by Alyssa Day
Justice smiled, but it was an empty gesture that did not reach his eyes. “My adoptive parents. You met my adoptive parents, who were so thrilled to take in a child that they asked very few questions. Especially considering the circumstances.”
“What circumstances are those?” Ven asked, leaning forward.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You mean you won’t tell us,” Alaric said.
“I mean I can’t tell you,” Justice repeated. “You know that old saying? I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you? Well, in my case, it’s the literal truth.”
Ven and Conlan rose to their feet. “Are you threatening us?” Ven asked the question first.
Justice waved a hand. “No, I’m stating a fact. It’s a geas that was laid on me as a baby. I literally cannot speak the circumstances of my birth, no matter how much I might want to,” he said bitterly. “If I do, I am forced by a powerful magical compulsion to kill anyone who might have heard me.”
Alaric studied him, eyes narrowed. “Who could have laid a compulsion so powerful that it lasted for centuries?”
Justice looked him right in the eyes. “It was laid by the best, Priest. It was laid by a god.”
Riley lifted her hand and touched Conlan’s arm. “He’s telling the truth.”
Ven shook his head. “We can’t know that. He’s been lying to us for centuries.”
“Hello? Aknasha here, remember? I can feel his emotions. He is absolutely telling the truth.”
Erin finally spoke, for the first time since they’d gathered in the room. “Why did my amber tell me he was using death magic? I don’t understand any of this. If he’s half Nereid, why did the Temple Goddess freak out like that?”
Marie replied before Justice could answer. “I don’t know the answer to that. He’s the first blooded Nereid to enter the Temple in millennia, as far as I know. However, he has been there before, and there was never any issue. I think your gems called the warning to you when our Goddess recognized one of her own, and you processed it as a warning of death magic. It’s not as if you had any other way to translate it, not having met a lot of Nereids in the past.”
Erin nodded, although she didn’t look fully convinced. “It does make sense, I guess. Now that we’re out of the Temple, my amber isn’t warning me, even though Justice is close enough to touch.”
Something dark vibrated through Ven at the words, and he spoke before he could stop himself, moving to place himself between Justice and Erin. “It would be better if you did not touch him,” he said. “Please accommodate me on this one issue.”
She sighed and shrugged. “Fine. But we’re going to need to talk about that, too.”
Marie spoke up again. “There is something of vital importance I must share with you all. I believe it holds the key to healing Riley and the baby. Although Erin’s song helped temporarily, the basic problem remains. Riley’s body appears to be rejecting the pregnancy.”
Everyone looked at Riley, who did seem paler than she had that morning and certainly less well than she had been after Erin had sung healing to her the day before. Riley only had eyes for Marie. “You can help my baby?”
Marie shook her head. “No, unfortunately, it is as I have said. I am unable to do anything more for you. It’s Erin. Erin can heal the baby.”
Erin lifted her head, blinking. “You know I’ll do anything I can. But I don’t really know how to do this gem singer thing yet. What I did yesterday may be all I had in me.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Marie said. “You have the ability to find the Nereid’s Heart, which is hidden in a diamond and emerald coffer also rumored to contain one of the lost gems from Poseidon’s Trident.”
Marie pulled something that looked like a scroll out of a pocket in her dress and handed it to Erin. “Study this well. With that ruby, you could cure Riley and the baby completely.”
Erin watched, bemused, as preparations for the journey back to Seattle took place all around her. A floor-to-ceiling tapestry on one wall of the war chamber, depicting scenes from what she assumed to be the Cataclysm they’d spoken of, was pulled aside to reveal an arsenal. Weapons ranging from swords and crossbows to modern pistols and what looked like assault rifles were pulled from shelves and made ready.
She’d wanted a war, and it looked like she was going to get one. Ven’s arguments against her placing herself in danger had faded when he realized she was the only one who could locate the Nereid’s Heart. Now every inch of his hard, muscled body seemed to bristle with weapons. He’d only spoken to her once since the decision had been made, pulling her aside and ordering her to never get more than two feet away from him at any time on the mission.
