hurt him if she did, even if she didn’t touch him with her hands.
She sniffled and swallowed, fought back her tears, aware of everyone staring at them. The moment her eyes left his and darted to the males watching her, Calistos’s eyes darkened and he growled at them all, baring fangs.
The soldiers were quick to leave, herding everyone away from them and giving them some privacy.
His eyes met hers again, a corona of crimson around his pupils that faded as he stared at her, as he stood there trembling as badly as she was.
He shook his head. “How is this possible?”
He reached out to her and she backed off. Hurt crossed his handsome face and she wanted to lay her hand on him to soothe him.
She settled for explaining herself instead. “I have a power. One born of death. If I touch anyone, they die… except Thanatos. Thanatos is immune to it. I don’t know how to control it. I wish I did. I want to hold you so badly. I want to touch you and know you are real.”
“Are you real?” he murmured thickly.
She nodded. “I am.”
“But I saw you die.” He leaned his head back slightly and frowned at her, conflict shining in his eyes now. “I saw it. I felt it. It was my fault.”
“No.” She shook her head again. “You died. I saw it. All these centuries I thought you gone… I have been dreaming up ways to save your soul.”
His blue eyes widened, shock dancing in them, but then darkness crossed his face again. “An illusion. We were both shown an illusion, one powerful enough to convince us.”
“An illusion… Only I do not think my death was a lie.” She looked at her hands. “I did die, but I am alive.”
He growled now. “The necromancer. He said he was holding your soul and we would never find it. It wasn’t hidden in a vessel somewhere. He put it back in you.”
That wasn’t comforting at all. She prodded her chest. She was dead then, but had been resurrected, which was why her soul had never crossed over and why she had never passed into the veil. The necromancer must have restored her soul as soon as he had killed her, using her death to sever the bond between her and Calistos and make her death seem real to him.
Just as it had made his death seem real to her.
Even as close to her as he was now, she only felt a faint sense of the bond they had once shared.
“I must take you home.” He stepped towards her.
She backed off and shook her head, panic lancing her at the thought of leaving Thanatos in the hold of that female for any longer than she already had. She wasn’t ready to face her family yet either. Seeing Calistos had been overwhelming enough. She could only imagine how she would feel when she saw everyone else, and she couldn’t do it alone. She needed Thanatos beside her when it happened.
“There is no time. The enemy has Thanatos. I have to save him. He surrendered to them to protect me and now I fear he is in grave danger, Calistos.” It was strange saying her brother’s name again, and the look in his blue eyes said it had felt just as strange for him to hear it.
Her heart beat faster as she thought about Thanatos, as she kept fighting the images that wanted to pop into her head. Nothing would happen to him. She would find him somehow. But how? She didn’t know where the demigoddess had taken him, and he had spent years trying to find her in that realm. She didn’t even have wings to help her cover the ground more quickly.
And what if the female hadn’t taken him anywhere in that realm?
What if he was somewhere else?
Panic mounted inside her, making her hands shake. She cursed Thanatos as she realised that he had known there was a danger the enemy would take him somewhere she wouldn’t be able to find him, but he had gone through with it anyway, sacrificing himself to save her.
Was he out there now, thinking she wouldn’t come to save him?
Well, she was going to prove him wrong if he was. Nothing was going to stop her from finding him and rescuing him.
“Where do they have him?” Calistos stepped up to her, a breeze swirling around him, rustling his strange clothing.
He wore what looked like a drab, thin off-green tunic that only