He lunged for her and grabbed her, his eyes darting around to find an avenue of escape. When he pulled on her arm, intending to lift her into his and carry her, black roots burst from the ground and snaked around her waist, holding her down.
“Dammit, Calindria, I mean you no harm!” He eyed the roots as they banded around her, each as thick as his forearm. He couldn’t cut her out of them with his sword, not without risking striking her or, worse, causing the root to grow barbs as the branches did whenever he severed them.
He looked at the trees, only four feet from her now. Growled when one jabbed him in his back. Waking her was the only option.
Thanatos took a deep breath and covered her with his body, furling his wings in a way that offered some protection to them both. He tried not to think about the fact she was beneath him, that her legs brushed his with each desperate kick she made, or how her breasts pressed to his bare chest as she arched towards him. He planted his elbows above her shoulders and sank down onto them, covered the top of her head with his arms and tucked her to his chest to protect her.
Cried out as the first of the long thorns pierced his flesh, puncturing his left shin. Another stabbed him through his right wing, jabbing deep into his side, the feel of it slowly sliding into him turning his stomach.
They weren’t going to stop.
He had to do something or they would hurt her too. The thought of them doing such a thing ripped a feral growl from him, had cold fire blazing through him.
Thanatos eased back so he could see her face.
Bellowed.
“Wake!”
Chapter 10
Calindria woke with a start, her skin chilled by the sweat that slicked it, her heart racing as she leaped from a nightmare that had seemed so real, to one that definitely was real. Thanatos loomed over her, his enormous body covering her, his face close to hers. His lips pulled taut, a sheen of sweat on his brow as he grimaced, and his eyes were bright blue fire.
What was he doing?
A thought of what he might be intending to do to her exploded in her mind, shaking her.
Fear shot through her and she panicked, shoved her palms to his shoulders and pushed against him, and stopped abruptly when he grunted and blood slid over his left shoulder, a single rivulet of it that beaded by his collarbone and dripped onto her chest, soaking into her top. She stared at the blood as it trickled and spilled, her eyes widening in horror.
Her gaze leaped to his.
Pain shone in his eyes, strain written in every tight line of his face.
“What happened?” she breathed shakily, the fear that had subsided a little quick to rise again as she thought of an answer to that question. They were being attacked. Some terrible beast was attacking them and had hurt Thanatos.
He gritted, “You happened.”
Her eyes widened further. She had happened? She didn’t understand.
“Push back the forest, Calindria,” he snarled and loosed another pained grunt. “It is still trying to kill me.”
Forest? Her eyes darted to her right and she gasped as rather than the log she had pulled into the clearing, she saw twisted sharp brambles and thorns over a foot long right beside her. Her stomach turned, acid bubbling in it as she looked above her, beyond Thanatos, and saw more of those long thick needles crowding the air there, and realised with horror that when she had pushed Thanatos, thinking he meant to do something awful to her, she had shoved him onto one of those sharp spikes.
“Oh gods,” she whispered, panic reigniting in her. “I’m doing this?”
He nodded, his face grim as his left shoulder dropped lower and the rivulet of blood that trailed over it ran faster, splashing onto her chest.
She sucked in a breath as her gaze leaped around. Her brow furrowed as she looked at the spiky black forest that enclosed them on all sides and was getting closer and closer. How was she meant to stop it? The panic mounting inside her reached a crescendo, blurred her thoughts and hurled them together, had her unable to think of a solution.
“Just breathe, Calindria,” Thanatos murmured, and she wasn’t sure how he could be so calm and gentle with her when she was hurting him.
In danger of killing him.
The thought of that happening had the panic suddenly flowing out of her on one breath and calm rushing in to clear her mind on the next.
She closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the forest and Thanatos to stop it from panicking her again, and breathed, seeking calm and focus. This was her power, and that meant she could control it, just as Thanatos believed.
She reached out with her senses and gasped as she felt the forest, as she felt every branch and thorn as if they were part of her. She focused on the area above them, breathing steadily, mentally commanding it to withdraw. Nothing happened. Thanatos grunted again and her face screwed up, the fear returning as she felt the splash of his blood onto her skin.
Calindria shut it down.
Because something dawned on her.
The forest was responding to her fear.
She curled her fingers into fists, clenched and released them, and blew out her breath. Sought calm. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t. Nothing here would hurt her. It still didn’t work, so she tried something else. She opened her eyes and stared into Thanatos’s, lost herself in that bewitching blue fire that shimmered in his irises as he gazed down at her. She focused on how close he was to her, the weight of his body against hers not crushing, or frightening, but… almost delicious.
His face softened as he caged her, as she continued to stare deep into his eyes, as she relaxed beneath him, grateful for his protection and his sacrifice.
She was safe here.
Safe in his arms, held close to him like this.
She didn’t fear this male, this god of death. She lifted her hands, squeezing them between their bodies, and raised them. Thanatos frowned and darted his head to his left, glared at her hands as she brought them to his face. When she cupped his cheeks, he looked at her, his eyes widening.
