“Hell, I’m glad too. We need his strength to defend these gates and stop the enemy from breaking them, fucking up both worlds, but it’s one thing to have limiters on our wrists and another to absorb them into our bodies through pills.” Valen rolled his shoulders as everyone stared at him as if he had just said something horrible. “What? You’re telling me you’re not worried about if things get bad… really bad… or should I say when things get really bad? If it’s looking like crap, we can break a limiter, unleash a little more power. If Keras did that, would anything happen?”
Cal looked worried and so did Marek.
Ares folded his arms across his chest, causing his black shirt to tighten over bulging muscles. “The limiters work on Keras just as they work on us. The pills are only additional control, and believe me… if things get bad enough that Keras needs to break a limiter… you want those pills taking the edge off his power. If anything, they’ll probably be enough to stop him from destroying this world rather than the enemy.”
Which wasn’t a comfort at all to Marinda.
She stared at the bands around Cal’s wrists as an idea formed, a shadow at first but it rapidly took form.
He glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”
It wasn’t the first time he had noticed a change in her mood. Did he have superhuman senses too? She was growing accustomed to hers now, was finding them useful rather than frightening. They had allowed her to feel the pain inside Cal when he had attacked the laptop, and how close he had been to losing control.
She had practiced using her senses when she had been calming him, and the fact she had managed to bring him back from the brink had both surprised and pleased her. Maybe she could use whatever power she had for good instead.
If she could control it.
“Your limiters…” She pointed at the ones he wore. “Could they… I mean… if I wore them—”
“I don’t know,” he said before she could finish and came to her, hesitated for only a second before he cupped her cheek. His gaze was sincere, and serious for once, entrancing her and making her believe him. “If there’s even the slightest chance they can help you, I’ll find a way to get some.”
“Good luck with that,” someone muttered, possibly Valen. “Gonna break into the Underworld again and steal some? Dad would kick your arse.”
“Would they work on a Carrier?” Megan put in, drawing Cal’s gaze to her.
“I’m not a Carrier,” Marinda said, wishing that she was. “My father was one, but he wasn’t my biological father.”
Cal whipped to face her. “He wasn’t?”
She gave a single shake of her head. “He loved my mother, and he loved me… and he is my father. I wish he was my biological father. Not that it matters. He’s still my father. Nothing can change that. He hid my mother and he did his best to hide me too… and it got him killed.”
Her gaze strayed to the TV screen, the face of his killers imprinted on her mind, seared there. They tormented her and she wasn’t sure anything would change that. Even if she dealt with them, she would never forget their faces and what they had done.
“The enemy definitely wants her for something, no doubt about that.” Esher’s deep voice rolled through the room, a hint of malice in it that shone in his dark blue eyes when she looked at him.
The white-haired man beside him raised a gloved hand and hovered it above Esher’s shoulder. “We’ll find Eli. Be patient, Esher.”
“I can’t be patient, Daimon. I’m sick of being patient.” He spat that last word, as if it was repulsive to him.
She could empathise with him. The thought of standing around, doing nothing while her father’s killers roamed free didn’t sit well with her either.
“How about first we try to help Marinda?” Cal’s voice held a low growl that commanded everyone’s attention. Even hers. He scowled at his brothers. “Someone has to know what she is.”
“The enemy?” Valen offered.
Cal narrowed his eyes on him. “Someone other than them. I’m not letting her near them.”
“You’re not what now?” She arched an eyebrow at him and that cold stole through her, hissing dangerous things in her mind, things about how he wanted to control her, wanted to stop her.
When she needed revenge.
Her father’s killers had to be brought to justice.
She would paint this world in their blood.
Marinda clapped a hand over her mouth as images flashed across her eyes, black blood spraying, limbs flying, that twisted sense of glee she had felt in the moment hitting her hard.
“Marinda.” Cal gripped her shoulder. “Breathe.”
She tried, but it was hard as the images reversed and replayed, as she saw new things.
Felt new things.
In that moment, she had enjoyed herself.
“Do you need a glass of water?” Megan came to her, rubbed her back and leaned forwards, peering up at her face as Marinda stared at the golden mats beneath her feet.
“I’ll get one.” A soft female voice laced with a strong Japanese accent. Aiko. Apparently, she was Esher’s girlfriend.
Aiko returned, bouncing up to her with a glass of water. Marinda gulped it down. It was cold, but a soothing sort, not the wretched kind she felt whenever that other side of her was pushing to the fore.
“Anything you can tell us about how you feel?” Ares took a step towards her, a single one, but it was enough to command the whole of her attention.
“Cold. Wrong. When it comes over me, I feel cold and it’s like there’s a voice inside me. It pushes me to do things. I’m not a killer… I don’t want to kill.” She lowered her gaze to the empty glass. “But when it comes over me… and sometimes when it doesn’t… I want to kill. I want to kill and I don’t like it.”
