not to touch me. They knew of my powers.”
Which made him suspect she had touched someone at some point to reveal them, only she either hadn’t seen what her touch had done or she had blocked the memory or believed it another illusion.
She looked back at him, a solemn edge to her beautiful face as her brow furrowed and blue eyes glittered with something familiar to him—shame.
“I could not leave the cage…” She hesitated and he sensed her nerves, was on the verge of telling her that she didn’t have to tell him any more when she continued. “I could not leave it even to bathe or… other things.”
Thanatos wanted to growl at how she had been treated, knew without her saying it directly that she was talking about going to the bathroom. The bastards who had held her for almost six hundred years hadn’t even allowed her to do that in private and he would make them pay for that, for humiliating her.
Her cheeks reddened and she gazed at the ground before her. He wanted to walk beside her, to touch her blushing cheeks and tell her she had no reason to be ashamed, but while the tunnel had smooth walls and was free of stalactites and stalagmites for once, it wasn’t wide enough for him to walk beside her.
So he would settle for another way of making her feel better.
He would show her that she wasn’t the only one who had dark days in their past.
“I was captured once.”
She immediately looked back at him, her beguiling sapphire eyes wide and bright with a spark of interest. “You were?”
He nodded and adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword as he thought about when the demigoddess had captured him and lost his nerve.
“Zeus sent me to retrieve a male named Sisyphus and bring him to Tartarus, where he would be chained.” It seemed like a safer way to make her feel as if she wasn’t the only one who had been through the terrible trials she had. “The bastard asked me to demonstrate how the chains worked and I was tired of him resisting me, so… I explained them. It was not my finest hour… you must understand that. Sisyphus was swifter than I had expected, bound me with the chains instead.”
“What happened?”
He shifted his wings, restlessly flapped and furled them. “When no one died in the mortal realm because I was bound, unable to do my duty, the god of war grew irritated that his battles had lost their… fun… because what good is a battle where no one will die?”
“The god of war freed you?” Her eyes leaped between his and when he nodded, she frowned at him. “It does not sound the same as my captivity. I doubt you were tormented in Tartarus. I am surprised my father did not release you.”
Before he could stop himself, some foolish part of him that was striving for a connection with her, a long-dead part that she had somehow revived, had his mouth moving.
“It was not the only time I was taken captive.”
She looked back at him again. “It was not?”
His mood blackened at just the thought of it, and he knew she had seen it when her features softened, a hint of warmth surfacing in her eyes.
“I was held once in a place much like this… and I knew no one was coming to save me.” Each word was a struggle, but somehow he managed to get them past his lips, found the strength to speak about this dark part of his past as he stared at Calindria.
She paused and turned towards him, stepped up to him, narrowing the distance down to only a few feet, close enough that her soft fragrance of wild lilies reached him, cutting through the fouler odour of the realm. “How did they catch you? You are strong… a warrior.”
Gods, he wasn’t sure he deserved to be called strong by her. She was strong. A warrioress. She had survived things far worse than what he had suffered. Or perhaps not. No one had dared touch her.
He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block the memories.
“Thanatos?”
He felt her reach for him, moved his hands back and stepped away from her, needing the space. He tried to ignore that trace of hurt that shone in her eyes when he opened his and looked at her, focused on getting this over with as quickly as possible.
“I was defeated in battle by