There wasn’t only pain in them now, or surprise. There was the barest trace of fear, and she didn’t think it was fear for her or for himself. It was fear of her.
A desire to protect him rose within her as she saw that fear and relief bloomed sweetly as the twisted branches above him began to recede. He grimaced, his mouth pulling taut as the thorn slid from his shoulder, and then grunted as more were tugged from his body by the trees as they began to withdraw, slowly at first. They gained speed as that relief grew stronger in her, as the thought that Thanatos was safe now filled her mind and calmed her heart.
Something around her waist slid over her skin and she gasped, looked between their bodies and watched the thick black root unwinding from around her. When she looked back up, the trees had receded completely, were almost back to how they had been. The branches remained longer though, sharp with spikes and heavy with prickly cones of some kind, as if she had done more than manipulate them.
She had brought them back to life and they were ripe with seed now.
Thanatos pushed himself up, grimacing as he eased off her. She scooted out from beneath him, deeply aware of his blood staining her chest, and feeling wretched as he inspected the cut on his shoulder and she noticed it wasn’t the only one he had.
He sank onto his backside and held his shoulder as he looked at her. “I do not suppose you inherited your mother’s power to heal too?”
She felt terrible as she shook her head.
He huffed and stood, another grimace rolling across his handsome face as he peered down at his black leathers, looking at the back of his leg. The guilt churning her stomach only worsened as he hobbled towards the forest, flexing his wings, and she noticed there were holes in them too.
His beautiful wings.
She dropped her gaze to the ground, shame eating at her.
“It is not the first time I have been stabbed. I will heal.” He eased back down onto the ground and she glanced at his wings as he st
That didn’t give her comfort.
She tried not to let everything weigh on her and pull her down into the mire of her thoughts, but it was difficult. Not only had she killed someone by touching them—killed two people in fact—but she had hurt Thanatos with another power she possessed. Was there nothing good about her at all? Was hurting people all she could do?
“Come now.” He gentled his tone again, his deep baritone rolling over her like a calming wave, but this time it didn’t lift her spirits. He sighed softly. “Has anything like this happened before when you have been asleep?”
She was quick to shake her head. Like her power to kill, she hadn’t known she had this dark gift.
“You do sleep then?” He canted his head when she glanced at him.
She nodded this time.
He shrugged and grimaced, held his shoulder. “You just do not want to sleep around me.”
And she felt bad about that, especially now that he had protected her from her own power.
“I do not like to sleep around anyone,” she said, aware that it wouldn’t make things better between them. “Although I suppose I slept around you in the end.”
Had she been too tired to keep going? She hadn’t felt that tired. Normally, she only slept when she had no choice, her body shutting down against her will. She had the vaguest notion she hadn’t chosen to sleep this time either.
“I made you sleep.”
Those words leaving Thanatos’s lips shocked her.
“You made me sleep?” She frowned at him, not quite able to believe it. Some distant memory lurked in the darkness of her mind, and she pursued it, caught it and pulled it to the surface, into the light. “My brother… Keras… has the power to make people sleep.”
“So I have heard.” He inspected his shoulder again, looking for all the world as if he was avoiding looking at her.
“You have that power too.” She felt as if she was fishing again, trying to catch the truth from Thanatos this time rather than a memory.
He didn’t look at her. “Something like that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She hit him with another frown, was on the verge of demanding he answer her when he loosed another long, deep sigh.
“I cannot make others sleep. Only you.” His gaze met hers, a solemn edge to it as he held it.
He feared upsetting her with this knowledge, but there was no need. The more time she spent with him, the more aware she became that he was right about her in many ways, and the more she believed that he was telling her the truth.
She had died.
Only she had been brought back from death before she ever reached the veil. She was sure she would remember such a place if she had been there.
“How do you know you cannot make others sleep?” Calindria pulled a face at the blood staining the blue bandeau she wore. She looked around and found her waterskin, grabbed it and splashed a little of the water on her chest, washing the blood away and even managing to remove some of it from her top. Her gaze drifted back to Thanatos. “Have you tried?”
His black eyebrows knitted hard above silver eyes that held a flicker of blue flames. Perhaps it was merely the reflection of the fire he had started, was tending to by adding more wood to it. Perhaps emotions other than anger made his eyes change and she had much more to learn about him than she had thought.
As she stared into his eyes, those blue flames faded, whatever thought had provoked them clearly leaving his head as he leaned back from the fire, but refused to look at her this time.
“I admit, I have not tried. I have not had any reason to want to compel someone to sleep.” He poked at the fire with a twig, short and sharp jabs that had blue sparks dancing high into the air. His mood was darkening again. She could read it in his face, didn’t need his eyes to change to show her that his thoughts were treading a dangerous path.
Was he upset with her because she hadn’t wanted to sleep around him? Or was his mood blackening for another reason?
