He kept his mind on track, mulling over what she had revealed.
He had thought the illusions cast on the body to make her family believe it was Calindria, and the one shown to Calindria to make her believe her brother had died and her family had betrayed her, had been created by the daemon who had worked with Eris, one the sons of Hades had killed.
Gods, he had been so mistaken.
The damned goddess of memory had been behind it.
He needed to warn Hades.
He drew back and looked down at Harleena, schooled his features so she wouldn’t see the rage burning inside him, the twisted desire to grip her by her throat and choke her to death, and then cross into the veil and kill her there too, so her despicable soul would cease to exist.
“A good plan. A shame it was for naught. My sister is in Tartarus where she belongs.” He knew he had messed up when she broke away from him.
“It is not over yet. She will finish this,” she spat and he tensed.
They were still planning something, and she wasn’t talking about his sister now. She was talking about Mnemosyne.
Had the goddess of memory been behind everything this whole time? Everyone had thought Eris had been the one leading the group, but what if she and his other siblings had only been another diversion, a way of keeping the true mastermind hidden?
Had Mnemosyne hoped Eris and his siblings would succeed in toppling the gates and merging the Underworld and the mortal one, allowing her to take command without Hades ever knowing of her betrayal?
Or had she known Eris too would fail and everyone would believe it was over?
It struck him that the latter was the likely explanation. Mnemosyne had been aware Eris and his siblings would fall to the sons of Hades and that Hades would believe the danger was over and would lower his guard.
When it wasn’t.
He needed to escape this place and tell his god-king, but he had the terrible feeling the only reason Harleena was telling him all of this was because he wouldn’t be leaving this place any time soon.
She knew he wouldn’t reach Hades before Mnemosyne set her plan in motion.
He glared at her back as she stormed to the table and grabbed another goblet.
She poured clear liquid into it and scowled over her shoulder at him. “I should have known you would take steps to guard yourself against me. Well, know they are for naught. You will not be able to resist if I make you drink all of this.”
She pivoted towards him, her damp silver hair swirling outwards from her shoulders, and her breasts bouncing with each fierce step she took towards him.
Thanatos growled at her and beat his wings as hard as he could manage, ignoring the pain that burned in the injured one. The table nearest him toppled and the torches guttered and went out, and she raised her free arm to shield her face as she struggled to keep walking towards him, leaning into the wind he created.
“You will drink this.” She teleported, appearing right before him, moving too fast for him to track.
Before he could do anything, she seized his jaw and dug her fingers into his cheeks, forcing his mouth open. He growled and wrestled against her, grabbing her waist and weakly pushing her back, hating the way the toxin she had already drugged him with stole his strength. He tried to strike her with his wings but she was too close to him.
She shoved the goblet up above him as he struggled and poured.
Most of it hit his face, but enough of it went into his mouth. He went to spit it out but she shoved the flat of her palm to his chin, snapping his mouth closed, and he couldn’t stop himself from swallowing it.
The effect was instantaneous.
Heat rolled through him, made his skin feel too tight, had him trembling badly with a need to sate the fire blazing in his veins, burning in his loins. He shook his head, trying to fight it, but the heat only burned hotter as she released him and his head drooped, his gaze falling on her bare curves.
Need swept through him.
Hunger riding on its heels.
“That’s right,” she purred and tiptoed, caressed his cheek as he stared at her, lost in the wicked urges running through his mind. “Surrender to me, Thanatos.”
She stroked her hands down his chest and in the wake of them, coolness washed across his skin, making it feel less tight. Those hands reached the waist of his leathers and tugged at the lacing.
Rage burned through him, hitting him out of nowhere and shocking the part of him that ached for her touch.
“Harpy,” he snarled as he smacked her hand away.
Her lips twisted in a mulish line and she swept the dagger up off the floor. Her violet eyes flashed dangerously as she turned on him and anger rolled off her.
“This is that little bitch’s fault,” she barked and flexed her fingers around the hilt of the dagger. “She’s tainted you… turned you against me.”
“I was never with you,” he growled and tugged at his chains. His head turned and he shook it, fought the encroaching wave of heat and hunger, but it was too strong for him, easily overpowered him and dragged him back down into the thick haze.
Her eyes lit up as his hands fell limply to his sides and he couldn’t convince himself to lift them, and then he could. Because he wanted to touch her. He wanted to grip her waist as he pounded into her from behind. He reached for her and her lips curled into a satisfied smile.
“That’s right. I’ll give you what you want.” She trailed the tip of the dagger down between her full breasts, all the way to her navel and the thatch of pale curls between her thighs. “You know how badly I want it.”
His cock stiffened.
Hunger tore a growl from his lips and had him reaching for her.
A flash of another female overlaid onto her. Blonde hair. Eyes the colour of an endless summer sky. Soft pink lips that begged him to kiss her.
