Ares lowered his gaze, tilting his head downwards, causing strands of his overlong tawny hair to fall forwards and drawing Cal’s focus there. His brother’s thumb danced over the screen of his phone.
“What are you doing?” Cal took a step towards him.
“Calling a meeting.” Ares set his phone down on the black marble counter and Cal wanted to throttle him.
He had wanted to talk to his brothers, but he hadn’t wanted it to happen here, where Marinda was. She was handling things well, but he wasn’t sure how well she would handle being faced with five, or possibly all six, of his brothers at once.
Marek appeared near the dining table. He brushed away the wisps of black smoke on his dark linen shirt and trousers, a lingering aftereffect of the teleport, and his deep brown eyes settled on Ares. “Was wondering where you disappeared to, old man. I dropped Caterina in Scotland. She’s hoping tonight she’ll be able to get Guillem to talk.”
Marek looked at Cal as he moved to stand beside Ares. They could’ve been twins if it weren’t for the subtle differences in their height and the colour of their eyes. Marek’s hair was a shade darker brown than Ares’s too, the thick waves of it kept tamed while Ares let his tawny locks reach his broad shoulders, preferring to wear them back in a thong. Marek also preferred linen clothing suited to the climate of Seville, only wore combat gear when on patrol.
Ares dressed like he was going biking twenty-four-seven, matching black jeans and T-shirts with leather boots made for kicking ass.
“Do we have a problem?” Marek said.
Just as Esher appeared in the room, the ribbons of shadows that swirled around him only adding to the imposing sight of him as his navy eyes scanned the room and settled heavily on Cal.
“Yes, we have a problem,” Cal barked at Ares. “You invited a problem.”
Esher’s black eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “I’m a problem?”
His older brother blinked and looked to Ares and Marek, worry surfacing in his eyes as he sought an answer to that question.
“Just… cool your shit and don’t hurt her.” Cal eased a step backwards, towards the door to the living room, placing himself in Esher’s path.
Esher looked even more confused. “Why am I meant to be ‘cooling my shit’?”
Ares shrugged. Marek pulled a face that said he didn’t have a clue.
Cal spelled it out for his brothers. “Anyone touches her—”
“Oh, how sweet.” Ares grinned at Marek and nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. “Cal has a crush.”
“I do not.” The denial sounded weak even to his ears and did nothing to stop Ares from waggling his eyebrows at Marek.
“Who has a crush?” Valen just had to choose that moment to walk into the room behind him. “Sorry. Misread the message. Presumed we were meeting in the living room. Damn… what smells good?”
Fuck.
Cal had forgotten about the cassoulet.
“Nothing.” He wanted to shove Esher aside so he could reach the oven and check on it, but didn’t want to leave his post at the door or draw attention to the fact he had been cooking, something he had always denied he could do.
Mostly because anything he did, his brothers found endearing and also source material for ripping into him.
“Cal has a crush.”
Although, admitting he could cook was looking like a good way of getting Ares off that subject.
“I don’t have a fucking crush!” Cal glared at Esher, didn’t mean to hit him with the full force of his anger, but his mind was on reaching that damned oven before someone checked it.
Could he pretend Marinda had cooked it?
“You.” He pointed a finger at Esher, whose right eyebrow arched as he paused halfway through pushing the longer strands of his inky hair out of his left eye. “Stay there. Do not… and I repeat… do not even think about hurting her.”
“Hurting who?” Esher looked close to attacking him rather than Marinda. “I don’t feel like hurting anyone right now, but you’re pushing it, little brother.”
“You don’t?” Cal just stared at him. “That isn’t possible… unless—”
“The woman isn’t human?” Ares offered.
“I know I said that, but I figured because her father had been a Carrier, Esher would lose his shit… like he did with Megan.”
Esher pursed his lips, his black eyebrows rose and the overlong top of his hair swayed as his head bobbed side to side, as if he was deliberating something. “I get that. Megan and Aiko feel human to me… but whoever else is in this apartment… they are in no way human.”
Which was no comfort at all.
“Hellspawn?” Marek tossed a subtle look at Valen.
Cal pivoted and levelled a glare on his violet-haired brother before he could move a muscle to obey that silent command to find her. “Don’t even think about it. She’s in the shower and she’s had a bad day. Believe me, the last thing she needs to see is your ugly mug.”
Valen petted the thick web of scar tissue that ran down his cheek to his collarbone. “Eva likes it.”
“Eva needs her eyes checked,” Cal snapped, grinning inside as Valen’s golden eyes flashed dangerously.
Out of all his brothers, Valen was the one he loved jerking around with the most.
Valen grinned at him. “You’re just jealous because I’m better looking than you and you think your new girlfriend will want to trade up.”
That hit a little too close to the mark.
But it wasn’t Valen he was worried about.
He couldn’t shake the way Marinda had looked at Keras.
A black snarl pealed from his lips. “I don’t have a crush on her.”
The denial sounded even weaker this time, unsettling him, so he tried changing the subject instead.
