Thanatos (Guardians of Hades #8) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,3

into the black ground, leaving only a darker patch of dirt behind.

She sagged against the bars of her cage. “Bastard.”

The male chuckled and began to walk away, but stopped as another warrior approached him from the direction of their camp. The two of them had been in charge of taking care of her for as long as she could remember, but neither of them had warmed to her over the years, not even when she had entered adulthood. They had started looking at her differently though, in ways she didn’t like.

The second male looked at her in that way now, his blue eyes glittering with a heat that turned her stomach and made her shrink away from him.

“Get her ready to move,” the dark-haired male said and cast a black look over his bare shoulder at her. “Behave now.”

He slid his onyx gaze to the other male.

“And don’t touch her.”

She had heard him tell this male that same thing several times in several different ways during her captivity, whenever the redhead spoke of wanting her.

He stepped up to her as the dark-haired male walked away from them, coming to a stop right beneath her, his blue gaze trailing over her bare legs in a sickening way, one that had her tucking them closer to her.

“You going to behave for me, pet?” he murmured throatily, too much hunger in his eyes as he looked her over. “Although, I don’t think I would be upset if you fought me. Might get to touch you then. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake thinking of you while I stroke—”

She spat in his face.

He growled, flashing his teeth, and wiped it away with a dirty rag. “Bitch.”

He strode past her, tucking the rag into the waist of his leathers on the same side as his waterskin. He pulled a pair of thick gloves from the other side of his trousers and tugged them on as he stopped beside the heavy wheel that the chain of her cage was attached to and kicked the lever.

The chain unfurled, rattling loudly as it thundered through the two pulleys mounted on the ceiling of the cavern, and she shrieked as her cage crashed into the ground, the impact shaking every bone in her body. Her head smacked against the bars and she breathed hard, fighting a wave of nausea. It passed quickly as she realised she had landed with her head close to where the dark-haired brute had tipped his water.

She scrambled onto her knees and tried to press her head between the bars to suck on the ground, but the door of her cage creaked open and the redhead fisted her hair. She gasped and reached up, grabbed his gloved hand in both of hers and flailed as he pulled her from the cage.

Her heart thundered as he dragged her across the ground, her bare feet bouncing off it as she tried to find some purchase and fight the male.

“Can touch you all I want if he doesn’t know about it.”

“No,” she gasped. “Please. I didn’t—”

He lifted her off the ground by her hair and threw her past him, and she grunted as she slammed into a rock in a shadowy alcove. The male lunged for her. Darkness surged through her, panic making it rise swiftly to the fore, and she growled as she shook off the blow and reacted on instinct. Everything seemed to slow and she felt as if she was watching herself from outside her body, as if something else was in control of her, as she kicked off.

She slammed into the male, her slender weight no match for him. She didn’t even knock him backwards. He made another grab for her and she batted his hand away, bared short fangs as she exploded towards him.

Managed to grab his arms.

She went to headbutt him and stilled as he howled in pain as if she had struck him already. He reared back and easily dislodged her as she tried to figure out what was happening. Her eyes widened as he rubbed at his bare arms, as she looked at them.

Her stomach turned.

His skin was black where she had touched him, flesh flaking as if she had burned him, and onyx threads snaked outwards from those two points, spreading the darkness across his flesh as he desperately battled it.

She blinked hard, shocked to her core, unable to believe what she was seeing.

Her head lifted as he fell and she looked around her at the