did, she would hurt him. It wasn’t only fear of harming him that had her backing away from him though. She didn’t know him, which meant she certainly wasn’t about to trust a word he said to her, or believe that he was here to free her.
She had heard all that before.
“You are like the others,” she growled, glaring up at him as she eased onto her knees, as she tucked the waterskin close to her and remained in a crouch, ready to run. “They came to my cages… offered to free me… bargained with me. They made me believe I would escape… and instead they had led me to another cage.”
There, they had laughed at her, shattering her spirit as they had easily overwhelmed her, too strong for her to fight.
This brute looked just as strong, if not stronger, than those males had been, and the cruel edge to his expression as his lips twisted and his black eyebrows knitted hard, narrowing his silver eyes, said he would laugh just as viciously at her weakness, at how gullible she had been.
“Calindria—” he started and then closed his eyes and planted a large hand to his brow.
His hand fell away from his face and his shoulders rose in a sigh that lifted his furled wings too. When he opened his eyes, there was a flicker of blue fire in his silver irises, and she sensed a shift in his power. Shuffled further away from him when he held his hand out, palm facing her. She eyed it suspiciously.
There was something dark about this male.
Something dangerous.
His dark eyebrows pinched in another hard frown as he studied the distance she was placing between them, as he lifted his silver gaze to pin it back on her.
“I swear, I am not here for a nefarious reason, Calindria.” He lowered his hand and eased back, his enormous body relaxing at the same time. The danger and darkness he radiated fell away, that change in power she felt falling away with it.
He was trying to appear unthreatening. Something which was impossible given his size and his appearance.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” She flexed her fingers around the water, attempting to ignore her thirst, how she wanted the sweet quenching taste of it flowing over her tongue to soothe her and restore her strength.
“Calindria?” He frowned at her, a curious edge to his silver eyes. “Because it is your name. You cannot be anyone other than the one I was sent to find.”
Someone had sent this formidable male to find her? She scoffed at that. She had been held captive for what she was sure was centuries. If someone had wished to find her, they would have done so long before now.
“Calindria.” She rolled that name around her tongue, frowning as she tried to figure out whether it felt familiar because he kept saying it or because it was her name. She stared into his eyes, seeking the truth in them. “And who are you that you know this name that is meant to be mine?”
His chin rose almost imperceptibly, a slight upwards tilt that spoke of pride, and belief in his strength and his reputation. “Thanatos, god of death, loyal servant of your father, Hades.”
“Hades,” she murmured. She had heard that name before, muttered by the guards in fear.
It evoked an image in her mind, one of a tall black-haired male with ashen skin and blue eyes who had been ruthless towards others, but had always had a smile for her.
She pushed away from that image, sure it was an illusion. This realm was filled with lies. She glanced at Thanatos. He was probably an illusion too, constructed by this realm to torment her now she had escaped, designed to weaken her and slow her enough that the guards could catch up with her and recapture her.
“Leave, Thanatos, god of death. I do not require your help.” She rose onto her feet and strode past him, ignoring the way he glared at her, his face blacker than the darkness that lived within her.
“No.” He reached for her as she passed him, attempted to seize her arm but she was quick to dodge his hand, placing herself beyond his grasp. “My mission is to save you and I will not fail my god-king.”
His god-king.
Hades.
Something clicked into place in her memories, made her feel certain of something from her past.
Hades was her father.
The very male the guards had spoken of in fear and this male