Calindria glared back at him as he emerged from the tunnel on the other side of the mountain, looking close to killing him herself.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she barked.
He wasn’t surprised when vines shot up from the gritty black ground to twine around his legs, grimaced when they tightened and felt as if they might snap his bones like twigs.
She was getting good at controlling one power at least. He worried that she might get good at controlling the other one and prove him wrong about his theory that she couldn’t use it to harm him with a touch.
“I told you that I am sorry.” He brought his blade down, carefully hacking at the vine so he didn’t cut his legs. It tightened further and he grimaced, his lips drawing back off his teeth as pain burned in his right tibia. His voice was strained as he uttered, “Calindria.”
She didn’t look back at him, but the vine did loosen.
Maybe there was hope for him after all.
How long could she hold on to this anger towards him? Gods, if it was as long as he deserved, then that would be forever. As it was, the two days she had been punishing him like this felt like an eternity. He didn’t want to imagine another two like this, let alone thousands and thousands of them.
He freed himself of the vine and started after her.
“You never told me why you were sorry.” She scowled over her shoulder at him, her eyes narrowing with the anger he could sense in her.
A wall of black vines shot up between them.
This time, it was only a few feet wide and he easily walked around it. He scanned the valley as he did so, keeping an eye out for danger. This one wasn’t empty. There were black trees fringing the edges of the valley and a wide fissure in the middle of it. A glow emanated from that fracture and he suspected that deep in the crack was a river of lava. It wasn’t the only one either. He spied a few more rivers snaking down the mountains, running into crevasses he couldn’t quite make out at this distance.
For what felt like the millionth time, Thanatos warred with himself. Calindria deserved an explanation, and part of him wanted to give her one, wanted to bare his soul to her and tell her of his past, but the rest of him kept him silent. He couldn’t tell her what had happened to him, how the demigoddess—the silver-haired female she had apparently seen too—had held him and abused him. He didn’t want her to know about the shameful things he had done when under the influence of the drugs they had fed him to break him.
So he just said, “Everything. I am sorry for everything.”
Calindria cast him a withering glare that said it wasn’t a good enough explanation for how he had treated her, and the part of him he didn’t want to listen to said to lie to her and tell her that he feared her father’s retribution and that was why he hadn’t defiled her with his seed.
He couldn’t lie to her though.
Would never lie to her.
She had spent too many years in this realm, being shown lies, being tricked. She deserved better from him. Gods, she deserved better than him.
He was under no illusion about that. When he got her back to her family, they would part ways. He would return to his castle and his solitary life where he belonged, and she would be with those who loved her.
His step faltered and he stared at her back.
Those who loved her.
He rubbed his eyes when they stung and misted, blamed the grit and the dry air. There was a breeze that constantly picked it up and swirled it at him and some must have gotten in his eyes.
She sighed softly, and for the first time since he had tried to ruin everything between them, he felt close to easing her anger, to making her see that he regretted what he had done and that he would try not to do it again.
If she would allow him to remain near her, he would be a better male.
He wanted to laugh at that.
He wasn’t sure he knew how to be a better male, or that he would get a choice in the matter if he was close to her again and his past hit him and filled his head with lies, making him feel she meant to steal something from him, that she was like the demigoddess. He couldn’t trust any female.
He continued to stare at her back.
That wasn’t true.
He could trust her.
Calindria had done nothing to hurt him, had accepted him when he had been the one to initiate things. She had let him be close to her, had given him something special, and he had been the one who had mistreated her.
“Calindria,” he started as he sheathed his sword and she looked back at him, actually slowed to a halt when she saw he had stopped and there was a great distance between them. “Rest a moment, so we can… talk?”
She looked as if she wanted to say no, but the longer she looked at him, the softer her expression grew, and he knew he was reaching her. Sweet relief washed through him as she turned towards him, as she began walking back to him. Every step closer she came to him, some of the tension cranking him tight inside melted away. Just her presence was enough to soothe him. What power she had over him.
“Talk about what?” She stopped close to him, so near he could reach out and touch her if he were brave enough.
He wasn’t. The thought of her rejecting him was too terrifying. Gods, how she made him weak, but at the same time he felt stronger just for knowing her, felt invincible whenever she looked into his eyes and there was warmth in hers, a shimmer of affection.
“Us.” He croaked that word, swallowed to wet his dry throat, and felt as if he was standing on a precipice and liable to fall, and only death awaited him in the abyss that surrounded him. He sighed and mustered the words, lined them up and checked them twice to make sure he wouldn’t say anything that would cause her further upset. “I am sorry. There are… things… in my past I am not ready to talk about yet. It influences me at times, alters my mood, and I have little control over it. I tend to… You were right about me. I do find it impossible to trust others.”
Her eyes gently leaped between his, her beautiful face softening further as a wealth of understanding dawned in them. “I find it hard, too… but I trust you, Thanatos. You’re the only person I have trusted in almost six centuries… so it hurt when you—”
Her lips flattened and the tears that lined her lashes cut at him, cleaving great gashes in his heart. He risked it, lifted his hand and smoothed his palm along her jaw to her nape and drew her to him. He lowered his head and pressed his brow to hers, let his eyes fall shut as he sighed.
“I am sorry.”
She nodded slightly, her forehead moving against his, and brought her hands up, pressing them to his bare chest. The feel of her palms against him was bliss, the warmth of her touch searing him, branding him with her name. She was the only female who could touch him like this without him growing agitated, without the darkness within him wanting to snarl and lash out to protect himself. Somehow, this strong, beautiful female was slowly taming that side of him.
Replacing fear of her touching him with a craving for her touch.
“I thought perhaps—” She cut herself off when her voice grew tight and he held back the urge to press her to continue, contented himself with holding her to him, feeling her close to him. She sighed. “It is silly… but I felt perhaps you had… lied to me. That you had wanted that female you chased and tried to satisfy your urges with me, but I wasn’t… I wasn’t good enough.”