“Where’s Daimon?”
“Hong Kong. Relaxing. He pulled clean up duty. Your girlfriend left one hell of a mess behind.” Ares’s lips twitched as Cal glared at him, daring him to keep calling her that.
The last thing he needed was her hearing his brothers speaking about her like she was a conquest.
He froze.
When had he started thinking about her as anything else?
She was living and breathing information, a complication in their plans, and very possibly a short-term dance partner for saucy late-night tangos. That was all.
Still, his chances of convincing her to surrender to him for some dancing lessons would be zero to none if she got out of the shower to find his brothers still here.
So he relayed all the vital information she had given him, trusting that Keras had at least done his part and filled his brothers in on how they had found her, and the things Cal had told him then.
Whenever he talked about Marinda, he kept it light and on topic, because he was damned if he was giving his brothers any more ammunition against him in that department by letting them see that she affected him.
He stopped when he reached the reason he had wanted to speak with his brothers.
“I still think everyone should be here.” Cal looked at his brothers. “I tried calling Keras.”
Ares leaned back against the work surface that ran across the top of all the cupboards and folded his arms across his chest. “Let him be off-grid for now. He just needs some time. Everything that is happening is taking a toll on him.”
Cal could understand that. It wasn’t just that Keras was their leader, having to deal with everything and bearing the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. It was that Enyo kept contacting Marek, choosing to speak with another brother. Not him.
Cal wasn’t one for love.
Love was pain he didn’t need in his life.
Keras was proof of that. He obviously loved Enyo, and he suffered for it.
“I was worried I dragged her into this when I took her to the Underworld.” Cal glanced at Marek, who scrubbed a hand around the nape of his neck, and then Valen, who looked just as uncomfortable, and finally Esher.
>
His brother’s eyes were black as midnight, and Cal regretted bringing up the Underworld. Esher hadn’t been the same since the enemy had killed Aiko and he’d had to go to the Underworld to get her soul back.
“But what she told me about her father… and the fact she took out so many daemons… and now with Esher saying she really isn’t human.” Cal drew down a deep breath. “I think there’s a reason she has a target on her back and that reason isn’t me. I don’t know why they want her, but I do know one thing.”
He looked at all his brothers in turn, assessing their grave faces as they waited, aware that what he was about to put out there was little more than an educated guess. But he needed it out there.
“I think I know who killed her father.”
Chapter 11
“I think I know who killed her father.”
Marinda launched into the room upon hearing that, unable to stop herself as those words registered and that burning began again, rapidly rolling to an inferno that scoured her insides.
“Say that again,” she barked, her focus locked on Calistos where he stood in the middle of the elegant black and white kitchen. She stalked towards him, fury mounting inside her, that dreadful cold building once more. “You know who killed Papa? Who? I need to know.”
Her breaths came faster, her heart drumming so quickly that her head felt light, as if she might pass out. Darkness seeped into the corners of her vision and bled into crimson.
Rage condensed inside her into something terrifying.
A dark need to kill.
“Calm your tits, sweetheart.” He tossed her an easy smile, one that had her rage boiling hotter in her veins.
Because he wasn’t taking her seriously.
Because he took nothing seriously.
Well, that was about to change.
Marinda lunged for him, a prisoner in her own body as she watched her hand launching towards him, on a collision course with his throat. The thought of seizing hold of it sent a pleasant shiver through her cold body.
Someone grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. She reacted on instinct, spun the opposite way, breaking free of his grip, and slammed the flat of her palm onto his chest.
Rather than just staggering backwards and falling on his bottom, he flew across the room and crashed into the wall near the door to land hard on the floor.
“Holy fucking hell.” The violet-haired man shook off the blow and pushed back onto his feet, eyeing her warily. His golden gaze flicked to beyond her. “I’m all for strong women… but what in our father’s good name is she?”
Someone moved on the edge of her senses. They sharpened and she gasped as everything came into brilliant focus, some sort of internal radar pinging more than just Cal and this bastard in the room.
There were three other men too.
All of them powerful.
That ice burned colder inside her, firing instincts that she battled as they led her down dangerous, horrifying paths.
She fought for air, for control over her body, struggling against the desires running rampant through her. She wasn’t violent. This wasn’t her.
She tossed a desperate look at Cal.
His blue eyes softened, his expression turning serious as her gaze met his, revealing the side of him she preferred. “Just breathe, Marinda. You need to calm down. You’re getting overwrought and I’m thinking that’s a bad thing.”
He was right.
Bad things happened when she panicked.
And boy was she panicking now she had found herself in a room with five powerful gods.
The gods her father had told her about—merciless warriors trained in battle from an early age, each possessing control over an element they could use with devastating effect in a fight.
She flexed her fingers and tried to breathe more slowly, but her heart refused to settle and the rage over what she had heard Calistos say wouldn’t abate. Fear took the helm, overruling the panic and threatening to send her into a tailspin. She didn’t want to black out. Not again.
She tried to breathe.
But each rasping inhalation she managed did nothing to calm her.
