Petty cash. The guy had to keep some kind of money around for emergencies.
Gryphon rifled through drawers until he found a zippered pouch. Inside he counted at least three hundred dollars in different bills. Not ideal, but enough to get them the hell out of here. He tucked the envelope into the waistband of his jeans, then turned and scanned the store for a thigh holster for his knife.
He moved through the shop quickly, grabbing supplies they’d need, pulling Maelea along behind him, handing her coats and blankets to hold with her free arm while she continued to protest his every move. “Why do you need this? What’s that for? You can’t carry all this stuff, you know.”
Skata, she never stopped talking. It was beginning to grate on his nerves. He grabbed a length of rope, tossed it on the pile she was carrying, turned, and scanned the room one more time.
“Someone’s going to find us,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time. I bet police are on their way right now.”
His gaze zeroed in on what he’d been looking for and he smiled.
He reached across the table, picked up a set of handcuffs.
“What are those for?” she asked in a startled breath.
Gryphon’s grin widened.
Before she could sputter off another protest, he tugged her toward the door. “Come on, we’re done.”
They went out the way they’d come in. Maelea nearly tripped and dropped the load she was carrying, but Gryphon caught her at the last second. The heat of her body warmed his side, slid across his arm. And that flare of desire burned hot all over again. A desire he knew—now that he was thinking clearly—would only distract him from his goal.
A siren rang out down the street. Gryphon’s head swiveled that way, and he didn’t miss the burst of hope in Maelea’s eyes or the way her pulse picked up speed against his fingers. “Come on.”
He stopped at the rusted pickup truck he’d checked earlier, pulled the Ford’s door open, and pushed Maelea inside. She grunted as the supplies fell out of her arms and splayed across the seat and floor. “Hey!”
He climbed in after her. Tugged the door shut, looked all around for keys.
Come on. This was a small town in the middle of nowhere. There had to be keys in here some—
He pulled the visor down. A set of keys dropped into his lap.
Victory pulsed in his veins. He slid the key into the ignition and felt the motor hum beneath his feet. When the passenger door creaked open, he threw out a hand and grabbed Maelea by the wrist before she could get away.
“Let me go!” she hollered.
“Not a chance, female.”
He snapped a cuff around her left wrist. She gasped in surprise and outrage. Then he snapped the other cuff to the grab handle on the dashboard.
“You son of a—”
“You need to come up with new curse words, female. Yours are getting old.” He shoved the truck into reverse, backed out of the lot, and shifted into drive. The passenger door slammed shut.
Maelea struggled to free her wrist from the cuffs. “You’re not keeping me here, you bastard!”
He swerved around a dog in the road on their way out of town. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he spotted a cop car pulling into the lot they’d just exited, lights flaring, siren roaring.
Too late, boys.
A smile twined its way across his face as they left the town behind. He ignored Maelea’s thrashing and string of curses, instead breathed in the fresh air sailing through the open window. For the first time since he’d come back from the Underworld, he truly felt free.
They made it five miles up the winding mountain road before he slammed on the brakes.
Maelea, still struggling to free her arm from the handcuffs, flew forward, hit the dashboard, and bounced back. She groaned at the impact. “What the hell…?”
“Skata.”
She gave up fighting long enough to rub her forehead with her free hand, but her words died off as she stared ahead at what blocked the road.
Three sets of eyes glowing green in the darkness peered back at them. Three sets of eyes that were definitely not human.
Chapter Nine
Maelea stared at the monsters moving toward them in the dark—daemons from Atalanta’s army—with the bodies of men, faces of cats, horns of a goat, and ears of a lion. They were dressed all in black, each at least seven feet tall, carrying lethal blades as long as her forearm. But their hands…She didn’t miss the claws wrapped around the handles of those swords or the way they gripped the blades with the intent to swing and annihilate.
“Why—why are you stopping?” she asked. They should be flooring it right now, not stopping!
Gryphon shoved the truck in park, reached back for the blade he’d tossed into the extended cab. “Stay here. Don’t move. Lock the doors.”
Lock the doors? Was he serious? As if that was going to stop those things if they came after her?