Atlantis Unleashed

by Alyssa Day

The leader drew back, a calculating expression on his face. “Perhaps you are right. A true leader never risks himself; I am far too valuable to take any chances of facing the true death.”

  He slowly turned to face the mural of the goddess Anubisa preparing to feast on the puny maize god of the ancient Maya. “We will destroy this new threat in your name.”

  Behind him, the others mewled and whined varying noises of agreement but he ignored them. One day he, too, would be a god, as vampires before him had been worshipped by these Mayan sheep.

  One day quite possibly as soon as tomorrow.

  Chapter 36

  Keely woke slowly, climbing up through stages of sleep as though her weary body and mind were protesting every step. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to see sunlight slanting through the building and falling like bars of gold on the wooden floor. Justice and Eleni were gone, but a blanket had been neatly tucked around Keely’s shoulders. She sat up, grimacing at the foul taste in her mouth, and an equally foul smell coming from somewhere nearby, and wished for a shower and a toothbrush, in no particular order.

  “Señora would like to accompany us to wash up?” Keely looked up at the question and found the shy woman from yesterday sitting at a battered wooden table, folding clothes and sorting them into piles. “We thought you might enjoy a change of clothing.”

  Keely’s nose wrinkled when she realized that the foul smell was coming from herself. Hiking through the jungle, having vampires disintegrate all over you . . . it was no way to keep fresh as a daisy.

  “Yes, I would love that,” she said gratefully. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “I am Maria,” said the woman—girl, really. She couldn’t be older than eighteen or nineteen years old. “Follow me, please.”

  Keely followed Maria out into the bright sunlight and automatically glanced up at the sky. It had to be mid-morning. She couldn’t believe she’d slept so long. She scanned the clearing as she followed Maria to a path that cut into the trees, but there was no sign of Justice or Eleni.

  “Maria, do you know where Justice is?”

  Maria glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. “He and Eleni went with Alejandro to patrol. That one is such a man, no? You are lucky to be his woman, and he, too, is lucky to find a woman with fire in her spirit as well as in her hair.”

  “I’m not his woman,” Keely grumbled, picking her way through trees and over wildly overgrown plant life on the path. Suddenly she looked around and wished for her shotgun. “There aren’t any jaguars that like to take this path, are there?”

  Maria laughed. “No, they stay away from the village and our paths. The smell of cooking fires . . .”

  Her voice trailed off and Keely knew they were both thinking of other fires.

  “I’m so sorry,” Keely said. “I can’t begin to imagine how much you’ve suffered.”

  Maria’s shoulders slumped but then squared again. “Alejandro will take us out of here. We have only ever had random attacks before; a single vampire would try to take one of us. This has only happened twice in the entirety of my life. But this—this is organized warfare and we cannot stand against it. If your man were to stay with us and guard us . . . I heard of his magic. But you cannot stay, can you?”

  She turned to fix a measuring stare on Keely, hope mixed with resignation in her eyes.

  “No, I’m sorry. We will stay until your P Ops unit comes, but we must finish up our . . . mission and return home.”

  Maria nodded. “We understand. Alejandro will save us.”

  The words fell from her lips like a benediction, and Keely, who rarely noticed interpersonal relationships, had a sudden flash of insight. “He’s your man, isn’t he? Alejandro?”

  “I would like that,” Maria said, blushing. “But he still thinks of me as a child.”

  They rounded a curve in the path and a stream lay in front of them, sparkling in the sunlight that danced on its surface. Keely stopped and took a deep breath, content to see something beautiful after the night’s terror and death.

  “We will wash up and you can wear these clothes, if you like,” Maria said shyly, holding out the bundle in her hands. “They are mine and we are very nearly the same size.”

  Keely looked at Maria’s voluptuous curves and doubted her own less bountiful shape would fill out any of the other woman’s clothes, but didn’t let anything but thanks show on her face as she gratefully accepted the fresh clothes. Well-fitting clothes, after all, were the last thing on her mind, even if the teensiest bit of vanity wanted Justice to see her looking at least almost as pretty as the beautiful Maria.

