Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4

by Heaton, Felicity

  He clenched his fists, denying the urge to reach out and feather his fingers across her cheek.

  He hated it too.

  As he stared at her, he realised that neither of them knew what to do. She was only part daemon, but it was still enough to have most people in the Underworld after her head, and his father would kill him if he so much as touched her.

  Hades would probably kill him several times over if he knew that Marek’s feelings for her hadn’t changed in the slightest. His instincts might view her as a daemon to be dealt with, but his heart only saw Caterina.

  His beautiful, courageous and reckless Caterina.

  “You need to go.” She stepped up to him and pressed her hands to his chest, shoved him backwards as her eyes turned wild and desperate again. “If you aren’t near me, you’re safe.”

  Marek shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, not until you tell me everything. What happened, Caterina? How did this happen to you? Who did this? I need answers.”

  Because he needed to help her. That need had been strong in him before, after she had teleported from the beach and he had cooled off a little, able to look at things objectively again. It had grown stronger during his meeting with his brothers.

  Now, it burned inside him.

  A compulsion that demanded he obey it.

  He had dragged Caterina into this, and he could pull her free of it.

  He wasn’t sure how, but he would find a way.

  “Marek—” she started.

  Thick fog rolled through his head and she wobbled in his vision. He blinked and reared back, gritted his teeth and grunted as heat spread outwards from his right shoulder, burning a path across his flesh that had him close to doubling over as his strength left him and the world grew dim.

  It hit him that he had just been stabbed in the back.

  Literally.

  He stared at Caterina, into her wide eyes, catching the shock in them as she looked beyond him.

  “You never said you were going to hurt him!” Those words leaving her lips cleaved his heart in two and unleashed cold fire that blazed through him, consuming all of the softer parts of him, the weak parts that had brought him to this place.

  That had made it possible for this to happen.

  He tried to keep his focus on Caterina as he snarled, as he fought the heaviness invading his mind and his body, weighing his limbs down.

  Her eyes shifted to him, fear shining in them, fear he refused to believe was real. None of this had been real. It had been a lie. A manipulation. And he had fallen for it, believing she felt something for him, that she had been pulled into this because of him, and that he could save her.

  He had been betrayed.

  Again.

  Fool him once?

  Shame on the vampire bitch.

  Fool him twice?

  He was going to kill the fucking lot of them.

  Chapter 17

  Cal wove through the late-night traffic on the Victoria Embankment, the street lamps dotted between the towering trees on either side of the four-lane road flashing over the visor of his helmet. A visor that dampened his vision, but he was sick of Keras berating him about road safety. His older brother needed to get a life, or a hobby.

  A hobby other than making Cal’s life hell.

  It was bad enough he was stuck with Keras as a partner, couldn’t shake the bastard no matter how hard he tried. Keras was perpetually stuck in big-bro mode when it came to him, so Cal was perpetually trapped in the lowest, worst level of the Underworld.

  At least it felt that way.

  Worse were the times all his brothers treated him like a kid.

  He huffed and swerved left, slipping the motorbike between a double-decker bus and a shitty electric car that was so compact, he wasn’t even sure how the driver fitted in it. He revved the engine as he pulled up beside it. The pretty brunette behind the wheel glanced at him, a frown marring her delicate features.

  Cal flicked his visor up and grinned at her as he kept pace with her, slowing to a boring speed, one that had him sure he was going to fall off his damn bike. He revved the engine again, the purr of it sending a shiver of pleasure through him, together with the sweet vibration of it beneath him.

  The brunette cracked, her scowl becoming a smile as she slowed to a halt at a set of traffic lights.

  Cal stopped beside her and tapped on her window.

  She shifted her right hand from the steering wheel and the window whirred downwards.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he leaned towards her, resting his left elbow on her door and planting his boot on the road to keep the bike from toppling over and making him look like a fool. “Want to ride?”

  He patted the sleek fuel tank wedged between his thighs, stroking the metallic lime green and black paint.

  “I can go fast or slow. Whatever revs your engine.”

  A blush scalded her cheeks.

  “I really shouldn’t.” She cleared her throat, her blush deepening as her eyes dropped to his hand as he stroked it closer to his hips. “I… uh… I have a boyfriend.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Not like I’m asking you to marry me. Just offering a ride to a pretty girl.”

  Her eyes darted between his hand as he rested it on his inside thigh and his face, a war erupting in them.

  The traffic lights changed.

  The bus driver hit the horn like it was going out of fashion.

  She tensed and panicked, fumbled with her steering wheel. “I should… I have to go.”

  For a moment, she looked as if she was going to crumble.

  “I have a boyfriend,” she blurted and put her foot on the gas, creeping forwards at her mundane speed.

  “Your loss.” Cal slammed his visor down, gunned the engine on the sleek Kawasaki Ninja superbike and peeled away, the front wheel lifting off the tarmac as he passed the woman, tearing down the narrow gap between the two lanes of traffic.

  There were plenty of other fish in London, and one of them was bound to take the bait tonight, so he could blow off some steam.