She’d just turned away, not bothering to argue with him. She would do what she had to do to save her sister, whether Ven was there to help her or not.
Riley had taken a turn for the worse shortly after Marie’s pronouncement, and Conlan and Marie had taken her off to rest. Conlan stepped back into the room now, face pale and drawn. “She’s worse again,” he said. “Much worse this time.”
Erin jumped up from her chair. “I can—”
“No. You can’t drain your strength before you leave,” he said, his voice rough with strain. “Thank you for offering, but apparently the relief you can offer without the ruby is only temporary. Marie believes that the ruby will help you to cure her. Cure our child.”
Ven put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Know this, Conlan. I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to find this jewel, even at the cost of my own life.”
Conlan nodded. “I know you will. I can’t…I can’t leave here. There’s a chance that she won’t…that—”
Erin felt the tears burning her eyelids at the utter despair in his voice. “We’ll find it, Conlan. Tell her for us.”
He nodded, then hugged her briefly. “Do your best, gem singer,” he said, and then he was gone.
Erin turned to Ven, desperately needing the comfort of his arms, but he stood, arms folded, staring at her, his eyes gone glacial with pain. “I will risk my own life, but I will not risk yours, Erin. We must find a way to recover this jewel without harm coming to you. If I am forced to choose between your life and the lives of Riley and her baby, I will not survive it.”
She had no response that made any sense, so she merely nodded and curled up on a corner of the couch as preparations continued, wondering what kind of callous bitch Fate really was to put so much at stake—all riding on the shoulders of one young, scared witch.
She glanced down at her rings but, for once, they were utterly silent.
Chapter 16
A warehouse, Seattle
If Ven’s warehouse home (or what was left of it after that bomb blasted a hole in the middle of his floor) was old enough to be retro, then the place Quinn had directed them to was on the borderline between piece-of-shit-rattrap and condemned.
Ven was betting on condemned.
As he looked up at the stark front of the building, dark in the dim glow cast by the single working streetlight on the block, he noticed the holes, missing brick, and multiple broken windows, all of which could house enemies sighting down very expensive scopes at them as they stood there. He pulled Erin closer to his body so she made a smaller target, even though he trusted Quinn as much as he trusted any human, and Alexios, Justice, and Brennan had all melted into the shadows to circle the building and scout for trouble on the perimeter.
Christophe and Denal had gone hunting for lowlifes; scouting the bars and flophouses for anybody who might have information about Caligula and his activities. When a drug or drink habit rode a man hard, he could usually be persuaded to sell what he knew for a price.
Erin stiffened and started to back away from him, but then a rat bigger than most cats scurried around the corner in front of them and she let loose with a shrill yelp and tried to climb into his shirt with him. He couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face. “My little warrior. Willing to take on bom
bs with nothing but her magic, but afraid of a little mouse.”
She shoved him. “Little mouse, my foot! That was the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!”
He shrugged. “At least you can be relatively sure it’s not carrying plague, which wasn’t always the case.”
“Plague? Oh, right. You’re almost five hundred years old. I keep forgetting. You realize you’re way too old for me,” she said, trying to move around him to go into the building first. She’d been arguing with him about how she was better prepared to be first inside, considering her magic shielding, ever since they’d stepped through the portal that Alaric had created for them.
Ven’s gaze flicked to the priest, whose face had gone so white he resembled one of the undead. Every step they took closer to Quinn was one that Alaric must feel spiking through his chest.
Before they reached the steel door, which hung drunkenly off its hinges, it swung open to reveal a small, slender woman standing in the doorway. To look at her, you’d never believe that Quinn Dawson was one of the coleaders of the human rebel forces. She was a few inches shorter than her sister and had short, dark hair that looked like she cut it with a lawn mower. In the oversized Bon Jovi T-shirt that she wore with faded jeans, she could easily have passed for a teenage boy. A teenage boy with enormous eyes and very delicate features.
