Thanatos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 8

by Felicity Heaton

  “Where are we going?” His stormy eyes locked with hers, the breeze that swept around him tousling her hair too, and she was glad he was on her side, wasn’t going to make her go back to the palace or suggest she wait somewhere safe while he dealt with the threat to Thanatos.

  He had always had her back.

  So had Thanatos.

  She remembered what he had said to her.

  I will meet you at the castle.

  She had thought he had meant his castle, but he had said the castle.

  Hope sparked inside her.

  “I know where he will be.”

  And she feared she would be too late.

  Chapter 28

  Thanatos blinked hard, trying to clear the salty sting of sweat from his eyes. He lifted his hand, fighting the heavy weight of the thick shackle that bound it, and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping the beads of moisture away. His entire body felt as if it was on fire and shook so badly that he was surprised he was still standing.

  Sickness brewed in his stomach, churning it to acid as he stood in the middle of a large room lit by torches that flickered brightly against the black stone. His hand fell to his side, his muscles trembling from the strain of lifting his arm for so long. The world swirled again and he blinked faster, trying to stop it from whirling into darkness as it had around an eternity ago.

  He had woken in this room, shackled by cuffs made of the metal of Olympus, unbreakable even if he had been at full strength and not ravaged by the drug.

  Captive again.

  He swallowed thickly and twitched, wanted to scrub at his burning chest to rid it of the irritating feel of sweat, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate. The shackles weren’t his cage. His own damned body was.

  The sound of water sloshing pulled a growl from his lips.

  The silver-haired female bathing in a large wooden tub before him, her back to a roaring fire, smiled slowly as she scooped water over her bare body, causing some of the rose petals that floated on the surface to stick to her skin. He was meant to be watching her, and he was, but not in the way she wanted.

  He watched her as a prey animal would watch a predator. Wary. Nervous. Waiting for the moment she struck.

  She angled her head to her right and moaned as she swept water over her neck and it cascaded down her breasts, a blatant attempt to get him to look at them. As if her curves could inflame him.

  He could think only of Calindria as he stood in the middle of the room, long thick chains tethering him to a point ten feet behind him, anchoring him to the strong metal posts of the bed there.

  Had she managed to escape or had the demigoddess betrayed him as expected and her men had already placed his little goddess back into a cage?

  He wanted to rage at the thought she might be captive again, that all this might be for nothing, but he didn’t have the strength. All he could do was stare at the female before him. His fingers twitched and flexed, and his right eye burned. He rubbed it, didn’t care as the manacle beat against his face, he just wanted the damn burning to stop. He wanted to quench the flames that consumed him. Sweat rolled down his spine and his own rough breaths filled the silence as the demigoddess paused to rake her eyes down him, the heat in them sickening him.

  Scaring him.

  His head turned again and the trembling worsened, racked his body and made his knees weak beneath him. He scrubbed at his chest, scratched and clawed at it as his heart thundered. Gods, he just needed to quench this fire.

  He knew what would stop it.

  The fever would break if he just surrendered to the drug.

  No.

  He swallowed and shook his head, frowned and gritted his teeth. He couldn’t. He had to be strong. He had to keep fighting. He couldn’t let this bitch get her way, not again, and not only because the shame he’d had to live with for centuries would be made all the worse, and he would never want to see another living soul again.

  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.

  She tossed the blade aside and stroked his cheek as he struggled to breathe, as the fire consumed him and burned his will to ashes. He leaned into her touch, savouring the coolness of it, aching to draw her against him so her flesh would touch his elsewhere and quench the fire.

  He weakly growled at that, shook his head and tried to shut down the urges running rampant through him.

  He didn’t want this female. She couldn’t sate this need inside him. Only Calindria could.

  But he couldn’t stop her from caressing his chest, could only stand there and stare blankly at her as he waged an internal war, fighting to overcome the drug as it ravaged his defences.

  “Last time we did this, I was under orders,” she cooed and sidled closer to him, angling her head back to keep her eyes locked with his. “This time, I’ll be doing it for pleasure.”

  “Under orders?” His tongue felt too thick for his mouth, his words distant and wobbling in his ears.

  She smiled slowly and walked her fingers down his chest. “You didn’t know? I was chosen, told that if I spawned the breed needed for their plans that I would receive this realm, and I did.”

  He tried to growl, thought he managed it, but no sound left his lips.

  She was with the enemy, just as he had suspected. She had held Calindria caged here for six centuries, had been responsible for not only her torment but her death too. A necromancer had been the one to kill his little goddess, and now he suspected a necromancer had brought her back too. That was why she felt different to him. Alive, but not alive.

