by Alyssa Day
But…oh, Goddess. Protection. “Wait! I don’t have any, I mean, we need protection!” Her face flushed hot red.
He instantly understood. “We’re safe. Poseidon does not allow his warriors to father children until he has blessed the rite of fertility.”
She bit her lip. “Um, what about…I mean, I’m clean, but—”
“Atlanteans are immune to human illnesses, as you are to ours, mi amara. There is nothing at all to fear.”
A mischievous grin flashed across her face and she shot a pointed glance down between their bodies. “Sure, nothing to fear, easy for you to say. To use terms you warrior types might understand, I’m the one with the giant sword getting ready to try to fit in my sheath.”
He burst into laughter, as did she, and the miracle of their laughter reignited their passion. Slowly, though, the smile faded from his face, replaced by something darker. More powerful. A predator stalked her from behind the blue-green flames glowing in his eyes, and she caught her breath for an instant. “I am honored beyond measure by your words and your wanting, mi amara,” he said roughly, lifting his hands to frame her face. “Yet I must say this: I want to do the honorable thing and tell you I’ll back off and just hold you, but my control is shredding. Never in my nearly five hundred years have I wanted anything or anyone the way I want you right now. So say no or say yes, but either way, be damned sure. Because I need to be inside you more than I need to take my next breath.”
She stilled for a long moment, but her body and the song in her soul made the decision for her. She smiled at him. “Yes.”
He paused, then nodded once, and stared at her with a single-minded focus that reminded her again of a predator stalking its prey. “Now,” he rasped out. “Now.”
Before she could catch her breath, he grabbed the top of her shirt in his hands and ripped it down the center. The sound of fabric tearing shocked her with its suddenness. His large hands were surprisingly nimble at unclasping the front of her bra, and he pushed it aside and stared down at her breasts with such fierce possession stamped into the lines of his face that she shuddered a little. No man had ever looked at her like that, like she was everything he wanted. Everything he needed. His desire became her aphrodisiac, swirling her further and deeper into mindless physical craving.
He pulled her up into his arms and kissed her again. Hot, demanding kisses, almost bruising in their intensity, alternated with long, slow, kisses that drove every rational thought out of her mind and had her clutching at his shoulders to pull herself closer to his body.
He stopped kissing her long enough to stand up and yank off his own clothes until he stood next to the bed, proudly nude, the erection jutting out in front of him as enormous as the rest of him. The craving grew fiercer and her body cooperated, heat licking through her and liquid need preparing her for his entrance. “Yes,” she said. “Now. Please.”
He pulled her underwear down her legs and tossed it over his shoulder, pressing a kiss to her abdomen as he did so, his hot breath making her stomach muscles clench in reaction. His fierce look of triumph sent tingles of electricity through her as he caught her shoulders and effortlessly lifted her up into his arms and kissed her again, running his hands down her back, cupping her butt, squeezing and kneading her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She needed to feel him against her, and she leapt up, putting her legs around his waist.
He shouted out a laugh, then said something to her, words spilling out of him, fierce words in a beautiful language she didn’t know. He whirled around with her in his arms, then walked, holding her, to the nearest wall and pushed her up against it, so that she was sandwiched between the wall and six and a half feet of hard-muscled, naked Atlantean warrior. She rubbed her body against his, moaning, not caring that she was going for shameless on the wanton witch scale, only knowing that she wanted his hardness rubbing against her most sensitive places. The contact of her nipples against his chest as she moved drove her insane, and she moaned again, wild with need.
“Ven, I need you. I know it’s crazy, and I don’t care, I don’t care, I just need you,” she said, beyond embarrassment or pretense. “I need you inside me now.”
Ven heard the words and thought he must be dreaming some fantasy of the mountain of the gods. The most intriguing woman he’d ever known, the woman whose courage and beauty and magic had captured his soul, wanted him.
Wanted him inside her.
Wanted him now.
Holy freaking balls of Poseidon.
He reached down between them to see if she was as ready for him as he was for her, and the feel of her wet heat against his fingers shot a bolt of hot lust through his body straight to his cock. He thrust two fingers inside her, as deep as they would go, and growled a warning when she squirmed against his hand. The beast inside him that was more animal than man, that had battled and fought and killed for centuries, warning her not to try to escape him. But she said, “Yes, more, yes,” panting as she said it, reassuring him that she wasn’t trying to get away, and the beast calmed, gave way to the man. Ven almost had time to wonder what the fuck was happening to him before another wave of lust rode him, hard, and he groaned as his body clenched, his hips bucking involuntarily.
Praise Poseidon, she was riding his fingers and rubbing her breasts against him and he had to get inside her before he died. He bent his knees and lowered his head and caught a tight, perfect nipple in his mouth and sucked hard, fingers still moving inside her. He found her clit with his thumb, rubbing her in the same rhythm that his fingers were moving to, and she caught his hair in her hands and screamed out his name.
