as she waggled the bottle she now held in her hand.
He sighed, muttered, “Not going to happen.”
And stepped.

Chapter 5
Cass set down the bottle of ambrosia she had taken great pains to get her hands on, one that had cost her a small fortune. It had seemed like a good plan at the time, but Daimon was determined to resist her.
She had to admit it was getting annoying now.
The more he fought her, the more she wanted to tear down that wall he had built around him, and the more it became about something other than using him as a nice diversion.
Or at least, she was beginning to realise this infatuation of hers was becoming dangerous.
It had all the hallmarks of something else, something she couldn’t afford to indulge in.
Marek took hold of Caterina and Marinda, and Cass didn’t wait for him to teleport with them. She summoned a spell that was draining to say the least and cast it, disappearing in a wink of crimson light.
Cool air buffeted her as she appeared on the rooftop of a skyscraper in the middle of the Ginza district of Tokyo, carrying the scent of the city and Daimon. Snow and spice. He smelled of it, roused memories of the desolate lands that had been her home for the first sixty years of her life, before she had found the courage to strike out on her own and leave the coven to live in warmer climes.
Only rather than chilling her as those memories did, Daimon’s scent stirred heat in her veins.
“Since when can you teleport?” Daimon glowered at her from his position near Keras, his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against a block-shaped construction that had vents on all sides of it.
“Since always.” She looked at the blue sky and pursed her lips. “Well, since I learned the spell. I don’t remember how long ago that was, but I don’t think you were asking for specifics.”
Marek appeared with Caterina and Marinda, and Ares quickly followed them, curls of black drifting from the shoulders of his black T-shirt as he stepped forwards, towards Keras.
“How come you complained so much about being left behind the other day then?” Daimon’s white eyebrows lowered over icy eyes, narrowing them. “Why not just use the spell then?”
Partly because she had wanted to be picked for the team. Partly because when she hadn’t been picked, she had decided to sulk about it and take it out on him when he returned.
“Perhaps I was waiting for you to see my value and do the gentlemanly thing of teleporting me with you?” It seemed like a safe answer, one that would get a reaction from him.
He huffed.
Before he could speak, Ares said, “Are you two a thing?”
“No,” Daimon snapped and pushed away from the wall. He cast her a black look and stomped away from her, towards the other end of the roof. “Never.”
“Never is a long time,” she murmured, hearing another’s voice in her mind as she uttered those words. “Just like forever.”
Daimon looked over his shoulder at her, frowned, and then carried on walking.
Eric had said them to her, before Marinda had been born, when Cass had told him it was foolish to fall in love with someone who would only end up dying. He had turned to her and asked her if she had ever been in love.
She had responded with never.
He had told her that never was a long time and things would change, and one day she would