by Alyssa Day
“The prince.” Denal nodded. “It is true what the legends say of aknasha, then? That you can form the soul-meld so quickly?”
“The what?” Riley felt her cheeks heating up that she was so easy to read but she was curious. “What’s a soul-meld?”
“It is said that when one who is aknasha truly loves, she will open to her beloved, so that he can travel inside the corridors of her heart and soul.”
“Very poetic,” Brennan said, entering the room. “The disadvantage of this ‘hiding in plain sight’ that Ven prefers with his safe houses is that the neighbors are wary of one such as myself patrolling the night.”
“Drawing unwelcome attention here in suburbia, are you?” Riley asked, trying for a light tone. Denal’s words had shaken her more than she wanted to admit.
Truth had a way of doing that. One who truly loves.
“Hard to be inconspicuous when you’re six and a half feet of hottie, Brennan. Do they have some kind of gorgeous potion in the water in Atlantis?”
She looked at the two of them, standing there all muscle and cheekbones in leather and a cascade of steel. Like they’d flashed in from some weird parallel universe where runway models wore weapons.
Denal was shaking his head. “We do not live in water in Atlantis. The dome protects us.”
She blinked, then laughed so hard her sides ached, tried to explain when he got all huffy. “No, no, I’m not laughing at you, Denal. Only at myself. Dropped down the rabbit hole with Hot Models Gone Wild.”
That set her off again with the worst case of the stress giggles she’d ever had, and Denal shaking his head at her only made it worse. Even Brennan smiled, though it never reached his eyes.
When she could catch her breath again, she wiped her eyes. “Okay. Sorry. Really. Sometimes it hits me like that. No doubt I’ll be laughing on my deathbed. How about pizza? Two or three?”
She studied them, upgraded her plans for the order. Distraction. That’s what they needed. “No, five pizzas loaded with the works. And we can pop in one of these movies. Ven may have the finest collection of classics I’ve ever seen. Anybody for the original King Kong?”
Conlan followed Alaric as they flew across town, bodies transformed into shimmering mist. Ven and the others followed in two of Ven’s collection of cars. They’d discovered early on that modern weapons—indeed, any that didn’t contain at least a trace of orichalcum—failed to be changed by the magic of the transformation process.
Ven did love to have his toys with him. Man had more weapons than an armory.
And they’d surely need them. Though five of Reisen’s warriors were slain, they might still be outnumbered. The House of Mycenae might have brought many, many more to guard the stolen Trident.
Why? He sent the thought to Alaric.
He believed you dead. Wanted Atlantis to take what he considered its rightful place among the landwalkers. Grew impatient with the timid ways of the Council. Saw himself as king, no doubt.
Conlan heard the underlying note. You believe as he does?
Though he was no empath, he had no trouble reading the disgust in the priest’s thoughts.
If not now, when, Conlan? We are charged to protect mankind. Do we fulfill that vow by hiding like women? No, that is inapt. For your woman and her warrior sister have no thought of hiding, more’s the pity.
Alaric put on a burst of more speed, as if trying to outrun thoughts of Quinn. Conlan needed to understand more about that reaction, to be sure. But there was a matter far more urgent.
Alaric, what is this doom you spoke of? A second Cataclysm?
But instead of answering, Alaric plunged down through the trees sparsely surrounding a vacant lot that abutted a large, ruined-looking building.
A building filled with light and sound and surrounded by cars.
As the priest shimmered back into his body, he threw his head and arms back, tension in every straining muscle. “The Trident is here. It calls me—taunts me. Send for the others. We have found it.”
Conlan, who’d been communicating their direction to Ven throughout the journey, sent the final directions through their mind link. Ven. Hurry.
Ven’s thoughts shot back to him like an arrow. Five minutes, tops. Then we’re going to make the lord of the House of Mycenae regret the day he was born.
“Five minutes, Alaric. We need to wait for the others. From the sign of the parking lot, we’re seriously outnumbered.”
Alaric started forward, eyes gleaming in the dark. “Mostly humans,” he snarled. “I can feel them. Anyway, no matter. None of them are any match for me. I will wreak Poseidon’s justice upon their flesh.”
Conlan flashed in front of Alaric, blocking him. Barring his way. “You will wait. As your prince, I command it. If you are destroyed through a fluke of superior numbers, what hope is left for Atlantis?”
Alaric’s face was savage. No trace of Conlan’s boyhood friend shone through the vicious intent on his face. “Out of my way, prince. This is the work of a god, and you may not countermand me in my goal.”
“Not as prince, perhaps. But as your friend?” Conlan put out a hand to grasp the priest’s arm.
The light from Alaric’s eyes burned where it touched Conlan’s face, but he held his ground.
Alaric yanked his arm away, lifted his hands to call power, and bands of wind jerked Conlan off his feet and onto the ground. He battled with the element of wind to try to rise.
Alaric merely stared down at him, face like stone. “I have no friends.”
And then he strode across the field toward the blazing windows of the warehouse.
