Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3)

by Felicity Heaton

  He could do this.

  He balled his right hand into a fist, and grimaced as the cut across his forearm stung as his muscles flexed beneath it, a flash of fire that tested him. He breathed deep, letting the flare of irritation fade without affecting his mood.

  He was calm. In control.

  Calm. Control.

  Esher breathed through it, steeled himself and moved forwards, avoiding the busier paths into the building.

  It was only a short trip. Barely fifteen minutes. He could do this.

  A mortal female passed close to him and he tensed, his breath seizing in his throat as he leaned to avoid her even though she was more than ten feet away.

  Breathe.

  Calm. Control.

  Keras would fucking kill him if he lost his shit and caused a bloodbath. His oldest brother had lectured him more than once about playing nice around the weak little mortals. By the gods, he tried. He could almost tolerate them now. He had even managed to speak with some when he was feeling strong, able to cope with breathing the same air as them.

  But he wasn’t feeling strong.

  The coppery odour of blood clouded his senses, tugging at his memories, and it was hard to keep them shut out, to hold the wall of calm in place.

  He shoved the bloodied fingers of his right hand through the longer lengths of his black hair, pushing the damp strands out of his face, and scrubbed at the shorter sides.

  He could do this.

  He took another step towards the building, a pressing sense of urgency building inside him and driving him to move as he picked up the warning over the public-address system. It was last train time.

  Now or never.

  He froze as a male passed him, flicking a glance his way that turned into a double-take before he pivoted on his heel and hurried away from the station.

  Esher touched his face, drew his hand away and looked at his fingers. Black smeared their pads. Daemon blood.

  He huffed, grabbed the handkerchief he always kept in the back pocket of his dark blue jeans and wiped the blood away, scrubbing his neck and face, and then his hand to clear it of both daemon and his own blood.

  It took barely a second for the blood to roll back down to his fingers. He buttoned his coat to hide the crimson stain on his shirt, tugged the sleeve back and wrapped the handkerchief around his forearm, covering the wound there. It would have to do.

  The last of the mortals ran into the building ahead of him.

  Esher strode towards it, his left hand closing over his right side again as the wound below his ribs burned. He pressed hard against it, stopping the flow of blood down his side, and trudged forwards, moving as quickly as he could manage.

  The lights inside the station stung his eyes and he lowered his head, letting the hand-length ribbons of his black hair fall forwards over his brow to shield them. He kept his head bent as he hurried past the closed shops towards the Yamanote Line. It would stop at Yoyogi Park and he could walk from there. The streets in that neighbourhood would be quiet.

  Unlike the immense room around him.

  Someone almost ran into him as they rushed towards the ticket barriers, and he bared his teeth at their back. Keras would have to forgive him if someone bumped him, because he wasn’t sure he had the strength to stop himself from hurting them.

  It was leaking from him as he passed his bloodied right hand over the card reader on the barrier, using his abilities to force it to open for him. It swung open and he passed through, scanned the area ahead of him and spotted the sign for the line. It was further than he remembered. He was going to have to use a little bit of power to make it to the train.

  Not stepping. Just running.

  He clutched his side and sprinted, passing the mortals with ease, and reached the platform just as the last train pulled in. He boarded at the first door, and moved down through the carriages until he found one that was quiet.

  The seats near the next car were empty, so he slumped into them, arranging himself in a way that put off the mortals who were eyeing the spot beside him. He looked at his bloodied hand, felt a few mortals glancing there too, and then moving away. He was tempted to wipe it on his jacket, but since it was acting as a nice deterrent, he kept it on show. Another barrier to keep the mortals at bay.

  He couldn’t believe he had been reduced to using public transport. He eyed a few of the humans, issuing glares to the braver ones who looked as if they might chance it and sit beside him on the three-seater bench. Wretched creatures. The wall of calm cracked a little, and he drew in a deep breath. Mistake. His right ribs protested, a sharp pain echoing along them from the wound, worsening his mood and adding a few more cracks to the wall.

  He closed his eyes as the train pulled away, meaning to shut out the crowded carriage so he could claw back the calm.

  Not meaning to fall asleep.

  He woke with a jolt as the train rounded a bend, and his black eyebrows pinched in a frown as he swept his blue gaze around the carriage. It was almost empty.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and peered out of the window, trying to see where he was as he silently berated himself for succumbing to sleep around so many humans. They weren’t to be trusted. Fuck knew how many of them might have taken the opportunity to kill him if they had known what he was.

  Building after building whizzed past outside, none of them standing out to him. The damned city looked the same no matter where he went in it. He rubbed his tired eyes and squinted at the display screen above the doors. Broken. Just his luck.

  Had he missed his stop?

  He looked at the two people in his carriage, assessing them, and then squeezed his hand over his side as he leaned forwards and looked to his left, into the next one. Five people in that one, none of them a threat.

  He leaned back into the padded seat.

  A shriek rose from his left.

