CHAPTER 4
Esher tuned his brothers out as he sank into the glorious vision building in his mind, one where he overcame the wraith and captured him, not for information as Keras would want, but for the sheer pleasure of revenge. He would bind and torture the wretch until he broke and confessed what he had done with Calindria’s soul, and then he would send him screaming into the darkest pit in the Underworld, and would inform their father about what the wretch had done. Gods, Hades would see to it the bastard suffered eternally.
His lips twisted in a slow smile.
Fuck, he would beg his father to give him a front row seat for that show.
A dark voice whispered in his mind, seductive words that tempted him to listen to them, coaxed him into ignoring his brothers’ wishes and obeying the gnawing hunger inside him—the need to hunt. He wavered as the city beyond the garden flickered to the otherworld, the future of Earth should he and his brothers fail to stop the calamity the Moirai had foreseen—a calamity their new enemy intended to bring about by doing something to the gates.
A calamity part of Esher wanted to see.
The darker part.
The part that had been born centuries ago, and had whispered to him ever since, rising to steal control at times when he wasn’t strong enough to hold it at bay.
A beast he fought to keep locked inside him.
A monster he had failed to contain more than once.
It had been hard enough to fight it when the only threat to his family had been the daemons and the humans, but it was growing impossible now that he knew the wraith had been responsible for Calindria’s end. His war with it was constant, and he wasn’t sure he could win.
He needed to avenge his sister.
His eyes narrowed on the flames that spiralled high into the black sky beyond the pristine white wall of the mansion grounds, sparks dancing like golden fireflies as the wind caught them, looking as if they were rising on the screams of the mortals whose flesh burned and the shrieks of the creatures who hunted and preyed on them.
A shudder wracked him, a shiver of pleasure that rolled through him as their screams surrounded him, creating a symphony that tugged at the darkness in him, made him yearn to make this future real so he could bask in the glory of it.
“Esher.” The male voice intruded, shaking the vision of beauty before him.
He snarled, launched his left hand out and wrapped it around the offender’s neck, squeezing it hard.
The male growled and countered him, and icy cold gripped his throat, burned like fire as it swept over him beneath his clothes.
“Get a fucking grip,” Daimon snarled and shoved hard, sending him staggering backwards onto the raised wooden walkway that enclosed three sides of the smaller courtyard garden and shaking Esher’s grip on him.
His back slammed into one of the thick square pillars that supported the overhanging roof.
His breath exploded from him as the timber cracked.
The sound of dropping water had his head snapping to his right in time to catch a glimpse of brightly coloured koi suspended in the air for a moment before they dropped back into the pond.
“Fuck,” Esher muttered and got a grip on himself, pushing out the damned voice that still taunted him, told him to take pleasure in the destruction he wrought, not be ashamed of it, tempted him with thoughts of heading beyond the protective walls of the mansion to the city and unleashing the fury he had bottled inside him on the weak creatures who inhabited it.
It would be glorious.
“No.” He grasped the sides of his head and squeezed until it hurt. “No!”
He didn’t really want that. He was just tired and weak from the wraith’s attack, worn down and vulnerable. Yes, vulnerable. He was too susceptible right now, not strong enough to shut out the damned voice and the things it wanted him to do.
“Listen to me, Esher,” Daimon whispered, and he focused on his brother, using the sound of his voice to shut out the darker one just as they had practiced. “You’re all good. Everything is fine. Everyone is fine.”
But they weren’t.
He saw that as he lifted his head and spotted the unmistakable trace of red beneath his brother’s nose where Daimon hadn’t quite managed to wipe all the blood away to hide it from him, and the dark bruises emerging around his throat just above the collar of his navy turtle neck.
“I’m sorry,” Esher murmured, pain closing his throat as he considered what he had done.
He had hurt the ones he loved.
The ones he had vowed to protect.
The only ones who mattered.
“I’m fine.” Daimon managed a smile and rubbed at his throat. “No harm done.”
