by Alyssa Day
“I am honored, then, to call you friend, though you owe me no obligation for a simple healing. But I have no need of this sorting you mention.”
Michelle took a long sip of her jasmine-scented tea. The delicate aroma was fragrant enough to tease his senses. It suited her.
“Well, of course I could be projecting,” she admitted. “I just went through rather a bad breakup in London before I came back here. Frankie wasn’t a big fan of me throwing my life in the line of fire again and gave me an ultimatum.”
He dedicated his attention to his pancakes, considering her words.
“You chose to leave?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said, unknowingly echoing his earlier words to Alexios. She attempted a smile. “I’ve never been very serious in my many loves, but I think Frankie may have broken my heart.”
Alaric leaned forward and caught her hands in his own. “Tell me where this Frankie lives, and I will immediately travel there and end his life for you.”
She gasped, then peered up into his eyes and, evidently reassured by what she saw, started laughing. “Oh, you’re too evil. No, thank you, I don’t need you to end her life for me. She’s quite a lovely woman, and we had a grand time together for the past several years. But it’s time to move on and let her find someone safer to build a life with.”
He’d suddenly had enough of the conversation. Far more than enough. “Safety is an illusion,” he pointed out, pushing his chair back and standing. “I must leave now.”
She started laughing and reached inside her bag. “That’s fine, just let me leave a tip.”
Ah. Payment. He tended to forget the mundane realities of life Above. “I am prepared for this. Allow me.” He dropped several coins on the table, glad that he’d remembered to bring them.
Michelle glanced down at the coins, then stared up at him with very wide eyes. “We don’t exactly leave tips with priceless ancient gold coins, Alaric,” she said, retrieving them. “I’ll get this one.”
She placed a few of the green bills on the table and then walked over and held out his coins. “I thought I had a hard time with converting money. Sheesh! Why don’t you keep these and we’ll get you some proper currency?”
“Please retain those coins for payment for our breakfast,” he said, his pride stung a little. “You will be able to convert them into the proper form, I trust?”
She waved to the servant who was rushing over to their table, no doubt to clean the table or count the green papers. It was a strange system.
Alaric followed Michelle onto the sidewalk for the walk back to the fort and shortened his stride enough to keep pace with her. He could not vanish into thin air on a busy street filled with wandering humans without causing her to offer uncomfortable explanations to any passersby.
“Alaric, truly, these coins must be worth a fortune,” she said, staring down at them. “Please take them back for important things.”
“Your rebel cause is important, is it not?” He narrowed his eyes at a group of loudly singing young men who were approaching them from the opposite direction. The men abruptly quit emitting the horrible noise and stumbled to the edge of the road to allow Alaric and Michelle to pass.
She turned her head right and left, staring at the men, then glanced up at Alaric, grinning. “It’s a gift, isn’t it? That ability to make the masses of humanity part like the Red Sea before you. And, yes, our cause is very important. Vital. We’re so thankful you—”
He strode out into the street to cross to the other sidewalk, contemplating the destruction a well-placed energy sphere could cause to the cretin who squealed to a stop, honking his horn at them.
“I need no thanks. I was merely inquiring. Give the coins to Grace so she may purchase supplies.”
She grabbed his arm and pressed closer to his side as the vehicle moved past them with another offensive squealing noise. He contemplated the effect a small tidal wave would have on the fool, but refrained.
“Ah, Alaric, you don’t happen to know anything about crosswalks or stoplights, do you?”
He shrugged. “We clearly had the greater need to cross; the imbecile in the vehicle was wasting precious planetary resources by driving that enormous truck.”
She sighed. “Red light, green light? Means nothing. Okay, breakfast with you is a life-threatening experience. So noted. Also, thank you for the coins. Grace would puff up with pride and say no, thanks, but I happen to know she’s very worried about funds for food and arms. So I’ll just accept on her behalf. I know a friend of a friend who’s a coin guy. We’ll see what we can get.”
As they approached the front gates of the fort, she tugged on his arm. “Wait. These aren’t some supersecret Atlantean coins that will look like forgeries to a numismatist who doesn’t believe in Atlantis, are they?”
He shook his head. “Greek, Roman. Maybe some Spanish. We never really used coins in Atlantis; what few we minted were for ceremonial usage and are never used for currency.”
“Oh, naturally,” she said, grinning again. “One day I hope to come visit you in Atlantis.”
“One day I hope that you shall. Now I must leave. Please give Alexios the message that I go to find Quinn but will return in time for the meeting.”
“You bet. Good luck.” She held up her arms and hugged him again, then started toward the fort. He leapt into the air, transforming into mist, and focused on connecting with Quinn. West. She was somewhere . . . west. And she was in trouble.
With Quinn, safety wasn’t even an illusion. It was an impossibility.
