Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4

by Heaton, Felicity

  “We were attacked by daemons and I dealt with them, but afterwards… I was checking a wound she picked up and her blood smelled daemon. I had the sense she was a daemon.” He left out a few details there too, like the fact he had been kissing her when that sense of her being a daemon had struck him.

  “Is it possible daemon blood got on her?” Ares’s deep brown eyes held his.

  Marek shook his head. “No. I encased her in a wall. She was hit by a daemon’s claws and then I made sure she was protected.”

  “So, your girlfriend is turning daemon?” Valen’s eyebrows pinned high on his forehead. “Bummer.”

  “She is not my girlfriend,” Marek snapped, ignoring the part of himself that pointed out he had been hoping she would be that and so much more to him. He really didn’t need his brothers knowing that.

  “How did you take it?” Daimon’s eyes narrowed on him as they paled, turning almost white, a warning that his brother was probably mulling over how he might have taken it if he had been in Marek’s shoes, and was either enjoying it or not liking it at all.

  Marek didn’t dare ask which it was.

  “Badly. I…” He huffed and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I took it badly. Instinct kicked in.”

  Ares tipped his head up, his eyebrows rising as he said, “Ah.”

  Valen grimaced.

  “But if she’s a daemon, what does it matter?” Calistos shrugged as everyone looked at him. “Daemon. We kill daemons. You all forget that?”

  “What if she isn’t really a daemon?” Daimon countered. “I hate them as much as the next guy, but if she was mortal…”

  Calistos’s face darkened, his eyes turning stormy. “Wouldn’t have stopped me.”

  Valen kicked him in the knee. “You get a woman of your own and say that if it happens to her. Thinking about that happening to Eva… Fuck. I don’t want to think about it.”

  He dropped his feet to the floor, leaned forwards and buried his head in his hands, his violet hair falling to cover them.

  “She definitely didn’t give you the heebie-jeebies before?” Ares started pacing, his eyes not straying from Marek.

  Marek shook his head. “It isn’t just what I felt. It’s what she said. She was sick, Ares. She was afraid of me touching her and I thought it was because she didn’t want to make me sick… and she grew distant.”

  He rubbed his forehead and started pacing too, needing to work off some energy as he thought about everything, and about what he had done.

  “I attacked her.” Saying that out loud made him sick to his stomach, as if admitting it suddenly made it real when he had lived it, had stood there with his hand around her throat trying to choke the life out of her. It hit him hard and he swallowed, covered his mouth with his hand and cursed. “When I realised what I was doing, I let her go… but I hurt her, and what she said… I don’t… I don’t think she was always a daemon.”

  “You believe that?” Calistos tossed him a thunderous glare. “She’s a daemon. They’re all liars and bastards.”

  “No. She’s not a daemon. She’s becoming one. There is a damned difference.” He stalked towards his youngest brother, the ground shaking beneath his feet with each hard step, and Calistos leaned back, attempting to distance himself as Marek bore down on him. “She told me she wanted to tell me. She said she didn’t want it and she didn’t have a choice.”

  He stilled and his shoulders sagged as the words she had hurled at him before disappearing hit him all over again.

  He whispered.

  “She said she wanted the damned blood out of her own.”

  Keras’s green gaze drilled into him. “Out of her own?”

  Marek nodded. “Those were her exact words.”

  It wasn’t as if he could forget them.

  Or the fact she had disappeared from his life right after hurling them at him.

  “And then what happened?” Ares again.

  Marek closed his eyes. “I think she teleported.”

  “Teleported?” Daimon barked.

  Marek braced himself, waiting for one of them to point out that she was definitely a daemon then, and definitely powerful, because the ability to teleport was rare in her kind and only manifested in older daemons.

  Which meant she had definitely been lying to him the whole time.

  “Amaury could teleport,” Ares put in, his words carefully weighed and softly spoken, and Marek dared to look at him.

  Because he hadn’t even thought about that.

  Amaury had been the first of their enemy they had encountered, a daemon with the ability to teleport and also the power to steal abilities from another. He had taken Ares’s fire the night Ares had met Megan, but his ultimate goal had been to take Megan’s power to heal.

  So he could act as the medic for the enemy.

  “So, your girlfriend isn’t a fully-fledged daemon but she is working for the enemy? Is that what I’m getting here?” Valen lifted his head and twisted on the armchair to look over the back of it.

  Marek wanted to point out again that she wasn’t his girlfriend, but it would get him nowhere, and he was getting tired of his brothers thinking Caterina was the enemy.

  When from where he was standing it looked as if she was the victim in all of this.

  “She wanted the blood out of her. She said she had no choice… And she wanted to tell me.” He swallowed. Hard. “I think… I think this is my fault. The daemons attacked the gate here, which means their focus is on me. I got her pulled into this.”

  And gods, he had thought he couldn’t feel any worse than he already did, but there it was.

  Rock bottom.

  “Marek,” Keras started and Marek shook his head, because he didn’t want coddling or excuses.

  “They must have seen her with me. I put a target on her back.” He turned on Keras and his throat closed as reality hit him hard. “Now she’s been infected with daemon blood and it’s all my fault, and I attacked her because of it.”

