Calindria flexed her fingers around the grip of her dagger and stalked forwards, moving beneath an arch of rock that was smooth and flowing, as if water had once run in this dry and dusty canyon. She brushed her free hand across the stone, feeling the layers in it that were varying shades of grey and black. It must have taken thousands of years for the volcanoes to form this land and the mountains too, and thousands more for the river to carve this canyon. It was incredible.
She tensed as she sensed something above her. Large. Not Thanatos.
Slowly looked up and froze as a huge dark grey reptilian beast with six long horns that fanned out from a plate encircling its head loomed at the edge of the plateau.
Looking down at her through glowing yellow eyes.
It opened its sharp-beaked mouth and screeched.
Kicked off and dropped into the canyon, spreading enormous leathery wings as it hurtled towards her.
Calindria broke into a sprint, her legs pumping hard, grip tightening on the dagger. She glanced at her hand, fixed her eyes ahead of her and kept on running. Her touch hadn’t hurt the Messenger when there had been a barrier between their skin. She wasn’t sure whether the same thing would happen with scales. Would this dragon’s scales prevent her from hurting it with a touch?
Or not?
She flicked a panicked glance over her shoulder, her heart shooting into her mouth as she saw the bipedal creature was closing in on her, the talons on the tops of its wings scratching great grooves in the ground as it used them to walk and its huge back paws kicking up dust into a cloud that filled the air behind it.
It stretched its head forwards and screeched again, flashing the fact that it not only had a sharp beak that tipped its snout.
It had fangs as long as her arms too.
Oh gods.
She ran harder, desperately looking around her, trying to find a tunnel or even a crack she could press into to avoid being captured and eaten. There was nothing. As far as her eyes could see, there was only smooth, worn rock—the same rock she had admired before for its gentle waves and stripes. She cursed it now.
Stifled a cry when she sensed the dragon closing in.
She was going to die here, without ever escaping this realm.
Her mind suddenly cleared.
No. She wasn’t going to die. She drew down a deep breath and purged the panic, focused her mind and summoned her strength. Behind her, the dragon roared as a great thick black vine burst from the ground and snaked around one of its legs. She sensed it falling further behind her as she carried on running, hope blooming inside her as sweet as a sip of ambrosia. The thought that she could fight this beast gave her courage that calmed her nerves further, crushed her panic and had strength flowing into her.
On a keening cry, the dragon broke free of the vine and thundered towards her.
She summoned more vines, forming a wall between them. The dragon barrelled straight through it and she constructed another and then another, sure that if she made the fiend break through enough of them that it would grow tired of trying to eat her.
At the fourth wall she created, the dragon took another tack. It scrambled over the wall, using its talons to grip the rock. Damn it.
She spotted a narrower canyon ahead of her, branching off from the main one. She made a break for it.
Shrieked and stumbled backwards when the huge beast dropped from the air to land in front of her. She twisted and narrowly avoided the fierce snap of its beak as it lunged at her. Kicked off and ran back the way she had come, choosing the other path. The dragon chased her, shaking the ground beneath her feet with each thundering footfall, far too close for comfort.
Calindria summoned another wall of vines, sending them shooting higher this time. The dragon burst through them, sending pieces of the wooden material flying past her. She ducked and dodged, avoiding being hit by them, and kept running. There had to be a way out of the canyon.
She looked back at the dragon.
Faced forwards and spotted another junction. The path to the left was narrower, but the one on the right. Her eyes widened. Hope bloomed.
There was a cave at the end of it.
She sprinted in that direction, pushing herself to the limit, desperate to reach the cave and escape the dragon. It fell back as she created another wall across the entrance to the branch of the canyon she had picked, scaled this one and dropped down on the other side of it.
The cave loomed just ahead of her.
She was going to make it.
Glowing yellow eyes appeared in the gloom.
Calindria’s heart jacked up into her throat and she skidded to a halt, her brow furrowing.
“No,” she breathed, staring into the eyes of a second dragon as it emerged from the cave.
She whirled to face the direction she had come, cold prickles sweeping over her skin beneath her black tunic as the dragon there slowly eased towards her, blocking her only exit.
“Oh gods.”
It had been driving her towards this spot.
Into this trap.
