No emotions flowed from her into him. And though he still couldn’t read her thoughts exactly, the few he was picking up—Run. Go. Bad idea—barely even registered, because the room spun, leaving him light-headed and woozy as shit.
He braced a hand against the wall to keep from falling over. Warmth rushed over every inch of his skin, sent fire burning along his nerve endings. He looked down where he touched her, then up to her face. Saw no surprise, no awareness in her gemlike eyes. Only suspicion.
He blinked twice. Gave his head a swift shake. Knew he still had to be tripped out on those drugs Callia had given him earlier. But then why had he been able to hear his kins’ thoughts so clearly? And why had he felt Callia’s emotions when she’d touched him?
The female clenched her hand into a fist, tried to pull her arm free. “Let me go.”
He didn’t loosen his grasp. “What are you?”
Her face blanched. And in the resulting silence, he knew, oh, yeah. She was definitely hiding something. But of more importance was the fact that this was the first person in almost two hundred years whose touch didn’t send a tidal wave of transferred emotions zinging through his body.
“No one important,” she said.
“You’re not Misos.”
“Neither are you.”
She was definitely otherworldly, that much he could tell, but just what, exactly, he didn’t know. “What do you want with Maelea?”
She glanced at his hand, still wrapped tight around her wrist. “Are you going to release me?”
Not a chance. He was enjoying the sensation of her skin against his too much to let go just yet. Even with that light-headed wooziness making him feel as if his head might spin off at any second. “Answer the question.”
She heaved out a breath. “Maelea is an old friend. I’m just trying to find her.”
Another lie. Maelea was a loner. Though she’d warmed up since being at the colony, she didn’t have friends in the true sense of the word. And he’d remember if this woman had ever been with her.
“For what reason?”
“My reasons are my own. Now unhand me.” She jerked her arm back, and this time the motion was strong enough to snap her wrist from his grip.
The room stopped spinning. The fog seemed to clear from Titus’s mind. And cool air trickled over skin that moments ago had been flushed and heated. Wondering what the heck was going on, he took a step toward her, ready to reach for her again, when the door to the room burst open and Phineus barreled in.
“T,” Phin said, “there you are.” His head swiveled toward the female, and he did a double take. “Um…whoa. Am I interrupting?”
“No,” the female answered.
“Yes,” Titus said, not ready to let her go just yet.
Phin looked back at Titus. “Sorry, man. Theron needs you. The queen and her sisters used their woo-woo magic and caught a glimpse of Gryphon and Maelea. And they’re not in the tunnels anymore.”
The first inkling of hope ricocheted through Titus’s chest. “Where?”
“Not sure yet.” Phin glanced at the redhead again, who was listening intently—too intently—then back at Titus. “But, Titus, man…there are daemons after them. And hellhounds.”
The redhead drew in a sharp breath.
Oh yeah, she was definitely otherworldly, and very clearly more than a simple Misos.
Phineus turned to leave, and the redhead started out the door, but Titus gripped her by the upper arm, careful this time to make sure he closed his hand around her shirt and not bare skin. Heat pulsed through his palm again, but no emotions, no pain, nothing like what he was used to.
“What are you—?”
“You’re coming with me,” he said, dragging her after Phineus down the hall. “Something tells me you’ve got a stake in what we find out about Maelea. And you might just be of use to us.”
***
Maelea’s arm ached from holding it out. She’d finally given up and leaned forward to brace both hands on the dashboard and rest her head against them so she could get some rest. The fact that Gryphon had seen those hellhounds and pressed down on the accelerator was good, but it didn’t ease her anxiety any.
The truck jolted, and she startled from the light sleep she’d managed to slip into. Groggy, she glanced out at the dark forest around her, then across the bench seat to Gryphon, his jaw tight, his eyes intense, his face both familiar and too damn sexy at the same time.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Gryphon glanced at the dashboard, which didn’t have a clock. “I don’t know. Late. We’ve gone a little over a hundred miles.”
She wanted to ask in which direction but thought better of it. She didn’t really want to know what he had planned. She just wanted to get away.
“I’m tired,” she said, thinking of a way to make him stop. “I can’t sleep like this.”
“I’m not uncuffing you.”
Bastard.
She bit her tongue so as not to antagonize him. “I’m starving as well. And I need to pee. Can’t we stop somewhere? You have to be hungry and exhausted too.”