No, he couldn’t surrender to it because it would be a betrayal this time.
He would betray Calindria and his feelings for her if he gave in.
So he had to keep fighting.
Keep resisting.
No matter how many times the demigoddess fed him the toxin, no matter how fiercely the fire burned. He couldn’t surrender.
The silver-haired female stood, water rolling down her curves, and he growled as heat scorched him, as a hunger to reach out and seize her soft flesh and grip it hard while he took her surged through him. He flashed his teeth at her, tried to lift his hand to lash out at her but he was too weak.
She waggled a finger at him, her wretched lips curling in a wide smile. “Be good now.”
She reached the edge of the pool and he shuddered as her violet eyes appraised him, as they drifted down his bare chest to the low waist of his leathers. She bit her lower lip and moaned, and he bit back the growl this time, focused on his body to shut down the reaction to the drug.
She pouted as he softened again, lifted her hands and cupped her breasts, thumbing her nipples. “We need to get you clean too. Come to me.”
He stood his ground, fighting the compulsion to obey that order. Sweat slicked his skin and he swallowed to wet his parched throat. Didn’t he want to break this heat engulfing him? The water would be cooler, surely? Just the thought of washing away the sticky sweat had his head going hazy, had him taking a step towards her and then another, his eyes not on her but on the water in which she stood.
“Good… good,” she murmured, her voice like honey, a sweet caress in his ears that only made his thoughts blur even more.
She leaned forwards and dipped a sponge into the water, reached for him when he was close enough and hooked her fingers into the waist of his leathers. She tugged him closer and he was powerless to resist her, even as something inside him growled viciously.
The first touch of the wet sponge against his overheating flesh was bliss, had his eyes slipping shut.
He snapped them open and growled at her, purging the haze. When he tried to move away from her, her grip on the waist of his leathers tightened. She yanked him forwards and glared up into his eyes.
“I’ll kill the goddess if you keep disobeying me,” she snapped.
Thanatos stilled, his blood chilling in his veins, the coldness giving him no relief as he stared at her and saw in her eyes that she meant that. She would kill Calindria if he didn’t do as she wanted. The hope he’d had that Calindria had managed to escape weakened and bent, was close to buckling as he struggled to hold it together and keep it strong.
He told himself that she didn’t have Calindria in a cage, that his little goddess was probably at the nearest town by now or had teleported far from this realm, back to her family where she would be safe. He kept telling himself that, even when a part of him whispered that she had been drugged, her powers inhibited by the toxin that had coated the spear that had clipped her.
What if she hadn’t been able to fight the two males off her and escape?
The demigoddess’s violet eyes slowly darkened as he stared at her, lost in his thoughts, gripped by fears that grew stronger and stronger, choking him and making him unaware of anything else. Even the heat of the fever that wracked him couldn’t touch him here. He felt nothing as he thought about Calindria, was numbed to sensation, swept up in his emotions.
He was barely aware of the cool caress of the sponge over his body, or the words the female cooed at him.
“I knew you would do as I wanted,” she murmured throatily and swept the wet sponge over his stomach. “Gods, in all the years you have been away, I have not found a male quite like you.”
She skimmed her hand over his stomach, pulling him back to the world.
“I want to hear you call my name as you take me this time,” she whispered as she leaned closer, her vile breath caressing his damp chest. She tilted her head back and gazed up at him. “Say it for me… Harleena. Or Leena will do.”
“Har… py,” he snarled down at her and her face blackened. He lunged towards her and bit out, “Harpy. I will never call you anything else. You are as ugly and foul as one.”
He grunted as she struck him hard, knocking his head to his right, sending his thoughts spinning and blurring. The fever rose to grip him again, flooded his mind with wicked thoughts that had his skin feeling too tight and filled him with an ache to grab her and make her regret striking him by taking her hard, by dominating her.
Thanatos shut down that urge, but barely. It was getting harder by the second to resist the drug. He needed to do something and fast.
She feathered her fingers down his stinging cheek. “Say my name. I want to hear you say it.”
He shuddered and growled, bared his teeth at her and barely leashed the desire to strike her. “Why should I do anything you want when you did not uphold your end of the deal?”
She glared at him as he stepped back, breaking contact between them. Her eyes darkened further, not with the heat of lust this time, but with the same fire that burned inside him. She was angry. Good. He was furious.
“Release her, or you will get nothing from me.” He scowled down at her and seized her wrist in a trembling hand, managed to muster enough strength to rip it away from the waist of his leathers rather than press it lower.
He dropped it as soon as he was free of her touch, the feel of her skin on his too sickening to endure for any longer than was necessary.
“I will release her… if you give me what I want.” She smiled coyly.
Thanatos growled in her face. “Another lie. I want to see her. Let me take her to the edge of the realm and I will do whatever you want.”
He wouldn’t. He would find a way to escape with her. The look in Harleena’s eyes said she knew that. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted, and he wasn’t exactly in a position to bargain either, but he couldn’t stop himself. He needed to know Calindria was safe. He needed to know that whatever he suffered at this female’s hands, it would be worth it because his little goddess was free.
“What you need is another sip.” Her tone darkened and sharpened, and he tugged at his chains as she stepped from the bath, choosing to exit it on the far side near the fire.
A place he couldn’t reach while shackled.
She picked up a gold goblet from a dark wooden table and swilled the contents as she gazed at it, a hazy quality to her eyes. Those same eyes gained a wicked light as they lifted to him, as she prowled towards him, her hips swaying with each measured step.
Thanatos pressed his lips closed and shook his head, glared at her as she approached him, warning her to keep her distance. He wouldn’t allow her to give him more of the drug. The fire was finally abating, his strength returning. He couldn’t let her take that from him again.
When he sucked in a breath through his nose, the scent of ambrosia hit him hard, addling his mind a little, enough that he didn’t notice her closing the distance between them until it was too late. The moment he realised she was right in front of him, he snarled and lashed out, backhanded the goblet from her hand and ripped a satisfying pained grunt from her.
She clutched her hand and glared at him.
Strode back to the table and seized the dagger resting there. “I wanted to do this the nice way, Thanatos. Remember that.”
She stormed back to him and stabbed him in the side before he could strike her. Heat rolled through him from the point where the blade pierced his flesh, had his thoughts blurring as every inch of him instantly relaxed, his fight leaving him.