He lifted her from his lap, dropped her on her butt on the rocks. Words died on her lips as pain ricocheted up her spine. Still disoriented from that fall, she scrambled back against the cave wall, drew her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around herself, scanning the ground for anything she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. She blinked several times, tried to clear her vision. Couldn’t see even a rock to hurl at him when he came after her.
He pushed to his feet, and in the green glow from the water, her vision faded and blurred on muscles in his massive arms, his powerful back, his thick legs. She scooted farther down the wall. Gave her head a swift shake. Glanced right and left. Gods, she must have hit her head when they went over those falls. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She could run, but where? Every muscle in her body tensed. She was ready to fight to the death if she had to, but was smart enough to know if she tried to stand, she’d probably fall over.
But instead of turning and coming after her as she expected, he reached down and picked up her pants. Shook them out. Laid them over a boulder. Then he did the same with her shirt and finally his clothes.
When he turned and stepped toward her, her gaze shot to his groin, and even through her blurry vision, she noticed whatever she’d felt before had definitely deflated. He didn’t make eye contact, and she pressed her palms flat to the ground, ready to push up if he lunged for her, but he didn’t. He just sat on the rocks at her side and said, “We need those clothes to dry out if we’re going to get the hell out of here.”
Every muscle in Maelea’s body stayed rigid as he lifted an arm, slung it over her shoulder, and tugged her tight to his side. Warmth immediately replaced the chill, and though she didn’t want to, she felt herself giving in, sinking against him. A shiver racked her body again, knocked her teeth together.
He wrapped his other arm around her front, pulled her even closer into his chest. Then he shifted onto his side and pulled his knees up next to hers, creating a blanket of warmth around her with his body. This time he didn’t hold her so tight she couldn’t move, and she had the strangest sensation he was letting her know that if she wanted to get away, she could. “That’s better.”
Maelea wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t read him. Didn’t know what he was thinking or planning next. That dead look she’d seen when she caught him watching her in the courtyard from his bedroom window still lingered in his light blue eyes, but this didn’t seem like the action of a monster. At least not the one who’d mutilated those daemons or attacked his own kin. And the warmth that immediately enveloped her threw her totally off-kilter.
His hand moved up and down her arm, rubbing her muscles back to life. “A blanket would be nice. You didn’t happen to have one of those in that backpack you were carrying, did you?”
“I…I did.” She’d also had a flashlight, food, and a handgun she’d lifted from the colony late one night when she was out roaming. Not that it would do her any good now.
“Damn. Well, we should rest for a few minutes. I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to get out of here. If our clothes dry.”
Maelea didn’t know either. But she was as determined as ever to get far, far away from the colony, and especially him. So he hadn’t hurt her yet. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to soon. For the moment, he needed her warmth as much as she needed his. But she wasn’t about to let down her guard. She’d learned long ago not to trust. And the dark energy vibrating from his chest, calling to her, told her never to trust him.
Someone was singing a really bad version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
Titus cracked his eyelids open and turned his head to figure out where the incessant noise was coming from. Bright light burned his retinas, forced his eyes shut, drew a curse from his lips. Lips that were dry and chapped and as crackly as the singer’s caterwauling voice.
The song cut off midline, and a voice called, “Hey, I think he’s coming around.”
Footsteps echoed close, and Titus cracked his lids again, this time squinting up at a very familiar face.
“Skata,” he managed, his voice raspy, his throat dry as a cotton ball. “I should have known it was you. You sound like a dying cat when you sing, and you’ve got the fucking mug to match.”
Phineus, his warrior kin, grinned down at him. “I wasn’t singing, smart guy, I was humming. And you should watch your language in front of the kid.”
Titus looked to the left where Phin nodded and saw Max, Zander’s son, sitting in the chair on his other side. “Hey, kid.”
Max shrugged the mop of blond hair out of his eyes, looking way too much like his dad, his bored expression screaming, I’d rather be anywhere but here. “Hey.”
“And I know you’re secretly jealous of this face,” Phineus added. “It’s a chick magnet. Hollywood’s got nothing on me.”
Titus chuckled, then swore as blinding pain radiated through his torso and up into his rib cage.
“Uh…Callia?” Phin’s voice took on a note of concern. Seconds later, Callia, the queen’s personal healer and Max’s mother, moved into Titus’s line of sight.
“Hey there, stranger,” she said with a smile. Auburn hair fell over her shoulder as she peered down at him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got run over by a truck.”
“That’s not far off the mark, actually,” she said. “How does your throat feel?”
“Like sandpaper.”
“I’ll get you some juice.”
As Callia moved away, Titus took a look around. The white walls, blinking machines, and uncomfortable bed told him he was in a medical facility. His memory was foggy, but as he looked from face to face, then around the room, bits and pieces of what had landed him here spiraled through his mind.
Shit. Gryphon.
Titus closed his eyes. Pain pulsed along his skull as the scene replayed behind his eyelids. “Where is he?”
“Who?” Phin asked.
“The king of fucking France,” Titus said sarcastically. “Gryphon, you dumbass.”
“Um…k-i-d.” Phineus lifted his eyebrows, pointed across the bed. “Remember?”
“I’ve heard it before,” Max muttered. And I can spell that word, moron.
Shit…what the hell do I say?
Whatever you do, don’t tell him the truth.
Thoughts spun out of control in the room. The first from Max—full of attitude and animosity. The second from Phineus, frazzled and desperate for a way not to answer. And the third from Callia across the room, clear and calm, the only one of the three who was obviously totally with it.
Oh, fucking fantastic. The blow to the head Titus had taken when Gryphon had knocked him into that concrete wall hadn’t done shit to alter his gift.
Irritation edged Titus’s already dwindling mood, kicked up his headache. He ignored Max and focused on Phin—whom he could see—and Callia—whom he couldn’t. “Stop pussyfooting around me, you two. You can’t block me from your thoughts, so you might as well just tell me what the hell happened to Gryphon. Nick didn’t kill him, did he? What happened out there wasn’t Gryphon’s fault.”
“Considering what he did to you,” Phin muttered, “that’s pretty generous.”
Titus remembered all too well Gryphon’s crazed eyes and the things that had been running through his mind when he charged those daemons. “Yeah, well, you don’t know what’s going on in his head. We’d already have you locked in the loony bin if it were you, pretty boy.”
Phineus grinned again, his brown eyes crinkling at the edges. “I knew you were jealous of this gorgeous face. Admit it.”