had done, and no longer wanting anything to do with him.
He scanned the valley, near wild with a need to find her, thoughts of her in danger crowding his mind to make it hard for him to focus. Where was she? He flew in another direction, desperate to spot the valley, heart clenching as he feared he wouldn’t find her. He needed to find her. He needed to see her again and know she was safe. He needed to wrap her in his arms and never let her go, to make her see that he needed her.
That he felt something for her.
A feeling that was deep and powerful, and scared him.
Something roared.
Thanatos’s head whipped in that direction, a frown knitting his eyebrows as he listened hard and waited to see if it would call out again so he could pinpoint its location. Whatever had made that noise, it was big. An alpha predator. Nothing he had come across in his travels in this realm.
It roared again, the sound carrying for miles across the valleys. His gaze darted to the right a few degrees, adrenaline surging through him as he recognised the mountain range there.
And the feminine scream that froze his heart and his blood.
Calindria.
Thanatos flew harder than he had ever flown, his wings aching with each great beat of them, fear sinking icy talons into his heart as he rapidly closed the distance between him and the valley. The canyons came into focus and he pushed himself harder, every muscle burning with the strain as he swooped lower. He scanned the crevasses that riddled the ground, desperately seeking Calindria.
Another shriek had his head jerking left and he growled as he spotted what looked like part of a huge dark leathery wing slicing through the air just above the plateau and disappearing from view again.
Thanatos drew his sword and pinned his wings back, his focus locked onto his target. The beast’s head came into view, its huge yellow eye swivelling towards him as it angled its head to one side, causing the six horns that protruded from a circular bony plate to almost brush the muscles of its wings.
A wyvern.
It turned its head away from him and snapped its beaked mouth at something. Thanatos looked there and his lungs seized.
Calindria.
She desperately brandished the dagger he had left in the cavern, her blue eyes wild as she switched back and forth between threatening the wyvern he could see and looking at a cave that came into view. Thanatos cursed as he spotted a second wyvern in the shadows there.
On a loud roar, Thanatos tucked his wings back and dropped from the air. He gripped his sword in both hands, holding it point downwards, and glared at the first wyvern, his gaze fixed on a single point between its wings. The dark grey beast lunged forwards just before Thanatos’s booted feet hit its scaly back, almost throwing him off-balance. He plunged his sword into the beast’s back, slicing clean through its scales.
The wyvern reared back on a vicious roar, throwing its head high into the air, and Calindria gasped. Thanatos ducked, hurling himself prone on the creature’s back to avoid being speared by its horns as it thrashed its head side to side, attempting to catch him. When it flapped its enormous wings instead, lifting off the ground with him, he pushed to his knees and grabbed his sword, yanked it free of the creature’s back and brought it down again. He pierced the scales again, just as the beast began to ascend, taking him higher into the air.
The dark grey beast swung its head towards him and snapped at him, hissed and flashed long fangs as its yellow eyes narrowed on him.
Thanatos could almost read its thoughts. Knew exactly what it intended to do once it had reached a satisfactory height.
It was the reason he had stabbed it in two places.
He dropped again, dug the fingers of his left hand into one of the wounds and held on tight. The wyvern roared again and flapped its broad wings harder. Thanatos growled, hefted his sword in his right hand and started hacking at the beast’s right wing where it joined to its body.
As predicted, the wyvern rolled in the air, attempting to throw him. Thanatos clung to the creature, dangling below it one moment and slamming against its back the next. He kept hacking at the wing, cutting through the thick scales to the muscle beneath.
Forcing the beast to land.
It hit the ground