Perhaps his god-king could fashion them to be more like Thanatos’s servants—loyal, emotionless, powerless. His staff existed to serve him and carried out their duties without question.
Ahead of him, the tunnel opened up again, rapidly doubling in width. He straightened and pressed his hand into his back, arched it and sighed as something popped. He drew down a deep breath and frowned as he swore he caught the scent of a fire. Not the wretched, almost sulphuric smell of the volcanoes that dotted this realm, but the smell of wood burning.
He quickened his pace, his hand falling to his sword again, his black eyebrows pinching together as he strode into the gloom. It grew brighter as he neared the end of the tunnel and his step faltered.
He recognised this place.
His eyes darted around, taking in the stalactite laden ceiling of the enormous cavern, and his steps slowed further as he approached the edge of the broad ledge that jutted out high above the ground on one side of it.
Thanatos drew to a halt near the edge of it, staring at the rusty oval cages suspended from the jagged cavern roof by thick chains.
This was it.
This was what Keras had seen.
His heart beat harder at the thought he was close now, would be able to fulfil his mission for his god-king and would be well rewarded for it.
Thanatos spread his black feathered wings and kicked off, sweeping down into the cavern. He circled the huge dome-shaped space, weaving around spires of rock. His eyes narrowed on each cage he passed. Some were empty. Others contained remains.
None held Calindria.
Or did they?
He hovered before one cage that contained bones and held his hand out, drew down a deep breath and closed his eyes. Images flickered before him, revealing a female but this one a brunette. Not the one he was looking for.
Calindria had golden hair and blue eyes, had been a bright and bubbly little thing when he had last seen her, hanging on the tails of Calistos. She had always hidden behind her twin or her father whenever Thanatos had visited, shyly peeking out at him, ducking back into cover whenever he had looked her way.
He flew to another cage and repeated the process, hoping the rotting corpse wasn’t her. It wasn’t.
Thanatos looked around the cavern, unable to imagine the delicate female in this place, unable to believe she had somehow survived being held here as her brother had said she had. Unsettled by how Keras swore she had felt pain when someone had attacked her with a spear.
Something about that felt wrong.
The dead felt no pain.
Thanatos checked the remaining cages, and even the bones that littered the floor, but none of them were the bright-eyed daughter of Hades. He landed and furled his wings against his bare back, strode towards the scent of wood fire and investigated the camp. It was well lived in, with ancient animal bones piled in one corner together with old blankets and discarded rotting bedding. Around the fire, the bedding was fresh and almost new.
He found evidence of two or possibly three people. Guards for those in the cages? Their tormenters?
Thanatos walked around the wall of rock that shielded the guards’ quarters from the cages and frowned up at them. Where had the guards gone? The fire was still going, but he sensed no life here.
His gaze fell and he frowned as it landed on a cage on its side. He canted his head as he strode to it, as he stooped and touched a dark patch on the ground. Damp. Someone had been in this cage recently.
He stood swiftly. Had it been Calindria? Perhaps they had moved her. He did another sweep of the cavern, searching for more clues, and backtracked when his gaze caught on something. Frowned. He kicked off, beating his wings, swiftly crossing the span of gritty dirt.
Thanatos landed soundlessly, his frown deepening as the turbulence caused by his wings destroyed what he had come to look at before he could investigate it. The two bodies crumbled to ash, swirled and scattered on the breeze. Whoever they had been, they had both been large males. He eyed the spear that lay on the ground near one of them. Guards.
He crouched and held his hand over the ashes, but saw nothing.
Strange.
He looked back at the cage that rested on its side and then at the black ashes again. Had someone killed the guards and made off with Calindria? If they had, they couldn’t have gotten far.
Thanatos spread his wings and beat them, did a lap of the cavern and found only three exits. He checked the opening of each of them, using his senses to see if anyone had entered them recently. The realm dulled them too much for him to make anything out.
He huffed and looked at the ground, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind as he tried to figure out what to do. Which tunnel to pick?
Thanatos tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing on the ground as he spotted something. He walked to it, eased into a crouch and ghosted his fingers over the scuff mark in the dirt, looked around and stilled. Further inside the tunnel was another, only this one had a distinct shape.
A footprint.
It was small, dainty.
Bare.
Feminine.
And the only ones he could see. No one had made off with Calindria, if she had been the one in the cage. She had made off with herself. Had something killed the guards when they had been doing something with her, allowing her to escape?
He rose to his feet and strode into the tunnel, moving as quickly as he could, his senses reaching out around him as he desperately sought a sign of life—a sign this was the right way.
The tunnel opened out again ahead of him and his heart drummed harder against his ribs as he spotted more footprints. This had to be the right way. He drew down a deep breath to focus his senses, honing them in the hope he would be able to sense the owner of those footprints.
Froze as he realised he wasn’t alone.
A female dressed in very little stood in the middle of the cavern with her side to him, gulping water from a dark pouch.
She froze too, her dirty shoulders locking up tightly, her fingers clutching the waterskin. She lowered it from her lips and turned slightly, her matted, filthy blonde hair that reached the small of her back swaying as she came to face him.
As her wide, luminous blue eyes landed on him.
“Calindria,” he breathed, sure it was her, only she was not a little girl as some foolish part of him had expected.
She pressed the pouch to the swell of her chest and stared at him like a prey animal facing a predator, her eyes taking on a wild and almost feral edge.
Thanatos slowly lifted his hands, hoping to calm her.
She broke into a dead run.
Chapter 3
Stopping for water had been a mistake. Her body locked up tight as she grew aware of the fact she wasn’t alone, a shiver traipsing down her spine as she felt eyes on her. She slowly lowered the waterskin from her mouth, twisting slightly towards her company at the same time. Her eyes widened as they fell on him.
He was a mountain of a male, with impossibly silver eyes that seemed to shine like the moon, and huge glossy black feathered wings. His bare chest was cut with muscle, carved from granite, with thick broad slabs for his pectorals and a heavy eight-pack that shifted with each hard breath he drew as he stared at her. His wide shoulders tapered into a narrow waist, the ridges of muscle over his hips leading her eyes downwards to black leathers that hugged powerful long legs.
She lifted her eyes again, and they caught on his left hand, the casual way it rested on the hilt of an enormous sword unsettling her, flooding her with adrenaline and making her hyper-aware of her surroundings.