look at her, when he just stood there with his eyes on the female as the two brutes began dragging her backwards, further from him.
They twisted with her and shoved her forwards, and she knew in her gut they weren’t going to let her go. Thanatos had been right about that. As soon as she was able, she needed to escape their hold, but she couldn’t think clearly. Her head was filled with heart-breaking images of Thanatos with the demigoddess. She tried to shut them out, but she wasn’t strong enough. They came one after the other, a torrent that tormented her, tearing apart her strength piece by piece, until new thoughts emerged, ones about just giving up.
She didn’t want to be without Thanatos.
She looked back at him one last time.
This time, he glanced at her, and his eyes were bright blue fire, caged fury shining in them as the demigoddess kissed a path over his bare chest.
That look was enough to reignite the flames of her own rage, to give her the will to keep on fighting, to shut out the twisted thoughts her mind was throwing at her and focus on doing as he had asked.
Escaping.
She needed to escape and then she needed to get help. Her mind raced over everything she had to do as the two brutes marched her towards the mountains, as she sensed Thanatos disappear from behind her together with the demigoddess and her army. She couldn’t fight the demigoddess alone when she had an army at her disposal. She wasn’t strong enough. She needed backup and she needed to trust what Thanatos had told her, and what she had witnessed in his eyes countless times when they were together, was true.
He loved her.
She loved him too, and she was damned if that demigoddess was going to lay her filthy hands on him.
She was going to get help and then she was coming back here to save him.
Calindria flexed her fingers and focused on them, felt a tingle in their tips. She walked calmly forwards, relaxing in the grip of the two brutes who held her as she formed a plan and tested the limits of her powers.
She glanced at the swords the two males gripped. She was quick, but the drug was still affecting her strength. If she made a play for one of their swords, there was a high chance the other one would kill her before she could get her hands on the weapon.
What if she touched one of them?
Calindria focused harder on her hands, but her thoughts were still a little hazy, her body still a little numbed by the drug. The demigoddess knew of the power of her touch, would probably have tailored the drug to shut down that ability in her to render her safe for her men to touch.
Her eyes widened slightly.
But there was a chance the female hadn’t known about her power over nature.
Ahead of her, a great crack in the side of the mountain loomed, a tunnel she knew without a doubt would lead to a new cage for her. That was the reason the males hadn’t teleported her anywhere. They already had a cage prepared for her.
She held her nerve, biding her time, hoping her plan worked. She needed to catch them both off guard and in a confined space, and it didn’t hurt to give herself a little more time to purge the drug.
The one to her left pushed her forwards and grunted as they reached the tunnel.
Her breaths quickened, heart accelerating as she stared ahead of her, at the end of the cragged narrow tunnel. It was short, ended barely ten feet in, opening out into a cavern that had a golden metal cage in the middle of it, lit by flaming torches.
Now or never.
Either this worked, or she had just condemned both her and Thanatos.
She summoned her strength, using the thought of Thanatos being tormented by that female as fuel. She couldn’t let it happen. She had to save him.
Her eyes slipped shut as she drew on the earth, as she used every drop of her strength and focused on her feet, on the connection between her and the ground. Nature.
Power surged through her, felt as if it was ripping her apart and consuming her, and she cried out as pain blazed through every inch of her and her head turned.
That cry was joined by two loud bellows that ended abruptly.
She sagged to her knees when the warriors’ grips on her