  He sank to his backside on the arm of the couch next to Calistos, rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head.

  “You’re such a dick.” Valen was as helpful as always. “I probably would’ve flipped my shit too.”

  That wasn’t any comfort. Valen flipped out around once a week, and often about something trivial.

  “What are you going to do?” Keras this time, and his deep voice held a note of what sounded a lot like concern to Marek.

  He lifted his head and met Keras’s gaze as he replayed his last moments with Caterina, as he saw all over again how terrified she had been and it hadn’t been fear of him that had gripped her.

  She was scared of what was happening to her.

  But she didn’t have to deal with it alone.

  “I’m going to find her.”

  Chapter 16

  Finding Caterina had sounded easier than it turned out to be. Marek had visited the beach, the vampires’ nests, and had even patrolled the entire gothic quarter of Barcelona for two nights straight.

  So far, there had been no sign of her.

  He paused for a rest on one of the benches beneath the trees that lined one side of the wide-open paved area in front of the Cathedral and tracked the people with his gaze, studying each of them in turn.

  Had she gone into hiding?

  Or was she too sick now to move?

  Marek shoved that question aside before he could contemplate it, because he couldn’t bear the thought of her getting worse when he had seen she was getting better. He knew nothing about this sort of thing, and he felt it as he sat watching the couples moving around the square. Even if he could find Caterina, he had no way of saving her.

  His entire plan revolved around apologising and then asking her about what had happened to her, and the more he thought about it, the colder it sounded. She was infected, and he wanted to interrogate her about who had done it and what it was they wanted her to do.

  Because he doubted they had done this to her just to get
to him and weaken him.

  He singled out a couple, a dark-haired man dressed in a black T-shirt and worn blue jeans with a woman wearing navy jeans and a cream spaghetti-strap camisole.

  The woman’s caramel hair drew his focus to her and he ached inside as he pictured it being Caterina, saw her turn and look at him with that warm smile she had bestowed on him once or twice, a smile that had heated him right down to his marrow.

  Gods, he missed her.

  The woman turned towards the dark-haired man, lifting her face towards him.

  He had to miss her more than he had thought, because now he was seeing Caterina in that woman, in that soft smile she offered to the man as she took his arm.

  Marek frowned as he slowly rose to his feet and took a closer look at the woman.

  It was Caterina.

  Darkness poured through him as his focus shifted to the slim man beside her, the one she was looking at with light in her hazel eyes as she talked to him.

  Who was he?

  The darkness coiled around his heart, twisting tightly to squeeze it as he began following them, and it hissed into his ear, whispering words about betrayal, about how another woman he had been foolish enough to feel something for had acted just like Caterina.

  Fawning over another man.

  He clenched his teeth to deny the growl that wanted to roll up his throat and fought back against his darker nature, against the side of him that wanted to rip the man apart for just touching what was his.

  Caterina wasn’t his.

  He kept telling himself that as he stalked them through the warren of narrow pedestrian streets and watched them walk into a bar, passing the patrons milling around outside it at small tables.

  He stopped outside on the pavement, stared in through the glass to Caterina as she took the seat the man offered, as she smiled and touched his hand.

  A black snarl pealed from his lips.

  The humans outside the bar scattered.

  Marek was storming into the building before he was even aware of what he was doing, shoving people aside as they dared to get in his way, and coming close to baring his emerging fangs at more than one of them.

  “Caterina,” he growled as he reached her.

  She stood sharply and swung to face him, her hazel eyes enormous. “Marek.”

  Her heartbeat was off the scale, thundering in his ears as the scent of her fear hit him.

  “Didn’t expect to be caught?” He stepped up to her and she tossed a panicked glance at the man, confirming his worst fears.

  She had betrayed him with this man.

  She felt something for him.

  Did she feel nothing for Marek now? Had he killed it all that night on the beach? He wanted to turn away and leave, but he bottled that weak side up and clung to his fury, the jealous side of his blood that demanded retribution. He could feel like hell later, when this was all over, could lament what he had done and how badly things had gone, and nurse the fractured heart that pounded against his ribs as he glared at Caterina.

  As she stood her ground and faced him, her eyes hard and daring him to attack her again.

  “What’s going on?” she said, far softer than he expected, and the rigid line of her shoulders relaxed.

  “That’s my line. Who is he?” Marek jerked his chin towards the man.

  He hadn’t bothered to stand, was still seated at the table with his dull eyes fixed on Marek, a watchful and wary edge to them.

  “I can explain.” Caterina’s voice shook as she edged towards the man.

  Away from Marek.

  “I don’t need an explanation,” he barked and took a step back. “I think I’ve seen enough.”

  “It isn’t like that.” Her eyes grew wild and she leaned towards him, went to lift her hand and let it fall rather than reaching for him. “You’re overreacting.”

  Marek didn’t think he was, and worse, he couldn’t blame her for moving on, finding a man who wouldn’t treat her as terribly as he had. His gaze flickered to her neck, to the fading bruises on it.