“Thanatos?” she murmured, hoping to draw him back from whatever place he was going in his mind, because she liked it when he was calm around her.
He was more talkative then. Better company. She liked being around him when he was like that.
He frowned and blinked, and when he opened his eyes again they were fixed on her. “What powers do you have?”
She shrugged this time. “I do not know. I was captured when Calistos was running his rite of passage, facing the trials. We were both young, around two hundred, so our powers hadn’t truly come into being at that stage. We knew Calistos could control the air, but mine were… Calistos used to tease that I was a slow developer.”
She still recalled her brother as he had been back then, a fresh-faced youth who appeared no older than a teenager in mortal terms. He had been scrawny, just as she had been, not an ounce of muscle on him, and she had worried about him when their father had announced he would face the trial.
She had recklessly decided to follow them deep into the bowels of the Underworld, into a realm where their father couldn’t easily see, one that Calistos would have to navigate his way back from once their father removed the blindfold. She had wanted to help her brother by guiding him home, only in her haste, she had taken a wrong turn somewhere and they had ended up lost.
Captured.
She hugged her knees to her chest again. “Any powers I have, they emerged when I was in the cage. The cage suppresses everything.”
“I think it cloaked you too, making it impossible for anyone to know you were alive.” Thanatos scowled at the trees around them. “I think this realm cloaks everything.”
“Nothing is real here, yet everything is real.” She lowered her gaze to the fire. “I know that doesn’t make sense, but it is the truth. Things here are not what they seem.”
“A realm of lies.” Thanatos tossed his stick onto the fire and leaned back, grimacing only a little this time as he moved his shoulder. It was still enough to have guilt flooding her again. “I have a theory about your powers. You have power over nature, but not nature as your mother controls. Yours is not the power to bring forth life from the dirt.”
She rubbed her knees and said what he wouldn’t. “I bring death.”
He gentled his tone. “That is not a bad thing.”
She lifted her eyes and scowled at him, but there was no anger behind it, only a strange sense of hopelessness, of sorrow that seemed to fill her up inside and weigh her down. “You would say that. You bring death too. What’s it like being the god of death?”
He hiked his shoulders stiffly, his face settling in placid lines that held a hint of pride, an expression that looked a lot like a mask to her, one worn to cover some serious hurt. “I am respected.”
Calindria read the other meaning in that word. He was feared.
“Do you have many friends?” She pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling of the cavern, barely making out a few of the heavy spikes of rock that clung to it. The darkness was strong here. “I think I had friends once, but I do not remember. My brothers were my friends… perhaps.”
Maybe she had wanted to have friends. She had a notion she had tried to make some once, but it hadn’t gone well. As soon as they had learned who her father was, they had avoided her.
Thanatos gruffly bit out, “I have no need of friends. I have siblings.”
“Your twin. Hypnos.”
He glared at the fire. “I have not seen him in some time now. We drifted apart.”
And it looked as if he regretted it, felt guilty about it for some reason.
“Did something happen between you?” She refused to stop questioning him when he turned his glare on her.
“Something happened, but not between us. It is my fault, and I do not wish to speak of it.” Blue fire swallowed the silver in his irises, the sense of darkness he constantly emitted growing stronger as his mouth set in a hard line and his black eyebrows drew down into a deep frown. “It is not your business.”
“Very well. I will not press you to talk of it. Do you have other siblings? You mentioned them in plural.”
He nodded and averted his gaze.
“I have many siblings. Erebus often summons my mother for… disgusting things. She bears him many children, as if the ones she has are not enough. So you see, I have no need for friends when I cannot escape my constantly expanding family. Still… sometimes, family is enough. Family can be trusted…” He scoffed and chuckled in a cold, empty way. “I was mistaken in that. Even family cannot be trusted.”
The way he stood and brushed his backside down warned her that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and that he wasn’t speaking about his twin or how they had drifted apart this time. Had his other siblings betrayed him in some way? She wanted to know about that, just as she wanted to know why he felt guilty about his relationship with his twin, Hypnos.
Why he felt responsible for what had happened between them.
Why he regretted it.
And why he couldn’t trust anyone.
Chapter 11
Calindria didn’t push Thanatos for answers, didn’t have the heart to press him to tell her more about himself and the things that had happened between him and Hypnos, and his family. She stood and watched as he kicked dirt over the fire and scattered the logs, covering their tracks, and searched for another topic of conversation, determined to keep him talking now.
She had been alone too long, had thought she had been happy that way, that she didn’t need anyone anymore, but spending time with Thanatos had opened her eyes. She had been lonely, and now she craved company, wanted to talk for the first time in centuries, wanted to know everything she had missed and all the things she had forgotten.
No, she didn’t just crave company. Not anyone could satisfy this need inside her. She craved Thanatos’s company. The sound of his bass voice teasing her ears. The brush of his gaze over her. The way he constantly watched out for her. A craving that felt dangerous, but too right to deny.
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