Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5
Page 35
Her face fell again.
“The gates.” She averted her gaze, fixing it back on the colourful fish.
Cal wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her hair. “We’ll close as many of them as we can. It won’t be easy, but we’ll do it. We’ll protect them from the other Erinyes. Besides, they’re weaker without you. There’s a chance they might not be strong enough to open them.”
She shuffled closer to him and started to relax.
He rubbed her back, trying to buoy her up, and lift his heart at the same time. He looked off to his left, to the horizon.
The otherworld flickered over the present. Gold sparks danced high into the red sky, billowing from the fires that ravaged the ruined buildings, but there were no screams of mortals or piercing shrieks of daemons on the hunt.
It felt as if they had been dealt a blow tonight, but the otherworld said differently.
“What do you see?” Marinda’s voice trembled with nerves but it was stronger now, brighter.
“It looks better than before.” He clung to that as fiercely as he clung to Marinda. She gave him a sceptical look. He frowned down at her. “I wouldn’t lie to you. It does look better. We’re all hurting right now, but we dealt the enemy a blow today. They lost a powerful ally… and before you know it, Esher will be back, dragging Eli kicking and screaming behind him.”
“And we’re growing stronger.” Marinda’s words strengthened his hope. The steely resolve that shone in her eyes told him that she had meant what she had said about coming with him to find Esher, and that she meant what she said next. “I’m in this fight now, and so is Cass. If the Erinyes attack the gates, I’ll be there to stop them.”
Cal smoothed his hand over her cheek and tilted her head back, stared down into her eyes and didn’t resist the warmth that spread through him, the feelings he had never wanted but now didn’t want to live without.
“We’ll be there to stop them.” He dipped his head and captured her lips, kissed her softly, savouring it and the feel of her in his arms. “Just as we’ll find my sister’s soul. It’s free now. We freed it. We’ll find it.”
Marinda swept her lips across his and then drew back, her eyes lifting to his. “Would Thanatos be able to help?”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? Thanatos was the god of death. He might be able to see what happened to souls before Cal’s father took control of them to assign them to their final resting place.
“It’s worth a shot… but you’re staying here if I go and speak with him.” He weathered her glare and shook his head. “I saw the way he looked at you.”
“Jealous?” She sidled closer and pressed her palms to his chest.
“Jealous? No. Liable to fly into a murderous rage if someone hits on the woman I love? Hell, yes.”
Marinda’s tropical eyes slowly widened.
Was it something he had said?
“Woman you love?” Her eyes searched his.
He shrugged stiffly. “Cat’s out of the bag now.”
She cuffed him around the side of his head. “Be serious for once!”
Her expression softened, making her even more beautiful, and making him irritatingly gooey inside. A seven-hundred-and-sixty-plus god that had spent his life as a warrior, had been honed in battle and shaped by darkness, shouldn’t be melting over a woman.
But he was.
Now he understood how his brothers felt when they looked at their women.
How his father felt whenever he softened around his mother.
“I might be in love with you,” he muttered.
He was definitely in love with her.
She tiptoed and breathed against his lips, “I might be in love with you too.”
He growled low and gathered her to him, went to kiss her and frowned as she pressed a finger to his lips, stopping him.
Her now-violet eyes were deadly serious.
“I will see to it that any woman who so much as looks at you the wrong way is served justice… and if you wrong me… if you look at another woman in a way I don’t like… you’ll know it.”
He shivered.
Not a bad sort.
His prim little cellist had a wicked dark side that really revved his engine and made him purr for her.
She pulled him in for a kiss that seared him right down to his soul and tattooed her name on his heart.
“I want forever with you,” he whispered against her lips, his heart thundering, stomach somersaulting as he put that out there. Before she could speak, his damned mouth kept moving. “But I need to fulfil my duty, I need to protect the gates, and I need to get my brother back and find my sister’s soul.”
A long list that felt as if it was a barrier between him and the future he needed with her—the forever he needed with her. He wasn’t sure how long it would take, and he feared it would be a problem for her. She was used to a quieter sort of life, and that’s what he wanted to give to her, what he would give to her if she put up with this craziness for a little while.
She hit him with a killer smile that said it wasn’t a barrier at all.
And her words stole his heart all over again.
“Our forever started the moment I met you… but you know what they say. The couple that slays together, stays together.”
Her eyes flashed violet.
She took hold of his hand.
Cal looked down at it and then at her.
Forever with his little furie was going to be wild, unpredictable, and dangerous.
But damn, he had a feeling it was going to be worth it.
The End
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The Guardians of Hades series returns on September 29th with Daimon: Pre-order your copy now
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About the Author
Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author who writes passionate paranormal romance books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!
If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter, Larissa Ione, Kresley Cole, Donna Grant and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, her best-selling Her Angel romance series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm romance series or any of her stand alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful and passionate, then try her London Vampires romance series. Or if you like hot-blooded alpha heroes who will let nothing stand in the way of them claiming their destined woman then try her Eternal Mates series. It’s packed with sexy heroes in a world populated by elves, vampires, fae, demons, shifters, and more. If sexy Greek gods with incredible powers battling to save our world and their home in the Underworld are more your thing, then be sure to step into the world of Guardians of Hades.
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Also by Felicity Heaton
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Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King
Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince
Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar
Book 5: Craved by an Alpha
Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
Book 7: Taken by a Dragon
Book 8: Marked by an Assassin
Book 9: Possessed by a Dark Warrior
Book 10: Awakened by a Demoness
Book 11: Haunted by the King of Death
Book 12: Turned by a Tiger
Book 13: Tamed by a Tiger
Book 14: Treasured by a Tiger
Book 15: Unchained by a Forbidden Love
Book 16: Avenged by an Angel
Book 17: Seduced by a Demon King
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Book 2: Captured by her Cougar
Book 3: Courted by her Cougar
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Book 2: Crave
Book 3: Seduce
Book 4: Enslave
Book 5: Bewitch
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Book 1: Ares
Book 2: Valen
Book 3: Esher
Book 4: Marek
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Book 6: Daimon – Coming Fall 2020
Book 7: Keras – Coming Fall 2020
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Book 2: Her Demonic Angel
Book 3: Her Wicked Angel
Book 4: Her Avenging Angel
Book 5: Her Sinful Angel
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Book 2: Prophecy: Caelestis & Aurorea
Book 3: Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising
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Book 4: Seventh Circle
Book 5: Winter's Kiss
Book 6: Hunter's Moon
Book 7: Masquerade
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Books 1-3 are also available in one anthology ebook: Prophecy Trilogy
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Book 1: In Heat
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Copyright © 2020 Felicity Heaton
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The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First printed July 2020
First Edition
Layout and design by Felicity Heaton
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover by Felicity Heaton