“What do you mean, missing?”
“No one’s seen her since she retired for bed last night, and she’s not in her room.”
“That’s nothing new. She likes to wander at night.”
“Right,” Theron said, “and that’s my concern. If she happened to come across Gryphon while wandering…”
Oh, shit.
“Gryphon’s not thinking clearly,” Theron went on. “There’s no telling if he’d see her as a threat or bargaining chip if he found her while trying to escape. And it’s no secret none of us even know what he has planned…even you.”
Dread welled in the bottom of Orpheus’s stomach. He’d dragged Maelea into all of this. He’d gone looking for her because, with her ability to sense energy shifts on earth, she’d been the one person who could tell him where the Orb of Krónos was being used, which he’d needed to reunite Gryphon’s soul with his body after he rescued Gryphon from the Underworld. Hades already hated her simply because she was Persephone’s daughter. And now Hades knew she’d helped the Argonauts find the Orb, that she’d played a hand in rescuing Gryphon from Tartarus. Outside these castle walls—if she made it that far—Gryphon wasn’t the only threat to her safety.
Guilt seeped in to mingle with the dread. Because of Orpheus, she’d lost her home and her freedom. And because of him, she could very well lose her life now too.
Urgency pushed at Orpheus from all sides as he headed for the doorway at the end of the hall. “We’ll find her. We’ll find them both.”
“Let’s just pray they’re not together,” Theron mumbled at his back.
As Gryphon guided Maelea forward, her spine pressed against his chest and her ass bumped into his groin every time she hesitated in the darkness. She was smaller than he’d originally thought, but the baggy clothes he’d seen her wear from his window had hid muscles he didn’t know were there. Dressed in the slim black pants and long-sleeved shirt so no one would see her making her escape, and plastered tight against him in the dark tunnel, he also realized how many curves she’d kept hidden under all that fabric.
“Which way?” he growled in her ear when she hesitated at the fork in the tunnel. He’d let go of her mouth so she could breathe, but he kept a firm hold around her waist, not for a second risking the chance that she would bolt.
“I…I’m not sure. I—”
Her words cut off and she sucked in a breath as he pressed his fingers into her hip. “Don’t lie to me, female. Which way?”
“Right,” she managed. “To the right.”
He released his hold on her hip, steered her in that direction. “This will go a whole lot smoother if you don’t fight me.”
She didn’t answer as they moved ahead through the tunnel, but he could feel the anger and fear radiating from her. That and the light. The same weird light that had drawn him to the window each and every time she’d been in the courtyard. The same light that had told him she was out tonight, that she might be his ticket out of this place.
A voice echoed from ahead, deeper in the cave. She hitched in a breath. Wrapping his free hand around her mouth, he pulled her back against the cave wall and held her still. The voice grew louder. His adrenaline jumped. Taking a step back the way they’d come, his spine slid from solid rock to air, then rock again, and he realized the wall opened here. Not much, a gap really, but if he turned sideways, enough to squeeze through. As the voice continued to grow in intensity, he knew it was his only shot. He twisted Maelea, shoved her through the gap, then shimmied in after her.
She grunted under his hand. The gap turned to the left. When his body came up flush against hers, he realized she’d reached the end.
“Shh,” he whispered, not letting go of her mouth. She’d shifted around so her face was mere millimeters from his. His arm snaked down to her hip to hold her still, his leg pressed between both of hers, and he used his weight to push her into the wall and keep her quiet. They’d been walking for a good ten minutes. They had to be close to the main intersection. In the central space deep below ground, tunnels extended in various directions, several of which would lead him to freedom. He just had to figure out which ones.
Her heart raced beneath her breast, so loud in the quiet he was afraid the guards might hear it. But the thump, thump, thump was drowned out by the heat from her body, circling around him in the confined space, and the scent of…jasmine.
The same scent he’d noticed in the orchard. Only this wasn’t from any tree or flower, it was coming from her. He looked down. Couldn’t see even an inch in front of his face. But she was there. Against his skin, her breasts pushed into his chest as she drew each labored breath, her lips hovered against the palm of his hand, and that intoxicating fragrance mixed with her body heat to leave him light-headed.
Footsteps pounded somewhere close. Gryphon turned his head to listen, held his breath. Against his hand, Maelea drew in a startled breath, the effort forcing her breasts tighter against his chest. Breasts, he couldn’t help notice, even now when they were about to be discovered, that were firm and plump and warm against his chilled skin.
Tingles raced over his flesh where they touched, fanning out to spread tiny tendrils of heat all across his body. It had been months since he’d been close to a female. Months since he’d let anyone touch him. Most days he couldn’t even stand the feel of cloth against his skin, but this—her body against his, soft where he was hard, warm where he felt frigid—this didn’t bother him. It relaxed him. Heat pooled in his stomach, trickled lower, brought every nerve ending to life.
“Nothing,” a voice said from the tunnel beyond. A male voice. One Gryphon didn’t recognize. “I don’t see any sign of them.”
“They had to have come this way,” another voice said.
Maelea sucked in another breath, held it. Her nipples pressed into his chest, stiff points hardening against the fabric of his shirt. His stomach tightened at the contact, and without thinking, he shifted his hand from her hip to her rib cage, then higher, to the edge of her bra.
A strangled sound echoed in the back of her throat.
“Did you hear that?” the first voice asked.
Gryphon’s hand froze. In the darkness his palms grew sweaty. He looked down at where he’d almost touched her, still couldn’t see shit.
Skata, what the hell was he doing? He wasn’t here to get hot and heavy with the female. He only needed her to get away. Dammit, he really was going bat-shit crazy if he was trying to feel her up out here in the dark, when they could be discovered at any moment.
He lowered his hand back to her hip. Knew if he didn’t do something right away, she’d ruin his chance to escape. She stiffened as he leaned close and his lips brushed her ear, but he ignored the reaction. And he fought the shards of heat touching her like this sent ricocheting to his belly when he said, “Make another sound like that and I’ll kill them both.”
Her body shook against his, a mixture of fear and hatred, but to her credit she didn’t utter another sound. And in the silence, he felt his control resolidify. Several seconds passed before the first voice said, “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. Let’s split up. You keep on going, I’ll double back.”
“Sounds good.”
Footsteps pounded away. Gryphon waited a good minute before his heart rate slowed enough so he could put some venom in his voice. “Don’t test me, female. I guarantee if you do, you’ll lose. All I need from you is to get me out of these tunnels and away from the colony. If you do that, no one will get hurt, you included. Do you understand? Nod once if you do.”
Silky hair brushed his cheek as her head bobbed. She drew in a breath through her nose, one that lifted her chest all over again and pressed those wicked breasts tighter to him, dimming all other sound until the beat of her heart was all he heard. A sound he was sure he could now pick out in a crowded room, even with drums and trumpets blaring.