People continued to pull themselves away from him, desperate cries leaving their lips as they forced themselves to move, their fear pushing down on Aiko together with their pain, pulling her focus to them. They needed her help.
When she moved, Esher’s gaze whipped to her.
His expression darkened.
The man threw his head back and blood burst from his lips, cascading down his face, and then he went still.
Esher dropped the body.
Turned crimson eyes on the people crawling away from him.
“Esher, don’t!” Daimon called and was moving in an instant.
A cold feeling went through Aiko.
He was going to hurt the people next.
“Esher!” She took a step towards him instead of the people she had intended to help, and he looked at her again.
A flicker of blue shone in amidst the red of his irises.
Fire exploded in a wave behind him, knocking him forwards, and one of his brothers screamed his name.
A wall of ice and earth shot up behind him, creating a barrier, but not before the tip of the explosion caught Esher, the force of it hurling him to his knees on the rubble from the first blast.
Aiko was by his side in an instant, her heart in her mouth as she saw the torn up back of his shirt, a slick patch on the back of his head, and lacerations on his neck.
“Esher.” She fluttered her hands over him, panic claiming hold of her, and then her mind emptied and her heart steadied, and something clicked into place inside her.
She instinctively followed her training, checking him from head to toe for wounds, and any sign of broken bones, no sound reaching her ears other than her own ragged strained breathing. When she saw only superficial wounds, she risked taking hold of his shoulders.
He responded instantly.
In the blink of an eye, she was tucked against his chest, his body shielding hers again and his grip so tight she found it hard to breathe.
He shook against her, hands trembling where they gripped the nape of her neck and her waist, pinning her to him.
“Need to protect my little butterfly,” he whispered. “Keep it together and protect my little butterfly.”
She realised that was her.
She wrapped her arms around him as best she could, holding him. “I’m fine. I can’t sense any more of the bad spirits.”
He refused to release her, kept her crushed against his chest. Safe.
His shaking worsened, and she caught his emotions as they grew stronger—rage, fear, and a darkness that frightened her a little, but she could also feel that he needed her, and that need was genuine.
Daimon stopped beside them, and she looked up his long black-denim-clad legs, over his dark roll-neck sweater, to his face. He crouched beside Esher, his pale blue eyes on him, concern flooding them.
“Everyone is safe,” Daimon murmured, his words an odd contrast to the sobs and moans of the people around them, people who were injured. Dying. He didn’t seem to notice as he focused on Esher. “Everyone is safe. The daemons are gone. You dealt with them. The threat is over. Everyone is safe. Focus on my voice, Esher. Focus on me now.”
When Esher only held her closer and loosed another inhuman growl, Daimon glanced at his brothers, his expression revealing fear.
Why?
“Tycho,” Daimon whispered and held his hand out, slowly, as if he was approaching a dangerous animal and feared getting his hand bitten off if he startled it. He kept his voice low, a soothing murmur. “Tycho. Focus on the word, Esher. Focus on me. Tycho.”
Every time Daimon said that strange word, Esher’s grip on her loosened a little, and she could breathe again. His trembling began to subside.
“Everything is okay now. Everyone is fine. Everyone is safe. See?” Daimon hovered his hand an inch from Esher’s shoulder. “Look.”
Esher drew back, but he didn’t look at his brother.
He looked at her.
Aiko lifted her dirty hands and framed his face, keeping his eyes on her. They were blue again now, blue but so inky they were almost black, and only spots of crimson remained. Whatever that crimson meant, it was bad, and she wanted to know why it happened, and what to do to bring Esher back.
As Daimon had.
Beyond him, Ares appeared in a swirl of black smoke that clung to him and the pretty brunette woman in his arms.
“What happened?” She sounded American. Her warm brown eyes rose to Ares when she noticed the body of the creature Daimon had referred to as a daemon. “That looks like a nasty way to go.”
“Better than exploding.” Ares nodded to the spots where the other two daemons had detonated themselves, one close to where they had appeared and the other beyond the crumbling wall of dirt and melting ice.
Aiko wasn’t sure the daemon Esher had killed had experienced a death that had been better than the other two. It had been drawn out, excruciating. Esher had made sure he had suffered.
Because he had felt a need to protect his brothers.
Her.
She looked back at him, at the way he was watching her closely, his dark eyebrows furrowed with the concern that flickered in his eyes, and knew she was the reason he had lost control.
When the woman started helping the injured, Aiko tried to get free of Esher’s grip so she could help.
He immediately dragged her against him, his grip so fierce it hurt.
“I can help too,” she said, but he showed no sign of releasing her. Her eyes darted between his. “I have to help, Esher. Let me help them.”
“Let her help.” Daimon weathered the glare Esher turned on him. “Everyone is safe now. Everyone is okay.”
Esher drew down a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his eyes as he nodded.
But he still didn’t release her.
