another sweep of the cavern, searching for more clues, and backtracked when his gaze caught on something. Frowned. He kicked off, beating his wings, swiftly crossing the span of gritty dirt.
Thanatos landed soundlessly, his frown deepening as the turbulence caused by his wings destroyed what he had come to look at before he could investigate it. The two bodies crumbled to ash, swirled and scattered on the breeze. Whoever they had been, they had both been large males. He eyed the spear that lay on the ground near one of them. Guards.
He crouched and held his hand over the ashes, but saw nothing.
Strange.
He looked back at the cage that rested on its side and then at the black ashes again. Had someone killed the guards and made off with Calindria? If they had, they couldn’t have gotten far.
Thanatos spread his wings and beat them, did a lap of the cavern and found only three exits. He checked the opening of each of them, using his senses to see if anyone had entered them recently. The realm dulled them too much for him to make anything out.
He huffed and looked at the ground, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind as he tried to figure out what to do. Which tunnel to pick?
Thanatos tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing on the ground as he spotted something. He walked to it, eased into a crouch and ghosted his fingers over the scuff mark in the dirt, looked around and stilled. Further inside the tunnel was another, only this one had a distinct shape.
A footprint.
It was small, dainty.
Bare.
Feminine.
And the only ones he could see. No one had made off with Calindria, if she had been the one in the cage. She had made off with herself. Had something killed the guards when they had been doing something with her, allowing her to escape?
He rose to his feet and strode into the tunnel, moving as quickly as he could, his senses reaching out around him as he desperately sought a sign of life—a sign this was the right way.
The tunnel opened out again ahead of him and his heart drummed harder against his ribs as he spotted more footprints. This had to be the right way. He drew down a deep breath to focus his senses, honing them in the hope he would be able to sense the owner of those footprints.
Froze as he realised he wasn’t alone.
A female dressed in very little stood in the middle of the cavern with her side to him, gulping water from a dark pouch.
She froze too, her dirty shoulders locking up tightly, her fingers clutching the waterskin. She lowered it from her lips and turned slightly, her matted, filthy blonde hair that reached the small of her back swaying as she came to face him.
As her wide, luminous blue eyes landed on him.
“Calindria,” he breathed, sure it was her, only she was not a little girl as some foolish part of him had expected.
She pressed the pouch to the swell of her chest and stared at him like a prey animal facing a predator, her eyes taking on a wild and almost feral edge.
Thanatos slowly lifted his hands, hoping to calm her.
She broke into a dead run.
Chapter 3
Stopping for water had been a mistake. Her body locked up tight as she grew aware of the fact she wasn’t alone, a shiver traipsing down her spine as she felt eyes on her. She slowly lowered the waterskin from her mouth, twisting slightly towards her company at the same time. Her eyes widened as they fell on him.
He was a mountain of a male, with impossibly silver eyes that seemed to shine like the moon, and huge glossy black feathered wings. His bare chest was cut with muscle, carved from granite, with thick broad slabs for his pectorals and a heavy eight-pack that shifted with each hard breath he drew as he stared at her. His wide shoulders tapered into a narrow waist, the ridges of muscle over his hips leading her eyes downwards to black leathers that hugged powerful long legs.
She lifted her eyes again, and they caught on his left hand, the casual way it rested on the hilt of an enormous sword unsettling her, flooding her with adrenaline and making her hyper-aware of her surroundings.
Of every possible exit.
Her gaze collided with his again and a flicker of a frown danced on her brow as a strange sensation filled her, making her feel she knew