learned to control it, harnessing that power so she could use it to stop anyone not under her command from teleporting and dampening their senses. When she had held him in that building all those centuries ago, bound by enchanted chains made of the metal of Olympus, he had been able to teleport once he had broken free.
He had been quick to escape, hadn’t set foot outside the exterior walls of the small fortress, had never seen the realm she ruled. He growled. If he had taken a moment to do such a thing, he might have recognised this realm, might have known to be on his guard or even requested a legion of soldiers from Hades so he could hunt her down.
Thanatos grunted and shook off those thoughts. This realm looked much like many other realms in the Underworld. There was no way he could have recognised it as the one he had been held in centuries ago. The mountains and valleys resembled ones he had seen countless times before in his travels.
She disappeared again and he knew where she had gone, what her plan was, and he wouldn’t follow her. He wouldn’t fall into her trap. She would have men waiting inside that building, ready to help her if he dared to go into it.
She would pay for the things she had done to both him and to Calindria.
But not right now.
He spread his wings to catch a thermal and halted in the air, flapped them gently to keep himself airborne and scanned the area, seeking Calindria. His eyes slowly widened. He twisted in the air, taking in the valley and the mountains that surrounded it. Panic loomed. He didn’t recognise this area as one he had travelled through in his search for Calindria. His heart thundered.
Something hit him.
The demigoddess had drawn him far away from Calindria.
Cold snaked down his spine.
He shook off his need to hunt the demigoddess and have his revenge, forced himself to fly back the way he had come, retracing his steps. He reached another valley he didn’t recognise. Damn her.
Damn him too.
He had allowed himself to get so caught up in pursuing the demigoddess that he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings, had only been able to focus on her. Now, he wasn’t sure which way to go to get back to Calindria, and he feared that had been the demigoddess’s plan all along.
She was trying to separate them. She was trying to capture him again so her servant could recapture Calindria. He growled. The bastard Messenger was in on it. He was working with the demigoddess.
Thanatos clenched his fists and growled, cursing himself for being so blind.
The desire to fly harder, faster, to find Calindria was strong, but he denied it. He wouldn’t get anywhere by rushing in all directions. He would only end up even more lost, or even further from Calindria.
Instead of flying off in any direction, he flew upwards, gaining altitude. Below him, the valleys fell away, more and more of them being revealed to his eyes. His vision sharpened and he scanned the world below him as he halted in the air, seeking something familiar. From this high up, he should be able to spot the valley he had exited into from the cavern at the start of his hunt for the demigoddess. It was the only valley he had seen in this realm that was riddled with a broad, deep canyon that looked as if it had been slowly carved by water.
His eyes darted over everything and he couldn’t spot it anywhere, so he moved, carefully flying in one direction, counting the number of valleys he passed over so he would be able to find his way back to his starting point. More valleys came into view, and none of them were the one he was looking for either.
Thanatos flew back to his starting point and tried another direction, fear rising within him now, bringing desperation in its wake. He shouldn’t have left Calindria with the male. He should have been stronger. He should have resisted his urge to go after the demigoddess and remained with Calindria, accepting that there was a chance the demigoddess would reveal things to her that made him feel ashamed, and placing faith in Calindria. She had a good heart, one untainted by her centuries in captivity. There was a chance she wouldn’t have spurned him as he feared she would, coming to view him with disgust because of the things he