Aiko brushed her thumbs across his cheeks, smearing the ash and blood. “I’m safe, Esher. No one will hurt me… and I am not afraid, because I know you will protect me.”
He sucked down another deep breath, leaned forwards and pressed his forehead against her neck, and she stroked her palms over his back, and frowned as she felt the blood on her hands. His blood.
She needed to tend to him too.
But there were people in far more need of her than he was.
She looked at the people, at the ones who had already died, and those struggling to stem the flow of blood from their wounds, or desperately trying to help others.
“Please, Esher?” Because she couldn’t sit idle any longer. She had to help them.
He inhaled hard, exhaled in another shuddering sigh, and finally released her.
She stood, her legs like jelly beneath her, body shaking as the adrenaline dump waned and she was left facing the cold reality of what had happened. The lights in the large room flickered on and off, and smoke curled from several places, making the air thick and hot, and difficult to breathe. She pushed herself to move, told herself that there were no more daemons left, that there was only Esher and his brothers, and the injured.
She had to help them.
She picked her way over the rubble to the woman Ares guarded and her eyes widened when she realised the brunette didn’t have a medical kit.
She was healing the injured by holding her hands above them. The wounds beneath her touch knitted back together and Aiko could only stare in amazement. She didn’t have such an incredible gift, but she could do her part.
“Let me help,” Aiko said in English, and the woman looked up.
She nodded. “There should be a med kit. Grab it and patch up as many of the people with less life-threatening injuries.”
“We need to get motoring or the authorities will arrive.” Ares’s deep voice became a growl when the woman winced, leaned forwards, and shook her head. He stooped and touched her back. “Megan, you’re overdoing it.”
She shot him a frown. “I’m fine. Stop fussing.”
“I’ll help.” Aiko hurried across the room, feeling Esher’s eyes tracking
her, and searched behind the bar for the med kit. There were two. She took both and tended to a wound on the bartender’s throat first, and then one on the leg of a woman.
She moved from person to person, her heart growing heavier as she did her best to help as many of the people as she could, their blood and dirt from the blast coating her hands and her clothes as she worked quickly.
So many of them were dead though.
She stopped near a woman, one of the group she had seen exiting the taxi when they had arrived, and checked for a pulse. When she felt nothing, she sank back on her knees and stared at the woman, cold blooming inside her as her eyes burned, and hot tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“Can you help over here?” Megan called.
Aiko brushed her tears away, pushed onto her feet and forced herself to move, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking at every body she passed, and the tears returned, streaming down her cheeks no matter how hard she tried to stop them.
When she reached Megan and sank to her knees, she felt Esher’s eyes on her.
She looked across at him as she applied pressure to a leg wound on a man while Megan worked to heal another on his side where a pipe had pierced him.
Worry danced in his blue eyes, his expression relaying his need to come to her and comfort her, but he kept his distance and all the light in his eyes turned dark when he glanced at the man she was helping.
“Esher.” Keras regained his attention.
“It wasn’t me who sensed the daemons. It was Aiko.” When Esher said that, Keras looked at her.
He beckoned her with a wave of his hand, but he could wait, because she was needed where she was. She ignored him and kept pressure on the wound, still amazed at the way Megan was healing the man.
When Megan had closed the wound on his side, she smiled shakily. “Thanks.”
Megan reached for the man’s leg as he moaned, and Ares palmed her shoulders.
“You’re doing great, Sweetheart,” he murmured. “A couple more and we’re done.”
She nodded, blew out her breath and focused.
Aiko rose to her feet and brushed her tangled black hair from her face as she went to Esher. The moment she was within reach, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him, nuzzling her neck and holding her tightly. She sank against him, tired and aching, wanting to leave the carnage and try to put it all out of her mind even when she knew it would haunt her for weeks.
“How many daemons did you sense?” Keras said.
“Four.” She wasn’t really certain. Just as she found it hard to distinguish how many of Esher’s brothers were near her when they were grouped together, becoming a mass of signatures to her, she had found it hard to count the number of daemons.
He frowned. “Four?”
She nodded. “Or three… it’s hard to say.”
“There’s a big difference between three and four.” Keras swiped a hand over his short black hair, his green gaze dark and handsome face etched in pensive lines as he stared down at her. “Three died. If there were four, then one survived.”
She focused on the feeling she’d had when she had been making out with Esher in the shadows. At first, it had felt like one bad spirit, but then she remembered it breaking apart, and that was when she had alerted Esher.
Because there had been three of them.
“Three.” She was sure of it now.
Above them, sirens rang out, muffled through the layers of concrete.
“Time to leave.” Keras looked at his brothers. “Marek and I will finish up here. It won’t take long to make the survivors believe there was a gas leak that caused the explosions.”
They could do that?
Aiko looked at the room, and she supposed it wasn’t that much of a leap. It was wrecked, the floor torn up in a way that made it appear as if a gas main had burst.
