Chapter 2
THANE
T hane’s breaths came even and steadily as he sprinted through the dark landscape.
Leaving behind every person he cared about while they were in a fight went against most of his instincts, except one, protecting a maiden who was scared and possibly helpless.
From what he knew about the goddess of day, she was kind and wouldn’t hurt anyone, maybe not even to defend herself.
She was faster than he anticipated. He’d been running for at least a mile and hadn’t caught her yet, but her scent kept him in the right direction. It was unmistakable, like the embodiment of lavender and sunshine.
He picked up his pace, sensing he was drawing closer and caught sight of her silvery dress in the light of the moons.
She had stopped under a large weeping willow, the branches offering partial cover.
He slowed and glanced down at the weapons in both hands.
These would only frighten her more, so he tucked them in the sheaths on his back and walked carefully toward her.
As he came up to the outside of the hanging willow branches, she partially hid herself behind the wide trunk, her fingers clutching the bark.
She peeked out, her lavender-colored eyes locking onto his.
Something warmed in the gaping hole in his chest that had been there since his mate bond to Layala was broken.
He’d grown so accustomed to the emptiness he’d forgotten it was there.
He held up his hands to show he didn’t have weapons, and a gesture meant to show no harm. “You’re Katana, right?”
“Yes,” she said softly, but didn’t come out from behind the tree. There was fear in her trembling voice. “Why are you following me?
“Valeen asked me to find you and help you. I’m not here to harm you.”
With brows furrowed, she hid herself a little more behind the trunk. “And you are?”
“My name is Thane. I’m a friend of Valeen’s. Are you alright?”
“Why did she not come herself?”
“A fight broke out as soon as you ran. She wanted to.”
“If she sent you in her place, she trusts you.”
He moved the curtain-like branches aside and stepped into the tree’s canopy.
Tucking her blonde hair behind her ear, she cautiously moved out from the tree trunk, a sign she trusted him enough not to run again.
The silhouette of her figure was outlined against the moonlight behind her, the brightness of her hair lit up from the backlighting.
She was beautiful. Valeen always said she was the most beautiful of the goddesses and having seen her, he wouldn’t argue that.
It wasn’t just her lovely face, thick hair, or the curves of her body, there was something else about her. Like she radiated goodness.
That warmth in his chest tingled now.
A branch swung in his face and when he lifted his hand to move it out of his way, she flinched and back stepped ready to retreat again. Someone had hit her before… and though he only just met her, it pissed him off.
He froze. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Relaxing some, she forced a smile. “I am…” she trailed off, as if contemplating her existence. “I am in Runevale.”
“Yes.”
“And so are you.”
He smiled. “I am.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked around with an almost childlike wonder. “I heard a voice… but I do not remember where I was. Yet, I know in my heart it was lovely and good. It was without evil and malice.”
Thane rubbed his chin, wondering if she’d been in what they called Serenity, a place where good souls went after mortality. “Do you remember Valeen?”
“Of course. She is my sister.”
He tried to think back to the time when she was alive here, but it was long before he was born as War. She was killed at least a thousand years before his birth. He wouldn’t know events and people of that time.
“Why were you all with Synick?” Her beautiful face scrunched in disgust.
“We weren’t with him. He appeared at the same time as you.”
“What do you mean by appeared?”
“A portal opened.”
“From where?”
“I can only make a guess. He was dead, but I don’t think he was in the same place you were, if you understand.”
“He killed me.” She pawed at her long locks then she lifted her eyes again, curious now, not fearful. “If he was dead, who killed him?”
“Valeen. A very long time ago.”
“How long has it been?”
He was growing a little uncomfortable talking about her death. She was a complete stranger, and though he knew some facts about what happened through Valeen, it wasn’t as if he could offer her comfort. “A few thousand years.”
“A few thousand ?” she repeated and put a hand over her mouth. She slowly dragged her delicate fingers down her chin and over her throat, coming to rest in a balled fist at her chest. “All Mother above,” she whispered. “My children, are they well? How is Valeen?”
It was strange she didn’t mention her husband Atlanta. “I can’t speak of your children because I don’t know. Valeen is—well, she’s been gone too. Exiled by the Council of the Gods.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and she blinked several times. “I think I knew that. I think I have come to help her. She has not been in House of Night. She needs her home back.”
