“Get up!” Maelea cried. “Do something!
He scanned the room, took in the seething monsters ready to annihilate, Maelea standing on the mattress, cuffed to the headboard, her face alight with fear and horror. And knew there wasn’t time to free her. No time to mount a defense. No suitable weapons to protect them.
Keep her safe.
Gryphon was down to his last option. And using it—the gift he’d gotten from his forefather Perseus—meant losing Maelea forever.
Chapter Thirteen
Gryphon dug the key from the front pocket of his pants and tossed it toward Maelea. “Here!”
She caught it with her free hand and tried to get it into the lock on her cuffs. Her fingers shook. She missed the hole. Three more daemons poured into the room through the broken window while Gryphon scrambled to his feet and kicked the injured beast in front of him to the ground, then arced out with his blade, catching another in its arm.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she muttered, fumbling with the key. There! The key slipped in, turned. The cuff sprang from her wrist.
“You,” the closest daemon growled, advancing on Gryphon. “Atalanta is looking for you.”
“Tell her to go back to hell,” Gryphon yelled.
The daemon growled. Maelea looked up just as it lifted its arm and swung out.
“No!” Maelea watched in horror as the daemon’s claws raked across Gryphon’s chest. His body sailed back into her from the blow, shoving her off the bed and into the wall. The knife flew from his hand. She grunted as she dropped to the floor, as Gryphon landed on top of her. Panic welled as she looked up at the three daemons advancing quickly.
“Gryphon!” She wrestled her way out from under him, shook his shoulders. His eyes were closed. Blood welled from deep gashes across his abdomen. For a minute, she thought he was dead, and fear spread to the center of her soul. Then she realized he was still breathing and the muscles around his eyes were tightening as if he were concentrating. Or dreaming. Or freakin’ hallucinating.
“Gryphon, wake up.” She grasped his shoulders, shook harder. He still didn’t open his eyes. Belatedly, as she worked like crazy to revive him, she realized the growls had stopped. The room was quiet. She looked across the bed toward the five daemons, four of whom stood frozen midstep. The other lay on the floor where Gryphon had kicked it, still as a statue, blood pulsing from its wounds.
Panic and fear intermixed with confusion. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, why the monsters weren’t already killing them, but for whatever reason, they had a chance now. She shook Gryphon again. “Wake up, dammit!”
His eyes fluttered open. A dazed look passed over his face. “What are you…waiting for? Run!”
Run. Yes. Run. Fear morphed to urgency as Maelea scrambled to her feet. She knew how to run. She was good at it. She’d been running from Hades her whole life. Twenty minutes ago, all she’d wanted was to run from Gryphon.
“Run!” Gryphon hollered in a hoarse voice.
She turned for the door, stumbled down the hallway. Saw the sword Gryphon had taken from that skeleton in the tunnels below the colony, leaning in the corner.
Her feet stilled. Her mind swam. She sensed he’d done something to those daemons, though what or how, she didn’t know. They weren’t dead. For some reason they were frozen. And the urgency in Gryphon’s voice—a voice that had recently whispered how much he needed her—brought her back to reality.
He was lying on the floor in there bleeding because he’d stepped in front of her…because he’d protected her. And he no longer had a weapon. If she ran now… If she left him, he’d be killed.
Her pulse raced and her heart beat so hard she was sure it had to be bruising her ribs. All these years she’d been hiding. All these years she’d done her best to stay off Hades’s radar. Even though the daemons were technically Atalanta’s creation, they were from the Underworld, from his darkness. If she turned against them, it would eventually reach Hades’s ears.
But if she walked away and Gryphon died, she knew she’d never be able to live with herself. She’d stayed hidden not only to protect herself, but to protect those she cared about. And she cared about Gryphon, even after the things he’d done and said to her. Cared more than she should. Because she understood him. Likely in a way no one else ever could.
Her hand shook as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the sword. But her determination had never been stronger.
She rushed back into the room before she could change her mind. Gryphon lay on the far side of the bed, where she’d left him, his torso at an odd angle, his head against the wall, blood welling from the cuts across his chest. His eyelids fluttered when he saw her, that dazed look telling her he was more injured than she’d first thought.