  They stripped down to their underwear and waded into the stream to wash, sharing a bar of soap that felt like silk and smelled like delicate jungle flowers. Keely washed her hair, too, and nearly cried with the sheer relief of being clean again. When they were done, they headed for the stream bank, chatting about inconsequential things, striving for mundane and normal as a respite from horror and death.

  The loud crack of a branch breaking rang in the air, and they both froze. Maria started crying, and Keely put her arms around her. “It can’t be vampires, not in the daytime,” she soothed, while wondering what other dangers they’d overlooked in their little bathing adventure.

  But it was no unknown danger that stepped out from the jungle, but Justice and Alejandro. Justice took her breath away, again, as if she were seeing him for the very first time. He’d changed into different clothes, simple jeans and a dark T-shirt, but his glorious blue hair hung loose and damp all the way to his waist, and the muscles of his chest and arms filled out the shirt in a way that had her wanting to tear it off and climb all over him.

  Naked.

  She crossed her arms over her chest when she realized her nipples were poking out through the wet fabric of her bra in response to the heat pouring through her body. All she had to do was look at him to want him.

  Smiling a little goofily, she finally met his gaze—and flinched. Fury darkened his eyes to black, and his clenched jaw gave Keely the feeling that he was fairly upset.

  Possibly at her.

  She lifted her chin and stared defiantly at Justice. “Why are you glaring at me like that? If it’s about that punch last night—”

  “Did it occur to you, for one second, that it could be dangerous to be out here alone and half naked?” He bit off the words from between clenched jaws, and his gaze swept her body from head to toes and back up again, leaving her feeling as if he’d just stripped her bare.

  From the look in his eyes, he wanted to do just that. Or yell at her for an hour or two. She wasn’t in the mood for the latter and it was not exactly a good time for the former, no matter how much her hormones were jumping up and down at the thought.

  She glanced at Alejandro, suddenly realizing that Justice wasn’t the only one seeing her in wet and nearly transparent underwear, but she could have been part of the scenery as far as he was concerned. He was staring at Maria as if he’d never seen her before, and Keely bet that he’d certainly never seen her like that. Maria’s lush body strained at the lacy scraps of her bra and panties, but she made no move to cover herself, although a flush rode high on her cheekbones.

  “Do you like what you see?” Maria asked him, her voice quivering a little but strong.

  “Dios mio, you should be—you should be—” Alejandro broke off as if unable to form a coherent sentence, and heat flashed in his eyes.

  Keely smiled. At least some good might come from this day, if these two found each other. Before she could say a word, however, a blurred flash of speed that might have been a man with blue hair lifted her off her feet and raced through the jungle with her.

  By the time Justice finally slowed to a stop and put her down, she’d worked up a full head of steam and was ready to lay into him. “Okay, I’ve really had it with this caveman act. You are not my boss, you are not my father—”

  “Thank Poseidon,” Justice said fervently as he stared intently down at
her breasts.

  She lost her train of thought for a moment as he bent toward her breasts, lifting them in his hands, but she gave it a valiant effort. “You are not . . .”

  He licked her nipple and sucked it into his mouth.

  She threw back her head and moaned, but tried again. “You are not . . .”

  He pulled her panties down and slid his fingers through her wetness, then rubbed his slick fingers back and forth across her clitoris and her knees gave out.

  He caught her with one strong arm, still rubbing her rhythmically as he sucked on her nipple, and she was reduced to wordless moaning, forgetting what she possibly could have been trying to say. All of her focus was centered on what he was doing to her body, and she knew if she didn’t have him inside her very soon, she was going to go mad.

  “Justice, please,” she said, almost begging, not caring, only caring that he didn’t stop, never stopped, oh, God, he was sucking on her other nipple now and driving first one, then a second finger into her, then across her clit, over and over and over until she bucked against him, clenching his fingers inside her heat. She cried out as she exploded against him, but he didn’t let her go or remove his fingers.

