A gate that led to the mortal world.
Keras dragged himself away from Enyo and thoughts of kissing her, and settled his mind on business rather than pleasure.
Cass had tried the spell again this morning, in case she had been mistaken and the reason she hadn’t been able to locate Marinda was because she hadn’t had enough power to cast the net wide enough.
She had almost killed the witch by drawing on her magic again, using it to fuel the spell together with her own magic.
And had met with the same result.
Marinda was no longer in the mortal world.
Keras had decided there and then that they needed to speak with the guards who protected the only gate the furie could have possibly passed through.
A gate that had remained open to traffic.
He turned to four males dressed in golden armour that was moulded like muscles over their chest and hung in pointed slats from their waist, over a royal blue skirt. The gold Corinthian helmets they wore covered most of their faces, revealing only their eyes and a sliver of their cheeks, together with their mouths.
They flanked the vertical gate, two on either side, their long spears held proudly at their sides as their dark gazes remained fixed straight ahead.
“Have you had much traffic through the gate this past day?” Keras looked them over, trying to discern which was the leader.
A male to his right answered.
“Several parties have entered or exited the city. I am not at liberty to discuss such matters with you.”
Keras turned on the male, closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye and snarled in his face, flashing his emerging fangs. “Do you know who I am?”
The male didn’t even flinch.
Enyo took hold of Keras’s shoulder and he eased back, reining in his fury as he levelled a black look on her.
“Do you know who I am?” She spoke to the male.
He practically reared back a step.
His right fist flew to his chest, knocking against the spot over his heart. “Goddess of war.”
He bowed his head. The other three guards followed suit.
Keras glared at them all.
Enyo turned a smile on him. “Do not be angry with them. They are young. Most likely, they have never seen your face since you have been in the mortal world the past two centuries.”
Her smile turned a little mischievous.
“They do not know they spoke rudely to the firstborn of Hades.”
The leader blanched, his eyes widening as he kept his head bent, his gaze fixed on the pale flagstones at Keras’s feet.
Keras coaxed his shadows, let them dance around his shoes, savoured the way sweat rolled down the male’s cheek from beneath his helmet to drip from his chin.
Or it might have been tears.
“Answer his question, or I will not be held accountable for what he does to you.” Enyo stepped aside again.
The guard swallowed and raised his head, looked Keras in the eye with only a slight flicker of nerves in his.
Keras listened as the male listed all who had passed through the gate in the last forty-eight hours, far more than he had expected. He wasn’t sure he would find the information he was looking for here.
He was about to tell Enyo that when something the male said snagged the whole of his focus.
“Then there were the two females with their valkyrie escort.”
Keras frowned at him. Valkyries? The enemy had employed one once, back when Lisabeta, the illusionist, had wanted to make Esher her pet. Esher, Daimon and Cal had defeated her. Valkyries were notoriously hard to kill, were impervious to damage unless you knew what their protective charm was and broke it.
The thought that the enemy had more like her was troubling, but he couldn’t discount the possibility.
Not when his gut said these were the ones he was looking for.
“What did they look like? Were the two females blonde and young?” Keras was tempted to peer into the male’s eyes and see the memory for himself, but Enyo gave him a look.
A stern one that said if he dared to try to use his powers, she was going to stop him.
She didn’t need to coddle him. He was feeling stronger now, could probably probe the guards’ minds without breaking a sweat. Although, it would probably overstep the mark. Zeus wouldn’t be happy if he went poking around in his men’s heads without permission.
The leader shook his head, causing the sunlight to glint off his golden helmet and hit Keras in the eyes. Keras grimaced and squinted, glared at the male who didn’t seem to notice that he had almost blinded him.
Or perhaps he didn’t care.
The male seemed a little too focused on Enyo. His dark gaze kept sliding to her, and the more he looked at her, the stronger the compulsion to put the male in his place grew.
Enyo was his.
The darker side of his blood snarled that.
Had him stepping closer to her to make it clear to the male that she was spoken for and they were more than allies seeking a common enemy.
The leader’s eyes leaped to his. “They were brunettes and older, appearing around the venerable goddess of war’s age.”
Venerable goddess of war?
Keras slid Enyo a questioning look.
She shrugged. “All guards are trained to revere the gods and goddesses here. He is only being polite.”
Polite his arse.
The male was trying to hit on her.
The urge to hit the male instead grew stronger still.
One of the other males stepped forwards, sparing his leader by dragging Keras’s focus to him. “The females had been blonde. I am certain of it. Or perhaps they had been brunettes.”
“Which is it?” Keras snapped and his shadows rushed forwards, towards the leader.
Keras noticed and halted them before they could strike the male down, pulled them back under his control before anyone witnessed their unruly behaviour.
Of course, Enyo noticed it.
She arched an eyebrow at him, her pointed look making it clear she had seen his shadows attempting to attack the one who insisted on hitting on her.
That male dared to speak to her and her alone again. “I am sure they were brunettes, my lady.”
“My lady?” Keras growled, unable to hold those words back as darkness raged through him.
Roared at him to release the shadows he had held back so they could teach the male a lesson.
He dropped dark, fearful eyes to the ground, to the shadows that whipped around Keras’s feet, and stammered, “I-I m-meant it only as a-a-a sign of r-respect.”
Keras huffed when Enyo delicately placed her hand on his arm and his shadows instantly settled, her touch like black magic that worked to calm him even as he tried to stoke his rage, desire to put the male in his place demanding he obey it and obliterate him.
“Were they blondes or brunettes?” she said, and for a heartbeat looked as if she might dare to smile at the males to encourage them to speak. Keras shot her another look. She slid him one in return. “I am seeing a new side to you today.”
He was too.
And he wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not.
Her jade eyes warmed as she held his.
Maybe she did like him showing the world that he could be a jealous, possessive bastard just like his father, but he doubted she would like it if the tethers of his control snapped and he let that side of him rip through the males.
“They were blonde.” The second male sounded more confident now. His certainty faltered as he looked at the other three guards. “Weren’t they?”