What had he done?
Any moment now, darkness would mar his skin, and it would turn to ashes before her eyes.
He carried her over the flat land and gently set down with her.
Any moment now.
He released her and stepped back. “I could not let you fall.”
“And you damned yourself because of it.” She pivoted to face him, grief and horror combining to make her words come out hard and desperate, together with fear of what she would see.
By now, the darkness would be blooming on his arms, his hands, possibly even his chest since he had pressed it against her.
She stilled. Only there was no darkness. Not even a trace of black skin on him anywhere.
She felt empty inside as she stared at him, as she waited, sure that it was only taking longer to manifest, that he would succumb to her power soon, unable to dare to hope that he was somehow immune to it.
“Damned myself?” Thanatos looked himself over, his black eyebrows meeting hard, and then lifted his head and settled his gaze on her. “I am sorry I touched you. The alternative was unacceptable to me though. I will not do it again.”
She was too busy staring at his body to take in what he was saying, waiting for that terrible black stain to appear and his skin to char.
Waiting.
“Is something wrong with me?” He looked himself over again, silver eyes holding a confused edge.
“No,” she breathed and frowned, shook her head as she marvelled at that. “It should… When I touched the guard… his skin… it…”
She almost fell to her knees as her breath leaked from her, as it finally sank in that she had touched Thanatos but she hadn’t harmed him.
“Calindria, you are not making any sense.”
She knew that, was deeply aware of it as well as his gaze as she closed the gap between them, needing to be sure. His gaze tracked her, his frown returning as she reached for his hand. Her fingers shook, fear rising to attempt to overwhelm and stop her, but she pushed onwards, gathering her courage along the way.
When her fingers brushed his, a shiver chased up her arm, and Thanatos tensed, as if he had felt it too.
“What is this all about?” He snatched his hand back, flexed his fingers into a fist, and she had the feeling he was stopping her from touching him again.
She raised her eyes to his, her sense of wonder swift to fade a little when blue fire glared back at her, the sculpted planes of his face set in hard, harsh lines. She had the feeling the look he was giving her wasn’t because he wanted answers. It was because she had touched him.
This time, he was the one who backed off, placing more distance between them as he growled at her. “Tell me.”
She straightened her spine, erecting a wall around herself again, one she hoped was as thick and impenetrable as the one that surrounded him. It didn’t stop the hurt from lashing at her as she lined up the words, forced to remember what she had done.
“I touched the guard and… darkness… or something like it spread from the point where I had laid my hands on his arms.” She wrapped her arms around herself as she thought about it. “It was like… tendrils… a living thing. He screamed… He sounded so pained… and I ran. I ran and I… didn’t want to look back.”
“I found two bodies. Both looked as if they had been burned to ashes… or like a corpse that had withered away.” He canted his head and his expression lost some of its hardness as he studied her.
She felt sick, held herself a little tighter. “I only touched one guard. The other was at the camp.”
She didn’t want to think about the implications of what Thanatos had told her, cursed him when he put voice to it.
“Whatever you did to the one guard must have spread to the other when he came to his aid.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed the bile that rose up her throat, pressed her fingers into her arms and tried to hold herself together.
Thanatos took a step towards her, but she shook her head and countered him, moving one back as she opened her eyes and threw him a pleading look, silently asking him not to get close to her.
“This is why you were so adamant I kept my distance.” His now-silver eyes searched hers. “Because you thought that would happen to me too.”
“I don’t understand why it didn’t.” She peeled her hands away from her arms and stared at them, turning her palms upwards as her brow furrowed. “Is it something I can switch on and off?”
“It is possible.” Those three words offered her comfort, rolled over her and calmed her, easing her fears. She lifted her gaze to meet his again as he took a step towards her, didn’t move back one this time, not even when he came within touching distance. His eyes fell to her hands. “I do not think you know how to control it yet.”
She swallowed hard again. “If I can’t control it… does that mean I only switched it off this time and if I touch you again, I might—”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Thanatos shook his head, his look grave as he raised his eyes and locked them on hers. “I think the reason you did not hurt me is because I am the god of death. Death is who I am, and what your touch brings. I think you cannot hurt me because of that… because our powers are similar. We are similar.”
She liked the sound of that as much as he looked as if he did, which was to say she didn’t like it at all.
She only vaguely remembered who she had been once, as if it was someone else’s life, but she did recall that Thanatos was right about her. She had never been sombre as he was. She had been filled with light and life, with laughter.
Some part of her had been certain she would learn to be that way again once she had escaped and fulfilled her mission, and had found her own bright corner of the world to live in.
Now, she feared this darkness that lived inside her was here to stay, wasn’t something she could slowly erase, replacing it with light again.
And she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like the thought of being of death, like Thanatos.
She didn’t like the thought of killing everyone and everything that came into contact with her.
One of those things she couldn’t control.
The other she could.
Resolve flowed through her, buoying her, raising her spirits again. She would learn to control her power, only she couldn’t do it alone. She would need someone to teach her. Someone who was familiar with this power she wielded.
And what better tutor was there than the god of death himself?
But asking Thanatos to help her with this meant taking a leap of faith. It meant doing something she had decided she would never do again.
It meant trusting someone.
She stared into his silver eyes, losing herself a little in them.
Could she trust Thanatos?
Something deep in her heart warned her not to, whispered that trusting him would only end with her getting hurt, because this gorgeous warrior before her was like her in more ways than he would admit.
He trusted no one.
That was about to change.
And she would be the one to do it.
Chapter 7
Thanatos had lost track of time. Lost track of their location. Lost track of everything but the female marching ahead of him, picking her way through the sea of blackened trees that covered the ground of the long snaking cavern. He flexed his fingers. Curled them. Stretched them. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since they had entered this strange dead forest. Wasn’t sure how long it had been since Calindria had revealed the real reason she feared him being close to her. Wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had felt as if his entire world had been tilted on its head.