“Sure. I’m up for it.” He was more than up for it. He had his own questions he wanted answered.
Callia helped the redhead out of the chair. When Titus reached for her other arm and his fingers pressed against her bare flesh, his head spun all over again. A hazy feeling settled in, leaving him loose and relaxed. Callia looked down at where he touched her, and concern dawned in her eyes before they shot to his.
Titus shook his head as the two helped the redhead toward the door, and conversation picked back up behind them. “Don’t ask,” he said. “I don’t have a clue what it means either.”
Casey turned toward Nick and Theron. “So we think we narrowed down where they might be—or at least where they were as of an hour ago. But Callia and I are both in agreement. It’s too much stress on Isadora to look again. It’s not good for her health or the health of the baby.”
“You guys,” Isadora protested, “I’m fine. Demetrius, tell them I’m fine.”
“Don’t look at me, kardia,” Demetrius said with a frown. “I’m with them. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be in the human realm right now.”
Callia glanced over the redhead’s curls toward Titus. “I’ll be down as soon as I can,”
He slipped an arm around the redhead’s waist to hold her up, liking the feel of her body against his way more than he expected. Really liking that high he was experiencing just from touching her. “Go. I’ve got her. I think this is an argument you need to be in on.”
“Thank you,” Callia whispered.
Callia let go, and the redhead leaned into Titus for support. Whether it was because she wanted to or needed him, he didn’t know. But man, that felt good. The heat of her body, the slide of her skin. And that sweet, floral scent mixing with his already foggy mind…Heaven.
As he led her through the massive gathering room with its soaring ceiling and gigantic fireplace toward the elevator, and the voices behind him dimmed with distance, he told himself this was a slippery slope to traverse. A female he could touch and who left him feeling high? Combined with the fact she was hotter than hell? If ever there was a temptation, she was it.
She balked when they neared the elevator.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I…no elevator. I can’t…”
Claustrophobic? That worked out good for him. It meant he got to enjoy the feel of her body pressed up to his even longer.
“Okay,” he said, his arm tightening around her, the heat of her body seeping deeper into his skin, igniting a burn in his flesh he’d missed more than he ever thought possible. “No elevator. We’ll take the stairs.”
He steered her toward a doorway at the end of the hall. “I’m Titus, by the way. I can either call you Thief or Panic Attack, unless you’ve got a name you’d rather I use.”
“Na-Natasa.”
He pushed the door to the stairwell open with his shoulder. “Natasa. That means ‘resurrection’ in Old Greek, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. But one thought got through: Fuck.
Not that he wouldn’t like to. But there was a story there. One he needed to discover first. One some deep-buried instinct told him was going to mean something important. Soon.
***
Gryphon stood on the small dock and listened to the water slapping gently against the pilings beneath his feet. The lake looked like a black, oily slick, reflecting the motel lights across the road behind him. No moon shone, and there were no other lights around the perimeter of the small lake, which meant if there was any civilization out there, it was hidden in the densely forested mountains beyond. He hadn’t even known there was water out here until he left the motel and went for a walk to try to clear his head.
Dooooulas. Come to me…
He scrubbed at his scalp, pressed his fingers against his ears, knew he needed to go back to Maelea so the voice wouldn’t torment him, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he knew he was in control. His body still hummed with a mixture of arousal and anger that left him on edge. He wanted her, dammit, but he wasn’t about to let some female—some daughter of Zeus, for shit’s sake—get in the way of what he needed to do next.
Dooooulas…
He raked his hands through his hair and dug his fingernails into his scalp until pain shot through his skin. The voice was so much louder out here. So much more insistent.
Come to me, doulas. You know you can’t resist for long…
He pulled hard on his hair. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
“Not usually the reaction I get when I come calling.”
His head snapped up. The petite, elderly female dressed in diaphanous white seemed to hover over the surface of the water. Skata, was he hallucinating now too? That shouldn’t surprise him. After the shit he’d been through, nothing should fucking surprise him. But it did. “What…? How…?”