A lie.
He noticed the way Daimon’s fingers trembled as he neatened his spiked white hair, acting casual when he was shaken.
Esher averted his gaze, but the pain and guilt lingered as he looked at the pond and the koi that were flapping around on the gravel surrounding it. He stepped off the walkway, crossing the pebbles without feeling them biting into the soles of his feet, and stooped to carefully pick up the fish and place them gently back into the pond.
He breathed easier as he counted them all, checking each one in turn, and saw none of them had been hurt.
His brothers’ voices filled the silence behind him as he watched the fish, their words distant and lost on him, and he sensed them departing one by one.
Until only Daimon remained.
Had he harmed any more of his brothers? Gods, he hoped he hadn’t.
It was getting harder to control himself.
His rage should have been directed solely at the daemons and the humans, not at his family. His family were the only ones who mattered. The Underworld was the only place that mattered too.
This world could burn for all he cared.
But if it burned, then the Underworld burned with it.
He watched a black and white koi he was particularly fond of, one he’d had for decades, swim past to join the group waiting near the walkway where it jutted out over the pond to his right, by his quarters.
An ache started behind his breast, one that was familiar to him.
He wanted to return to the Underworld.
He couldn’t handle things here anymore. Today was proof of that. He wasn’t strong enough to hold back the darker part of himself that viewed all the mortals as a threat to him and his family, and his world.
Just thinking about hunting them, watching them suffer, had been enough to have him slipping.
Hurting the ones he loved.
“You alright?” Daimon eased into a crouch beside him, his long black coat pooling around his feet on the pale gravel.
“Sorry.” He kept his eyes on the fish, shame eating at him as he thought about what he had done.
Daimon had given as good as he had got. Esher’s throat was sore, and it stung a little to breathe and speak, but the pain didn’t make him feel better about what he had done.
“The moon is just fucking with you. It’s almost full.” Daimon ghosted a hand over his shoulder.
Esher wished he would touch him, because he needed to feel it, needed someone to hold him together right now because he felt as if he was falling apart.
He focused on the moon, picturing it in an attempt to soothe himself. It was distant from him, on the other side of the planet. He wanted to see it. Needed to see it. He needed the calming influence it had on him.
He forced himself to remain where he was though, because stepping that distance would drain some of his strength, and he had to remain strong in case the attack came tonight.
He rested his elbows on his knees as he remained crouched on the gravel at the edge of the pond, his eyes on the fish as they all slowly grouped before him, clearly having decided he was going to feed them from this spot instead.
They were beautiful as they glided around, the pattern of their colours constantly shifting.
His left fingers drifted across to his right arm as the sight of them soothed him, calming the turbulent waters in his soul.
The sensation of calm grew stronger still.
“Any injury you had would be healed by now.” Daimon’s careful words, softly spoken, floated through his mind and he looked down to find he was playing with the bandage again. His brother’s pale blue eyes lifted from his arm to rest on his face. “Why are you so reluctant to discard it? Did a daemon get you? Are you infected somehow?”
Esher opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat.
He stepped rather than answering him, appearing briefly at the front porch of the mansion to grab his long black coat and jam his feet into his leather boots, and then teleporting again.
The guilt over hurting his brother mingled with new shame as he landed on top of the covered footbridge that spanned the gap between two large buildings, allowing humans to come and go between them above the busy road that cut a path straight ahead of him and intersected with an equally as crowded road just two hundred metres from him in the heart of the Shibuya district.
Why couldn’t he just tell his brother what had happened?
He was closest to Daimon, and they had shared everything in the past, leaving nothing unsaid between them. So why did he want to keep the female a secret?
Esher looked back in the direction of the mansion and sighed as the breeze blew the longer lengths of his black hair back from his face. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, and he had no reason to keep secrets from Daimon. If he kept on like this, he would only cause his brother more worry, and he didn’t want that. The next time Daimon asked him, he would tell him.