  Patrols had gone quiet, gate activity hitting a boring zero in the last two nights, as if someone had flipped a switch. It was weird, but he wasn’t going to sweat it. Daemons would pop up soon enough and he could blow off steam that way too.

  He darted through the vehicles for fun, grinning whenever one of the humans tooted their weedy horns at him, cutting close to the more expensive sportscars to rile their owners. One of them even wound his window down to holler abuse at Cal.

  Cal flipped him off over his shoulder.

  Applied a little pressure to the air inside the guy’s tyre and laughed as it burst.

  He hit a stretch of empty road as he made it ahead of the traffic and slowed to a more reasonable fifty miles per hour, taking in the broad swath of the Thames as it glittered to his left, reflecting the lights from the London Eye and the buildings on the other side.

  Parliament loomed ahead on his side, signalling the end of his fun unless he did a U-turn and went back the other way.

  He was debating it as a weird sensation crawled over his back and head. The same sensation he had been having for a while now. It wasn’t his ability to sense daemons kicking in. This was something else.

  Cal pulled the bike over to the side of the road and cut the engine. He looked around him, trying to find the source of the feeling of being watched. It was starting to unsettle him now, because over the last week, it had felt different.

  There was no malevolence in it.

  Not like there had been before.

  His phone vibrated. He unzipped his black leather jacket, reached inside and pulled it out. The light from the screen reflected off his visor, but he could read the message. A meeting in Tokyo.

  He stuffed the phone back into his jacket, zipped it up and focused as he gripped his bike. Shadows wrapped around him and darkness surrounded him, and then light as he landed in the large garage he had added beneath his townhouse. He pulled his helmet off, s
et it down on the fuel tank and kicked the stand down. He tugged the bike up onto it and eased off it, ran his hand over the leather seat and cursed his brothers for ruining his night.

  He looked over his shoulder at the line of bikes parked along the wall at a diagonal, their jewel-coloured paint gleaming under the bright strip lights in the white room.

  He had wanted to take each of them out for a spin.

  Maybe the meeting would be over with quickly and he could get back to riding.

  He didn’t bother to remove his leather jacket before teleporting, landing on the porch of the old mansion. The wooden deck creaked beneath his weight as he removed his boots and kicked them into the corner, next to the rack where his brothers had neatly placed theirs.

  He shoved the door open.

  “Well, all we know is what Zeus said.” Valen’s voice rose above the din of voices, coming from Cal’s right as he stepped into the long room. “When Calindria died—”

  Cal didn’t hear the rest as he was whipped back through time, to a dark bluff on a mountainside, to her screams and his desperate bellows as he tried to break free of his bonds and help her.

  He fell to his knees, clutched the sides of his head and screamed with her.

  Hands grabbed him and he fought them, but they wouldn’t relent. They were too strong, overpowering him, binding him as he thrashed against them, desperate to break free of them just as he had tried to break free of his bonds.

  He wrestled, lashed out with his legs and his elbows, managed to catch one of them with his head. Pain spider-webbed across his skull and his vision dimmed, the muffled grunt that left his opponent’s lips not bringing the satisfaction he had thought it would. He kept fighting them, the need to reach his sister hitting boiling point as her screams continued, as she pleaded the bastards to have mercy on her.

  On him.

  As she offered her life in exchange for his.

  He snarled through his tears, begged her not to do it, begged the bastards not to listen to her, to listen to him instead. His life for hers. She was precious. She deserved life. The world couldn’t lose her.

  One captor remained, his grip so strong Cal couldn’t shake it, no matter how many blows he landed or how fiercely he struggled. A hand clamped down over his forehead, the pressure of it pleasant as the riot in his head slowly dulled and darkness encroached, creeping in from the corners of his mind to steal everything away.

  He slipped into it, welcoming it as he became aware of what was coming, escaping the past before the inevitable moment when his entire world had changed.

  The darkness devoured him just as she started to scream.

  He drifted in it a while.

  Made a wish to stay there forever.

  Light burst around Cal, bright and blinding, and he shot up, blinked as he looked around him and found he was sitting on the floor. Golden tatami mats. Tokyo. He swallowed and frowned, looked at the feet surrounding him.

  At the arms holding him from behind.

  His strength left him in a rush and he sank against Keras’s chest.

  “I was on my bike. There was a pretty woman in a car.” He growled and clenched his teeth as he tried to remember the rest of what had happened but it wouldn’t come.

  Keras stroked his forehead, that touch soothing the raging headache building in his temples, keeping the darkness at bay.

  “You’re fine,” his brother murmured softly in his ear.

  “I was chatting up a human.” He clenched his fists and his face crumpled. “She was pretty.”

  “I know,” Valen said as he eased to crouch before him, his golden eyes warm and tender. “And now you’re here. Nothing vital happened.”

  “You don’t know that,” he snapped and pushed Keras away when his touch became stifling, twisting his insides and making him feel as if he couldn’t breathe. “What if I forgot something important? What if something triggered it and I forgot it?”