“It’s just because you’re hurting.” Cal stroked her back, making her aware of him again—his heat as he stood close to her, as he touched her. “You want revenge and that’s fine.”
She didn’t think it was fine. She burned with a need for vengeance. There was nothing normal, nothing fine, about that. It was wrong of her.
“Have you ever been driven by revenge like this before?” Ares asked.
She swiftly shook her head. “No. I had a quiet life. A normal life.”
She hesitated and everyone noticed it.
Marinda flexed her fingers and pushed the words out. Being honest with them was better than hiding things. If she told them everything, there was a chance they would figure out what she was, or maybe hit upon a way of helping her.
“There was a boy… the first one I kissed.” She didn’t miss how Cal tensed, or how a storm built in his blue eyes. “He tried to go further and I didn’t want it, and he was cruel to me. I wanted to hurt him back, but I didn’t want to kill him.”
“That just sounds like a normal rite of growing up.” Megan’s words were a comfort. “I’ve had my share of kisses I regretted and boys who deserved a good smack in the face.”
Ares frowned at her. “I’ll be having their names later.”
Megan smiled at him and rubbed her swollen belly. “No need to go caveman. You’ve got me. I’m all yours.”
“She’s just saying that because she accidentally got pregnant and someone’s got to be the daddy.” Valen earned himself a slap across the back of his head from Eva. He scowled at her, and Eva glared right back at him.
It hadn’t taken Marinda long for her to decide she liked all the women in the group. Each of them was different, but they all came together as one united front whenever the men gave any one of them trouble. She wanted to be part of their group.
In this crazy, messed up version of her favourite TV show.
“Maybe the punishment fits the crime?” When Marek said that, her body locked up tight.
What if he was right?
The boy had hurt her, and she had wanted to hurt him back. The two men had murdered her father, and now she wanted to kill them.
“You’ve never
felt different before though?” Cal’s hand slipped lower, settling in the small of her back.
Marinda shook her head. “Not like this. I felt different because I didn’t have a mother, and it was tough at times. But what I feel now… constantly… it’s like I’m a different person, evolving into something I’m not.”
“Awakening.”
That single word, uttered by Ares, had silence falling over the room like a shroud.
She was awakening?
Cal broke the deafening, stifling silence. “Might explain why Dad thought she was human, had her drink a drop of the Lethe rather than the bucketful an immortal of the Underworld would have required.”
“I had been wondering about that.” Marek dragged a hand over his stubbled jaw, a thoughtful edge to his expression.
Valen raised a hand. “Me too. Not like Dad not to notice a person of the Underworld when they’re in his presence. Definitely not like him to think someone from his world was a mortal.”
She didn’t remember enough about him to tell whether he had thought her immortal or mortal. All she recalled was fury in his crimson eyes and that she had wanted to get away from him.
“The cold,” Cal said, his tone as thoughtful as Marek’s expression. “When did the cold feeling start?”
“When my father was…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, wasn’t sure she would ever be able to talk about what had happened without her throat clenching tight and her heart wanting to break. “I felt it then. A burning rage. Searing cold. That horrible hunger.”
“It must have triggered her awakening.” Esher looked her over and then his blue gaze shifted to Cal. “Like the rites.”
The rite his father had put him through, designed to turn him into a warrior? A rite that had ended up breaking him.
“So, let me get this straight.” She held her hands up before anyone could speak, struggling to take everything in and make sense of it when she suddenly felt as if she was on unstable ground.
Cal must have sensed her mounting panic. His arm slid around her waist and he held her up. She resisted the instinct inside her that hissed at her to push him away. He wasn’t trying to control her. He was just trying to help her. There was a difference.
“I’m awakening. Meaning, whatever I am, it’s gradually taking over?”
“No.” Cal tugged her closer still, his face awash with concern. “No. Not taking over, Marinda. Your powers are awakening, not you. It just means we need to hone them, train you to control them so they can’t control you.”
Could she control them?
She wanted to believe that she could, clung to the conviction and confidence shining in his blue eyes.
He offered his hand to her.
“We’ll start right now.”
Marinda took it.
Chapter 18
Cal had spent the last two days back in his townhouse in London, trying to keep his hands off Marinda as he had put her through a series of training routines to develop her fighting skills. He had figured it would be best to start with teaching her the basics of hand to hand combat, something that would hone her reflexes, build her confidence, and also sharpen her mind.
It was working, and she seemed less troubled now, and definitely more comfortable around him and in her own skin, but it was also hell.
Seeing Marinda in a form-fitting amethyst racerback tank and black leggings was not only a challenge to his control, but also his libido.
It was hard to keep his mind on training her and off all the wicked things he wanted to do with her.
At first, he had figured he was alone in his struggle, and was going to come off as some heinous pervert again when he finally snapped and lost control.
And then Marinda had ended up hurling herself at him after one particularly good sparring match where she had countered him well and even landed some blows he hadn’t seen coming.