When she exploded around his fingers, shuddering in his grasp, he shouted out his triumph and his possession, and he turned and crossed the room in one leap with her still in his arms. Before she could change her mind, or come to her senses and realize a battle-hardened warrior would never be enough for her, he laid her down on the bed and yanked her legs apart. Put his hands on the bottoms of her thighs and held her open to him. Stared at her slick, swollen folds and murmured a promise that he would taste her soon. Would bury his face and lips and tongue in her honey and taste her until she screamed and came in his mouth.
She shuddered at his words, and he lost the power of speech.
He tried to tell her how beautiful she was—how special.
All that came out was “Mine.”
She stared up at him with a passion-drenched gaze, panting from her orgasm, desire still sparkling in the glorious blue of her eyes. “Ven?”
“Mine,” he repeated, unable to form words, unable to understand them. Why could she still talk?
She moved, lifted a hand to push a strand of hair from her face, and the motion triggered the predator, the conqueror inside him who demanded that he stake a claim on this woman.
His woman.
“Mine. Now,” he growled, and then he centered himself over her and looked into her eyes once more, sanity trying to raise its head, honor giving her one last chance to change her mind.
But she smiled up at him and nodded and said the most beautiful word he’d ever heard.
“Yes.”
At that moment, he shifted so that he was no longer blocking the window, and the moonlight shone across her body as it lay opened to him, transforming her back into the goddess she’d been outside the Nereid Temple.
He paused for a heartbeat, understanding on some primal level that he was about to make love to a goddess turned human. Not caring what price he might pay for it.
Mine.
In one powerful thrust, he drove his cock all the way inside her slick heat and he shouted again, shouted her name, shouted his claiming in ancient Atlantean, the only language his brain could remember.
She clenched around him and cried out, wrapping her legs around his waist and digging her heels into his ass, not pushing him away but pulling him closer, and he was only too eager to get with that particular program, oh, thank you Poseidon.
“Erin, if you do that aga
in, I’m going to go off right now like some damn youngling,” he said, panting, as he held still for a moment, then belatedly realized he’d said the words to her in his native tongue and repeated them in English.
“Well, then we’d just have to try again, wouldn’t we?” she said, biting her lip to keep the smile from forming.
He leaned closer and captured her lips again, kissing her until he was inhaling her breath and her music and her soul.
“Say my name, Erin. Tell me you want me,” he demanded, slowly pulling out of her body, then plunging back in, over and over, speeding up the rhythm in response to the little moans and gasps she made underneath him.
“I…yes. Ven,” she breathed. “I want you, oh Goddess, Ven, I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”
Some primitive instinct deep down in the primal waters of his genetic ancestry roared out its triumph. Every muscle in his body tightened at the sound of his name in her lilting voice. His cock swelled and hardened until the friction from her tight, wet sheath drove him insane with sensation.
Her music broke forth again; the emeraldsong and opalsong soared through the room and through the two of them as their limbs tangled together and their bodies joined. He thrust into her harder and deeper, driving farther into her with every stroke. Erin suddenly gasped, dragging her nails down his back, and tightened around him as she exploded, crying out his name as she came. The force of her orgasm drove him over the edge, and he thrust into her as far as he could go and kept still, holding her tightly in his arms, while he pulsed his release inside her. Then he collapsed beside her, pulling her with him so he remained in her body, careful not to crush her with his weight.
“Ven, I—” she began, but then she made a funny little gasping sound, and the music that had been soaring through the room exploded inside of his head. A rainbow of music, a sunrise of melodies, a concerto sung by angels and Nereids rang, floated, spiraled through the room and through both of them, and the force of it slammed Ven back against the pillows, still clasping Erin in his arms, satiation giving way to another wave of impossibly powerful, driving hunger.
But suddenly the splendor and power of the music blasted through his mental shields and maybe through hers, too, because he looked into her eyes and saw the depths of her soul.
Saw the murder of her family—she’d been there. She’d seen it all, tried to help, tried to stop it, been beaten and stabbed. Caligula and his minions had left her for dead.
The whole thing played out in his head like a violent movie, complete with a soundtrack from the lowest of the nine hells. Her mother and sisters sobbing and shrieking as they’d died.
Erin had dragged herself to the coven, wounded, nearly dead, and demanded that they train her, though she was only sixteen years old.
He saw her strength, her loneliness, her despair. Her driving need to avenge her family.
He saw himself, and her wonder at feeling such a tangible, powerful connection to a man she’d only just met.
He saw her soul, and he fell over the precipice into the abyss. Strong, fearless warrior that he was, Ven was suddenly more terrified than he had ever been in the half millennium of his existence, because he realized that if he’d seen into her soul, shining with her courage and light, it was highly likely that she’d seen into the black and twisted corners of his. He closed his eyes as a blade sharper than any dagger ever honed twisted in his gut.
Game over.
There was no freaking way that she’d want him now.
Erin stirred beside him, and he resisted the urge to open his eyes, afraid that she was climbing out of bed to run as far and as fast as she could. Straight away from him. Not that he could blame her if she did. If he didn’t see her leave, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.
“Ven. Ven, I know you’re awake. Look at me.”
He felt her touch on the side of his face, soft and gentle. His eyes snapped open, but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.
Her eyes were huge, enormous, a drowning blue. He thought he could fall into the depths of them and never climb out. But he still couldn’t talk.
