“Get it!” the one with the white hair called.
Maelea screamed. Her adrenaline in the out-of-this-world range, she turned and ran. Darting around boulders and small pools full of murky green liquid, she tried not to think about how many were following her. The clicking of hundreds of nails on rocks echoed at her back, shot her anxiety into the stratosphere. She ran faster, tried not to slip on the smooth rocks beneath her feet, rounded a corner, and smacked headfirst into something hard.
This wasn’t rock. It was solid, warm, and very male. She bounced off and hit the ground on her ass. Before she could pick herself up, a large hand wrapped around her bicep, hauled her up, and thrust her behind him.
“Stay back!” Gryphon yelled.
The creatures raced toward them, their claws clicking across the rocks, echoing in the vast space. Gryphon arced out with a sword and sliced the chest of the first—the one with the tuft of white hair. It hissed and jumped back, then screamed as if were burning and crumpled to the ground. Green blood oozed all around it. The others skidded to a stop and hissed in Gryphon’s direction. But instead of advancing, they rushed back into the shadows and disappeared, leaving the injured creature to writhe on the ground.
Hands braced against the rock wall at her back, eyes wide, Maelea stared at Gryphon, unable to believe what she’d just witnessed. He turned and grasped her at the upper arm again with his free hand, dragging her away from the body. “We need to make tracks.”
“Wh-what the hell was that?”
“Kobaloi,” he said as he moved.
His pace was quicker than hers, and she struggled to keep up. “Koba-what?”
“Gnome-dwarfs. They live underground. Damn, I should have expected them when I saw the therillium in the water.”
They rounded a bend, followed the river as it swept through the cavern. Her eyes darted right and left, her mind trying to make sense of what was going on. “What’s therillium?”
“An ore. Responsible for the green glow you see in the water. This.” He let go of her arm, fished out a rock from his pocket. It glowed green in his palm as he handed it to her. It was cool to the touch, and heaver than she expected. “The metal used to make Hades’s invisibility cap.”
Maelea stopped dead in her tracks. Stared at the glowing green rock in her hand. When Gryphon turned to look at her, her eyes met his, and trepidation raced down her spine. “How do you know that?”
“Because when it heats up, anything it touches becomes invisible. And those things back there? The kobaloi? Legend says they guard Hades’s reserves and mine it for him.”
Maelea turned and stared down the darkened cavern they’d just passed through. Swallowed hard. They were likely a mile underground. As close to the Underworld as she’d ever been. And now they’d killed one of Hades’s minions.
Panic consumed her. She dropped the ore. Pushed past Gryphon and ran. Where she was headed, she didn’t know. She just had to get out. She’d thought Gryphon’s using her as a hostage to get away was the worst thing to happen to her? This topped that by ten miles.
“Maelea! Son of a bitch.”
She ignored Gryphon’s voice at her back, pumped her arms as she darted past boulders, around corners, following the green glow of the river. It had to lead out. It had to reach the surface. Dear gods, she had to get there before Hades found her.
She rounded a corner, tripped over a rock, hit the ground with a grunt. Cringing, she pushed herself up and came face-to-face with a blackened skull.
Her eyes grew wide. And a scream ripped from her mouth before she could stop it.
Metal clanged behind her. Hands grabbed her at the arms, hauled her up, twisted her around until her scream was muffled by a broad chest covered by a damp shirt, and large, male hands tugged her in to hold her close. “Quiet. Quiet, dammit. They’re gonna hear you.”
They.
The one word killed the scream, brought every muscle in her body to a complete standstill.
“That’s better,” Gryphon said, massaging her scalp. “Breathe. Just like that. Skata, you are one hellfire female.”