He was hard as iron on the outside, but beneath that indomitable exterior beat a tender heart, one that would do anything for the two females in his life—her mother, and her.
She looked at the palace again.
“I don’t know this place, but I do know this isn’t my home. It isn’t where I belong, Father.” She looked at him, her brow furrowed, and then turned in Thanatos’s arms and placed her hands on his bare chest, right over his heart, and tilted her head back to gaze up into his eyes. Eyes that were tender, soft and filled with affection. Gods, there was love in that look and it seared her soul with his name. She stroked his chest. “I have a home. My home is with you. When I told you that I wanted to visit you in your castle to see it and learn to control my power, what I had really wanted to say was that I want to live with you there. I don’t want to be apart from you. Never.”
His throat worked on a hard swallow and he looked as if he wanted to kiss her.
Her mother spoke before he could. “Do you love him?”
Calindria looked over her shoulder at her and smiled as she warmed inside. “With all my heart.”
Hades grunted something, earning a black look from Persephone. It softened instantly again, her emerald eyes sparkling as she looked from Calindria to Thanatos and then to Hades.
“I cannot think of anyone better suited to our daughter. They are the perfect match, and you know it.” She swept over to Hades, roses and poppies blooming in her wake, and wrapped her arms around his left one.
He sighed.
Calindria felt the truth in her mother’s words right down to the pit of her soul.
She looked up at Thanatos.
They were the perfect match for each other, and she was sure she had the Moirai to thank for that. She was sure the three goddesses had had this in store for them from the moment of their creation, this path set out for them, one that had been difficult and dark, but had brought them to this point where she felt bathed in light whenever Thanatos gazed at her.
And whenever she looked at him.
“You love me?” he whispered, silver eyes searching hers, a hint of disbelief and hope in them.
She smiled, nodded and tiptoed, pressing her hands to his chest for support as she brought her mouth closer to his.
“I love you,” she breathed.
He hesitated only a moment before capturing her lips, claiming them in a kiss that stamped his name on her heart.
They were more than the perfect match, more than made for each other.
He was the other half of her soul.
And for the first time in centuries, she felt whole again.
She drew back and looked up into silver eyes that shone with endless affection.
“I love you, Calindria.” He smoothed his fingers across her cheek, the corners of his broad mouth twitching into the semblance of a smile.
“Can I see your castle now?” She sidled closer to him, itching to be alone with him, doing her best to ignore the feel of her father’s glare as it shifted from her and evidently landed on Thanatos judging by how he tensed.
Although, it might have been for different reasons.
“I need… a week… make it a few months.” He pulled a face at the building to his left. “My castle is no palace. Renovations will be needed to make it suitable for you.”
She laughed at that, because he looked as if he was talking about making it more comfortable, and she had just spent over five hundred years in a cage. Comfort wasn’t exactly important to her.
“I don’t care. As long as you have heat, food and a place to sleep, it will be fine with me. The only thing I care about is being with you.” She stroked his chest again, loving the flicker of blue fire her touch ignited in his irises, and the fact she could see his resolve buckling.
“Did she just say a place to sleep?” Hades muttered. “She means her own bed I presume?”
“Oh, my love, do stop being such a prude,” Persephone softly admonished. “She is grown now. My little flower, all grown up.”
Ares uttered, “I think her flower is missing, stolen by Thanatos.”
She blushed at that. Her father growled. Thanatos looked ready to murder her brother.
“I’d like to go home now.” She rushed the words out, part of her eager to be alone with him and the rest desperate to get away from her family before a fight broke out.
“Home,” Thanatos echoed, and his eyes lit up in a way she found she loved.
He liked that she had called his castle her home.
He wrapped his arms around her, tensed again when her father spoke.
“I expect you at Tartarus within the hour, Thanatos. As soon as my daughter is settled.”
The banked heat in her god’s eyes said that he would be doing more than getting her settled as soon as they were away from her father. An hour seemed like both a heavenly amount of time and not nearly enough for the things she wanted to do to Thanatos, or the things the wicked edge to his gaze said he wanted to do to her.
“Clock is ticking,” she whispered. “Don’t you have a mission to complete?”
Thanatos frowned down at her.
“You swore you would get me home.” She smiled into his eyes. “Take me home, Thanatos.”
Thanatos growled, swept her up into his arms and into a teleport.
She was quick to look around her as they landed, her eyes darting over the limited furniture in the large dark-walled room. The need to explore the castle that was her new home died as her gaze landed on a large black four-poster bed and the clock in her mind ticked faster, counting down the minutes she had before Thanatos had to leave her again.
She would explore the castle later.
She gripped the waist of Thanatos’s black leathers and tugged him towards the bed. Right now, she wanted to explore him. She twisted with him when she reached it and pushed him backwards. He fell onto the high mattress, his onyx wings blending with the silk sheets as he stared up at her, heat and hunger in his flickering blue eyes.
Calindria growled at just the sight of him.
His lips curled into a smile and stole her heart all over again.
Her hero. Her boyfriend.
She pounced on him and he caught her, chuckled as he wrapped his arms around her and rolled with her, pinning her beneath him. He stilled and stared down at her, warming her from head to toe, making her heart feel fit to burst.
He was the other half of her soul.
The only male in this world for her.
Her light. Her love. Her everything.
She pulled her gloves off and framed his face with her palms.
Her perfect match.
Her gorgeous god of death.
Hers.
Her darker side growled.
And gods help anyone who tried to take him from her.
A feral and possessive snarl came from deep within her, had Thanatos’s smile turning wicked and a little bit amused. She yanked him down to her and kissed him, wiping that smile from his face as she claimed his lips.
Claimed all of him.
Chapter 32
“Thanatos.”
Thanatos lifted his gaze from the worn black stone floor of the towering entrance corridor of Tartarus, his mind clearing as that feminine voice reached his ears. Not the voice he wanted to hear. He had been away from Calindria for five achingly long days, assisting the sons of Hades in their search for Mnemosyne. Six weeks had passed and still they had not uncovered a single clue regarding her whereabouts. Her servants had not seen her in many months and none of her court had seen her for longer than that.