But dragging her along…he hadn’t planned for that, and it created a whole other set of problems. Problems he needed to work through in his head. And right now, though he didn’t understand why, the voice wasn’t screaming at him, so it was his best chance to think. “Shut up already and just”—he wrapped his arms back around her, tugged her head so it fit under his chin—“try to generate body heat.”
She shivered against him for several minutes, then finally drew in a shuddering breath and relaxed a few muscles at a time. But she kept her hands pressed against his chest, ready and waiting to push away as soon as she could.
Her warmth seeped into his skin as they sat in silence. Water gurgled nearby, and the green glow from the bottom of the lake gave the entire cavern an eerie feel. His mind drifted to where he’d go after he got out of this cave. If he let the voice guide him, he had no doubt he’d find his target. The question was…could he fight the voice? If he let it take hold, could he keep the darkness from consuming him?
Sensation came back to his toes, his knees, his arms and legs. Gradually, he became aware of Maelea against him, not only as a heat source, but as a woman. Warm breath brushed against his collarbone, slid lower to tighten his nipples. Soft breasts pressed against the underside of his pecs, making him wonder what they felt like without that bra. And everywhere her bare skin touched, heat erupted. Against his chest, his stomach, especially in his hips, where she was straddling him, nothing but her damp panties and his wet boxers separating their flesh.
His mind drifted to sweaty, wet, steaming flesh. Skin moving against skin. Eyes half-closed, hungry mouths, hands and lips and tongues touching, sucking, tasting…
Skata. Definitely not what he needed to be thinking about right now. Avoiding hypothermia. Escaping. Finding that fucking voice that had been haunting him for months.
The voice…
He hadn’t heard it since…the river. Since before he’d found Maelea. It was still there—he could hear the dull buzz—but it wasn’t the incessant screaming he was used to. Come to think of it, in the tunnels, before the ground had given out—something he still didn’t understand—when he’d pressed Maelea up against the rock wall and covered her mouth with his hand to keep her quiet, the voice had dimmed then too.
He thought back to Maelea’s curves locked tight against him. To the feel of her lips beneath his palm. Tried to remember if she’d done or said anything that could be messing with his concentration. But nothing came to mind. And though he fought it, he couldn’t help but compare how she’d felt then—completely clothed and trembling—to how she felt now. Half-naked, relaxed, all but melting into his skin, warming him in a way that left him burning.
Tingles started in his stomach, spread lower. He was suddenly aware of every detail. The jasmine scent of her skin, the way her nearly dry hair curled around her shoulders and brushed his arms, every curve and subtle softness. And how incredibly warm she was. Everywhere. Reawakening his body in ways he didn’t expect.
Her breath caught. She went still against him. And he realized, skata, she felt that reawakening too. Fucking fabulous. While he had no remorse about scaring the crap out of her to get what he wanted, he’d finally just settled her down by promising he wasn’t about to rape her. And here he was with a massive hard-on she definitely couldn’t miss.
In a minute she was gonna freak. He’d lose the heat they’d generated. Unless he did something quick to change her mind.
He slid his hands down to her hips and lifted her from his lap. But his fingers slipped on her silky skin and she dropped back down, right on his erection. And just that little bit of friction sent blood screaming to his cock and a roaring need rushing through his veins.
She gasped. Dug her fingers into his chest. But this time the clawing motion didn’t hurt. It felt good. And where they were locked together at the hips, heat erupted. A volcano of want and need and lust. A lust he’d gone way too long without. A lust he could sate, right here and now.
All he had to do was take.
Chapter Five
“Skata. This isn’t working. You need to move.”
Maelea nearly choked as Gryphon positioned his hands at her hips and lifted her from his lap only to drop her again on a monster erection she’d have had to be dead to miss. Her fingers dug into his chest and she tried to push away, but he held her too tightly. Fear rushed in on a wave, swamped her chest. She’d been stupid to think he wouldn’t take advantage of her just because she was cold. Stupid to trust him.
“Don’t. I—”
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.”
Titus snorted, then swore as another shot of pain rushed through his torso.
“Okay, enough,” Callia said, coming back to the right side of his bed and holding out a cup with a straw. “Drink this.”
As Titus took the cup from her hand, careful not to touch her, she turned to Phin and added, “Why don’t you take Max to get something to eat.” She looked at her son on the other side of the bed. “Are you hungry, honey?”
