her heart.
They were more than the perfect match, more than made for each other.
He was the other half of her soul.
And for the first time in centuries, she felt whole again.
She drew back and looked up into silver eyes that shone with endless affection.
“I love you, Calindria.” He smoothed his fingers across her cheek, the corners of his broad mouth twitching into the semblance of a smile.
“Can I see your castle now?” She sidled closer to him, itching to be alone with him, doing her best to ignore the feel of her father’s glare as it shifted from her and evidently landed on Thanatos judging by how he tensed.
Although, it might have been for different reasons.
“I need… a week… make it a few months.” He pulled a face at the building to his left. “My castle is no palace. Renovations will be needed to make it suitable for you.”
She laughed at that, because he looked as if he was talking about making it more comfortable, and she had just spent over five hundred years in a cage. Comfort wasn’t exactly important to her.
“I don’t care. As long as you have heat, food and a place to sleep, it will be fine with me. The only thing I care about is being with you.” She stroked his chest again, loving the flicker of blue fire her touch ignited in his irises, and the fact she could see his resolve buckling.
“Did she just say a place to sleep?” Hades muttered. “She means her own bed I presume?”
“Oh, my love, do stop being such a prude,” Persephone softly admonished. “She is grown now. My little flower, all grown up.”
Ares uttered, “I think her flower is missing, stolen by Thanatos.”
She blushed at that. Her father growled. Thanatos looked ready to murder her brother.
“I’d like to go home now.” She rushed the words out, part of her eager to be alone with him and the rest desperate to get away from her family before a fight broke out.
“Home,” Thanatos echoed, and his eyes lit up in a way she found she loved.
He liked that she had called his castle her home.
He wrapped his arms around her, tensed again when her father spoke.
“I expect you at Tartarus within the hour, Thanatos. As soon as my daughter is settled.”
The banked heat in her god’s eyes said that he would be doing more than getting her settled as soon as they were away from her father. An hour seemed like both a heavenly amount of time and not nearly enough for the things she wanted to do to Thanatos, or the things the wicked edge to his gaze said he wanted to do to her.
“Clock is ticking,” she whispered. “Don’t you have a mission to complete?”
Thanatos frowned down at her.
“You swore you would get me home.” She smiled into his eyes. “Take me home, Thanatos.”
Thanatos growled, swept her up into his arms and into a teleport.
She was quick to look around her as they landed, her eyes darting over the limited furniture in the large dark-walled room. The need to explore the castle that was her new home died as her gaze landed on a large black four-poster bed and the clock in her mind ticked faster, counting down the minutes she had before Thanatos had to leave her again.
She would explore the castle later.
She gripped the waist of Thanatos’s black leathers and tugged him towards the bed. Right now, she wanted to explore him. She twisted with him when she reached it and pushed him backwards. He fell onto the high mattress, his onyx wings blending with the silk sheets as he stared up at her, heat and hunger in his flickering blue eyes.
Calindria growled at just the sight of him.
His lips curled into a smile and stole her heart all over again.
Her hero. Her boyfriend.
She pounced on him and he caught her, chuckled as he wrapped his arms around her and rolled with her, pinning her beneath him. He stilled and stared down at her, warming her from head to toe, making her heart feel fit to burst.
He was the other half of her soul.
The only male in this world for her.
Her light. Her love. Her everything.
She pulled her gloves off and framed his face with her palms.
Her perfect match.
Her gorgeous god of death.
Hers.
Her darker side growled.
And gods help anyone who tried to take him from her.
A feral and possessive snarl came from deep within her, had Thanatos’s smile turning wicked and a little bit amused.