Cal slowly eased a step towards her, his hands coming up beside his chest as she narrowed her gaze on him. Instinct pushed her to lash out. Marinda gritted her teeth and fought to contain it. She didn’t want to hurt him.
She didn’t want to hurt anyone.
“Gonna breathe with me now, got it?” Cal risked another step and she wanted to tell him to stop, to run, to get away from her because she wasn’t sure she could stop herself.
The twisted needs rising inside her were too powerful to deny. It was only a matter of time before something snapped.
“Just breathe. Like me. Deep, slow breath in, hold it and exhale. You can do it.” Cal’s lips curled into a faint smile. Her gaze leaped around the room, settling briefly on the three other men before her. The black-haired one to her right looked ready to kill her, his blue eyes narrowed on her, rapidly darkening. She swallowed. Cal moved another step closer, dragging her gaze back to him. “Just focus on me and ignore these dickheads.”
“Dickheads?” Someone muttered, possibly the violet-haired one. “Speak for yourself.”
“No one is going to hurt you,” Cal continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
She didn’t believe that. These men thought she was a potential enemy. It was there on all their faces. They didn’t trust her.
She certainly didn’t trust them.
She looked at Cal.
But she did trust him.
As he moved closer, the hold her rage had on her began to fade little by little, as if his proximity was loosening it. Freeing her. She finally managed to breathe again, pulling down slow deep breaths that had the strange cold fire slowly abating, allowing her to claw back control and master her twisted instincts.
Behind Cal, a huge man with overlong tawny hair threaded with gold leaned towards a darker haired man, his warm brown eyes remaining on her as he spoke with him. “You seeing that?”
The darker haired man nodded. “Never seen eyes like those before.”
Eyes like those?
Panic spiked right back up, had her hands flying to her face as it struck her that he was talking about her eyes.
Cal’s face twisted and his blue gaze slid to his right, towards the men. “Not helping.”
When his focus settled on her again, his eyes lost all the hardness they had gained, softening and warming as he whispered.
“Your eyes are pretty. Ignore them.”
She couldn’t, because she had the horrible feeling her eyes were different.
She threw a glance around the room, froze when it hit the mirrored glass front of the oven mounted in the cupboards behind Cal. She shoved past him and he snagged her wrist, but he was too late to stop her from catching her reflection.
Marinda stared wide-eyed at herself.
At her black-ringed bright violet irises.
“What the—” She staggered backwards into the island counter, and her legs gave out.
Cal’s grip on her arm tightened, stopping her from hitting the tiles. He pulled her up onto her feet and held her waist, supporting her as he eased her back to rest against the island.
“Don’t worry about it for now.” He lifted his right hand, looked as if he wanted to cup her cheek as he had before when comforting her, and then glanced at the other men and dropped his hand to his side.
For a dreadful moment, she thought he was going to make another flippant remark to cover whatever he was feeling, concealing it from these men.
“You okay?” He flexed his fingers.
And part of her wished he would touch her.
She nodded, trying not to catch her reflection in the oven as she breathed slowly. She fixed her eyes on his, allowed herself to fall into them and shut out the world. There was only him and her. No one else. Nothing else mattered but the connection that bloomed between them, reviving that sensation she had whenever
she was near him.
Home.
Here, with his hand gently shifting from the island counter to brush her waist, heat in his eyes as he inched closer, her gaze in danger of falling to his lips, she was home.
“Is he gonna kiss her? Because I might puke.”
Cal reared back as if someone had slapped him. A hint of colour climbed his cheeks and he cleared his throat as he casually swept a hand over his blond hair and down the length of his ponytail.
She wasn’t sure where to look as she grew aware of the other men in the room, how their focus shifted between her and Cal, expectation weighing heavily in the air.
“I wasn’t,” Cal blurted when she finally found the courage to look at him. He shook his head, shrugged stiffly, and then jammed his hands into his jeans pockets. “I wasn’t going to kiss you or anything. I mean… I was just.”
“She had something in her eye?” The big gruff tawny-haired one offered that with a grin.
“Fuck off,” Cal spat in his direction and looked for all the world as if he was considering landing a blow on the man who was twice his size and then some.
“Can we not?” She lifted her hands and rubbed her temples as she closed her eyes, a killer headache building behind them. “No violence.”
Because she feared that it would provoke that other side of her, the one she could no longer deny was real.
“No violence,” Cal said softly, a promise in those words, and his hand grazed her hip, sending a hot thrill through her that obliterated the last of the lingering cold.
“Ought to live by your own rules, missy.”
She cracked her eyes open and risked a glance at the violet-haired man she had tossed across the room. His golden eyes were bright, adding to his dangerous look. She really didn’t want to get into a fight with him. She wasn’t sure she would make it out alive if they came to blows.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, and then put some force behind her words, because according to her father, these warrior gods valued strength. She didn’t want to look weak around them, even when she felt it, was deeply aware of how powerful they were thanks to her new nifty internal radar. “I didn’t mean it. It was instinct.”
Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 11