Max shrugged, crossed his arms over his chest, and deliberately didn’t meet her gaze. “I guess.”
The kid dropped to his feet and shuffled toward the door. While Titus sipped the juice, which tasted like heaven, he watched Callia watch her son. He didn’t need to read minds to know what she was thinking. Her I love you and I don’t know what to do to help you expression was written clearly on her face.
“I’ll be back to sing to you later, smart guy,” Phin said as he pushed up on his long legs and scrubbed a hand through his short dark hair. “And this time I’ll serenade you with my pristine tenor. You want ‘T.N.T.’ or ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’?”
“If you’re gonna come back here and sing, I want a lobotomy.”
Phin winked at Callia. “He’s delirious with excitement.”
Titus’s head fell back against the pillow as Phin headed out the door. “I’m gonna need more drugs. Preferably whatever you gave me before that knocked me out.”
Callia turned and looked down at him, her hands on her slim hips, her eyebrows lifted in amusement. A stethoscope was slung around her neck and a pen was tucked behind her left ear. One he bet she probably forgot she’d put there. “I only gave you enough to keep you asleep during the surgery. With that head wound, I’d prefer not to give you more than you need.”
Surgery. Shit. It really had been bad. No wonder his ribs hurt like hell. “What did you have to do?”
She sat on the side of his bed. He shifted his legs out of the way so she wouldn’t accidentally touch him. “You had a punctured lung, couple of broken ribs, and I had to stitch you up from the inside out. It wasn’t pretty, but the last time I checked, the wounds were healing well. Your superhero Argonaut genes come in handy in a crisis.”
Yeah, no shit. “What about my head?”
“There was some pressure on the left side of your brain. I didn’t want to drain it if I didn’t have to. Now that you’re awake, I think it’s going to be okay.”
Titus nodded and rubbed his fingers through the long hair over the back of his scalp, cringing when he felt the tender bump.
One corner of Callia’s mouth turned up at the edge. “Zander said you’d be pissed if I had to shave your head. You have him to thank that I didn’t.”
Titus lowered his hand. “How’d you get Zander to agree to bring Max to the Misos colony? That’s where we are, right?”
Callia sighed, but this time was careful to guard her thoughts. “He’s not happy with me about that, actually. We argued about it as I was rushing to get here to help you.”
Because Callia was a descendent of the ancient Horae, the goddesses of balance and justice, her son, Max, was a valuable asset in the war between good and evil. While it was a risk for even Callia to be in the human realm, it was an even bigger risk for Max. He’d been taken from Callia and Zander as a baby and raised by Atalanta, the vengeful goddess who had only one goal: to see Argolea and the Argonauts destroyed. The Argonauts had successfully rescued Max from Atalanta’s clutches months ago, and since then he’d been kept safe in Argolea, which was the one realm Atalanta couldn?
??t access. But Titus knew from being around Zander that things weren’t all rosy at home these days. Max was struggling with the adjustment. And the strain was evident on Callia’s face.
“Zander’s just worried,” Titus said, hoping to ease a little of her anxiety.
“Zander’s right to be worried,” she said. “Every day that goes by, Max is slipping farther and farther away from us. I hoped coming to the colony, where we can keep him safe and he could feel like he was a part of things, would help.” She looked toward the door with longing. “But I guess that was a pipe dream, huh?”
“Callia, I—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, pushing to her feet and reaching out to squeeze his bare arm. “We’ll all survive.”
A jolt of emotions rippled through Titus, drew him forward on the bed with a gasp, and hurled him back against the mattress with a crack. The cup flew from his hand. Air whooshed out of his lungs as pain encircled his chest and tightened with the force of a boa constrictor.
“Oh my gods, Titus.” Callia immediately let go, stepped back.
The pain dissipated as soon as she released him, and he breathed through clenched teeth as the emotions followed suit.
“You feel, don’t you?” Callia asked in small voice. “I suspected, but I wasn’t sure. That’s why you wear gloves all the time. I am so sorry. I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” he managed to say, even as the residual effects of the transfer left him feeling like a limp noodle. “I’m used to it.”
“All the time?” she asked. “Has there ever been a time when you’ve touched someone and not felt what they feel?”
There had been. Feeling others’ emotions wasn’t part of his gift. It was a curse. A hundred-year-old curse he’d been damned with because of what he’d done.
“Not that I can remember,” he lied, not wanting to talk about it, let alone remember. “Lucky me, huh?”
“Oh, Titus.”