He reared back as that tempting image faded, revealing another female, one who made him feel sick just by looking at her.
Her face twisted, features pinching hard as rage lit her violet eyes. “You think of her.”
Her. Calindria.
His eyes widened as something dawned on him. The demigoddess wanted more than his body. She wanted him as more than her slave. He wanted to laugh in her face at that.
“I will make you think only of me.” She grabbed the waist of his leathers and yanked him towards her.
“Impossible. You will never have me. Never. You can touch this body, but you will never reach what you really want to touch… You will never make that part of me yours.” Glaring down into her eyes, he made sure she was looking deep into his so she would know how much he meant what he was going to say. “My heart already belongs to another. I love Calindria.”
She screamed at him and raised her dagger.
Thanatos saw a way out in the flash of that blade, saw freedom that might come at a high price, but it was his only option. The only way. It would send him into the veil, removing him from this place, and when he made it out the other side, he would be far from here. He swore he would see Calindria again and hoped he would remember her.
He would remember her.
His love for her would transcend death.
He closed his eyes, tipped his chin up and accepted his fate.
Accepted death.
Chapter 29
Calindria hurried across the black wasteland, rushing towards the mountain range where she had last seen Thanatos. Calistos kept pace with her, his blue eyes constantly scanning the terrain, charting everything.
She still couldn’t believe it was really him, here with her again, even when she could feel it in her soul. That connection they had shared was still there, weak but growing by the second as they marched to war.
But neither of them were the reckless young fools they had been when they were last together.
Calistos had proven just how much he had grown in their centuries apart when she had wanted to teleport him to the town that now stood over two miles behind them. He
So he could bring them an army.
When the commander had asked whether they would wait, she had bluntly told him that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Thanatos needed her, and she had kept him waiting too long already. Faced with the problem of the forces he brought with him not knowing where to go, she had hit upon an idea.
Behind her, another black spike erupted from the ground. She summoned one every thirty feet, leaving a trail of them behind her to act as beacons, guiding the commander and the army he gathered to the castle where she desperately wanted to be already.
She focused on the earth beneath her feet, reached out with her senses ahead of her, seeking the point where she had stood with Thanatos outside the ruined fortress. Gods, she hoped he was there.
Calindria veered left, leaving another marker in her wake, and Calistos followed her. He glanced at her as she tugged at the clothing she wore, another thing he had insisted she do before he had allowed her to teleport to this place. He had taken her to the barracks and found her something to wear, something she could ‘fight in’ according to him.
The black buttery-soft leather trousers and shirt she wore felt very restrictive, and it was strange to be wearing shoes again. The knee-high polished onyx boots were a touch too large for her, but they certainly made it easier to walk. No more jabbing herself in the sole of her feet by stepping on pebbles.
She glanced down at herself. What would Thanatos make of her in this outfit?
He had seen her naked, seen her barely clothed in her sky-blue top and shorts, but for some reason the tight leather trousers and the shirt that stretched taut across her breasts felt very revealing.
“Slow down.” Calistos reached for her arm and she moved it away, even though she was wearing gloves now.
She hadn’t tested whether the thin gloves provided enough of a barrier between her skin and that of another, and she wasn’t going to risk him by touching him or letting him touch her.
“I cannot slow down.” She doubled her pace instead, her gaze fixed on the flat plain that stretched before her.
Thanatos felt as if he was far in the distance there, and gods, she hoped he wasn’t on the other side of a mountain. She would go out of her mind if she had to find a way through a mountain, or had to climb over it.
The sense of urgency she felt constantly built inside her, already felt as if it was ripping her apart. If she delayed any longer, even when she knew it was wise to wait for their forces to join them, she would go insane. She needed to reach Thanatos before it was too late.
Calistos glanced at the delicate blue script that ran down the inside of his forearm, a gift bestowed by Hermes at his birth. Her brother had tried to use that favour mark to create a portal, one that would take her wherever she wanted to go if she focused, but it hadn’t worked.
This wretched realm stopped it from functioning. Stopped her from teleporting. Stopped her from reaching Thanatos.
She hated it more now than ever.
Calindria broke into a run, unable to take it anymore. She had to reach Thanatos. She had to reach that tumbling ruin of a fortress before it was too late. Now that she knew the reason he hadn’t wanted to go near it, she felt terrible for making him touch it. He hadn’t wanted to dredge up his memories of that place.
Her heart ached.
She could only imagine how he felt now, as he was forced to relive those memories all over again. Worse, he had subjected himself to suffer the same awful abuse as he had before, all for her sake.
“Calindria—” Calistos started.
“No,” she snapped and threw a hard look at him. “I will not slow down! Thanatos needs me. He needs me.”
