he was silently staking a claim on her, declaring to anyone in the area that she was his. She liked how it made her feel as if she was silently staking a claim on him too as she pressed her fingers harder into his skin, tightly clutching his hand.
He glanced down at her, a light in his eyes that said he liked it when she did that, when she held him as possessively as he held her.
Because he thought that when they left this realm, when she was home with her family, this thing between them would end.
She needed to find a way to convince him that wasn’t the case at all.
He led her to the building and as soon as he was close enough, he touched it with his hand, shuddered and snarled, and then twisted away from it. “It is real.”
She didn’t try to stop him as he strode away from it, knew in her heart that it hurt him to be here, that it had taken a lot of courage for him to get close enough to this place to touch it and see it was real and not an illusion.
When they were a good distance from it, she looked back at it. “It looks like it was a castle.”
“A castle?” He scoffed and glanced at her, some of the darkness lifting from his eyes. “It does not look like a castle. My castle looks like a castle.”
She tried to picture what his castle might look like. It was probably grand and imposing, with towers that were high enough that they could be seen for miles across the black landscape.
“I would like to see it someday… perhaps when you create me some golems to test my powers on. Of course, it might take months… possibly years… to master my power.” She smiled when he gave her a look, one that held shock but also pleasure.
Because she wanted to spend time with him once this was all over? She took him in from head to toe and back again. Who wouldn’t want to spend time with him?
Besides, she wasn’t done breaking down his walls.
“You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” She stepped up to him, tiptoed and cupped his nape in both hands, and lured him down for a kiss.
He growled against her mouth and kissed her hard, banded his arms around her back and tugged her against him, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care. She loved the way he held her like this. It made her feel as if he would never let her go.
Thanatos swept her up into his arms and kicked off, kissed her for a few seconds more as he flew. She broke the kiss this time. The thought of crash landing was frightening enough to make her relinquish his lips.
He flew with her, over mountain ranges and across valleys. Those valleys grew larger and larger, the mountains smaller, and far in the distance there was a cluster of lights like golden stars.
“It is a town.” Thanatos swept down to land with her and looked in all directions. “We should find somewhere to rest. The town looks close, but it is at least another few hours’ flight to the border of this realm where we will be able to teleport.”
And he was tired.
She nodded.
Tensed as he set her down and her feet made contact with the earth.
Thanatos went rigid too, his gaze darting in all directions. “What is it?”
She yanked the dagger from his left vambrace as close to one hundred creatures, each as large as she was, closed in on them from just beyond the mountains.
“We are not alone.”
Chapter 25
Thanatos’s first urge was to grab Calindria and fly, despite how tired he was and how deeply his wings ached, the muscles so fatigued that those closest to his shoulders trembled and twitched. His second urge was to grab her and run.
He went with that one, seizing her hand in a bruising grip and turning in the direction of the mountains that formed a towering cragged wall between him and the nearest town.
He didn’t need to tell Calindria to run. She was quick to break into a sprint beside him, her blonde hair bouncing against the shoulders of her black tunic with each long stride.
“There are enemies this way,” she panted, her grip on the dagger she clutched tightening as her blue eyes scanned the mountains.
“The ones behind us?” He wanted to glance