Enslaved (16 page)

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.”

The redhead drew in a sharp breath.

Oh yeah, she was definitely otherworldly, and very clearly more than a simple Misos.

Phineus turned to leave, and the redhead started out the door, but Titus gripped her by the upper arm, careful this time to make sure he closed his hand around her shirt and not bare skin. Heat pulsed through his palm again, but no emotions, no pain, nothing like what he was used to.

“What are you—?”

“You’re coming with me,” he said, dragging her after Phineus down the hall. “Something tells me you’ve got a stake in what we find out about Maelea. And you might just be of use to us.”

***

Maelea’s arm ached from holding it out. She’d finally given up and leaned forward to brace both hands on the dashboard and rest her head against them so she could get some rest. The fact that Gryphon had seen those hellhounds and pressed down on the accelerator was good, but it didn’t ease her anxiety any.

The truck jolted, and she startled from the light sleep she’d managed to slip into. Groggy, she glanced out at the dark forest around her, then across the bench seat to Gryphon, his jaw tight, his eyes intense, his face both familiar and too damn sexy at the same time.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Gryphon glanced at the dashboard, which didn’t have a clock. “I don’t know. Late. We’ve gone a little over a hundred miles.”

She wanted to ask in which direction but thought better of it. She didn’t really want to know what he had planned. She just wanted to get away.

“I’m tired,” she said, thinking of a way to make him stop. “I can’t sleep like this.”

“I’m not uncuffing you.”

Bastard.

She bit her tongue so as not to antagonize him. “I’m starving as well. And I need to pee. Can’t we stop somewhere? You have to be hungry and exhausted too.”

His jaw clenched again. He didn’t look at her. As his hands flexed around the wheel, she knew he was debating.

“You have enough money for a motel, don’t you? I’m dying for a shower. And at least a couple hours of sleep. I’ve been awake for nearly thirty-six. If I don’t get some sleep soon, I’m going to turn into a zombie, and then I’ll seriously slow you down.”

“Fine,” he said as the truck slowed. They were coming into some sort of small town. Lights shone in from outside. “We’ll rest for a few hours, but don’t get any ideas. This doesn’t change anything. You’re not going anywhere but where I want you to go.”

That’s what you think.

Maelea bit her lip as they rolled through the town, which consisted of one stoplight, a bank, a grocery store, a fast-food joint, and a truck stop. On the far end, Gryphon parked the truck in front of an eight-unit, one-story motel set back from the other businesses, with a flashing vacancy light in the office window.

Definitely a far cry from the mansion she’d lived in on Lake Washington, but she didn’t need fancy. She just needed him distracted. “I’ll wait here while you check in.”

“Not even.” He unlocked her from the dashboard then snapped the free cuff on his own wrist. Anger burning in her gut, she bit her tongue so as not to antagonize him and slid across the seat to climb out the driver’s side door.

Cool air rushed over her face as she stepped from the truck. Her muscles ached from sitting so long. Before she could catch her breath, Gryphon hooked their joined wrists around her back, tugging her body tight to his side so he could lean down and whisper, “If you say or do anything that upsets me, you won’t be the only one I hurt.”

Her stomach tightened. He was talking about the clerk in the office. Maelea nodded once, ignoring the heat radiating from his body and the blood and gore still fresh on his clothes. How did he plan to get by the clerk looking like that? The man would undoubtedly notice Gryphon had been through a massacre.

Her pulse sped up as they walked across the dark parking lot, the only sound their boots clicking on the pavement. Maybe that was her way out. If she could get the clerk to notice the blood and gore on Gryphon’s clothing, he could alert someone. Call for help. She could escape in the chaos.

The door to the office was locked, but a sign over a call button next to the night window read Press After Hours. Gryphon pushed the button, moved close to the window. Through the glass, Maelea watched as a door at the back of the office opened, and a teenager, probably no more than fifteen, ambled out.

Her spirits dropped. The teen barely even glanced their way. Through the grate in the window he said, “You need a room?”

“One,” Gryphon answered.

The kid slid a form and pen across the counter through the opening in the window. “Fill that out. You got a car?”

Gryphon pointed behind him with the pen, then scribbled info on the form with his free hand. As he wrote, Maelea watched the kid, hoping, praying he’d notice what the hell was happening on the other side of the glass.

Almost as if he’d heard her prayer, the teen looked up. Curious eyes gave way to horror.

Yes, yes! Call the police. Call anyone!

“How much?” Gryphon asked as he set the pen down and slid it and the paper back through the narrow opening in the window.

The kid didn’t answer. His face went ashen.

Hope burst in Maelea’s chest.

“I…uh…” The kid reached for the paper, started to move back.

Gryphon’s free hand sprang through the gap in the window and gripped the teen’s arm at the wrist.

The teen tensed, tried to pull back. “Hey! Let me…”

His voice trailed off as he locked eyes with Gryphon, then slowly, the fight rushed out of his body, and he eased a step closer to the window.

No.
No!
Maelea’s muscles tensed. She tried to pull away but Gryphon held her too tight.

“That’s right,” Gryphon said in a gentle voice. “Nothing here out of the ordinary. Just a couple passing through, needing a room for the night, right?”

“Yeah,” the kid repeated in a monotone voice. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Maelea’s gaze shot to the teen’s wrist, where Gryphon’s finger was running a slow circle over the boy’s pulse point.
Élencho.
He was using a mind-numbing technique on the boy. What little hope she’d had for help faded with every muscle the boy relaxed.

“Now,” Gryphon said calmly. “How much for the room?”