From a short distance behind him, Ven heard a noise that sounded like the whooshing of air driven out of someone’s lungs. Since the someone was Alaric, who could fry Ven’s ass with those glowing eyeballs of his, Ven gave no indication that he’d heard a thing. As Erin tried to push past him again, he even felt a glimmer of sympathy with the priest’s reaction to seeing Quinn again.
Without a breath of warning, Alaric suddenly shimmered into mist and soared up and over the top of the building. Ven watched him go, grimly amused. The most powerful high priest Poseidon had ever anointed was afraid of a girl. The thought cheered him up immensely, in spite of a certain lack of accuracy.
He solved the Erin problem by putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer, not bothering to deny, even to himself, the sense of utter rightness he felt when she was in his arms. He knew he’d pay for his presumption later, but figured he’d worry about that when he got to it.
“Nice digs, Quinn,” he said, offering his hand.
She smiled up at him, her quick gaze having already weighed and measured each one of them, and shook his hand with a firm grip. “It’s good to see you,” she said, sounding like she meant it. “We’ve got trouble.”
“You and trouble in the same playground? Say it isn’t so,” he said, clutching his chest.
“Maybe we’d better get this off the street.” She turned to disappear through the dark doorway. As Ven followed her, still holding tightly to Erin, his gem singer threw him an elbow. Hard.
He grunted, but didn’t let go. “What was that for?”
“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see. Maybe an introduction would have been nice,” she whispered. “Quinn, this is Erin. Erin, this is Quinn. See how easy it is?”
“She’s right, you know,” said a voice Ven remembered very well. The owner of the voice flowed around the corner, moving with a lethal grace that was uncharacteristic of such a big man. Unless the man were a shape-shifter who became a five-hundred-pound tiger when he was in a bad mood.
“Jungle boy!”
“That’s jungle man to you, fish face,” Jack said, holding out his hand to clasp Ven’s. Then his eyes shifted to Erin, and he leaned toward her slightly and inhaled deeply. “Who’s the witch? Are you finally settling down, gonna raise some guppies?”
Ven tensed and shot out a hand, shoving the tiger back several inches. “Don’t sniff my woman like she’s your territory.”
Jack blinked at him, then laughed. “Your woman? So that’s the way of it, is it? Well, don’t let it be said that the alpha of my streak doesn’t recognize the rights of a mated pair.”
Beside him, Erin murmured something under her breath and lifted her hands. The next thing he knew, he and Jack were both sitting on their asses in the hallway, staring up at her in shock.
She made an exaggerated show of wiping her hands together, and then held one out to Quinn. “I am Erin Connors, and I’m pleased to meet you.”
Quinn shook her hand, grinning down at Ven and Jack. “Oh, honey. It is seriously my pleasure.”
Quinn introduced Erin to the dozen men and two women who stood around tables in the back of the warehouse, but she only used first names, and Erin had a strong feeling most if not all of those were aliases. Her magic sensed that at least eight of the group were shape-shifters. All of them, humans included, looked tough and somehow weary, and greeted her with cautious reserve. She had the feeling that only Jack and Quinn had met any of the Atlanteans before, and the rest were curious about them, from the way Quinn’s group was scanning them.
Erin had never been around so many shape-shifters in her life, and her amber was singing a frantic song. The music was different from what it sang when vampires were around. This song was deeper, earthier. More sensual. As if the gems realized Erin wouldn’t be all that averse to getting up close and personal with a handsome shape-shifter if the world were different. The big, gorgeous, scary guy, Jack, had slanted eyes that told her some kind of cat was the other half of his dual nature. From the deadly menace he projected, she was betting he wasn’t your everyday, average housecat, either.
