green eyes searched hers as his blond eyebrows drew down, narrowing them.
“I will not take you to the palace.” Those words leaving his lips came close to breaking her hold on the darkness as it writhed and hissed in response, goading her into attacking him. He looked her over again and added, “I will bring someone from the palace here to speak with you though.”
She wanted to fall on her knees and thank him for that, but forced herself to remain standing, not wanting to appear weak. A child of Hades would never act in such a way, and she didn’t want him changing his mind about her and deciding not to help her.
He disappeared.
Leaving her with the other soldiers. They all gawped at her now, exchanging muttered comments about her that were hard to ignore. She knew she didn’t look like a child of Hades, that her appearance wasn’t befitting of her status, but she hadn’t exactly been staying in a luxury abode for the last six centuries.
She flexed her fingers beneath her arms, a restlessness growing inside her as she waited. Who would the male bring to her? She imagined it would be another soldier, perhaps someone higher in the ranks than himself, or possibly even her oldest brother.
The male who had first laughed at her and had called her a beggar cast her another look that said he hadn’t changed his mind about her—he still thought she was a pauper, or someone trying to trick her way into getting close to Hades.
She glared at him, on the verge of putting him in his place.
But then awareness arced down her spine, a lightning bolt that struck her hard and shook her as a sense of power swept around her. The hairs on her nape and arms rose on end and she couldn’t breathe, told herself she had to be imagining it.
It couldn’t be.
Tears filled her eyes as she felt that heart-wrenchingly familiar power.
Heard a voice she had believed she would never hear again.
“What’s all this about anyway?”
She slowly turned towards the owner of that light voice, laced with a teasing note he never had been quite able to erase, even when he was trying to sound serious.
Swallowed hard as her gaze fell on him.
Her left hand shook as she covered her mouth with it, as her eyebrows furrowed and her heart drummed harder.
“Gods,” she whispered against her palm, still unable to believe her eyes.
He froze and his stormy blue eyes darted to her, and an unfelt breeze teased the tips of his blond ponytail as he stared at her.
Looking as shocked and overwhelmed as she felt.
Calistos swallowed hard and took an unsteady step towards her, his mouth falling open as his fair eyebrows knitted hard and a stunned look entered his eyes as they brightened like a summer’s sky.
“Calindria?” he breathed and swallowed again, looked as if he didn’t know what to do.
Or maybe he didn’t know what to believe.
She did.
Thanatos hadn’t been lying to her. Her twin was alive. He was alive and as grown as she was, had become a handsome male, much taller than she had expected.
His eyes filled with tears.
The ones that had been in hers slipped down her cheeks as she smiled shakily, trying to show him that it really was her. She couldn’t find her voice as all the hurt she had nurtured over the last six centuries fell away and warmth and light swept into the void it left behind, filling her and lifting her up. Tears blinded her as emotions whirled inside her, tearing down her strength, making everything that had happened to her roll up on her now.
She had thought she would never see him again.
And while Thanatos had told her that he was taking her back to her family, a part of her had refused to believe it would really happen.
The way Calistos looked at her, as if she was a ghost, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing either, made something else Thanatos had told her hit home.
Her family hadn’t abandoned her.
They had thought her dead.
Her twin had thought her dead.
That feeling grew when Calistos whispered, “Thanatos found you.”
Gods, she wanted to hurl herself into his arms and sob against his chest as he stood there, still as a statue while she wept, her feelings out of control now, sweeping her up in a maelstrom that was too powerful for her to fight.
But she couldn’t and it killed her.
She couldn’t risk it, feared she would