Now she was getting it. “Yes, and those gates need a key.”
“And apparently all of you are those keys?” She looked at them all, even Valen and Esher this time, her fine eyebrows slowly meeting in a frown.
“Apparently.” Ares was still waiting for that one to sink in. “Father decided to fool the enemy into thinking that the amulets possessed the power to open the gates. He wanted to lure them out and make them reveal themselves. It worked, but now what? As soon as the daemon uses it, he’ll realise it isn’t real.”
“Which is why we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Keras stuck his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. “We need to find him and get your power back.”
“How? I want it back, no doubts about that. I need it back.” Not just because he had a duty to protect the gate, but because he wanted to protect Megan and his home, and her home too.
He needed his power if he was going to do that.
“We need to figure out who the daemon is and how to get your power back and why he wants to open the gate.”
“The last one is fairly obvious.” Esher’s tone was still dark, black with the urge for violence that shone in his blue eyes. “The daemon wants to destroy it.”
Ares wasn’t so sure about that. “The daemon wanted Megan’s power and he showed no interest in the gate when I first encountered him. He strolled right past it as though he was just out for a walk in the park at night.”
“Perhaps it was a ploy?” Daimon pulled his coat aside and stroked the gleaming silver hilt of a blade sheathed against his ribs, his black leather gloves a stark contrast against the metal. His pale blue eyes darkened, turning almost as rich as Esher’s were normally, and Ares could see he was contemplating fighting daemons. Ares had that same distant look whenever his mind turned to such a topic. “He could have been studying you, watching you open the gate, seeing how it worked. He saw you use the amulet.”
“Perhaps. But why go after Megan’s power?” Ares still wasn’t convinced.
Megan had said the daemon wanted her power specifically, not his, and the daemon really had tried to blend in and look human that night at the gate.
Esher glared at Megan.
“The... mortal...” The disgust lacing that word had Ares stepping closer to her. His brother had forced himself to use a civilised word for her rather than something foul, and Ares appreciated that, but he wasn’t about to trust his brother around her. “Can heal. Daemons must know there are gatekeepers on the Underworld side. He most likely wanted to guarantee he wouldn’t get hurt.”
“Or he wanted to guarantee that we couldn’t hurt him when he tried to destroy the gate.” Daimon stepped forwards, in line with Esher.
“Megan’s power doesn’t work that way. She can’t heal herself,” Ares snapped, haemorrhaging patience so rapidly he was liable to lose his temper if his brothers kept going around in circles. Everyone looked at Megan again and she edged closer to him. “What he wants with the gate is irrelevant. He has my amulet and my power and I want them back.”
“I might be able to help with that one,” Marek piped up and eased his feet off the coffee table. He sat up and then stood. He had been so quiet that Ares had almost forgotten he was there. “I ran a check on all the daemons we’ve documented in the past. The records had a few interesting cases and a couple of potential leads. One not so good and the other might be bad.”
“Bad, why?” Calistos paused midway through retying his long blond hair in a ponytail, a dark look crossing his face.
It seemed all of his brothers were contemplating a nice fight against this daemon.
Ares was tempted to tell them all to back off, because this daemon had become his personal prey the moment he had targeted Megan.
“The daemon said he had been waiting for this moment, yes?” Marek glanced at Ares and he nodded. “Well, the search turned up a couple. Paris, 1892. Two daemons, one with the ability to do many things beyond a daemon’s normal powers, were sighted with a single young at the gate.”
“What happened?” Ares had a feeling he knew what his brother would say.
“Keras killed them.” Marek’s dark eyes shifted to Keras at the same time as Ares looked at him.
He didn’t appear at all affected by that. Not many of them had ever taken down a daemon child. It felt wrong, even though Ares knew that a young daemon could be just as malevolent and dangerous as an adult one. He just couldn’t get past their appearance and always ended up pulling his punches, part of him hoping the daemon would learn their lesson and get away and never come back.
“All of them?” Ares looked back at Marek.
“No.” Marek shook his head. “Keras’s report states that he encountered the daemons when they attempted to hitch a ride through the Paris gate. He engaged them and the young escaped after witnessing his parents’ deaths.”
“Sounds like it could be our guy. So now junior is back for vengeance?” Ares said.
“He has a name.” Megan’s voice was small, barely a whisper, but it caught everyone’s attention.
“He told you his name?” His gaze whipped to her and her eyes widened when his brothers stared at her too.
What the fuck was the daemon doing telling her his name? Trying to hit on her?
Sense said the daemon had wanted to kill her, but the dangerously possessive side of him wasn’t listening, was fixated on the idea that the daemon had hit on his woman.
She nodded and frowned at him when he growled low in his throat, a snarl of pure possessive rage. “It wasn’t as though I asked. It was as though he wanted me to know.”
“What is his name, Megan?” Marek said and Ares struggled to calm the anger pouring through his veins like acid.
He wanted to rip the daemon apart, didn’t care if Megan hadn’t asked or not. He blasted straight through possessive to positively furious as sense finally won and screamed the real reason the daemon had told her his name.