She glanced at Ven; somehow just thinking about getting up close and personal made her want to reach out to him. Memories of the way he’d touched her, held her, and slid his hard length inside her flashed through her mind, and her mouth went dry as her emeralds purred a sultry song. He caught her looking at him, and something must have given away her thoughts, because his eyes darkened and his gaze practically branded her as she stood.
She closed her eyes for a second and drew in a steadying breath, then purposely turned her body so he wasn’t in her line of sight any longer. “Quinn, I understand Riley is your sister?”
Quinn smiled and the first real warmth she’d shown glowed on her face. “Yes, although you couldn’t tell it to look at us, could you?”
Erin studied Quinn’s face. “Actually, yes. You have the same delicate facial features, the same cheekbones, and the same terrific porcelain skin.”
Jack started laughing. “Oh, that’s not the way to make friends here, Erin. Call Quinn delicate, and she’s liable to rip your arm off and stuff it down your throat.”
Erin blinked, but Quinn only rolled her eyes. “Great, Jack. Scare the nice witch, why don’t you?” She put her hand on Erin’s arm. “Ignore the tiger. He gets grumpy if he doesn’t eat a few natives every couple of weeks.”
Erin glanced back and forth between the two of them, smiling uncertainly, because she had the uncomfortable feeling that there was more truth to the joking than she wanted to know about. Also, she’d never met any shifter whose other form was tiger, and the exotic nature of the beast under Jack’s skin surprised her and sent a little chill of trepidation tingling through her senses. On the other hand, who needed allies who were wimpy?
Ven glowered at them all from the edge of a table, where he was staring down at what looked like a topographical map of Washington State. “What in the nine hells were you planning to do? And please tell me that you were at least going to wait for us to join the party.”
Quinn strode over to him and pointed at an area circled in red. “We’ve been working our sources and tracking the frequency of attacks from the newly turned for several months. It all seems to spiral to the area around Mount Rainier.”
Jack stabbed a finger down at the map. “We’re guessing under here. There are a series of ice caverns and tunnels that are impassable to humans. Any entrance big enough to get through is magically warded so strongly that we’ve watched humans bounce right off of it and not even realize what they were doing.”
“What about witches?” Erin asked.
Quinn shot a measuring lo
ok at her. “We don’t know. The only witch on our team has been missing for more than a week. We don’t know if she’s been captured, killed, or…converted.”
Ven spoke again. “We’ve got a problem with witches going bad around here, don’t we? The woman who attacked at the Circle of Light HQ was strong enough to cut Erin off from her power. Does that sound like your witch?”
Jack and Quinn traded a long look, but finally Quinn shook her head. “I don’t know how powerful you are, Erin, but she wasn’t very strong. I doubt she could channel that kind of magic unless she’d been disguising her true strength from us.”
“The witch who attacked me was channeling dark magic, which would automatically increase her powers from what she could call with the light,” Erin said. “I didn’t get a good look at her, though.”
“Neither did I,” Ven admitted. “I knocked her out, but then she disappeared when I was dealing with her colleague and a couple of vampires.”
“Well, we won’t know until we try, will we?” Erin walked over to study the maps. “I never would have guessed that there were caverns under Mount Rainier. I used to go hiking there with my family, before…” She stopped and shook her head. No need to go into that now. Sorrow might weaken her resolve.
Quinn raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask her for an explanation. The dark, bruised look around her eyes gave Erin the idea that Quinn knew a lot about secrets and tragedies herself.
Ven cleared his throat. “Quinn, we need to talk privately. There’s something I need to—”
“Is it Riley? The baby? What’s wrong?” Quinn practically leapt at him. “Tell me right now, damnit.”
The compassion in Ven’s eyes touched a place deep inside Erin as she watched him. This fierce warrior talked a tough game, but he cared deeply for his family.
To add to her confusion, Erin had the idea he was starting to care deeply for her. She pushed the thought aside before she could examine it further. No time to think about caring for someone when she was on a mission that could very well end with one or both of them dead. Definitely no time to consider whether it was the kind of caring she would welcome and, perhaps, reciprocate.