  Instead, he lifted her up in his arms and kissed her, slanting his head at the best angle to thrust his tongue inside her mouth in the same rhythm as he was thrusting his fingers inside her body. Tension began to rise in her body, coiling in her nerve endings again, centering on her breasts and between her thighs, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could only moan.

  “Please, please, I need you,” she pleaded against his mouth and he stopped kissing her, his breathing harsh and his muscles clenched as hard as rock under her hands.

  “I need you, too, mi amara. The sight of you all but naked in the sunlight and the thought that anyone could have come upon you like that . . .” He shuddered against her. “I need you so much I may have to fuck you all day long, just to get over that scare you gave me.”

  She laughed, then whimpered as he drove his fingers inside her again, thrusting in and out until she was boneless with need and wanting.

  “I need to taste you, my Keely, my woman. I need to drink you in as you come in my mouth,” he said roughly. He fell to his knees on the soft carpet of grasses and, before she could think or protest or yell “Hallelujah!” he put his mouth on her and she cried out.

  He kissed her and licked her and sucked her clit into his mouth with the same intense pressure he’d used on her nipple, still thrusting into her with his fingers, and she shuddered and shook and grabbed his lovely hair with both hands, holding him to her as he took her thoroughly with his mouth and his hands. She felt the tension and the need and the glory of it take her, and she exploded again, screaming, not caring if the entire village heard her, unable to bear the intensity of the pleasure.

  She came and came and he kept licking and sucking her, not stopping, and she came again and again, in a never-ending orgasm that wrenched through her and lifted her into the sunlight and rocketed her, spasming, through the clouds. Finally she collapsed, falling forward so that he had to catch her, boneless and weak with satiated pleasure.

  “You . . . I . . . Oh, God,” she whispered.

  He smiled down at her, a smile filled with hunger and smug male satisfaction and a darker edge of need. “You taste like ambrosia,” he said, and just from his words an aftershock shivered through her and she gasped.

  “Now I need to be inside you,” he said and he unzipped his pants and shoved them down, kneeling there on the ground, and pulled her down so that she straddled him. “Take me, Keely. I need for you to ride me and show me that you need me even a fraction as much as I need you.”

  Slowly, so slowly, she slid down on his enormous erection and gasped at the feeling of his thickness sliding into her. She was so wet, so drenched, that he fit in her more easily than before, although he still stretched her to a marvelous feeling of fullness. She took all of him inside her until her thighs rested on his and she lay her head on his shoulder for a moment and took a deep breath. Then she lifted her head and looked into his drowningly beautiful eyes, midnight blue with green flames in the centers.

  “Now,” she whispered. “I need you now.” She rose up and then slid back down, soon getting into a rhythm older than time, older than Mayan ruins, older than dreams of creation. She took him because he was hers, and she had to feel him inside her or she would die from the loss. She took him, and her body began to respond again, against all odds, rising with such urgency that she knew she was near to shattering around him.

  Justice felt Keely’s hot, wet sheath clutching him and knew she was near to coming again. He also knew that the feel of her orgasm would cause his own to pour out of him and he wanted to wait, to last longer for her, but he was as helpless as a youngling to fight the tide of pleasure that ripped through him like a tsunami. He grasped her hips in his hands and drove her into a faster rhythm, lifting his own hips to drive his cock deeper and harder into her with every stroke, until he couldn’t tell where he left off and she began. They were joined as one and they always would be, and he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he might have to fuck her all day to get over the fear of losing her. Only when she welcomed him into her body did he feel truly safe from the fear that she would leave him.

  She will never leave us, the Nereid said. If she ever tries, we will track her to the ends of the earth.

  “Never,” Justice growled, thrusting harder. “You will never leave. Promise me.”