It growled at her, huge fangs dripping with strings of saliva.
She palmed her dagger and gathered her strength, but in her head, a single thought echoed.
She had survived six centuries in captivity.
But she wasn’t going to survive this.
Chapter 22
Pure, unadulterated rage flowed in Thanatos’s veins, replacing his blood as he chased after the female he had sensed—the demigoddess. The second he had felt her approaching the cavern, the urge to protect Calindria had hit him hard, had him moving in a heartbeat. He couldn’t let the female near his little goddess of death. The gods only knew what the fiendish bitch would do to her, or the things she would say to poison Calindria against him.
It was only once he had chased the silver-haired female out into a canyon that he had realised what he had done.
He had left Calindria in the care of that male and he was sure she thought he had walked out on her, had done as she had demanded and left her to find her own way home. Over his dead body. As soon as he was done with the demigoddess, had secured her somewhere she wouldn’t be able to escape so he could retrieve her later and take her to Tartarus, he would return to the cavern and if Calindria wasn’t there, he would hunt for her. He had her scent now, could follow it to wherever she was, and as soon as he found her again, he would make her see that for all his faults, she was better off with him.
Messengers were not to be trusted.
That one in particular.
Calindria could deny it all she wanted, but that male wanted her.
Gods, the thought of him with her right now made Thanatos sick to his stomach. She was strong and able to defend herself. He kept telling himself that. A Messenger was no match for Calindria. If the male dared to try anything, Thanatos was sure she would put him in his place.
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 int
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.
He scanned the valley, near wild with a need to find her, thoughts of her in danger crowding his mind to make it hard for him to focus. Where was she? He flew in another direction, desperate to spot the valley, heart clenching as he feared he wouldn’t find her. He needed to find her. He needed to see her again and know she was safe. He needed to wrap her in his arms and never let her go, to make her see that he needed her.
That he felt something for her.
A feeling that was deep and powerful, and scared him.
Something roared.
Thanatos’s head whipped in that direction, a frown knitting his eyebrows as he listened hard and waited to see if it would call out again so he could pinpoint its location. Whatever had made that noise, it was big. An alpha predator. Nothing he had come across in his travels in this realm.
It roared again, the sound carrying for miles across the valleys. His gaze darted to the right a few degrees, adrenaline surging through him as he recognised the mountain range there.
Calindria.
Thanatos flew harder than he had ever flown, his wings aching with each great beat of them, fear sinking icy talons into his heart as he rapidly closed the distance between him and the valley. The canyons came into focus and he pushed himself harder, every muscle burning with the strain as he swooped lower. He scanned the crevasses that riddled the ground, desperately seeking Calindria.
Another shriek had his head jerking left and he growled as he spotted what looked like part of a huge dark leathery wing slicing through the air just above the plateau and disappearing from view again.
Thanatos drew his sword and pinned his wings back, his focus locked onto his target. The beast’s head came into view, its huge yellow eye swivelling towards him as it angled its head to one side, causing the six horns that protruded from a circular bony plate to almost brush the muscles of its wings.
A wyvern.
It turned its head away from him and snapped its beaked mouth at something. Thanatos looked there and his lungs seized.
Calindria.
She desperately brandished the dagger he had left in the cavern, her blue eyes wild as she switched back and forth between threatening the wyvern he could see and looking at a cave that came into view. Thanatos cursed as he spotted a second wyvern in the shadows there.
On a loud roar, Thanatos tucked his wings back and dropped from the air. He gripped his sword in both hands, holding it point downwards, and glared at the first wyvern, his gaze fixed on a single point between its wings. The dark grey beast lunged forwards just before Thanatos’s booted feet hit its scaly back, almost throwing him off-balance. He plunged his sword into the beast’s back, slicing clean through its scales.
The wyvern reared back on a vicious roar, throwing its head high into the air, and Calindria gasped. Thanatos ducked, hurling himself prone on the creature’s back to avoid being speared by its horns as it thrashed its head side to side, attempting to catch him. When it flapped its enormous wings instead, lifting off the ground with him, he pushed to his knees and grabbed his sword, yanked it free of the creature’s back and brought it down again. He pierced the scales again, just as the beast began to ascend, taking him higher into the air.
-->
