Enslaved (14 page)

At the first opportunity, she was gone.

***

Titus had reached his limit with the coddling shit. Much to Callia’s disapproval, he’d showered, dressed, and was now riding an elevator up to the main floor to find out what the hell was happening with Gryphon.

At his side, Callia crossed her arms and frowned. “I still think you need more rest.”

“I’m sick of that freakin’ bed. If you like it so much, you go lie in it.”

“You’re the worst patient ever,” she mumbled.

“No, that’d be your mate.”

At the mention of Zander, Callia’s face softened, and a wistful smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “He is a horrid patient, you’re right.” She shot him a look. “But you’re not far behind.”

Titus didn’t answer. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he didn’t dare look Callia’s way and give her any reason to order him back to bed. He was weaker than he should be and knew he could use at least a few more hours of rest, but he’d had it with the clinic and the strange looks he’d been getting ever since Callia put up that damn Do Not Touch sign. And though he liked Callia, he couldn’t stomach being around her much longer. She thought about Zander constantly, and every time she did, she’d get that sappy newlybound look on her face. The one that screamed
happiness
and reminded Titus of everything he was never going to have.

He put that thought out of his head, refocused on Gryphon. Shit, he seriously hoped Nick’s men hadn’t found the dumbass yet.

The elevator door pinged open and he stepped off onto the main floor. Night had settled over the lake, and the tall arching windows stared out at nothing but darkness. Seated on a couch in the middle of the room, Max glanced their way. At Titus’s side, relief whipped through Callia, and she stepped around him, heading for her son. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

Max shrugged. Picked at a thread on the arm of the sofa. “Zander told me to wait out here.”

Zander. Not
Dad
. Titus didn’t need to read minds to pick up the animosity.

“Where is he?” Callia asked in a stiff voice as she sat next to her son, obviously picking up on it too.

Max nodded toward a cracked door across the room. “In there. With Theron and Nick.”

Happy for any reason to get away from Callia and her son, Titus turned in that direction, pushed the door open, and stepped into the space. Nick sat behind an intricately carved Russian desk, dwarfing the piece of furniture as he flipped papers. Theron and Zander stood in front of him, hands on hips, shoulders tense. No one looked up when Titus stepped into the room. No one even noticed him.

“You’re not going,” Nick said. “End of story.”

“I have an Argonaut down there,” Theron said.

“I don’t care if the queen of fucking England’s down there,” Nick snapped, “The hole’s being sealed as we speak.”

“You can’t do that—” Zander started.

“I can do whatever the hell I want,” Nick tossed back.

Theron braced his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “You son of a bitch.”

Nick glanced up at Theron, and his amber eyes were as steely as Titus had ever seen them when he said, “Let me make something clear to you, Theron. You don’t have any authority here. I allow you and your Argonauts to use the colony as a stopping ground when you’re in the human realm out of simple courtesy, but I don’t have to. You have no say in how the colony is handled or maintained. The tunnel’s being filled in for security reasons, and that’s that. You don’t like it, you can poof back to the mother ship for all I care.”

Nick cast a glare Zander’s way, then pushed back from his chair and rose to his full height. At six and a half feet and close to two hundred and eighty pounds, he was a force to be reckoned with, but then so was Theron. And as a descendent of Heracles, there wasn’t much that made Theron back down.

“My guardians and I are going into that cavern to look for Gryphon,” Theron said. “That, my friend, is the end of the story. Come on, Z.” He signaled Zander, turned for the door, caught Titus’s gaze, and clenched his jaw. Behind him, Zander’s thoughts were easy to pick up.
This
is
so
fucked.

Titus had rarely seen the leader of the Argonauts so worked up. Something big was going down here. His gaze jumped from face to face, trying to read each of their thoughts, but emotions were too close to the surface to get an accurate picture of what was happening.

“If you do that,” Nick answered before Theron and Zander reached the door, “you’re signing your death certificates. We’ll close up the cavern whether you’re in there or not.”

Nick wasn’t lying. Titus’s adrenaline inched up a notch as he read the
Come
on, challenge me, I dare you
thought coming from Nick.

Zander’s eyes narrowed. He looked Nick’s way again. “What’s down there in that cavern?”

Nick clenched his jaw but didn’t answer. But Titus heard the lies racing across the half-breed’s mind as he fished for something to get them to back off.

“Where the hell did Gryphon and Maelea end up?” Theron asked in an accusing tone. “There’s something you’re not telling us.”

They’ll find out soon enough. Or they’ll make things worse for the colony. You don’t have a choice here.

Nick’s thoughts echoed in Titus’s mind, piquing his own curiosity. This was about more than just Gryphon and—oh, great—Maelea now.

The half-breed leader clenched his jaw once, twice, then finally muttered, “Fuck,” followed by “Get in here and close that damn door.”

Titus closed the doors at his back. Caught Theron’s
Read
his
mind
and
tell
me
if
he’s telling the truth
thought.

Nick moved in front of his desk and rubbed his hand across his forehead as if he had the mother of all migraines. “I told Isadora there were extenuating circumstances to relocating the colony here after our location in Oregon was destroyed.”

“I remember,” Theron said. “The Russian Misos colony loaned you the property.”

“Right. This place had been sitting empty for quite some time. It wasn’t being used as a residence. Turns out, there’s a reason for that.”

“What reason?” Zander asked.