  Keely moaned and released her grip on his shoulders, and then, she caught his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “I will never leave you,” she said breathlessly, since he continued to thrust into her and she was so close to the edge. “Now stop issuing all these ultimatums and just keep . . . just keep . . .”

  Her body arched backward, rigid, and her thighs clenched as her sheath convulsively gripped his cock in a series of spasms and she cried out. “Justice! It’s . . . Oh, God. It’s happening again.”

  One final thrust, and his balls drew up even tighter and exploded, shooting his release into her so deeply that he had a second to wish that he’d gotten Poseidon’s blessing so that he was giving her his child. Then the wave took him and knocked him down and the current swept him into the colors of her soul, roaring out his fulfillment.

  The soul-meld took them and tossed them through stormy, sunlit seas until, holding tightly to each other, they came back to reality, still joined. Keely’s tender skin bore evidence of his kisses and his bites, and a primal flush of fierce joy raced through him at the idea that he’d marked her as his own. Then he felt remorse that he might have hurt her and kissed each of the marks on her neck and chest, one by one.

  The emotion that had grown and built inside him while they were making love forced their way up through his chest to his throat, demanding to be released. He had to say the words that were near to exploding directly out of his heart. “Keely, mi amara, I love you.”

  She looked up at him and started laughing, startling him. Then she grabbed his face and planted a loud, lip-smacking kiss on his lips.

  “Justice, my big, strong warrior. I know.”

  Chapter 37

  Keely and Justice took their time making their way back to the village, enjoying the stolen moments of calm. He’d told her that Eleni had complained of a slight upset stomach, but that it wasn’t serious and the child had wanted a nap, so Keely didn’t feel the need to rush back.

  The vampires were no danger during the sunny heat of the day, when they had to go to ground. She and Justice and the villagers would be ready for them again by evening, but just for an hour or so, the two of them had needed to capture a tiny bit of peace. The P Ops unit should finally arrive in the morning and transport the villagers to safety.

  Justice’s shirt hung down to her knees, so they walked toward the stream hoping to find her clothes. Or, more accurately, Justice walked toward the stream, carrying her, since he didn’t want her to h
urt her bare feet on the ground. Keely was torn between appreciation and exasperation by his protectiveness, but she imagined there was only so much chivalry that a centuries-old Atlantean warrior was going to give up. She was a big fan of picking her battles, and this wasn’t going to be one of them, especially since she loved the feel of his bare chest against her cheek.

  She was turning into a hedonist, and it didn’t bother her one bit. Wonder what Dr. Koontz would have said about that?

  She laughed out loud, and Justice paused. “What is funny?”

  “Oh, it would take too long to explain and it’s about a totally unimportant person, anyway. But I sure hope Maria actually left the clothes at the stream.”

  “I like you in my shirt. I think you should always wear nothing but my shirts,” he said, his deep voice amused as he began walking again.

  “I’m sure you do, but I don’t want to have to walk back into the village wearing nothing but your T-shirt. Not that everyone there doesn’t already think of me as your woman anyway, but let’s just say that I’m not an exhibitionist.”

  “This is good, since I would have to kill any man who saw you naked, and Conlan hates it when we kill potential allies,” he said calmly, and she couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

  “Are you—”

  But he cut her off by raising his hand and making a shushing noise. “The stream is just beyond those trees. I hear Alejandro and Maria talking. I’d hoped they’d be gone by now. Let me go in quietly and fetch your clothes and shoes.”

  He gently lowered her to her feet, then kissed her, stepped away, and transformed into sparkling mist. Her eyes widened in wonder. She’d never get over the awe of seeing him do that, if she saw it a million times. It was so magical and beautiful that it literally took her breath away.

  In less than a minute, he was back, a miniature, iridescent rain cloud balancing a pile of clothes and her shoes somehow on the surface of his misty shape. He dropped the clothes into her arms, then shimmered back into his corporeal form. For a split second, he was surrounded by radiant light like a full-body halo, and she caught her breath at the almost spiritual glory of it.