Elisabeth Naughton: Bound

Anxiety was a bitch he did not have the patience to deal with.

Nerves danced in Titus’s stomach as he scanned the satellite image illuminated by the virtual screen in his suite of rooms at the castle in Argolea. The forest outside the Misos Colony in Montana was as quiet as ever. No movement. Nothing out of the ordinary. No sign of her . But just thinking about finding her, about touching her again, made his whole body vibrate as if on the edge of a precipice.

He curled his fingers into his palm, pulled his shaking arm back and covered his fist with his free hand before he could switch screens.

Think logically, dammit …

His heart raced. His adrenaline surged. If there was one skill he’d mastered over the years, it was control. Control over his body, his gift, even those around him. When he reacted impulsively, when he leapt without thinking, when he allowed his emotions to rule his actions…those were the times he got into trouble. Those were the moments that had led to his curse.

Common sense told him the Argonauts were growing suspicious as to why he’d been hold up in his room for days. His I still feel like crap after getting my ass handed to me by Gryphon excuse wasn’t going to fly much longer. If he didn’t pull his shit together soon, he was only going to create more worry. And yet…

He looked back at the image, reached out, and switched screens. To his disappointment, Maelea’s beach house on Vancouver Island sat as empty as it had when he and the others had left it days ago.

“ Skata .” He leaned back in his chair. Scowled. Called himself a hundred different kinds of stupid. He was starting to think she was a figment of his imagination. Except every time he remembered the heat that had rolled off her when she’d been close, and the feel of her skin against his when they’d touched, his entire body grew hard with an intensely deep craving he couldn’t explain, even to himself.

She was real. And she was out there somewhere. The first person he’d been able to touch in over a hundred years.

A knock sounded at the door. Titus jerked forward, barely able to kill the virtual screen before the heavy wood door to his room pushed in.

“Hey, T-man.” Phineus, his Argonaut brother, regarded him with speculation. “They’re gathering downstairs already. What’s taking you so long?”

“ Theron’s wondering what the fuck is up with you .”

Phineus’s unspoken words hit Titus hard. Even though the others knew he could read minds, they didn’t always filter their thoughts around him or contain them in time.

Dammit … the trouble was already starting. Theron, the leader of their brotherhood, had made it crystal clear to Titus back at the half-breed colony that this “mystery woman” was of no use to their cause. If he found out Titus had spent the last three days searching for her, he’d be more than pissed. He’d be downright livid. And since Theron had the strength of Heracles on his side, a livid Theron was never a good thing.

Titus grasped his leather gloves from the desk where he’d been working and forcibly slowed his breathing. Just the thought of her— Natasa —burned a line of wicked heat straight to his groin. “Finishing up some work. They all set?”

Phineus leaned his broad shoulder against the doorframe and waited while Titus pushed out of his chair and reached for his leather breastplate, the one stamped with the seal of his forefather Odysseus, from the couch at his side. “Yeah, the Council’s assembled and the rest of the Argonauts are there. All except Gryphon. He’s waiting with Maelea. Tense as shit down there in that room, I gotta tell you. Especially with Nick hanging in the shadows.”

Titus hated getting dressed up, but this was one of those rare occasions where he and the others just had to deal. Tonight was the official celebration marking the death of the goddess Atalanta, the female who’d made it her life mission to destroy Argolea and everything it stood for. They’d been hunting her for years. Only it hadn’t been an Argonaut who’d finally killed her. It had been the female who’d brought his brother Gryphon back from the brink of insanity.

“Nick, Demetrius, and the Council all in the same place?” Titus snapped the straps in place and fixed the blue cloak so it draped over his left shoulder. “This oughta be fun.”

Nick was the leader of the half-breeds, or Misos, and though he’d sided with the Argonauts in their quest to destroy Atalanta, he had a real attitude problem when it came to the Council of Elders, the body that advised the queen. One Titus knew stemmed from his childhood, when he’d been cast out of Argolea and his twin, Demetrius, had been spared and raised with the Argonauts.

“Fun?” Phineus tossed back with a frown. “Try borderline explosive. I’m just hoping we don’t have to physically restrain anyone. I could do without fireworks for a few days.”

Titus didn’t want to have to restrain anyone either. Just the thought of touching someone else, even with the steps he took to keep himself protected, made him sick to his stomach.

He grabbed the leather tie from the desk, pulled his shoulder-length hair back from his face, and tied the mass at the nape of his neck. When he turned, Phineus was studying him with amused gray eyes. “Done primping?”

“Takes me ten seconds, pretty boy. I’m sure it took you at least thirty minutes to get gussied up.”

A wide smile broke across Phineus’s face. He ran a hand down his own leather breastplate—this one marked with the symbol of Bellerophon—then shrugged so the orange cloak over his shoulder swayed. “I make this look good. Admit it. You’re jealous.”

Titus snorted and moved forward, his boots clomping on the hardwood floor, the formal black trousers tighter than he preferred and cutting him off in places he didn’t want to think about. “You give me a fucking headache. Let’s go already.”

He stepped past Phin in the doorway, careful not to touch the guardian. Even though the boundary of cloth would prevent any kind of transfer, he’d learned over the years it was just safer that way. The simple luxury of another’s touch was something he’d come to detest.

Until Natasa.

Her fire-red hair, those plump lips, her high cheekbones, and gemlike eyes flashed in his mind all over again. And a sharp burst of heat rolled through his groin as he moved out into the hallway. He needed to find her. He didn’t care what Theron had to say about it or who she was. He just wanted to touch her one more time. To remember what it felt like to be touched himself. For just a few minutes, he wanted to be like everyone else and feel again.

Dammit, he deserved that after all this time.

“ There is definitely something seriously up with you, man .”

Phineus’s thought plowed into him from behind, but Titus ignored it. He didn’t care what his kin thought right now. He was too busy plotting how he was going to get through the next few hours without losing his frickin’ mind then get back to figuring out where to look for her next.

They hit the grand staircase. Outside the castle walls, thousands of Argoleans had gathered in the streets of Tiyrns to hear the queen’s speech from the royal veranda that looked out over the city and to be introduced to their savior. But below, the voices of Council members, Argonauts, and the “elite” who’d been invited into the castle for the post-announcement festivities echoed off marble columns and drifted up to Titus’s ears. That and their thoughts. Too many to focus on, each unique and as irritating as fingernails scraping down a chalkboard, causing Titus’s skull to throb.