  Esher edged forwards again and glared into the next carriage. A petite raven-haired female with bunches and a fringe that cut a straight line above her eyebrows swatted at a male with her black backpack. Her thick-soled patent leather shoes skidded on the floor of the car as she swung again, causing her short black dress to rise up and reveal the tops of her stripy black and white stockings.

  A little Lolita with a vicious streak.

  Or a terrified little Lolita.

  He canted his head, trying to figure out which one it was, and growing increasingly annoyed and disgusted with everyone in her carriage as they all pretended not to notice her plight.

  “Chikan!” Pervert.

  A public transport one in particular.

  The male grabbed her again, snapping his hand tight around her delicate wrist.

  Still no one moved to help her.

  Why the fuck was he forced to protect a people who cared nothing about their own kind? No Hellspawn or god would tolerate this female’s cries.

  She battered the male again, but the bastard pulled her towards him, undeterred.

  Esher growled and shoved to his feet, not pausing to consider what he was about to do.

  He was going to save a human for the first time in his life.

  CHAPTER 2

  Aiko swung with all her might, striking her assailant in the face this time. His breath left him in a rush, foul with the stench of alcohol and cigarettes. He swayed with the strike, but remained upright, and slurred something obscene at her. She tugged her arm, trying to twist free of his grip, her heart hammering against her chest, but he tightened his grip, squeezing her bones.

  She gritted her teeth against the pain.

  The only other man in the carriage looked in the opposite direction as she fought with the salaryman. Chikushō. Damn it.

  The door beyond the male slid open and she froze as a handsome foreigner stepped through, his tall frame eating up the space. Black hair grazed his cheek, shorn short all around the sides but left long on top, swept forward so it almost obscured one of his eyes.

  Those ethereal blue eyes locked on her.

&nbs
p; She shivered, cold sweeping through her at the emptiness they contained, no trace of feeling.

  The salaryman tried to pull her towards him again.

  The newcomer strode towards her, his eyes turning stormy as he shifted them to the person manhandling her and closed the distance between them.

  In the blink of an eye, his right hand closed around the man’s throat and he was off her, slammed against the train door by the foreigner who stood at least eight inches taller than him. The man leaned in close to the drunk, looked as if he wanted to say something as the salaryman began babbling in fear, and then eased back.

  She thought he might release the man.

  He pulled him away from the door, and slammed him back against it with enough force that the man passed out and the entire carriage jolted. The foreigner huffed as he released the man and watched him slump to the floor, and wiped his hand on his coat, as if the man had some sort of disease that he didn’t want to get.

  When he turned towards her, those stormy blue eyes lowering to meet hers, she bent forwards and dropped her head.

  “Thank you,” she said in English, hopeful that he would understand and would hear the true measure of her gratitude in her voice. It shook as she bowed several times, unable to stop herself as her adrenaline waned and all the fear it had been holding at bay swept over her.

  He responded in perfect Japanese. “Don’t ride alone so late at night, or at least use the women-only carriage.”

  She wanted to tell him that the women-only carriage wasn’t available on the last trains, but held her tongue, not wanting to appear ungrateful for his help. She nodded, rubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand and sniffed as she straightened.

  The man looked her over, his eyes revealing nothing to her. They settled on her hands as she clutched her backpack, and she tried to stop them from trembling, but no matter what she did, they kept shaking.

  “Are you alright?” he said in Japanese again, and she swore there was a flicker of concern in those words even if it didn’t show in his eyes.

  She nodded again. “Fine.”

  The train eased to a halt and the doors slid open, and relief crashed over her when she saw it was her stop. She stepped off the train, glaring at the sleeping salaryman as she passed, tempted to level a kick at him. When she looked back to thank the stranger again, he was stood on the platform beside her, his eyes dark as he stared at the man, looking as if he wanted to do more than just kick him.

  He huffed as he turned away, his motions stiff, as if he had to fight himself to do it, and muttered, “Fuck.”

  Aiko followed his gaze to the station sign.

  The way he sighed had her eyes roaming back to him. He was at least seven inches taller than her, and probably would have been closer to ten above her five-six height if she hadn’t been wearing her shoes. A black cotton coat that reached the ankles of his worn leather boots hugged his slender frame, tight to his chest but flared from his waist. The split down the front revealed blue jeans tucked into the tops of his army boots.

  He shifted back a step, placing more distance between them, and looked away from her, back in the direction the train had come. “Guess I’m walking.”

  She had studied English in school, and took classes at her university, so she knew enough to understand him and the implications of his words—he had missed his stop.

  “I could call… you… a cab.” She managed, with only a few pauses to think of the right words.

  While she studied English, she didn’t get to practice it much. Her parents didn’t know it, and she only got to speak it with her classmates, and a lot of the time they only wanted to speak Japanese and were just learning English so they could put it on their résumé.

  He shook his head but didn’t look at her.

  She thought about going ahead and calling him a taxi anyway, her eyes drifting back down the height of him as she considered it. Her gaze stopped on his hand.

  Blood covered the side of it.

  “You’re hurt,” she said in English and pointed to his hand.