He had wanted her to know the name of the man who was going to kill her.
He was sick and Ares was going to put him down.
“Amaury,” she whispered.
“Fuck me.” Valen voiced what everyone must have been thinking. “Amaury Moreau?”
That wasn’t good.
“You know him?” Megan’s voice was small again and Ares looked down at her and shook his head.
“We know of him, but none of us have ever met him. He has a reputation in the daemon world. Everyone calls him Trickster. He uses powerful spells and enchantments to protect himself, or at least that’s what the reports we heard stated.”
“It’s more likely those are powers he’s stolen from people.” Marek scratched his stubbly jaw and frowned at the coffee table, his expression turning pensive.
“But you’ve never met him before?” Megan said and everyone shook their head.
“He has a tendency to target Hellspawn, not gods.” Keras stared at Megan. “You said he was after you, not Ares. It would fit his usual MO.”
“He must want to get through the gate, just as his parents did back then.” Daimon came to stand beside the armchair. “That has to be it. He needs the power to heal and wanted to get it from Megan. He might not know what we do about her power.”
Ares had already considered that, but he had considered another, more unsettling reason too, one that he still wasn’t sure about sharing with his brothers.
“Would that be a bad thing?” Megan whispered. Everyone stared at her again, most of his brothers giving her looks that asked if she had gone insane. Esher looked as though he was considering something dark and terrible. Ares placed his arm around her and pulled her against him, nestling her close to his side, and she settled her hand against his chest. “I mean... his parents must have wanted to go to the Underworld so he could grow up there, with others like him.”
That dropped like a bomb in the room and it exploded, each one of his brothers speaking louder and louder in an effort to be heard above the din.
&n
bsp; He pulled her closer, shielding her in his embrace, giving them time to calm down before he got physical in order to protect her. She trembled and buried her face against his chest. It had irked him too but Megan didn’t know any better and she didn’t deserve their wrath.
Keras stood calm amongst the storm, staring at her.
He raised his hand and the others gradually backed off again, falling mute.
Ares thanked Keras with a nod and looked down at Megan. She emerged and tilted her head back, her dark eyes full of anger mixed with fear.
“His parents may have wanted him to go there, but now he wants to destroy it, Megan. He wants to destroy my home.” He released her shoulder and smoothed his right palm across her cheek. “Don’t pity him, Megan. All daemons know that they’re banished and forbidden to enter the Underworld. This daemon’s parents knew that but they still tried to take him through—”
“They wanted a place to live.” She cut him off, the anger in her eyes obliterating the fear. “They wanted a place where they belonged... with others like them. Is that too much to ask? What gave you all the right to deny them that?”
“Megan—”
She shoved out of his arms and stormed away from him, almost tripping on the hem of the robe as she headed through the bedroom. She grabbed the navy terrycloth and lifted it, and then dropped it again when she reached the sliding door to the balcony. She yanked it open and slid it shut behind her with such force that the glass shuddered.
He stared after her, unsure what to do. She kept her back to him and leaned her arms on the railing of the balcony.
He could feel his brothers’ eyes on him, drilling into him with a weight of expectation and anger.
He sighed. “She doesn’t know everything yet and it’s been hard on her.”
“She wasn’t talking about the daemon,” Calistos said and Ares closed his eyes.
“I know... just because I’m good looking it doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” He smiled, opened his eyes, and looked across the room to his youngest brother.
Calistos smiled too.
Ares’s faltered and he glanced back at Megan where she stood on the balcony. The ache to go to her was strong, almost debilitating, but he somehow managed to convince himself to remain with his brothers. If their positions were reversed, he would need a few minutes alone to cool off and collect himself.
His decision to give her that time didn’t give him the strength to keep his eyes off her though.
She straightened and wrapped her arms around herself, her shoulders hunching up. She would be getting damp in this horrible grey weather. The breeze played in her shoulder-length dark hair, catching the strands and making them flutter, and he burned with the need to go to her, wrap his arms around her and pull her so her back rested flush against his front.
He wanted to hold her and apologise, and explain so she understood why she had upset his brothers.
But he had to finish the meeting first.
“If it is Amaury Moreau, then his behaviour fits with what we know about him,” Marek continued as though her outburst had never happened and Ares was thankful for it.
He didn’t want his brothers turning against her, not when it had started to feel as if they were going to accept her.
She had been alone for too long, just like him, and she wanted a place to belong. He wanted to give her that place.
He wanted it to be at his side, in his world.
“I looked into the type of daemon the boy back then might have been and also his parents, and with only one side of his lineage showing the power to take other’s abilities, that skill would be diminished in him. That type of power doesn’t come with the ability to teleport though, but there are rare daemon species who can do that. His other parent might have been one of them.”
“Couldn’t he have stolen that power?” Daimon said, his pale blue eyes diamond hard.
Marek shook his head, his wavy tawny locks brushing the nape of his neck. “No. I cross-referenced the records from the Underworld and it seems that this type of daemon cannot take certain powers. Teleporting is one of them, which is why you can still do it.”
