Olympus. That’s what she needed to stay focused on. That’s what she needed to remember. Not how heroic he looked. Not how he’d saved her—again. Not how freaking amazing he looked right now, sitting across from her, bruised and scratched and incredibly sexy.
Dear gods. At the next stop, as soon as he uncuffed her, she had to get away. She didn’t trust herself around him any longer.
She looked out the side window into the darkness of night as she narrowed her strategy. But her mind came to a screeching halt when she saw the glowing red orbs of light flickering off behind the trees. Orbs of light she knew without a doubt were searching for her.
A heavy weight pressed down on Titus’s chest as he made his way up to the fifth floor of the castle. Thoughts of what Nick had told them about the tunnels still echoed through his mind. As did Nick’s unspoken words. He deserves this. He’s not been right in the head since he came back from the Underworld. It was only a matter of time before something happened…
Guilt slithered in, glommed on tight. Titus had backed Orpheus and encouraged Nick to let Gryphon join them on that scouting trip. He’d assured Orpheus he’d help keep Gryphon contained in case anything happened. Had promised Nick nothing would go wrong.
Yeah, he’d done his fucking job there, hadn’t he?
Shit. Orpheus. Titus rubbed a hand over his forehead and thanked the Fates Orpheus was with Skyla now, searching beyond the colony’s borders, looking for an outlet from the caves. Nick’s men had already sealed the tunnel, and Orpheus was frantic for a way to reach Gryphon. So frantic, Theron had to restrain him from doing bodily harm to Nick when he heard the news. Titus was thankful he couldn’t hear the thoughts going through Orpheus’s mind right now. If he felt guilty, Orpheus had to feel like pure crap.
He stopped outside Maelea’s room and drew a deep breath. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he had to look. He’d already been through Gryphon’s room, searching for any shred of evidence that would tell him where Gryphon planned to go after leaving the colony, and had found nothing. If there was a chance Gryphon and Maelea had escaped the tunnels alive, Titus wasn’t giving up hope. He braced a hand on the door and was just about to push when a sound like drawers closing echoed inside the room, followed by springs on a bed.
Excitement burst in Titus’s chest. Maelea was back? If she’d gotten out of the tunnels, then Gryphon had to be somewhere close as well. He pushed the door open and stepped into the room, then faltered when the woman near the windows looked up sharply and pinned him with the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.
Not Maelea. Not even close. This female’s hair was a fire red tangle of curls that fell to her shoulders, her skin as white as alabaster, and those eyes…they were mesmerizing. Sharp, polished, gleaming emeralds he was sure couldn’t be real.
She rose quickly off the bed where she’d been sitting, shifted what looked like a book behind her back. She was dressed in jeans and a black sweater, and at eleven o’clock at night didn’t look the least bit tired. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”
He scanned her thoughts, and only picked up a few filtered words: Whoa. Big. Careful. Confusion hit, because Misos couldn’t block his gift. Which meant she wasn’t Misos. Wasn’t strictly human either, if his senses were at all working.
“I could ask you the same question.” He moved into the room, let the door slap shut behind him. The muscles in her shoulders tightened in response, sending his wariness up another degree.
“I’m a friend of Maelea’s.”
He still couldn’t totally read her thoughts, but he knew that was a lie. The way she glanced around the room spoke volumes. As did the way she kept looking past him to the door as if contemplating her chances of escaping unscathed. “Then you’ve heard the news.”
She hesitated just long enough to tell him she hadn’t heard any such thing, then said, “Of course.”
Definitely lying. Who the hell was this female? And what did she want with Maelea?
She cleared her throat and moved forward. “I have to be going.”
She was still hiding something behind her back. Something she’d found in this room? Something that might help him figure out where Maelea had been heading? It was a long shot, but any shot was better than nothing at all.
The female stepped around him, reached for the door. Before she could get away, he grasped her wrist to stop her, then realized—belatedly—that he wasn’t wearing his gloves.
No emotions flowed from her into him. And though he still couldn’t read her thoughts exactly, the few he was picking up—Run. Go. Bad idea—barely even registered, because the room spun, leaving him light-headed and woozy as shit.
He braced a hand against the wall to keep from falling over. Warmth rushed over every inch of his skin, sent fire burning along his nerve endings. He looked down where he touched her, then up to her face. Saw no surprise, no awareness in her gemlike eyes. Only suspicion.
He blinked twice. Gave his head a swift shake. Knew he still had to be tripped out on those drugs Callia had given him earlier. But then why had he been able to hear his kins’ thoughts so clearly? And why had he felt Callia’s emotions when she’d touched him?
The female clenched her hand into a fist, tried to pull her arm free. “Let me go.”
He didn’t loosen his grasp. “What are you?”
Her face blanched. And in the resulting silence, he knew, oh, yeah. She was definitely hiding something. But of more importance was the fact that this was the first person in almost two hundred years whose touch didn’t send a tidal wave of transferred emotions zinging through his body.
“No one important,” she said.
“You’re not Misos.”
“Neither are you.”
She was definitely otherworldly, that much he could tell, but just what, exactly, he didn’t know. “What do you want with Maelea?”
She glanced at his hand, still wrapped tight around her wrist. “Are you going to release me?”
Not a chance. He was enjoying the sensation of her skin against his too much to let go just yet. Even with that light-headed wooziness making him feel as if his head might spin off at any second. “Answer the question.”
She heaved out a breath. “Maelea is an old friend. I’m just trying to find her.”
Another lie. Maelea was a loner. Though she’d warmed up since being at the colony, she didn’t have friends in the true sense of the word. And he’d remember if this woman had ever been with her.
“For what reason?”
“My reasons are my own. Now unhand me.” She jerked her arm back, and this time the motion was strong enough to snap her wrist from his grip.
The room stopped spinning. The fog seemed to clear from Titus’s mind. And cool air trickled over skin that moments ago had been flushed and heated. Wondering what the heck was going on, he took a step toward her, ready to reach for her again, when the door to the room burst open and Phineus barreled in.
“T,” Phin said, “there you are.” His head swiveled toward the female, and he did a double take. “Um…whoa. Am I interrupting?”
“No,” the female answered.
“Yes,” Titus said, not ready to let her go just yet.
Phin looked back at Titus. “Sorry, man. Theron needs you. The queen and her sisters used their woo-woo magic and caught a glimpse of Gryphon and Maelea. And they’re not in the tunnels anymore.”
The first inkling of hope ricocheted through Titus’s chest. “Where?”
“Not sure yet.” Phin glanced at the redhead again, who was listening intently—too intently—then back at Titus. “But, Titus, man…there are daemons after them. And hellhounds.”