Releasing The Gods (The Titan's Saga #1)- Leia Stone Page 0,28

of your body touched the box?” he asked softly, those words threaded with undercurrents of danger.

I gulped. “Uh, my hair.”

Gold burned brightly through his blue irises. “Human, seriously? You may have just ended the world!”

#NotOnMyBuckletList

“There must be something we can do,” I shrieked.

Cronus was looking around the room then, but the grim set of his features told me everything. “Without my brothers and sisters, or the box, the sins are too powerful for me to contain alone.” He muttered a few more phrases, not in English. “The sins should not have been here,” he finally snapped. “They were contained in their own, undetectable chamber deep under the ocean. Far from the Greek gods. Fucking Zeus!”

I swallowed hard, trying to find some moisture in my dry mouth. “Apparently not that undetectable.”

Cronus’ chest rumbled, low growls falling from his lips, and I decided to shut the fuck up. He was not in the mood.

“We need to leave before they finish the first part of their manifestation,” he said, his eyes falling to the necklace again and then to the menacing creatures forming from the blackness. “There’s only one option left to save the world.”

One. One wasn’t many. That wasn’t nearly enough to save the world. I would have felt okay with a hundred options. Even fifty would have been doable. But one. Like … one...

Maybe he just forgot the hundred part. Yep. I was going with that theory.

At this stage, the black swirl closest to me had started to form some real distinct features: a tall man, with burnt orange skin, black hair, and glowing green eyes. His face was handsome and strong. That jaw could probably knock down a brick wall, and his nose was defined and flawless. If he wasn’t some crazy sin ready to break my favorite world, I might have checked him out harder. As it was, I barely had time to see any of the others before Cronus latched on to my arm, dragging me out of the room. We went back the same way we had come, away from the black curtain, and I got the sense that no one could just god their way behind that curtain.

“Move faster,” he said with a huff, and I started to pump my legs as hard as I could.

“Do you know the signs of a collapsed lung?” I wheezed a minute later as we left the entrance.

I really couldn’t breathe. I mean, this was why I didn't run. #NotRocketScience

Thankfully, the moment we were free of the volcano cave of horrors, Cronus snatched me up, and then the almost familiar darkness wrapped around us, and I was yanked out of New Zealand.

Within minutes, we were back in Thanatos’s realm. “Your powers are returning fast,” I said breathlessly.

Cronus, so grim-faced that I barely recognized him, didn’t even look at me.

“Thanatos!” he roared, the ground shaking in the wake of his anger.

Within seconds, the sex on legs god appeared, his brow wrinkled. “What’s with the yelling?” he asked cheerily. “This is a place of rest.”

Cronus was beyond reason. His eyes were shimmering with godly power, his hands clenched in front of him. “Why did you not tell me that Pandora’s Box had been moved there? To Zeus’ cave?”

For the first time since I’d seen the god of the underworld, he looked … uneasy. “It’s common knowledge. Zeus spent eight hundred years tracking the box. It was his greatest achievement to have it as part of his collection.”

Cronus roared, and Thanatos actually flinched, before he fell into a defensive stance.

“I have been locked away,” Cronus finally said. “There was no way for me to know. And you sent me there with Selene’s lineage. They’re drawn to the fucking sins. They always have been.”

Thanatos lurched forward, and apparently he wasn’t as scared of me as he was of Cronus, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and jerking me closer. “What is this necklace?” he asked, shaking me a little, eyes wide. “You were not supposed to touch anything.”

I tried to wrench myself free, but I had as much strength as a fly against him.

Turned out I didn't have to worry about it though, as Thanatos went flying a moment later, and another set of huge hands closed around my biceps, these ones gentler.

“Don’t touch my human,” the Titan bit out, pulling me back into his chest.

I tried really hard not to let my heart beat out of my chest, even though it felt like it wanted to. What a shame the world was ending.