The greater threat to her had been the demigoddess. The female was wily and strong, could easily hurt Calindria and not only physically. The bitch had a barbed tongue, one he was sure she would unleash on his female, and he knew exactly what she would tell Calindria.
His dirtiest, darkest secrets.
The things he had never told anyone. The things that had spawned the shame that constantly ate away at him, haunted him in his sleep and had him waking in a cold sweat each morning. If he could scour away that part of his life, scrub it from his memories even, he would do it in a heartbeat, no matter the cost. Mnemosyne could demand anything and he would give it to the goddess of memory in exchange for being freed of the sickening things he had done while under the influence of the drugs.
He should have been stronger.
He should have found the will to carry on resisting somehow.
It had been impossible though. He had been heavily drugged, drained of his strength and his will by his captivity, worn down and desperate enough that he had given up for only a moment, but it had been enough. The drugs had taken hold of him then and lured him into a haze, made his skin too tight and hot, veiled everything in a hunger he had needed to sate for fear it would consume and destroy him if he didn’t. The moment the demigoddess had walked into the room that night, he had seized her and the opportunity to slake his lust.
That didn’t make it any easier for him to stomach.
It didn’t make the memories of that night any less repulsive or shameful.
The anger in his veins exploded into a rage that swept through him, had him flashing his teeth and growling as the demigoddess appeared again, materialising on a bluff on the side of the mountain ahead of him. She flicked her silver hair over her shoulder and the wind caught it, making it stream across her right shoulder.
Thanatos beat his wings and flew at her, burning with a need to catch her. She would suffer far worse than he ever had once he got his hands on her.
The second he was within twenty feet of her, she smiled and disappeared. He growled, his mood turning darker. She was taunting him, could use the power to teleport in this realm when it was locked away from him, flitted like a ghost from place to place, sending him in circles.
His normally dull senses sparked with a warning and he twisted to his left and looked down, spotted her running across the flat valley floor there, sprinting towards a forest of black dead trees. If he let her reach them, it would be hard for him to attack her. He would be forced to land and would be vulnerable. She could have any number of allies waiting in that forest for him to make the mistake of touching down.
So he intended to capture her before she reached it.
He swooped down, pinning his onyx feathered wings against his back, picking up speed until everything was a blur around him, only his prey in focus as he shot towards her. She glanced over her shoulder, her lilac eyes widening as she spotted him closing in on her.
Disappeared.
Damn her.
He drew to an abrupt halt in the air and searched for her and spied her on the mountain. He shot towards her and she teleported again, appearing in the next valley. She ran this time and he frowned as he looked ahead of her and saw the ruins of a building there.
Dread settled in his stomach as he stared at that pile of black stones that hugged a sweeping curve in the mountains.
He knew that place.
He swallowed the bile that rose into his throat, tried to shut out the voices that echoed in his mind and shun the vile sensation of hands on his skin, gripping and clutching him.
The demigoddess stopped and looked back at him, but he shook his head. He would not follow her there. She meant to capture him again. He was right about her. She was with the enemy and she ruled this realm, had been responsible for Calindria’s captivity in it.
He glared at her back.
Her power had grown since she had held him captive or perhaps it was the realm that had grown more powerful and she had learned to control it, harnessing that power so she could use it to stop anyone not under her command from teleporting and dampening their senses. When she had held him in that building all those centuries ago, bound by enchanted chains made of the metal of Olympus, he had been able to teleport once he had broken free.
He had been quick to escape, hadn’t set foot outside the exterior walls of the small fortress, had never seen the realm she ruled. He growled. If he had taken a moment to do such a thing, he might have recognised this realm, might have known to be on his guard or even requested a legion of soldiers from Hades so he could hunt her down.
Thanatos grunted and shook off those thoughts. This realm looked much like many other realms in the Underworld. There was no way he could have recognised it as the one he had been held in centuries ago. The mountains and valleys resembled ones he had seen countless times before in his travels.
She disappeared again and he knew where she had gone, what her plan was, and he wouldn’t follow her. He wouldn’t fall into her trap. She would have men waiting inside that building, ready to help her if he dared to go into it.
She would pay for the things she had done to both him and to Calindria.
But not right now.
He spread his wings to catch a thermal and halted in the air, flapped them gently to keep himself airborne and scanned the area, seeking Calindria. His eyes slowly widened. He twisted in the air, taking in the valley and the mountains that surrounded it. Panic loomed. He didn’t recognise this area as one he had travelled through in his search for Calindria. His heart thundered.
Something hit him.
The demigoddess had drawn him far away from Calindria.
Cold snaked down his spine.
He shook off his need to hunt the demigoddess and have his revenge, forced himself to fly back the way he had come, retracing his steps. He reached another valley he didn’t recognise. Damn her.
Damn him too.
He had allowed himself to get so caught up in pursuing the demigoddess that he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings, had only been able to focus on her. Now, he wasn’t sure which way to go to get back to Calindria, and he feared that had been the demigoddess’s plan all along.
She was trying to separate them. She was trying to capture him again so her servant could recapture Calindria. He growled. The bastard Messenger was in on it. He was working with the demigoddess.
Thanatos clenched his fists and growled, cursing himself for being so blind.
The desire to fly harder, faster, to find Calindria was strong, but he denied it. He wouldn’t get anywhere by rushing in all directions. He would only end up even more lost, or even further from Calindria.
Instead of flying off in any direction, he flew upwards, gaining altitude. Below him, the valleys fell away, more and more of them being revealed to his eyes. His vision sharpened and he scanned the world below him as he halted in the air, seeking something familiar. From this high up, he should be able to spot the valley he had exited into from the cavern at the start of his hunt for the demigoddess. It was the only valley he had seen in this realm that was riddled with a broad, deep canyon that looked as if it had been slowly carved by water.
His eyes darted over everything and he couldn’t spot it anywhere, so he moved, carefully flying in one direction, counting the number of valleys he passed over so he would be able to find his way back to his starting point. More valleys came into view, and none of them were the one he was looking for either.
Thanatos flew back to his starting point and tried another direction, fear rising within him now, bringing desperation in its wake. He shouldn’t have left Calindria with the male. He should have been stronger. He should have resisted his urge to go after the demigoddess and remained with Calindria, accepting that there was a chance the demigoddess would reveal things to her that made him feel ashamed, and placing faith in Calindria. She had a good heart, one untainted by her centuries in captivity. There was a chance she wouldn’t have spurned him as he feared she would, coming to view him with disgust because of the things he had done, and no longer wanting anything to do with him.