Thane smiled. “Yes. She was reborn as an elf in Adalon, but we’re here now.”
“Reborn? But she is a goddess.”
“When I said the council exiled her, I meant they took her immortality and killed her, forcing her to be reborn over and over, never remembering who she was… until now.”
She frowned at that. “My poor sister. She does not deserve that cruelty.” Her lavender eyes trailed over him from head to toe. “You are also an elf, but I sense something more.”
“I am the god of war, my name was War. The same thing happened to me as Valeen.”
“But you said your name is Thane.”
He chuckled. “I can see how that would be confusing. Twenty-nine years ago, I was reborn as an elf, the son of an Elf King. I was named Thane Athayel, and I am now the High Elf King in Palenor. I think I prefer that name. War is not all of who I am. The act of war itself is ugly and the more I think about it the more I don’t want to be called that anymore. ”
“Thane,” she said and smiled, flashing pretty white teeth. “If you and Valeen were both exiled together—what is your relationship to her? What was your crime?”
Thane rubbed his lips together then let out a long slow breath. “Now, that is a question.”
She giggled and it sounded like bells. “I should think it is a fairly simple one.”
“It’s quite complicated actually.”
“A lover?”
“Once,” he replied.
“Ah,” she said as understanding dawned on her. “A story for another time.”
“A story Valeen can tell you.” He didn’t want to relive it again.
It hurt too much. It hurt seeing her with someone else, even if he understood it, even if he’d let her go.
All those months after Hel woke up, he’d waited for Layala to remember her past, holding out hope that she’d choose him. He should have known better.
Valeen would always choose Hel, even if when she was simply Layala, she had been his.
“And the crime?”
“For the most part, taking her side when the council found out she stole the weapon Soulender. They want it back.”
She bobbed her head. “I think I knew that too. My memory of the place I was in is fuzzy. Like waking up from a dream and the details fade, lost to the aether.”
He glanced over his shoulder, back toward the way they’d come.
He needed to return to the others, even if he trusted Hel and Valeen to be able to handle it.
Something could go wrong. Synick was a primordial and as ruthless as anyone—he would know, Synick had mentored him.
Then the moonlight caught something small and white dangling from the branches above.
Thane furrowed his brows and realized an insect dropped onto Katana’s shoulder, a long-legged spindly thing.
So he wouldn’t alarm her, he said as calmly as he could. “There’s a spider on you.” Would it be rude to bat it off? He didn’t want to touch her without permission. It was not like they were friends, barely acquaintances.
Her eyes flashed and she started swatting randomly. “Where? Get it off me.”
It crawled over her shoulder. Shit. He quickly closed the distance between them and turned her, pushing her hair aside. It could be poisonous, and the last thing he needed was to carry her back to Valeen with a deadly bite.
Goosebumps peppered her skin with his touch. The spider skittered under the hem of the back of her dress just as he spotted it. Gods, was he going to—“It went under your dress, I?—”
“Get it! Get it!” She shook her body and squealed.
He tried not to laugh as he plunged his hand inside her silk gown, swiping for the nuisance critter. If it were Val or Piper, he wouldn’t think twice, but this was the goddess of day. A legend. “I can’t find it.” But he certainly found soft luscious skin.
“It is on the left side! I feel the legs!”
The hem of her silky underwear brushed his fingers, but still no spider.
With a jerk on the string that held the back of her dress together, the fabric fell open.
She wrapped her arms around herself to hold the front up, and the white spider about the size of the pad of his thumb crawled on the top of her—ass.
With a quick swipe he knocked it into the grass and the heel of his boot drove it into its grave.
“Got it,” he said triumphantly.
She turned and searched the ground to be certain. Then her eyes lifted to his and she started laughing. “Imagine, a primordial goddess terrified of spiders. Thank you. I feel more vulnerable than before. I do not think I am what I once was.”
“Lay—Valeen and I know the feeling. Hel is a little different. His magic is as strong as it ever was.” As an elf, even with a god’s healing abilities, speed, strength and magic, Thane wasn’t a full god without his immortality.
There were vulnerabilities to his body and even magic that weren’t there before.
“Hel? And did you say ‘Lay’?”