The lightning and air spirit disappeared, leaving shimmering black smoke behind. Ares dragged Megan onto her feet, ignoring her protest as she tried to reach another person to help them, and disappeared with her.
“Daimon, go with Esher. Make sure he is alright.” Keras looked to the white-haired one, and the man nodded.
Because Esher was injured?
Or because he had lost control?
Keras slapped a hand down on Esher’s shoulder. “Everyone is fine.”
Esher nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“But the people.” Aiko tried to pull towards them as a few of them moaned, and one cried out for help. It could take hours for the authorities to break through the rubble closing the entrance and reach them. They might die if she didn’t help them.
Esher turned cold eyes on them, his tone empty. “We’ve done all we can.”
He pulled her against him and the world spun around her, fading to black. Colours emerged, streaking through the darkness, and her head kept on spinning as Esher’s house appeared around her.
He kept hold of her as Daimon appeared.
The first thing Daimon said was, “Everyone is fine.”
Esher dragged a hand over his messy black hair and nodded, and she felt cold as he released her, breaking contact and moving away, drifting towards the bathhouse. She watched him go, her insides tied in knots as she tried to decide whether to go after him and help him, or question his brother.
When he disappeared from view, questioning won out, because she needed some answers.
She turned on Daimon. “People were dead. They were hurt. Not everyone was fine.”
Daimon looked over his shoulder towards the bathroom as the water started running.
“To Esher they were.” He sighed and returned his ice-blue gaze to her. “Everyone who mattered was fine. His brothers were fine… and so were you.”
“What about the people?” She didn’t understand. Esher had always been so nice around her, caring and gentle, but tonight he had been different. She had seen the way he had looked at the injured people after he had killed the daemon. He had wanted to hurt them.
She frowned as something dawned on her, and she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it before.
Esher hated being in a crowd. He seemed happiest when they were alone, somewhere peaceful, away from people. She had thought it was just because he wanted to be alone with her, but now she could see it for what it really was.
He didn’t like people.
He didn’t trust them.
Why?
She looked to Daimon for the answer.
He was quiet for a long time, tensed and still, a statue in black in front of her, the soft long spikes of his white hair dirty and stained with crimson in places, and ash streaking across his pale skin. “You’ve seen his scars? The ones on his back… on his wrists?”
She nodded. There were so many of them. Long silvery lines on his back, and thicker rings of scars on his arms. He looked as if he had fought a thousand battles that had been worse than the one tonight, and the one she had patched him up after on the night they had met.
“Ever wonder where he got them?” Daimon glanced towards the corridor to the bathroom and lowered his voice. “If you need answers, you could start by asking him… because not even I know the full story. Tonight, you were okay, and so were we, but it might be different next time, and you need to know what you’re getting yourself into.”
He disappeared, leaving ribbons of black smoke behind, before she could ask him what that meant, giving her no choice but to ask Esher instead.
She hesitated, a touch of fear trickling through her. Esher hadn’t liked it when she had looked at his scars. How would he react if she asked about them?
She had wanted to more than once, needed to know the story behind them, because she felt sure knowing was vital if she was going to move closer to him, as close as she wanted to be.
She pulled down a steadying breath.
She didn’t want to hurt him, but she needed to know.
She needed to know what had happened to him to make him so unfeeling towards
humans, because gods were meant to protect them, not despise them.
Aiko kicked off her shoes, and bravely strode forwards, following the trail of ashy boot prints that led to the bathhouse.
She found Esher to the left, where a series of shower stalls were set into a stone wall. He stood beneath the spray, his head bent as he leaned with his hands against the white tiles, the water cascading over his black hair, down the tensed muscles of his bare back and over the contours of his bottom.
He didn’t seem to notice her as she stripped down to her underwear, or as she stepped into the cubicle behind him.
He kept standing there, with his head under the water, letting it run over him as if it would carry everything that was bothering him away.
Aiko touched his back, feathering her fingers along the most vicious of the scars, one that started in a thick circle below his left ribs and darted up towards his right shoulder, growing thinner as it went.
He didn’t tense as expected or turn to rail at her and make her stop.
“How did you get these?” she whispered, voice trembling as badly as her fingers.
He let out a long sigh. “What did Daimon tell you?”
“Nothing.” She stroked a smaller, thinner scar that arced over his spine. “He told me to ask you.”
He stood silent as she explored him, charted more scars and then her eyes drifted to the ones around his arms, the ones she had wanted to know about from the moment she had met him. She wanted to reach for him, to caress them and ask him about them in particular, but he started to tremble as his hands tensed against the tiles, fingers pressing in as if he needed to grip them to keep himself upright.
To stop himself from falling.
Her heart ached for him, chest growing tight as she felt his struggle, his immense pain.
He slowly turned his head towards her, and that ache deepened as his blue eyes met hers. They were as deep as the ocean, as blue as the sky, but there was a threat of a storm in them, and a touch of crimson.
Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3) Page 15