  He looked at it as if it was nothing and wasn’t bothering him at all.

  Had he done it when helping her?

  “Chikushō,” she muttered to herself and thoughts of hailing him a cab were replaced by ones about returning the favour by helping him. It was risky, but she owed him, and she couldn’t let him go without tending to the wound. She just hoped he knew enough Japanese to understand her. She pointed to his hand again. “My parents run a small clinic below our house. I can help with that.”

  He regarded her with cold assessing eyes, and she had the feeling he was the one who didn’t trust her.

  As if she could hurt him.

  He was far more powerful than she was, and had proven it on the train. She wasn’t a threat to him.

  So why did he look as if she might be?

  It was there in his eyes as she looked deeper into them, and she could feel it as she focused on him. Just a glimmer of a feeling, but it was there. Hazy, but clear enough that she could name the emotion.

  Part of him feared her.

  “I would like to help,” she added softly, and he looked back down at his hand again, the black slashes of his eyebrows meeting hard above his darkening eyes.

  When he lifted them back to her, they were colder than before, and she moved back a step as a feeling went through her, one that warned her away from him. He glanced over his shoulder again, and then back at the station sign.

  Sugamo.

  Which stop had he wanted?

  “Why would you trust me?” His deep voice rolled over her, his accent almost perfect.

  If she closed her eyes, she could easily fool herself into thinking she was talking to a Japanese man, not a foreigner.

  Where had he learned her language? He spoke it as if he had been doing it every day of his life. Had he been born in Japan?

  No, she could feel that he hadn’t been born in this land, that he didn’t really belong here. It was a sensation that he didn’t fit or wasn’t welcome, one that most people would put down to instinct, but that ran deeper in her.

  In her blood.

  She studied his face as she answered him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He frowned at her. “Because I could be trying to get into your tiny panties too.”

  She doubted he wanted to do such a thing, the emotions she had detected in him pointing towards a desire to get away from her as quickly as possible rather than get closer to her, yet his words sent a thrill through her, followed by a heat that had her pulse picking up pace.

  “Come with me, or don’t. I won’t force you.” She turned away, slipped her arms into her black satin coffin-shaped backpack and strode towards the exit.

  When she didn’t feel him following, she resisted the temptation to look back. She had offered him help, extended a hand to him. It was down to him to take it.

  Aiko passed through the barriers and out onto the street. It was quiet, no cars moving along it, but she looked in both directions anyway before hurrying across to the other side.

  “How far is the clinic?” His voice arrested her steps and she looked back at him where he stood in the entrance of the station, his left arm wrapped around him and the late-spring breeze stirring the damp lengths of his black hair.

  “A mile.” She pointed in the direction.

  His face darkened. She presumed it wasn’t the distance irritating him, but the fact she had intended to walk a mile through the maze of streets alone in the early hours of morning. She did it all the time, and she wasn’t the only woman in Tokyo who had the same habit.

  He looked as if he wanted to tell her to hail a cab for herself and then said something, but she didn’t catch the words as she watched the emotions flitter across his handsome face, a kaleidoscope of them that moved so swiftly she couldn’t take them all in. Fear was there though. For himself still, or for her? Did he worry about her walking alone at night? Something akin to anguish crossed his
face more than once too, and that emotion was there in his eyes as he reluctantly crossed the road to her.

  What internal war did he wage?

  His question earlier had revealed more about himself than anything he had said or done so far.

  He found it difficult to trust, so he couldn’t understand how others could do it so easily.

  She could trust him, because if he had wanted to get into her ‘tiny panties’ he probably would have done it when they had been standing on the platform of the station for ten minutes, not a soul in sight.

  He had stopped the pervert on the train too, revealing a noble streak in his actions.

  “You’ll probably get yourself killed if I let you go home alone,” he muttered in English, and she understood enough to get the meaning of his words.

  He wasn’t coming with her so she could look at his wound. He was walking her home because he wanted to protect her.

  She led him through the narrow streets, their steps loud on the wet road. It had stopped raining at some point, and she was thankful because she had left her umbrella on the train. She glanced at the man and found him looking at the clouds, his gaze distant and his head tipped back.

  His black hair grazed his temple, and she drank her fill of him, still finding it hard to believe she was walking with him to her home. Her grandmother would be proud of her. That feeling beat in her heart. She had taught Aiko to give aid to those who needed it, especially if they were from another place.

  This man certainly was.

  His blue eyes took on a troubled edge, and he slid them towards her, angling his head slightly in her direction so he could see her. She smiled and looked away, not wanting to upset him. When his gaze left her again, she snuck another glance at him.

  He was handsome, with fine black eyebrows and long inky lashes that framed his deep blue eyes, and a straight nose and softly curved lips that were a shade or two darker than his skin in the low light. Sculpted cheekbones were accented by long sideburns that reached the lobes of his ears, and the sharp angle of his jaw. There was a coldness to his face though, the lack of lines around his eyes and mouth telling her that he rarely smiled or laughed. Why?