Alexios watched Grace circle around the trainee, checking to see that he had the bow properly positioned, helping him hold the arrow just so. He felt his jaw clenching at the sight of her touching the man and forced himself to relax. Simply because he’d come to the momentous decision that he would try to move forward—take that leap out of the darkness—did not mean that the world would magically fall in line.
Besides, the man was prematurely balding and had a soft belly. Grace would never be attracted to him.
Shame followed immediately, crackling in the wake of the smug thought. Bold words for a man with a face like a monster’s.
Even Alexios, who had never read a child a bedtime story, knew that the original telling of “Beauty and the Beast” ended in the beast’s horrible death. Only in modern whitewashed faery tales did the beauty ever end up in the beast’s arms.
The trainee laughed and put a hand on Grace’s shoulder, interrupting Alexios’s morose train of thought. He unsheathed one of his daggers and stalked across the grass. Beasts might die eventually, but in the meantime they were great at slicing a man’s nuts off for presumption.
Grace looked up at the sound of his approach, and the smile faded from her face as she studied his expression. She subtly moved so that she was blocking his path.
“That was good. Try that,” she said to the man behind her, never taking her eyes off Alexios.
As the recruit rushed off to share his newfound knowledge with his fellow trainees, Alexios sheathed his dagger and scowled at Grace. “He should keep his hands to himself.”
“I could say the same of you.”
“Those days are over.”
She raised her eyebrows and the intriguing rosy flush appeared in her cheeks again, but she said nothing for a long moment. Then she tilted her head and smiled seductively.
Dangerously.
Whatever she had in mind, he had a feeling he was in trouble.
“How about a little target practice?” she said, all but purring. “Winner buys dinner for the entire group.”
He folded his arms, trying not to jump on the challenge. Trying to be cautious. Reasonable. “You are a descendant of Diana, goddess of the hunt.”
She pulled a long strand of her shining hair over her shoulder and stood twisting it around her finger.
The symbolism was not lost upon him.
“You’re a trained warrior, with more than a few battles under your belt
,” she replied. Her eyes dropped down to his belt, or where a belt would be if he wore one with his blue jeans, and she smiled like a cat lapping particularly fine cream.
That symbolism wasn’t lost upon him, either.
He closed his eyes. “Poseidon help me.”
“I’m not sure your sea god is going to intervene in target practice, but hey, if prayers help, you be my guest,” she said, laughter and challenge in her voice.
“You’re on,” he said, opening his eyes. “But I choose daggers for my own part.”
She shrugged. “Whatever floats your—”
“Continent?”
Her lips twitched, but she couldn’t suppress her laughter. As her eyes lit up with amusement, turning honey gold in the sunlight, an epiphany slammed into him with the force of one of her arrows striking its target.
He wanted to hear the sound of her laughter again. And again and again. Every day for the rest of his life.
Definitely in trouble.
Chapter 13
Grace was tired of watching him. Wanting him. Wondering what would happen if they ever managed to push past her wariness and his barricades.
The man had issues.
He’d been captured and tortured badly enough to leave that horrible scarring on his body. A pale reflection of the scarring on his soul. He needed time. Time to heal.
But sometimes healing needed help.
She wanted to be the one to help him. In spite of his warnings and denials. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a tall, hard-muscled body. His kindness and strength made something sharp and broken inside her yearn toward his heat. Maybe it was time to claim him. To see if sex could be more than fumbling disappointment.
To learn if there were any feelings left in the dark and cavernous hollows of her heart.
Or maybe she should run. Now. She hesitated, her bow in hand, and watched as Michelle crossed the courtyard toward her. Alaric wasn’t with her, probably off to conquer France or squash bunny rabbits or whatever he did for fun.
Retreat was good. Retreat. Safety was usually an excellent strategy, in matters of battle and matters of the heart. Discretion, valor, staying alive to fight the good fight, et cetera, et cetera. No matter what crazy dreams of glory reckless new recruits might have, safety was usually better.
“Safety,” she whispered, the word a talisman in her mouth.
“Safety is an illusion,” Michelle replied, joining her. “That’s what Alaric said, anyway, and he’d have reason to know. That man has seen things that would drive the rest of us over the edge of sanity and right into the nuthouse, I do believe. Blithering idiots drooling on our bedsheets.”
She laughed. “Also, there may be a couple of puzzled tourists outside after Alaric turned into mist in broad daylight.”
Grace blinked, still caught on the precipice of a decision too vast for making. “What? Drooling? What?”
Michelle glanced up at her, then at Alexios, too perceptive as usual. “He’s finally gotten to you, hasn’t he? It’s worse than just jumping his bones, isn’t it? Your heart is involved.”