The female was nothing to him anyway, just another human in a world filled with them. He couldn’t trust her. She was dangerous. A wretch.
If she knew what he was, she would react in the way humans always did, their fear of whatever was stronger than they were driving them to attack and kill it.
She would.
He looked down at the swarm of humans below him as they crossed the juncture between the four roads, hurrying from the station to his right or towards it.
If they knew what he was, they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t even try to. They would hurt him.
They would harm his family.
The black urge to hurt them first rose inside him, but he pulled the earbuds from his shirt pocket, stuffed them into his ears, and flicked through the classical music on his iPod until he found a soothing piece.
As soon as the piano and strings filled his ears, the volume loud enough to shut out the incessant noise of the mortal world, the tension drained from him and his shoulders relaxed.
Evening light, beautiful and rich amber, washed over the side of the high building in front of him on the other side of the crossing, turning the huge television screen mounted on it dull, and caught on the towering ones to his right. He stood at the edge of the roof of the bridge, soaking up the music, letting it calm him as he watched the mortals, and debated heading down.
He was testing himself again, just as he had been that night when he had stood in this same spot. That night, the moon had been full, pulling at him and weakening his resistance to the darker side of himself. That night, Valen had brought a mortal female, the assassin Eva, to the mansion, wanting to protect her from their uncle and their enemies.
That night, his guard had dropped, and the wraith had attacked him, plunging a tainted blade into his side.
And that night, a mortal had saved his soul.
Megan.
Ares’s female had the power to heal, but it was a power that drained her when she used it on a god like him and his brothers, pushing her close to death.
She had risked it to save him.
Fuck, he still didn’t know how to process that.
It haunted him.
He owed his life to a mortal.
Daimon wanted him to talk about it, and so did his other brothers, but he needed time.
Space.
Esher looked down at the mortals, the warm spring breeze toying with his long coat, making it flap around his boots. To think he owed one of them his life.
His left hand covered the sleeve of his black coat over the bandage on his right forearm as a feeling went through him, a need that had haunted him from the moment he had stepped away from that small clinic in the northern suburb of Tokyo.
An urge to return there.
He crushed it.
She meant nothing, was nothing. He was just confused, conflicted by what Megan had done for him, that was the only reason he had lowered his guard around another of her kind.
Esher closed his eyes and focused on the music, shutting the world around him out. He would go to Lion, one of his favourite cafés in Tokyo, and one that was a sanctuary for him. He would sit there as he always did, in a quiet corner, listening to the classical music they played and finding peace in that place his brothers had agreed was his, one where Daimon rarely dared to bother him and one where he could think.
A strange tingling swept through him.
Not a daemon. Their presence made his gut swirl with a sickening sensation and it was still light out. They would be in hiding for another few hours yet.
This was different.
He tilted his head to his right and opened his eyes, locking them on the source of it.
She shifted foot to foot far below him, her back to the statue of Hachiko, a faithful dog, where people often met, facing the exit of the train station. Her obsidian long hair had been twirled into twin buns at the back of her head, and a pink and black chequered bag bumped the front of her thighs as she anxiously swayed side to side, trying to see through the crowd.
There was a pause, and then she lifted her arm as she tiptoed. Waving to someone.
Esher almost growled as he sought the human she was signalling, but it died on his lips as he spotted a female waving back at her. The reaction had him taking a step back, that confusion rising again as he struggled to understand why the thought of her potentially meeting a male had pushed him close to stepping down and dealing with them before they could reach her.
Her friend eased through the crowd, and when they embraced, his mortal’s violet fluffy jumper rode up to flash a strip of pale toned skin.
He growled now, and eyed all the males in the vicinity, ensuring none of them had noticed.
Satisfied that they hadn’t, he looked back at her, and frowned.
She was gone.
Dammit.
Esher stepped before he had even considered doing it, appearing near the trees that encased the statue on one side, his eyes scouring the busy square for her.