“He still took my elemental power, so he isn’t as weak as you think he is.” Ares flicked a glance at Megan to check she was alright and then forced his attention back to his brothers.
He didn’t like her being out there on the balcony alone. His wards protected that area too, but she was still vulnerable out there, beyond his reach. The daemon could break through the ward again and snatch her before Ares could reach her.
“He must have a way of boosting his power, something that makes him able to take on several abilities and retain them. He should only be able to take one or possibly two max. From what you have told us, he has more than that at his disposal.”
“Could it be an amulet?” Ares frowned at Marek and he nodded. “He wears something on his hand. I didn’t get a good look at it. It’s a gold disc with rubies as far as I could tell. Megan remembered it from our fight in the alley and was coming to tell me when he attacked her.”
“He definitely used it to take your power?” Keras said.
Ares rubbed his chest through his black button down shirt. “It burned like a bitch.”
“It was your own power that burned you.” Marek peered at Ares’s chest and scratched his jaw again. “The amulet must have drawn the power out of you so it was easier for him to absorb. I can research it, but there are many different types of amulets out there and that means a lot of variables.”
“In English?” He didn’t have the patience for unravelling Marek’s usual way of speaking today.
“It’s fifty-fifty. There is a chance that destroying the amulet will give you back your power... or it might mean you kiss it goodbye forever.”
That wasn’t comforting at all. “What if I just kill the daemon?”
Marek and everyone frowned at him. “We have been through this. I think it is safer if you take his amulet. He used it to take your power, so it might be the only thing helping him keep hold of it.”
That sounded much more comforting. He could beat the crap out of the daemon and snatch his pretty jewellery. He began to smile but it faded when he thought over what Marek had told him.
“Surely there’s a chance that destroying the amulet or taking it from him changes nothing? If it just boosts his natural ability, then it might not change a thing. He already has my power.” He didn’t want to consider that. There had to be a way to get his power back. His original plan of capturing the daemon and beating the hell out of him until he surrendered his power was beginning to look like the best course of action after all.
“I will look into it,” Marek said.
Ares thanked him with a smile.
“If I get a shot at him, I’m still taking him down.” He shifted his gaze to Keras, gauging his reaction.
Keras raised a single black eyebrow. “At least try not to kill him. Questioning him could prove useful. He might know something of value.”
Ares took that as permission to unleash holy hell on the daemon.
“We done here?” Valen said and before Keras had even started to nod, he was gone, leaving curls of black smoke in his wake.
“Someone has a hot date,” Calistos said and then shrugged when everyone shot him a questioning look. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s probably off to kill someone. Laters.”
Calistos saluted, the action revealing the dark blue script that tracked up the underside of his right forearm, and disappeared. Esher fixed Ares with a dark look that Ares knew was about Megan and black smoke swirled up from his feet and engulfed him. When it dissipated, he was gone.
“Daimon, I need a word,” Ares said before he could disappear too.
Daimon nodded.
Marek stepped, leaving minimal black mist behind.
Keras looked beyond Ares to Megan. “Explain things to her, before she ends up getting you into a fight with your brothers, Ares.”
Ares nodded and Ke
ras teleported, leaving him with Daimon.
“What’s wrong?” Daimon rounded the ebony coffee table, buttoning his long black coat at the same time.
“I need you to lend me a hand.” Ares tracked him, slowly turning his back on Megan as he remained facing Daimon. Daimon stopped at the end of the couch, where Keras had been. “We both know that the power most effective against my fire is your ice.”
Daimon’s pale gaze flickered beyond Ares to Megan.
“I really need you to have my back on this. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” Ares needed his brother to know that he would have spared him the pain if he could, but he needed ice to combat his fire and that mean Daimon would have to be around Megan too.
Daimon nodded. “I know. It must be nice not having to worry about your power for a change though.”
He could see the pain in Daimon’s icy blue eyes even though his brother was working hard to mask it.
“It’s only nice if having part of what makes you who you are missing is nice. Personally, it doesn’t feel nice to me. It feels like I’m no longer me,” he said and Daimon’s gaze shifted to meet his.
He smiled. “Maybe I’ll offer the daemon a swap. Your power for mine.”
Ares wanted to touch his brother’s shoulder and squeeze it to show him that he knew what he was going through. The irony that he could have done such a thing if he had his power wasn’t lost on him. His fire could have tempered Daimon’s ice, at least for a short time, long enough to let his brother know that he wasn’t alone.
“Let’s not do anything rash... or Keras will say I’m a bad influence on you.” He forced a smile and Daimon mirrored him.
“I’ve got your back. Call me whenever you need me and I’ll be here.” Daimon reached out and paused with his gloved hand only a few centimetres from Ares’s shoulder. “We’ll have you back to normal before you know it. I just hope you know what you’re giving up.”
Ares knew. Daimon didn’t need to bring it up. He knew every moment he was awake and even when he was asleep.
Daimon glanced at Megan over Ares’s shoulder and disappeared, leaving swirling black mist behind.
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