“I saw inside you, Ven,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “I saw the horrible things you’ve been forced to do. Awful things, for so very long. Dancing with death over and over to protect your family, to protect your fellow warriors. Most of all, to protect humanity.”
The tears spilled past her lashes and rolled down her face. “Oh, Ven, your mother…your parents. I am so sorry.”
He tried to push the words past the aching in his throat. Tried to come up with a defense that would make her see past the monster he’d had to be to the man he could become.
Tried to let her know he would never fail to protect her as he’d failed to protect his mother. As he’d failed to protect Conlan.
Tried to find the words that would make her want to stay.
But before he could find any words at all, she curled up against his chest, pulling the bedcovers up over them both. “I’m here now,” she whispered. “Let go of some of the pain and let me hold you.”
He tightened his arms around her in a wordless prayer of relief. She was nothing that he’d ever wanted—human, gem singer, and witch.
She was everything he’d ever needed.
For a very long time—long after she’d fallen asleep, exhausted from the day and from their lovemaking—he simply held her and watched her sleep.
Chapter 13
The palace, Atlantis
Ven opened his eyes, going from sound asleep to fully alert in the span of a split second, instinctively reaching for his weapons and finding his arms full of warm, soft woman instead.
“So, you’re finally awake, sleepy head,” Erin murmured. “Tell me about this symbol on your chest.” She traced the symbol of his oath to Poseidon, high on the left side of his chest, with one finger. He caught her hand, brought it to his mouth, and gently kissed her palm. If she didn’t want to talk about what had happened, he would give her time to process it. It’s not like he’d been prepared to reach the soul-meld with a woman he’d only known for a matter of days.
Actually, he wasn’t sure he was prepared to ever reach the soul-meld, he thought, faint strains of another Elvis song singing a fading farewell in his mind. The soul-meld was not a prison, however. Free will still ruled all choice. A brief thought of Erin choosing another man flashed through his mind and his gut wrenched with nausea and rage.
Free will sucked.
He drew in a deep breath and forced his mind away from anything to do with the soul-meld. “Poseidon burns that symbol into each of his warriors when we swear our oath of service to him. How did you sleep, mi amara?” He twined his hand through the silken waves of her hair, amazed that it was real—that she was real and still with him in the bed.
She was still naked, too, which was always a plus.
Erin leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss on his lips, smiling but with a hint of shyness in her expression. “I slept fine. I was pretty much unconscious, to be honest. After the…um. Well. We can talk about that later.”
He started to speak, not knowing what the hells he was going to say, but she held a finger to his lips. “Shh. Tell me about this symbol, for now.”
She removed her finger from his lips and tapped it on his chest. “What does it mean?”
“The circle represents all the peoples of the world, and the triangle is the pyramid of knowledge handed down to your kind by our ancient ones,” he explained. “Poseidon’s Trident encompasses and protects them both—humanity and knowledge—to hold in trust for the future. As the sworn Warriors of Poseidon, we carry out this duty.”
“So, is that what you’re doing with me?” she asked, suddenly not meeting his eyes. “Your duty?”
He grinned and tumbled her onto her back and rolled on top of her. “Oh, no, trust me, duty has never been this much fun. But if you feel it’s my duty to make love to you all day long, I can certainly—”
Loud poundi
ng on the door cut him off midsentence and he jumped up and out of the bed, leaning down to snatch his daggers out of their sheaths from his discarded pants as he did so, and bit off a sharp command. “Identify yourself!”
He glanced back at Erin. She’d scooted backward up to the teak headboard of the bed and sat with the sheet tucked under her arms, covering her chest and body but keeping her arms free and her hands held out, palms up, clearly ready to call her magic. She didn’t look the least bit frightened.
Which ticked him off.
“Maybe you ought to be a little more concerned for your safety,” he said to her, then turned back to the door and shouted out a repeat of his earlier command. “I said, identify yourself!”
“Really? Am I in danger even in Atlantis?” Erin shot back at him. It was a reasonable question, and that ticked him off even more. But his instincts were shouting at him to protect and defend, and he was damn well going to do it.
Christophe’s voice came through the door, and he sounded irritated. “Sorry, sorry. Alaric’s warding knocked me on my ass for a minute. It’s Christophe here. Conlan wants you to know that Alaric called a meeting. We’re all supposed to gather at the Nereid Temple in about twenty minutes. Especially you and the witch.”
Ven strode over to the door and pulled it open just far enough that he could see out, but Christophe could not see into the room. “Her name is Erin.”
“Uh-huh,” Christophe said, jerking his head up and staring at the ceiling over the door so that he was looking anywhere but at what Ven had forgotten was his entirely naked body. “Maybe you could get dressed before you head over. I know I speak for us all when I say you’re ugly enough with your clothes on.”
Ven slammed the door shut as Christophe stalked down the hall, laughing his damn fool ass off.
Erin looked like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or yell at him. Unfortunately for him, laughter lost out. She jumped out of the bed and started grabbing for her clothes. Ven spent about two seconds wondering what she was mad at him about and then lost his train of thought when she bent over and he got a perfect view of her extremely delectable ass.