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 *footing 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.”