“Who sent you?” he repeated, his tone gaining darkness as his shadows finished tearing apart the daemon’s two comrades and turned towards him.
They rose up around the daemon, who flicked fearful glances at them as they circled him, snapping at the ground beneath Keras, waiting for his next command.
“Speak and I will spare you.” Keras held back his smile, kept his green eyes fixed on the male even as they wanted to grow hooded, the pleasure that coursed through him at the thought of obliterating this daemon almost too much for him to conceal.
He searched the male’s eyes, seeking the answer there instead. The world dropped away as he fell into the daemon’s mind, as he sifted through wave after wave of memories, seeking the one he desired to see.
A face shimmered into being in the darkness.
Tropical blue-green eyes.
Blonde hair.
Feminine.
The furie—Meadow.
Keras seized hold of the memory, and snarled when it slipped through his grasp and he found himself staring up at the night sky, at the faint pinpricks of stars that blanketed it.
He looked to his left, at the daemon as he tumbled across the pavement and struck a wall.
“We talked about this.” Ares loomed over Keras, a shadow in the darkness in his black jeans and T-shirt. The heat that shimmered over his big body caused the stars to wobble, his brother’s ability to command fire manifesting itself as his mood blackened and his control slipped. Flames lit his brother’s dark eyes with sparks of crimson and gold. “No more probing minds. Not after last time.”
Keras frowned at him, not hiding his anger for once as it surged through him. He pushed onto his feet and glared at his younger brother, staring right into his brightening eyes.
“We did talk about this.” He tipped his chin up. “I believe you know what I said.”
That Ares had no place ordering him around.
He was the firstborn of Hades. The leader of their side. A position he hadn’t wanted but one he had taken on—one that came with a weight of responsibility that was a constant burden on his shoulders.
Ares huffed, causing his black T-shirt to stretch tight over his broad chest, and his dark eyebrows met hard. “Fine. Whatever. Break your mind. Go ahead. Be as reckless as Cal or Valen.”
He gestured towards the daemon.
Keras fixed his senses on the male as he lumbered onto his feet.
And hesitated.
As much as he wanted to ensure that Ares stopped questioning his authority, he couldn’t probe the daemon’s mind again. Not because Ares was right and it was dangerous.
But because he was damned if he was going to appear as undisciplined as his two younger brothers.
Daimon and Marek strolled through the carnage to stop behind Ares. Daimon wiped his hand across his brow, smearing black daemon blood across it and over the soft spikes of his white hair. Marek’s earthy eyes fixed on Keras, concern shining in them. Both of them were waiting to see what he would do.
Keras shifted his gaze to Ares.
Behind Keras, the daemon bellowed as shadows tore into him, snaking around his limbs to tug at them, ripping him apart.
“Satisfied?” Keras said with an arched eyebrow.
Ares arched one of his own as he leaned left and looked beyond Keras to the dead male. “One of the finer examples of just how much like Father you are.”
Daimon nodded in agreement. “Couldn’t have just decapitated him or something?”
Marek ran a hand through his unruly dark waves, preening his hair back as he said nothing. Marek always had been the wisest of his brothers.
The darkness coursing through Keras, a gift from his father’s blood, bared fangs at Marek, urged him to strike the male down. Keras clenched his fists and denied that urge, the action drawing Ares’s eyes there as the flames in them faded. The edge to his brother’s gaze as he lifted it to lock with Keras’s told him that he knew he was holding back his darker side, and he knew why.
Thankfully, Ares didn’t call him on it.
“Did you see anything?” Ares muttered, his tone telling Keras that he didn’t like that he had probed someone’s mind but that he wasn’t going to berate him about it anymore.
“I saw Meadow. I believe she gave this male the order to come to this gate tonight.” Keras looked beyond his brothers, to the point where the gate remained hidden.
The otherworld flashed over the panoramic view of Paris, turning pristine buildings into crumbling flaming ruins in the blink of an eye. A gift from the Moirai. He and his brothers were cursed to see the future of this world should they fail. Over the past four weeks, they had all been seeing it more frequently.
A sign that the final battle was close?
Keras wished the enemy would make their next move. He was growing impatient and he wasn’t the only one. All his brothers were on edge. Even their father was restless. Hades had his legions scouring the Underworld for the traitor goddess Nemesis, one they had learned was with the enemy. The female had gone to ground, but Hades would find her. She couldn’t leave the Underworld, not with the gates to the mortal world closed to traffic. There were only so many places she could hide. Sooner or later, she would be caught.
“We need this gate closed.” Keras looked back at his brothers.
“You can’t be serious.” Daimon moved a step closer and flicked a glance at Ares and Marek as he adjusted the collar of the navy turtleneck he wore beneath his long black cotton coat. He frowned when he found a rip in it and pulled it away from his neck, looked at it and then huffed, one Keras was sure was aimed at him rather than his ruined top. “We can’t close this gate.”
“We can and we will.” Keras wasn’t in the mood to argue with his brothers about it either.
Ares had challenged him once tonight. The next one to challenge him was going to be taught to never do it again.
He lowered his hand to the pockets of his black slacks and subtly skimmed his fingers over the small box in his right one, just the feel of it enough to take the edge off his mood. It promised a different sort of pleasure, one that would satisfy the itch steadily building inside him now the fight was done.
“Closing the Paris gate is dangerous.” And Ares was pushing his luck.
Keras turned a look on him, one that didn’t deter his brother.
“Hong Kong is still unstable because of its connection to Esher. Esher’s still struggling to recover from his other side taking control. He’s circling the drain.”
Daimon’s pale blue eyes turned glacial, his irises blazing white ringed with navy as he snapped, “He isn’t. He’s getting better.”
His brother had been on edge since his sorceress, Cassandra, had argued with him about coming with them tonight. Daimon was always on edge whenever Cassandra wanted to join them in a fight, or on a patrol, or anything that involved her leaving the grounds of the Tokyo mansion, stepping outside the powerful wards that protected it from daemons.
While Keras didn’t care about their frequent lover’s spats, he did agree with Daimon. The enemy were targeting Cassandra for her ability to use necromancy magic. It was better she remained locked away in the mansion where she would be protected by the wards that stopped daemons and their enemy from entering the grounds. Just as it was better Marinda, one of the two remaining furies, stayed there too. There, they could protect Cassandra and Marinda and keep them out of the enemy’s hands.