  He had never been one to burn bridges, but he wanted to torch the fragile remains of the one between him and Caterina.

  Partly to protect her from his instincts that even now labelled her as a daemon.

  Partly because she really did deserve better.

  He held his tongue though, because he was meant to be helping her and getting answers from her. If she had been infected by his enemy, then it was his fault. The least he could do was find a way to fix it for her, to free her of the grip of his enemy and the daemonic blood running in her veins.

  Even if she didn’t end up with him.

  “Caterina.” He dared a step towards her.

  She glanced at the man to her left, a fearful look that had Marek’s focus leaping to him. Was she afraid of this man?

  As his senses locked onto him, something hit him like a freight train.

  Darkness surged through him.

  “Vampire,” he sneered, unable to believe it even as everything clicked into place. “Did he do this to you? Is he with them?”

  A Hellspawn might be a member of the ranks of his enemy, and he was looking right at one.

  And Caterina’s silence said she had known what he was.

  Marek lunged for the bastard.

  Caterina stepped in his path, blocking his way to the vampire as she stretched her arms out. He slammed to a halt and stared at her, blinked as he struggled to take in what she had done. She was protecting him.

  She was protecting the vampire and there was love and fear in her eyes as she did it.

  “You were conspiring against me all this time,” Marek snarled, his blood thundering in his ears and his fists shaking as he clenched them, as he looked between her and the vampire, waiting for her to deny it.

  The words that left her lips, softly whispered, weren’t a denial.

  But they did send him reeling.

  “He’s my brother.”

  Marek could only stare at the man as he placed his hands on Caterina’s slender shoulders over the straps of her cream camisole.

  She tensed.

  “You don’t have to protect me.” The man lowered his head towards her ear but didn’t take his eyes off Marek. “I can handle this.”

  She threw a frantic look at him. “No, Guillem. Not this… this is mine to handle.”

  She lifted her left hand and placed it over his on her shoulder as she smiled, a gentle one that did nothing to soothe Guillem’s evident hunger to fight.

  “I’ll be just a minute. Will you wait here?”

  Guillem didn’t look inclined to agree to that, but then he reluctantly released her and sat back down at the table, and glared at Marek.

  In a fight, Marek would destroy him. He was weak, looked as if he hadn’t fed in months. Was he the reason Caterina fought vampires?

  The reason she had asked Marek about a possible cure?

  Caterina scowled at Marek as she stormed past him, her shoulders tensing up again with each step, and he could sense the fury building inside her, the rage that would explode from her as soon as they were alone.

  He had his own dose of rage to level at her.

  She turned on him the moment he stepped out into the stifling evening heat.

  The fire that had been building in her was quick to die and resignation flooded her hazel eyes as she took a lunging step towards him.

  “Please don’t kill Guillem.” Her fine eyebrows furrowed and she gently shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “What happened to him wasn’t his fault, and he’s never bitten anyone, I swear. You told me you were meant to hunt daemons… and I’m one of those things, right? So, take me, but just… just let Guillem live.”

  Marek stared at her, stunned as he listened to her, as he saw the desperation in her eyes, and sorrow too.

  That same emotion filled him, born of two things. She would sacrifice herself for her brother. She honestly believed Marek had come here to kill her.

  He wasn
’t sure what to say to that.

  He knew what half of his brothers would say. She was right, and she was a daemon, or at least becoming one, and his duty was to hunt and kill their kind.

  But just as she clung to some crazy hope that she could turn her brother human again, he clung to a crazy hope that he was wrong about her and she had told him the truth on the beach.

  She hadn’t chosen this and she wanted to be human again.

  He clung to the hope that he could find a way to make that happen.

  “I didn’t come here to kill you, Caterina.”

  Something like relief crossed her eyes. “What do you want then? You made your feelings about me abundantly clear on the beach.”

  Her hazel eyes darted to a group of people coming towards them along the narrow street. Afraid they would hear things they shouldn’t? He wasn’t. In his experience, mortals tended to forget hearing things that sounded too far-fetched to be real, or too frightening.

  “I… shouldn’t have reacted like that.” He diligently kept his eyes off her neck and those healing bruises.

  She dragged his focus to them by touching them. “Well, you did and I figured I would never see you again. But here you are, and I’m finding it difficult to believe you didn’t come to take another shot at me.”

  “Caterina,” he said in a low voice, hoping she would hear the warning in it. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

  But if she kept provoking him, the darkness he was fighting to hold at bay might slip free of his control. That darker side of him labelled her as a daemon, something to eradicate. He kept telling himself that she wasn’t. Not yet anyway.

  He wasn’t sure he could kill her even if she did become a fully-fledged daemon.

  She hadn’t chosen this. It had been forced upon her.

  “I hate this,” she whispered, frustration lacing those words, mingling with the pain that shone in her eyes. Tears lined them, tearing at his heart, and she scrubbed them away, turning her profile to him. “I hate what’s happening to me. I hate what they want me to do. I hate that I was going to do it.”

  Her gaze drifted to meet his.

  She shook her head.

  “I hate that we can’t be together.”