  But what had happened to Calindria hadn’t only been this demigoddess’s fault. It had been his too. He had been weak and had given her what she wanted, was just as responsible for spawning the wretched necromancer breed. It was his fault Calindria had died and had been brought back, and had been caged for centuries, forced to endure a terrible life of torture.

  “I have been well rewarded for my service.” She smiled a little wider and raked her violet eyes over him. “Well, now, I shall be well rewarded.”

  She wouldn’t be. He would see to that.

  “You killed her,” he croaked, fighting the effects of the drug, desperate to make the most of how talkative the female was. “But she is not dead… family saw a body…”

  Each word was an effort that drained him, but it seemed enough to convey what he wanted to ask.

  She stroked patterns on his chest and he let her. He would endure almost anything to keep her compliant and liable to tell him things he wanted to know, things that might benefit Calindria. Not only Calindria. If he could convince this female to talk more, she might tell him something that would prove valuable to Hades too.

  “Oh, they saw a body. They saw what we wanted them to see. And you are right. The goddess is no longer dead. She was resurrected the moment Calistos blacked out and teleported elsewhere.” Harleena kissed his chest, stroked her tongue over his flesh, and he reined in the urge to slap her away, forced himself to endure her touch.

  Hated that it wasn’t really a feat, that he withstood it too easily as the drug stoked the fire inside him, made him ache for her hands on his flesh. Not her hands. Any hands. He just wanted relief and she just happened to be here. He didn’t care about her, didn’t really want her. He just needed someone to quench the fire, to satisfy this lust that gripped him like a fever that refused to break.

  Thanatos swallowed thickly and fought the wretched needs that wracked him, struggled to focus on what he had been doing before the feel of her hands on him had caused his mind to wander off track.

  Calindria. Her death. Her captivity. This bitch’s role in it.

  He had been right. Calindria had died and had been resurrected before her soul could pass through the veil, which meant her soul was intact. She was as much alive as he was, as any of her brothers were. Her death had been a clever illusion, lasting just long enough for her whole family to feel it and for her bond with Calistos to be weakened, making her appear as if she was dead.

  “Why are you so interested in this goddess?” She searched his eyes and he hid his feelings from her, aware that if she saw them then she would no longer talk to him, would know what he was plotting.

  He distracted her by shifting his hands forwards, brushing her bare sides. Heat bloomed in her eyes, dilating her pupils, and she inched closer to him, went back to kissing his chest. His stomach turned, but he swallowed the bile that rose into his throat and made himself keep his hands on her when what he really wanted to do was wrench them away from her disgusting flesh and strike her.

  “Her parents buried a body.” He knew he had sounded far too like his normal self when she frowned at him and then glanced at the blade she had discarded.

  Her drug was still working its way into his system, but he had taken great pains to build up a tolerance of toxins over the centuries since she had last held him captive. Every year he subjected himself to several rounds of being poisoned by various drugs by his golems, maintaining a certain level of resistance.

  He distracted her again by gently pressing his thumbs into her bare stomach and rubbing it, teasing her with a touch that repulsed him and aroused her judging by how hazy her violet eyes grew.

  “A serving wench.” She smiled languidly and ran her hands over his chest and down his stomach, traced the ridges of muscles that arched over his hips and led downwards towards his groin. “It was easy enough to make her appear to be someone else.”

  “An illusion.” He didn’t resist her when she cupped his crotch, weathered it and growled internally at her instead of lashing out at her. “I thought you an illusion too at first. Nothing in this realm seems real.”

  She looked as if she wouldn’t answer that, as if she was holding something back from him, so he dropped his head and brushed his lips across her shoulder, feathered them up to her throat and forced himself to kiss it.

  She moaned and arched against him, and sickness brewed inside him, a thousand curses screaming in his mind as rage poured through him, directed at himself this time. He was betraying Calindria by doing this, even if it was an act.

  He was about to draw back and shove her away when she spoke.

  “Mnemosyne’s doing. This place…” She brushed her breasts against his chest and lifted her left leg, stroking her knee up the outside of his thigh as she hooked an arm beneath his left one and moaned. “Born of her. Corrupted by her.”

  He did growl now, pretended it was one born of pleasure rather than fury by nipping at her neck. He wanted to sink his teeth into it and rip it open, was sorely tempted to surrender to that urge, but killing her would only marginally improve his situation. Guards would come and he would still be shackled, drugged. There was a chance those guards would kill him for slaying their mistress.

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