Calistos sobered, the hardness that had been entering his eyes turning to soft warmth as he looked at her, as he kept pace with her. His blond eyebrows furrowed and he nodded, and she could see in his blue eyes that he knew the reason she couldn’t wait, couldn’t slow down. He knew why she desperately needed to reach Thanatos.
He had saved her once, and now she would save him.
She would save him.
The connection she felt to Thanatos grew stronger and she spotted something in the distance, deep in the gloom.
“Is that it?” Calistos glanced at her and then stared at the faint shape.
She nodded and ran harder as it came into focus, the broken torch-lit black walls appearing from the gloom together with something else.
An army.
Calindria skidded to a halt. There were far more warriors than she and Thanatos had fought before, at least three times as many. Her hope wavered as she stared at them all.
They formed a wall around the fortress, a barrier she was going to have to break through in order to reach Thanatos. She wasn’t a fighter. Not really. She placed her hand on the short sword the commander had bestowed upon her, a weapon she wasn’t even sure how to use. Her brother had tried to teach her to fight when they were younger, but he hadn’t exactly known much about it himself at the time, and he’d had to do it in secret. Their father had wanted her far from battlefields, had coddled her and not allowed her to learn to fight as her brothers had.
She drew her sword and it felt heavy in her hands. She stared at it, trying to recall how Thanatos had wielded his, the actions he had made when they had been fighting together. Maybe she was better off relying on her power over nature than a blade. She would use it if anyone got too close to her.
“How are we going to get through all those warriors?” She tried to assess them all, but it was hard from this distance. Her senses said there were many people ahead of her, but she couldn’t tell how many. “I do not think they are an illusion. I can feel them.”
“Some of them might be. Won’t know until you stick them with a sword.” Calistos frowned at them, his pale eyebrows drawing down, and the tips of his ponytail fluttered gently in the breeze that began to build around them. “There’s only one good way to fight.”
He glanced at her.
“Together.”
He cracked a smile when she frowned at him.
“I do not think I will be good with this.” She pulled a face at the sword.
Calistos took it from her and inspected it, and then shoved the tip of it into the ground. “Forget the sword. You’re a kickass goddess. I’m guessing they’re regular folk. Steel is for them. You just hit them with everything you have.”
He had a strange way of speaking at times.
She had the feeling that by everything she had, he was talking about her death touch. That wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t know what would happen if she touched someone and they touched another while they were turning to ashes. It might spread to that person and so on, and so on.
And eventually it would reach her brother.
So no, she wouldn’t be hitting them with everything she had.
But she would hit them with half of what she had.
Her power over nature.
That would be her sword and her shield.
“Ready?” Calistos glanced at her and drew down a deep breath.
The breeze picked up.
Calindria nodded. “Ready.”
She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. The last fight she had been in against these warriors had been terrifying enough, but she had the feeling this one would be far worse. If all those males she could see weren’t illusions, something her connection to nature was telling her was true, then they had a real battle on their hands. She could only hope that the commander would bring the army they needed sooner rather than later, because there was no way in this world she could wait for him.
The darkness within her seethed and raged, prowled beneath her skin and goaded her into attacking those who stood between her and her god of death.
Calindria surrendered to it.
Her last thought before it overtook her and stole control was a prayer that she would come back from stepping into the abyss and letting her darker side take the helm.
She kicked off, launching herself towards the wall of warriors that surrounded the old black stone fortress, leaving Calistos behind as she rapidly closed the distance between her and her target. Ahead of her, vines burst from the ground, arcing high into the air before they thundered downwards again to pierce the earth, moving like great serpents.
Calindria sensed it the moment the males noticed her approach, felt the wave of tension that rushed through them and knew they were gearing up to fight her. She focused on the vines and the first line of defence, tried to shun the pleasure that rolled through her when the sharp black spears shot from the ground and impaled two of the warriors, and injured another six. The vines rocketed from the ground in a wave that rippled outwards in both directions, tearing along the frontlines, filling the humid air with the bellows of the warriors.
Other warriors hollered orders, and the males were quick to form groups, to hack and slash at her vines.
A group of a dozen males came at her, charging across the flat ground.
They flew backwards before they could reach her, toppling another group as they struck them, and she glanced off to her right at her brother. Calistos’s eyes swirled like a summer storm as he cast his hand forwards, unleashing another wave of wind at a section of the wall of males, scattering them and sending several of them tumbling through the air. They screamed as they hit the high crumbling wall of the fortress.
Those screams were joined by high keening shrieks that chilled her blood.
“Keres.” She lunged for Calistos, afraid for him even though neither of them were bleeding, and caught herself at the last moment, before she made contact.
“Well, fuck,” he muttered and raised his hand. A vortex formed beside him, causing his hair to stream towards it. It tore at her too as it sucked the dirt surrounding it into it, turning it black.
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