He found her near the crossing, speaking with two females now, both of them with hair that barely reached their jaws and dark make-up around their eyes and a smear of red on their lips. They smiled and laughed, but all he felt was disgust and a need to wipe them from the face of the Earth.
His female however…
She was as cute as he recalled, although today she wore more conservative clothing of black jeans and thick-soled purple shoes with her violet jumper, and her bag was plain in comparison to the satin coffin-shaped one that had the winged cat toy dangling from the zipper.
Cute?
He stilled right down to his breathing as that word came back to slap him.
No, she wasn’t cute.
She was…
The darker part of himself volunteered the word vile.
Beautiful.
Beautiful despite the fact she wore only light make-up, or possibly even none. Beautiful despite the fact she was human.
As beautiful and as full of life a butterfly as she moved with her comrades, flitting in front of them one moment with a smile on her face, and beside them in the next, her mouth parted on a laugh that filled her whole face with joy.
Esher trailed after her, ignoring the feeble humans as he pushed through the crowd, struggling to keep up with her and keep his distance at the same time.
Fuck, he felt like a damned stalker as he followed her down the narrow cobbled pedestrian street that branched off at a diagonal to the left of his favourite Starbucks, unable to take his eyes off her even when he knew he should walk away right now and forget about her.
He couldn’t.
He swore she laughed every time she spoke, and every time her friends said something, oblivious to the way she drew the attention of the people around her, the males in particular. Esher made a mental note to kill them later, once he had drunk his fill of the fascinating little human.
He had never noticed that humans could be like her, buzzing with goodness.
Kindness.
He rebelled against that word, his mind hurling a thousand images that contradicted it and reminded him that humans were incapable of kindness. They were vicious, untrustworthy. Dangerous.
They would kill him if he revealed what he was to them.
Just as their ancestors had tried.
He slowed to a halt, his gaze still following her as his body locked up tight, the pain thrumming in his heart bleeding over into his muscles and making them clamp down on his bones as a need to lash out grew inside him.
He couldn’t trust her.
She was weak, but a threat.
Dangerous to him.
But for the first time, he felt as if the danger he was in wasn’t physical.
It was emotional.
She was weak, but gods, she could crush him.
He was aware of that as he watched her twirl and smile, her eyes bright with her laughter, and he felt a pull towards her, one that rivalled that of the moon.
He couldn’t trust her.
She was mortal, and all mortals wanted to do was hurt him. If he trusted her, in time she would prove herself just like the others. She would wound him, try to break him, and gods, she might just succeed where others had failed and end up destroying him.
The crowd closed in around him, and his muscles cranked tighter, his heart pounding faster as his tension rose, the need to lash out growing fiercer with each passing second, until he teetered on the brink of showing her and all the other mortals that they were in the presence of something not of their world.
A god.
Paint the streets crimson.
Tear the world down.
Kill them all.
Before they can kill me.
Esher staggered back a step, shoving away from that voice that rose from the pit inside him, refusing to succumb to it, because if he lost control, if he allowed the other side of himself to emerge, he would hurt her too.
He wouldn’t care that he knew her, or that she was gentle and for all he knew, would probably never hurt him. He would kill her just as easily as he killed the others.
He broke away from her and started walking, his pace increasing as he shoved through the crowd and struggled to focus on his destination, one far from her.
In the split-second between locking in a destination and teleporting, her eyes landed on him.
He felt it as a hot caress, one that had his blood boiling with need that demanded he stay and sate it.
A need that shook him.
It wasn’t born of a desire to destroy or to shed blood.
It was born of a desire to touch, to risk everything in order to feel something.
A feeling that crystallised inside him as he landed on a rooftop a short distance from the café and made everything he had been going through the past few days make a dreadful sort of sense.
He needed her.
But he couldn’t have her.
Because he couldn’t trust himself. He was dangerous. A beast.
A monster who would crush such a delicate butterfly.