She had kissed the breath from him in the middle of the black mats, sending his body into a tailspin that had taken him at least twenty minutes and a cold shower to recover from.
He had wanted to share that shower with her, but one look into her eyes and at the rose staining her cheeks had told him that she wasn’t ready for that step.
Not yet anyway.
Since then, she had kissed him two more times, pushing him right to the edge of his control. The last time, he had been the one to break the kiss, because if it had gone on any longer, he would have had her against the training room wall and naked in a flash.
“Cal?” She emerged from the bedroom she had picked as hers, the one on the same floor as the living room and kitchen.
This time, he had changed the sheets before she could use it, making sure she didn’t end up smelling like Keras, sleeping where his brother had probably been naked.
“Sure you don’t want my room? It’s bigger, and more private.” And it came with a bonus—him.
She stopped smoothing down the hem of her dark red jumper and looked at him. “No. Really. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother.” He gave her a slow, leisurely once over, taking his time about it and not missing the fact she had traded her tight workout clothing for loose jeans and a baggy jumper.
Here he was, opting for his tightest jeans and T-shirt, trying to get her eyes on him, attempting to stir that desire she kept flashing at him, and she was doing her damnedest to hide all those curves he now knew existed.
And couldn’t stop thinking about.
Her fingers kept smoothing, faster now, and he sensed her nerves. He dragged his eyes away from her to give her a moment. So far, he had learned a few things about her. Like, if he flustered her by staring, she was liable to scurry away into her room for hours.
And he liked her company.
He preferred she spent her time with him than alone in her room. Curiosity had gotten the better of him the day after he had moved her belongings to London and he had poked his head in to see what she was doing in her room for hours at a time. He had felt like a dick when she had looked up at him from her position on the bed, her eyes red and glistening with unshed tears as she held her cello case.
He had ended up cooking her another cassoulet to cheer her up and had decided to keep her as busy as he could, giving her less time to dwell on everything that had happened. Grieving was good, he knew that, but he still felt it was better she wasn’t alone, not when she was struggling to come to terms with the things she had learned about herself and her father.
“Ares sent a message.” He waggled his phone, drawing her attention to it. “Dad didn’t know you weren’t a mortal and neither did Mum, so the whole awakening thing is definitely bang-on. Ares says that Dad sent back a list as long as his arm of potential species. You could be everything from a Hellspawn to a full-blown goddess.”
Which was a pretty fucking big range.
If Cal had to bet on one end of the spectrum or the other, he would place her more towards the goddess end.
He seriously doubted she was a Hellspawn. She had laid him out flat several times each session, and whenever her control slipped, she pretty much wiped the floor with him.
After which, she spent an hour apologising.
But at least she played nurse for him.
He had tried convincing her she didn’t need to patch him up because he healed fast, but in the end it had been easier, and way more fun, to go along with her. Plus, it had the added bonus that it made her feel better. He was all about making her feel better.
He could make her feel pretty damn good if she let him.
She glanced back at her room and he frowned as he caught a glimmer of something in her eyes when she turned to face him again.
“Something wrong?”
She shook her head, and then stilled. Gave a slight nod. “I forgot… I forgot it was today.”
A smile wobbled on her lips.
“What’s today?” His eyes widened as it hit him. “Your birthday.”
She quickly nodded, closed her e
yes and pulled down a deep breath. He couldn’t stop himself from closing the distance between them and pulling her into a hug. He lifted his right hand, tunnelled his fingers into her hair and held her head to his chest as he rested his chin on top of it.
“The first one is the worst,” he whispered, his eyes on the wall, unfocused as he thought about how hard his first birthday without Calindria had been.
He hoped that for Marinda each birthday got easier and less painful. For him, his birthday was just another reminder of the fact Calindria was missing from his life and should have been there celebrating another year with him.
It was another reminder that he wasn’t whole.
He looked at Marinda, a feeling hitting him hard in the centre of his chest. Calindria had been the other half of him, but the more time he spent with Marinda and the closer they grew to each other, the more he felt as if she could complete him.
As if she was the other half of his soul.
Gods, he was starting to sound as sappy as Ares.
He tried to shake it off, but Marinda made it impossible.
She slipped her arms around his waist, turned her head and rested her cheek against his chest, completely undoing him and leaving him adrift, lost in how good it felt to hold her like this and have her arms around him. “What do you think he saw?”
Cal hoped her father hadn’t seen her like this, but what did he know? The man had told her to trust Cal, and that she was meant to be here in London today. He could have seen any of what had already happened—him making her breakfast, him sparring with her, them talking—or he might have seen something that was going to happen.
Or none of it.
The future wasn’t set. The slightest thing could have changed it from what her father had seen.
He wasn’t sure, but he was sure of one thing.
He was going to make this birthday the best it could be for her, doing whatever she wanted and doing his best to fill it with good things that would counter the dark shadow of being without her father.
Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 18