“You will meet her soon enough.” He chuckled, the sound holding a crazed edge. “Although, you met her already… around six hundred years ago. I should have done things this way sooner. You could have been mine all this time.”
“Yours?” she barked. “Never. I will never be yours.”
He bared his teeth at her and lunged for her, and she twisted away from him, shrieked as he caught hold of her hand. She threw a panicked glance over her shoulder as her stomach somersaulted, sure her touch would be harming him.
Only there was no trace of pain or fear in his eyes. Only anger and lust.
She looked down at his hand.
His gloved hand.
A shiver traipsed down her spine. She needed skin contact for her power to work. That was the reason he had put the gloves on. He knew about her power. He was with the enemy, a traitor, just as Thanatos had warned her.
Gods, she had been an idiot to trust this male.
He twisted her arm behind her back and she yelped as her shoulder burned, trembled as he pressed against her back and brought the waterskin that had hung from his waist to her lips.
“Drink,” he growled into her ear, bringing her arm up higher against her back, ripping a pained cry from her. He tried to tip the water into her mouth and she closed her lips, pressing them firmly together. “I will make you forget that god. You will be mine.”
He released her arm and grabbed her jaw, squeezed his fingers between her teeth and attempted to prise her mouth open. She couldn’t let him do it. She couldn’t let him drug her. She wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him from hurting her then.
She reared her head back as hard and fast as she could.
He bellowed as her head connected with his nose and lost his grip on her. She turned and kneed him hard between his legs, and screwed her face up and denied the guilt as she placed her bare palms against his cheeks.
He jerked backwards, falling against the rocks.
Calindria turned and ran.
Didn’t look back as his screams of rage and pain tore through the tunnel.
Chapter 21
Calindria didn’t slow even as she made it to the cavern. She skidded and slipped her way down the incline that led from the higher section of it to the lower one. Her bare feet hit the dirt and she pushed off, breathing hard, every limb trembling as the agonised sounds continued to echo along the tunnel behind her.
Had her touch worked?
She felt sick at the thought it might have, that the Messenger was being consumed by the same ashy darkness that had spread from her handprints on the guard. No, she couldn’t feel bad about this. It had been him or her. If she hadn’t unleashed her power on him, then he would have done terrible things to her, would have forced her into another cage, keeping her drugged so she would serve him. So they could be together.
If she had unleashed her power.
She hadn’t even paused to see if she had left any black on his face, so she couldn’t be sure whether she had hurt him or not. His roars could be of rage and the pain she had caused when she had broken his nose and his balls.
She sprinted through the cavern and into the tunnel that would take her back outside into the valley, her legs tiring now. She couldn’t slow. If she hadn’t delivered a death touch to the male, he would be coming after her.
Gods, she had been a fool.
She had refused to trust Thanatos, had kept him at a distance for days until he had earned it, but she had trusted the Messenger right away and look where it had gotten her. She had been reckless again when she had sworn she wouldn’t be.
Calindria paused at the mouth of the tunnel and braced her hands against her knees, her senses and the connection she had with the earth telling her that the Messenger wasn’t following.
She had killed him.
She peered back over her shoulder, part of her still feeling bad about that even when he had deserved it. It struck her that Thanatos was right about her. There was still light within her, a shadow of the girl she had been. That gentle, caring female still existed inside her, concealed beneath the layers of darkness, and no matter what she did, she would never be able to kill it. She would never be able to harden her heart enough that it didn’t hurt whenever she harmed another.
On a heavy sigh, she started across the valley, sticking to the cover of the dead trees and stretching her senses out around her, cataloguing everything. There were creatures in the valley, in contact with the ground, but they didn’t feel malevolent, not as the Keres had. She steered well clear of them though, heading for the tunnel that would take her back to the crystal cavern where she had last been with Thanatos.
Once there, she would figure out what to do.
It didn’t take long to reach the cavern and she sank before the still-burning fire, stared at the charred meat suspended above it as she struggled to catch her breath. Thanatos hadn’t returned and she couldn’t sense him nearby. Where had he gone?
Had he really left?
She would deserve it if he had.
She wanted to pull her knees up to her chest and sit there staring at the blue fire, but she denied that urge. If she stayed here, Thanatos would only be getting further and further from her. She had to go after him. He knew the way out of this realm and she was sure he was heading in that direction. If she could catch up with him and tell him what had happened, and ask for his help, maybe the sense of loyalty she knew he had would kick in and he would lead her home. She didn’t care if he was angry with her the whole time they were travelling.
She just wanted to get out of this wretched place.
Calindria forced herself to stand and walked to the pool, stilled as her gaze caught on something. One of Thanatos’s daggers. The one she had taken from his vambrace and used to fend off the Keres. She diverted course and went to it, stooped and picked it up, and weighed it as she stared at it. Maybe returning it would go some way towards convincing Thanatos to help her.
By help, she meant forgive.
He had asked for her forgiveness and she had denied him though.
If he denied her, then she would deserve it too.
But deep in her heart she knew he was better than that. Deep in her heart she knew that he would never turn his back on her.
Because she wasn’t the only one falling in love.
That look that had been in his eyes when he had come around with his head on her knees had been happiness, but it had been happiness born of a deeper feeling. Love. She didn’t need to break down his barriers. She had already slipped through the cracks in his defences and claimed his heart. She was sure of it now.
Calindria picked up her waterskin and filled it, and then scooped some water into her mouth too, swallowed it down and stood. She wrapped the strap of the waterskin around her waist and slipped the ring on the end of it over the hook near the stopper. Palming the dagger, she gathered her courage. She wasn’t sure what was out there in the valley, but that wouldn’t deter her. She would find Thanatos.
She would find the male she loved.
And she would make him forgive her.
And then she would tell him what the Messenger had revealed to her—that a female was behind her captivity. His sister, Eris? Or was someone else involved in this plot against her father and the Underworld?
She was sure that Thanatos could help her find out.
Calindria strode down the tunnel that Thanatos had used, stretching her senses around her as much as she could. The tunnel was wide and opened out into a narrow canyon that broadened ahead of her. She followed the jagged walls that hemmed her in on both sides and tilted her head back, gazing at the black clouds that billowed across the sky, tinged with orange from the volcanoes.