Tell
them, don’t tell them.
Nick’s thoughts bounced around as he debated his options.
Shit, if I don’t tell them, they’ll just go down there and fuck things up.

Nick scowled and motioned them to follow as he stepped toward the wall at the back of his office. “This way.”

He touched the molding high on the right side of a bookshelf. The entire unit swung out, revealing a secret passageway.

“Sweet,” Zander muttered. “Where the hell does it go?”

“Just shut it and keep up,” Nick said, stepping through the open doorway and into a steel-walled tunnel. Titus followed Zander and Theron inside. At his back, the massive bookcase snapped closed with a clack. Titus was too far back to read Nick’s thoughts, but he picked up Zander’s and Theron’s, and both were wondering what the hell was going on.

No one spoke as they reached a circular staircase that seemed to go on forever. Nick started down without a word. Theron followed. Zander turned back to Titus and whispered, “You okay? You’re sweating. Maybe we should go find Callia.”

Titus wasn’t missing this. He needed to know where Gryphon had gone. He stepped past Zander. “I’m fine.”

Before Zander could press him for more, they reached the bottom of the stairs. The floor was concrete, the walls cinder block.

Titus wiped the sweat from his brow, ignored the pain in his side. “What does this place have to with Gryphon?”

“You’ll see in a minute,” Nick answered.

The panel lights flicked green, then the steel door hissed open and disappeared into the wall. He stepped into the dark room, lit by only a glowing orange lamp somewhere in the center of the space. The rest of them followed.

“
Skata
,” Theron muttered when he came to a stop.

Titus read his
No
fucking
way
thought before he moved out from behind Theron’s massive body and stopped next to him. Shock registered first as he stared ahead at the glowing orange rocks rotating on a pedestal in the center of the room with what looked like a heat lamp hovering above. “Is that—?”

“Therillium,” Nick answered, dragging a hand over his close-shaved head. “It glows orange when heated. In its normal state it’s green.”

“
Skata
,” Theron muttered again. “You’re housing your people over Hades’s personal stash of invisibility ore?”

Nick shot him a look. “Trust me, it wasn’t my first choice. But when our colony in Oregon was destroyed, we didn’t have many options. The Russian Misos colony agreed to loan us this location with the provision that we keep the therillium mines secret and continue to provide their colony with enough ore so their location remains hidden. I had my doubts at first, but Hades doesn’t know we’re here. He doesn’t even know this castle exists.”

“How the hell not?” Theron asked.

“Because the therillium”—Nick motioned toward the slowly turning chunk of glowing orange rock—“keeps the castle invisible. The tunnels are sealed with only one way in or out, which is known only by me and one other person. Hades uses kobaloi to mine his therillium, but they can’t come out into the sunlight, so they’re no threat to us. As for Hades himself, he doesn’t dare venture into the mines.”

“Why not?” Zander asked.

“Because there’s something darker and fouler down there than just kobaloi. Something even Hades won’t mess with.”

The pain in his side forgotten, Titus shifted his gaze from the ore to Nick when he read the leader of the half-breed’s thoughts. “Typhaon. Shit. Are you telling us the most deadly creature in all of ancient Greece is down there?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah. The ore lets him take on a smoldering fire-demon form. And as he’s found something the gods all want—”

“He’s not about to let it go,” Theron finished for him. Of course all of the gods would like to get their hands on a substance that could make them invisible, but Typhaon wasn’t just any monster. Even Hades feared the legendary beast that had been trapped underground by Zeus thousands of years ago. “
Skata.
How the hell do you get more if and when you need it?”

Nick perched his hands on his hips, stared at the glowing ore. In the orange glow the cuts on his scarred face from his run-in with Gryphon looked deeper and angrier than before. “Very carefully.”

It was clear the half-breed wasn’t going to elaborate. And in the silence, Theron’s
We
need
to
get
Gryphon
the
hell
out
of
there
NOW
thought slammed into Titus.

“I’m going in,” Theron announced.

“No, you’re not,” Nick said quickly. “We’re not giving Hades any reason to look twice at this location.”

“Gryphon and Maelea—”

“Are dead by now,” Nick said bluntly. “If they even made it out of that river, and I seriously doubt they did. Trust me. If the freezing cold didn’t get them, the kobaloi certainly did. And on the off chance they somehow survived all that, if they ran into Typhaon…”

Then
they’re nothing but dust now
, Zander thought.

“The tunnel’s getting sealed, Theron,” Nick said. “I want to kick Gryphon’s ass because of what he did, but this decision isn’t a personal one. I won’t risk my people to kobaloi, Typhaon, or Hades just so you can save one rogue warrior. It’s well past time you accepted facts and let the guardian go.”

***

The cover of darkness made it easy to hide in the shadows.

Crouched behind a rusted Ford pickup that had seen better days, Gryphon scanned the building to his right and waited.

The town was small, just one main street and a couple of shops. They’d waited until late, until the measly handful of stores had already closed for the day. Beside him, Maelea breathed slowly, and her pulse raced beneath the skin of her wrist, which he hadn’t dared let go of since they stopped on that cliff. The female was pissed, but he didn’t care. He was thinking clearer than before and he knew it had something to do with her. Whatever she was, however she was linked to the gods, he wasn’t above using her to get to his ultimate goal.

Even now, Atalanta’s draw was strong. Her voice was a dim vibration in the back of his head—tolerable when he was near Maelea—but inside there was always that desire to find her. A desire he would eventually use to his advantage.