His hands slid up her rib cage to cup her breasts. And shards of arousal ricocheted through her veins at the intimate touch. She tipped her head to the side and glanced over her shoulder so she could see his tantalizing mouth.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a wicked turn of his lips. “Because I don’t want to think about anyone else doing to you what I’m about to do to you in that tub.”
Fire exploded in her veins.
Neither did she. She just wanted to think about him. She wrapped her hand around the back of his head and dragged his mouth toward hers.
Chapter Seventeen
Titus waited for traffic to clear on the small Coeur d’Alene street, then crossed the road and ducked into the Internet café. The few humans scattered throughout the space cast curious expressions his way, but he ignored them and moved toward Skyla and Orpheus at a table in the back.
They both looked up from the computer they were using. “Well?” Skyla asked.
Titus pulled up a chair at the Siren’s side and looked past her to Orpheus, whose thoughts screamed, What the hell are you waiting for? “Got it. It’s an Idaho license plate.”
He recited the numbers for Skyla, who quickly typed them into the search engine for the Idaho Division of Motor Vehicles, which she’d hacked into. After tracking the truck Gryphon had stolen in Montana here to Coeur d’Alene, they’d run into a wall. Titus had spent all morning hanging out around the police station, trying to pick up any tidbits about the stolen vehicle, and had finally struck gold.
“The truck was found abandoned on a side road near the water. A sailboat was missing. Cops found it all the way across the lake.”
“Are we sure it was them?” Orpheus asked.
Titus looked around the café, then lowered his voice. “There was no damage to the inside of the boat, but cops found a bloody towel onboard. Blood of an ‘unknown origin.’ Matched bloody rags they found in the truck. It was all the talk—and thoughts—at the station.”
“That’s Gryphon,” Orpheus breathed.
Titus agreed. And no damage meant it couldn’t be daemon blood. Argonaut blood, while partly human, contained unidentified alleles, and couldn’t easily be tracked.
“Here it is,” Skyla said. “Black, 2010 Nissan Pathfinder.”
“It was stolen from the marina where the boat ended up,” Titus told them while Skyla jotted the info on a piece of paper. “And get this. There was a note left on board. Apologizing for borrowing the vessel.”
“Oh, that’s so Maelea,” Skyla said as she looked up. “Which is good,” she added, glancing toward Orpheus. “It means she’s still alive.”
“For now,” Orpheus said with a frown.
Titus rubbed his forehead. “This would be a helluva lot easier if Gryphon were wearing his damn Argos medallion. We could track that.” He gestured toward the computer screen. “We’ve got the make and model but no fucking clue which way they’re headed.”
Skyla leaned back, crossed her arms, and stared at the computer screen. “I say we focus on Maelea. If she’s still alive—which she is,” she added, glancing toward Orpheus again—“then my guess is, Gryphon’s likely keeping her alive for a reason. She lived in the Seattle area for over a hundred years, right? Orpheus, you saw that huge house she had. The woman has money. Hell, she’s been alive for three thousand years, she’s probably got money coming out her ears. It’s highly likely she’s got more residences than just that one.”
“You’re thinking Gryphon might have forced her to take him to one of her other properties?” Orpheus asked.
“I’m thinking he needs a place to regroup. To figure out what to do next. He can’t do that when they’re on the run. They’re moving west. Toward where Maelea used to live. It’s worth checking, isn’t it?”
Thoughts of the redhead who’d been snooping in Maelea’s room at the colony pinged around in Titus’s brain, but this time the thoughts weren’t personal. Or so he told himself.
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“What’s the story?” Theron said as soon as he answered the call.
“The redhead,” Titus said, looking at Orpheus and Skyla, who were watching him with curious eyes. “She was looking for Maelea. I need to talk to her. She might be able to help us figure out where Gryphon is taking Maelea.”
“I let her go.”
Disbelief and panic rushed through Titus before he could stop it. “You what?”
“She wasn’t here for Maelea,” Theron said matter-of-factly. “She was here for something else. Something we don’t need or want to get involved with. Where are you? What’s the line on Gryphon?”
Titus’s vision swam. Theron had let the female go. The first person ever whose thoughts he couldn’t hear. Though he knew she was someone he was better off leaving alone, he couldn’t stop the panic rushing through him.
Where would she go? How will I find her? Why the hell did Theron let her go?
“Titus?” Theron said in his ear. “Where are you?”
His mind snapped back to the present. “Um…Idaho.”
“You’ve got a lead on Gryphon?”
“Yeah, we think so. Maybe.” Holy hell. What was he going to do about the redhead?
“Is Maelea still with him?”
He needed to pull his head out of his ass. He needed to focus on the here and now. He swiped a hand across his forehead. “It seems that way.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll have Nick send men your way to help you search. There’s been a rash of daemon activity in the area, and the rest of the Argonauts are dealing with that.”
No way. Titus didn’t want Nick’s men in on their search. Not ever, if he could help it. Nick was still out for blood, after what Gryphon had done. “I’ll call when we know more.”
“Titu—”
He clicked off the phone and shoved it into his pocket before Theron could tell him what the hell to do.
“Who’s this redhead?” Skyla asked.
“A female who showed up at the colony looking for Maelea. Said she was a friend.”
“Maelea doesn’t have any friends,” Orpheus pointed out, his brow drawn low.
“Yeah, that was my thought,” Titus told him. “But she wanted to find her. For whatever reason. I didn’t get much out of her except that Maelea has property both in Seattle and up on Vancouver Island.”
Excitement flared in Skyla’s green eyes. “Where on Vancouver Island?”
“I don’t know,” Titus answered.
Skyla turned to the computer and pulled up a new search screen. “This might be our first break.”
Titus wasn’t so sure. Vancouver Island was a big place, and the redhead—Natasa—could just have been fucking with him to get him to back off.
The redhead…shit. He had to stop thinking of her. She was not his priority now. Gryphon was.
Or so he told himself.
Pushing aside thoughts of her that would only get him into trouble, he looked toward the computer screen. And prayed they found Gryphon before the jackass did something they couldn’t undo. “Let’s hope you’re right, Siren. Because if you’re wrong, the time we waste looking could just mean Maelea’s life.”
Atalanta paced the length of her hall. Outside, snow swirled and spit against the side of her ancient fortress, but she barely cared. The cold lived inside her. It was the only thing of comfort to her these days.
“This should not take so fucking long! I’m losing my patience with all of you.”
The archdaemon at the front of the pack—Stolas—bowed. “My queen, we will find him.”
“When?” she asked, stalking down the three steps to glare into his hideous eyes. “He’s killed all the daemons you’ve sent after him.”