Enslaved Read Online Free PDF

could still escape in the resulting chaos.
    Dogs barked in the distance, and another voice—a voice Maelea recognized as Nick’s—boomed from the direction of the castle. “Fucking find him. He couldn’t have gotten far.”
    Gryphon lurched to his feet and hauled her up next to him. “Run.”
    “But my pack,” she started, pulling on the hand wrapped around her bicep, hoping it would be enough to get him to take off without her.
    “Forget the damn pack. I said run!”
    Maelea gasped as he dragged her forward, a death grip on her arm. Her feet went out from under her, but he yanked her close to his side, kept her from falling. As she found her footing, she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. His legs were longer than hers, and she struggled to keep up with his pace. Her adrenaline surged. Her muscles screamed in protest. She couldn’t see a damn thing out here in the darkness of the orchard, only the lights of the towering castle fading in the distance.
    He jerked them to a stop and finally released his hold. Maelea’s lungs blazed as she bent over, and even though instinct said to keep running, to get as far from him as possible, she couldn’t. She needed a second to suck back air.
    Hinges groaned.
    “Through here,” Gryphon said. “Quick.”
    Hands braced on her knees, Maelea looked up only to realize he’d found her exit, a door hidden behind twisting vines that led into the hillside behind the armory. Hope dropped like a cement block into the bottom of her stomach.
    “Go, dammit!” Gryphon pushed her inside the darkened tunnel that led straight down.
    “But—”
    She stumbled. Her hands slammed into the rock wall of the tunnel. The heavy steel door clanged shut behind them, followed by the groaning of metal against metal and then nothing at all as the tunnel was blanketed in utter darkness.
    Fear leaped in Maelea’s throat, followed by a heavy weight pressing in from every direction. She twisted around, could hear the dim voices in the orchard and the barking dogs, searching for their trail. She opened her mouth to cry out, but Gryphon’s big hand covered her lips, and then his enormous body pressed against hers, pushing her spine into the cold rock wall at her back.
    “Don’t you dare make a sound,” he whispered near her ear.
    She froze, unable to see anything but the whites of his eyes. But she heard everything—the pounding of her heart, the rapid pace of his, the push and draw of air from his lungs so close to her own, and the muffled voices in the orchard, the orders being shouted right and left, the boots clomping over soft spring earth.
    Tears burned her eyes. There was an army of men searching just beyond that door. An army ready to bring Gryphon down. An army that didn’t know she was with him.
    A scratching sound echoed against the metal door. Gryphon turned his head, his lips brushing Maelea’s cheek as he twisted. Realizing his face was closer than she’d expected, shards of heat—heat she didn’t want—ricocheted through her body, followed by a resurgence of the darkness inside her, and finally a jolt of fear that paralyzed her limbs.
    “Here!” A muffled voice called from beyond the door.
    Gryphon pressed harder against her mouth with his hand.
    “Open it!” another said.
    “I can’t. It’s bolted from the inside.”
    “Sonofabitch.” That was Nick’s voice. Maybe there was still a chance… “This entrance leads into the tunnels, right?”
    “Yeah,” someone else said. “I don’t know where, though.”
    “Well, fucking find out,” Nick hollered. “Get me blueprints of this damn castle. Keep working on that door. And someone wake up Theron and Orpheus. I want this sonofabitch caught before he gets outside the colony’s borders.”
    Gryphon’s free hand gripped Maelea’s wrist. Without letting loose of her mouth, he pulled her away from the wall and shifted her around so her back was plastered to his front and his big, hard body was pushing her