Grace slowly shook her head, watching Alexios as he moved around the training ground from recruit to recruit, adjusting one’s grip on a sword, demonstrating proper stance to another. The sunlight turned his hair to vivid gold and her mouth dried out at the sight of the long lines of his body as he bent toward one of the women, Smith or Jones or one of the ridiculous aliases they all used, to show her the proper way to grip the practice sword. Smith turned her unnaturally perky face up to Alexios and flashed a huge smile.
“Oh, no. Oh, hell no,” Grace muttered, tightening her grip on the bow. “If anybody’s going to be smiling the ‘come and get me, big boy’ smiles at him, it’s going to be me.”
Michelle started laughing. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to believe you descendants of Diana had some sort of celibacy vow.”
Grace glared at her friend. “How can you say that after Cedric?”
“Cedric,” Michelle said, managing to say his name and sniff with disdain all at the same time. “He was a wanker, and you knew it. You always pick the idiots so you’ll have a great excuse to dump them before you can get anywhere close to being emotionally involved. Have your feelings ever even been touched?”
“I care about you,” Grace said hotly, knowing it wasn’t Michelle’s point.
“Thanks, that’s lovely, but you’re not my type,” Michelle said, grinning. “I think your type is looking for you right now, though. Are you going to go for it or back away like a giant chicken?”
“That’s not fair. I’ve been a little busy over the past few years, you know.”
Michelle put her hands over her ears and made quiet clucking noises.
“Oh, right. Great. That’s really mature.” Grace rolled her eyes and threw an elbow, but Michelle jumped out of the way, still clucking.
Across the courtyard, Alexios turned away from Smith, and his gaze zeroed in on Grace. Even across the distance separating them, Grace could see the heat rising in his eyes. An answering flame unfurled somewhere deep inside her body and slowly spread from her core through her limbs to the tips of her fingers and toes and the top of her head, until she felt as though her hair must rise straight into the air from the sheer electrical charge of it.
“He wants you, Grace,” Michelle murmured. “Are you going to be brave enough to do something about it?”
“He’s four hundred years old,” Grace countered, suddenly seeking desperately for some protection—any excuse—from the power he had over her.
“So he’s certainly had time to learn a few things in bed,” Michelle said, with a wicked grin. “You know, I could use a diversion. If you don’t want him—”
“I want him,” Grace admitted, to Michelle and to herself. Then, taking a firm grip on her bow in one hand and her courage in the other, she started toward him.
Alexios watched her walk toward him, all long legs and lean elegance, and his breath rasped in his throat, arid and harsh as the dream of water to a traveler lost in the desert. As she walked, she caught her hair back at the nape of her neck and tied it away from her face. The challenge, then. She’d leave no hair in her eyes to distract her from the target. He’d never seen her miss; but then again he wasn’t much for missing, either. It was more than a challenge of daggers and arrows. It was a gauntlet thrown down between the souls of two warriors. She was impossibly young, and yet the knowledge in her eyes was ancient.
Chronological age meant nothing when one had walked voluntarily into the fire.
She didn’t stop until she stood right in front of him, close enough that he could see the details of the golden specks in the dark amber of her eyes. She tilted her head, her mouth flat and unsmiling.
“Why do I suddenly feel like this is a bad idea?” Her face gave away nothing, but the tip of her tongue suddenly darted out to moisten her lips. A clue. Tiny but telling.
She felt it, too, then. And it was up to him to keep her from retreat.
“It was your idea,” he pointed out. “But I will release you from your challenge if you are afraid.”
She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing. “It doesn’t work on me, you know. I’m not a child, that a little reverse psychology will pull my strings.”
“Human children have strings? Atlantean children do not, to the best of my knowledge.” A sudden hunger flared inside him, biting sharply into his control. The idea of strings had led to the thought of silken cords tied around her delicate wrists and around the carved wooden posts of his bed. Pinning her in place so that he could look his fill of her. Touch her. Taste her.
Never let her escape him. Hold her captive . . .
Fantasy trailed off into bitter self-awareness. Hold her captive as he himself had been held captive. Was that truly what he wanted? What he needed? To roll and writhe in the destructive, decadent pleasures of bondage and pain?
Suddenly, he needed to touch her. Needed her strength and purity to infuse the d
ark and twisted corners that had been seared into his soul.
He caught her face in his hands, wishing they were alone. Wishing he could have captured her startled gasp with his lips. “Grace,” he rasped. “I cannot do this. I cannot banter with you as though nothing lies between us; as though this crouching monster of hunger and need and yearning doesn’t threaten to burn through my defenses and my self-control. I will play the part you need me to play, but I beg of you, do not toy with me. The mask I always wear slips away with you. I am no tamed and defanged predator you can pet and tease. I’m a man, and I’m a warrior, and for hundreds of years I have taken what I wanted.”