  Keras gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “You haven’t.” His brother hesitated, conflict reigning in his green eyes, before he added, “We were talking about her.”

  Cal’s eyes slowly widened and all of the fight rushed out of him. He sagged where he sat on the floor, his gaze falling to rest on it as the fear and frustration became sorrow that threatened to devour his heart.

  “I see.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at his brothers, not now that he knew why he had blacked out. He didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes, didn’t want to see how weak they thought he was because of his affliction.

  It was bad enough that they constantly coddled him because of it, treading on eggshells around him.

  Keeping things from him.

  Keras squeezed his shoulder.

  Cal jerked out of his grip and shoved to his feet. “I’m fine.”

  He paced away from his brothers, towards the panels that had been slid open to reveal the elegant courtyard that filled the space between the three sides of the mansion.

  Bright sunlight warmed the pale gravel and birds flitted between the neatly clipped pine trees, dancing among the twisting branches to the perfect ovals of green needles at the end of each of them.

  The stepping stones that wound between them led his eye to the koi pond that separated the courtyard from the main garden, to the vermillion arched wooden bridge that crossed the water to the other side, where mossy boulders and trees tangled together in perfect harmony.

  She would have loved this place.

  He wanted to remember her again, he wanted to remember what his brothers had been talking about before his episode, but he didn’t dare risk it. It would only trigger another attack and this time, he might pass out. It had happened before, in the early days when he had tried to remember, foolishly believing that if he pushed himself it would all come back to him and he could help his sister by recalling what had happened.

  By remembering who had killed her.

  The last time he had tried that, he had been out cold for five days.

  He couldn’t allow that to happen when the gates were in so much danger.

  This battle needed all of them on the front line if they were going to win it.

  He turned around and looked at his brothers.

  And realised one was missing.

  “Where’s Marek?”

  Keras’s expression grew grave. “We don’t know. We tried contacting him but he isn’t answering.”

  “He wasn’t in Seville when I checked,” Ares said and jammed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans.

  Daimon glanced at Esher as he began pacing, his bare feet carrying him swiftly across the mats.

  Cal hoped like hell nothing had happened to Marek, because if it had, Esher wouldn’t be the only one going nuclear.

  He would be right there with him.

  Chapter 18

  Marek’s back hurt like a bitch.

  He shuffled to the wall of the dark empty room, struggling to crab-crawl with his hands bound, keeping his bare backside off the oak floor. His heightened vision revealed the space to him, one ability the daemons hadn’t taken from him.

  Maybe they couldn’t.

  They had shut down his power over the earth and his ability to teleport, and his telekinesis wasn’t working either.

  When he reached the wall, he rubbed his back against the pale green plaster, a desperate attempt to make the burning stop. A grimace tugged at his lips as he twisted his hands behind him and manoeuvred into a better position, one where he could itch the point on his left shoulder.

  The floor was cold beneath him, the air in the room frigid despite the fact it was high summer, and he chuckled as a thought pinged into his head.

  This was probably Daimon’s version of paradise.

  The air conditioning unit whirring above the door had to be industrial meat-locker grade.

  The daemons were intent on keeping him docile, using the cold to steal more of his strength and make him sluggish. Dehydration and the cold would
take care of that. His muscles were stiff already, his joints hard to move.

  The relief that hit him when he managed to find the itchy spot on his shoulder was sweet and almost drugging, and he fell into an easy rhythm, rubbing against the wall until heat bloomed and trickled down his back.

  The smell of his own blood was strong in the air, together with other things that Marek was not about to admit came from him. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out before coming around to find himself naked in what had turned out to be his prison cell, but he had been awake for more than a day now.

  Not that he could really tell.

  Someone had nailed boards over the tall windows, blocking out the sunlight.

  “Fucking daemons,” he spat and kept rubbing, drawing more blood, working up more heat.

  Whatever the bastard had carved on his back, it had done a number on Marek’s powers.

  A ward?

  He had no doubt now that the wraith was behind his capture, and what had happened to Caterina. If he could believe her anymore. He wanted to, but it was hard as he shed more blood, leaving the wall behind him red with it as he waited for the daemon to decide to fuck around with him again.

  The illusionist had brought Caterina into this room and made her stand there watching him for almost an hour. The dark-violet-haired daemon had been forced to hold her arm the entire time to keep her upright. Whatever was happening to Caterina, it was getting worse again.

  She had looked better when he had found her in Barcelona, but the last time she had been brought to him as some weird form of torment, or perhaps a test to see if he would react to her either violently or sexually, her skin had been as white as snow and she had been shaking, and sweating profusely.

  And Marek had foolishly wanted to tell the daemon bitch to undo whatever the fuck it was they had done to her because they had him now.

  He growled at himself and stoked the anger, the darker side of him that was more than happy to point out what a gigantic idiot he had been to trust a woman again.

  Especially after what had happened with Valen.

  Eva had been hired by their enemy to seduce him and lure him over to their side.