Chapter 28
Anubisa sneered at the bowed head of the so-called master vamp. Her father-husband would writhe in shame were he to see the diluted blood of their race.
Lucky for all that she’d killed Chaos when she had. She thought back to his death with sorrow.
Sorrow that it could never be repeated.
The sheer, soul-destroying ecstasy of ripping out her incestuous lover’s jugular as he climaxed inside of her. His impotent rage as his seed and his blood flowed out of his cock and his neck into her.
He’d made her a goddess of death, and she’d eaten his soul. So fitting, somehow.
But now she was left with this pale imitation of greatness who dared to try to lead.
“The fissure in the natural fabric of the elements? Did you not feel it, fool?”
He cringed at her feet, not man enough to face her. “I did feel it, Exalted One. What would you have me do?”
She almost gently swung out one silk-shod foot and kicked him with enough force to hurl his body through the air. He smashed into the wall of his chamber and slid down to the floor. Nearly boneless.
Useless.
“Rise, you pathetic sack of worm dung. What I would have you do is track it down and find these Atlanteans who dare to disturb the elements.” Rage fired her eyes to a flaming red and she barely felt the blood trickling down her face from her retinas.
“And take Drakos with you. I think he may have some of the sense that you so clearly lack.”
“But—”
She stilled, and the air in the chamber dropped to a temperature frigid enough to freeze human blood. So. This was what rage felt like. It had been centuries since she’d elevated her mood beyond lethargy.
“You question me?” she asked, her voice a whisper of torrid death.
“Never,” he gasped, pulling himself off the floor.
“Find the Atlanteans. Now. And I may yet let you live.”
Ven drove the last hundred yards or so with the lights off, burning up the street. Atlantean night vision was an asset sometimes.
Justice was out the door before Ven could shove the gearshift into park. Bastien and Alexios were out of the backseat on his heels.
Ven jumped out, looked up at the sound of wind rushing over his head. It was Christophe, determined to travel via mist, though his strength and speed were no match for Conlan and Alaric.
Ven nodded. He understood pride.
“Conlan!” Justice’s voice rang out, and Ven started running.
Damn it. Not his brother. Not again.
He pounded up to the group of warriors as Justice pulled Conlan to his feet.
“Are you harmed?”
Conlan glanced at him, shook his head, sucking in air. “No, but I’m going to kick Alaric’s glowy green ass for him when I get my hands on him. Bastard magicked me out of his way to get to the Trident. Wouldn’t wait for backup.”
Christophe shimmered into form beside them, face rapt, staring toward the ugly steel-and-block building on the other side of the field. “It’s the Trident,” he breathed. “It’s singing. I’ve never felt such power.”
Face transfixed, Christophe stumbled off in the direction of the building, unheeding of Ven’s call to stop. Bastien stepped in front of him and casually popped him in the jaw, nearly knocking the warrior off his feet.
Blinking, eyes beginning to register his surroundings, Christophe rubbed his jaw and scowled up at Bastien. “What in the nine hells did you do that for?”
Bastien grinned. “You’ve had that coming for a while. Oh, yeah, and you were in some kind of trance, too.”
Conlan strode forward. “Enough. We need to fan out and figure out what we’re getting ourselves into. What Alaric is likely in the middle of already. If there are any sentries, take care of them. Quietly.”
Bastien drew his daggers. “Quiet is my middle name, my lord. We’re golden.”
Christophe snorted. “Ugly is your middle name.”
Alexios started forward, rammed his shoulder against Christophe as he passed him. “Another word, and you will discover an entirely new meaning of ugly, shit for brains,” he growled.
With hand gestures, Conlan motioned Justice to take point toward the left and Alexios to do the same toward the right. He went straight up the middle, muttering a quick prayer to Poseidon that Alaric would hold off another damn minute.
That was when the windows of the building shattered.
Brennan’s head jerked up. “Someone approaches.” His hands went to the weapons that were never far from his hands.
Riley had noticed they were all like that. Even in bed with her, Conlan’s daggers had been on a table within reach.
Her cheeks turned pink as she realized she was, for about the fiftieth time in the past hour, thinking about Conlan naked. Sheesh, she was turning into a guy, with sex, sex, sex on her brain. Next she’d start scratching her crotch and develop a driving need to play fantasy football.
“It’s probably the pizza guy,” she said. “Yippee for on-time delivery. Let me grab my wallet.”
Brennan and Denal both stood to accompany her. She planted her fists on her hips. “It’s the pizza guy. Who is probably some skinny high school kid who will pee in his pants if you two come to the door looking like Conan the Atlantean. Okay?”
The doorbell rang, and Brennan shook his head. “You will not go alone.”
She appealed to his logic. “Look, if you scare the guy, he’ll have some big story to tell back at the pizza place, right? Do you really want the address and phone number of your so-called safe house to be stored in the computer system of people who think a drug-dealing biker gang lives here?”
Denal drew his sword, all “I’m the warrior, and you’re the poor defenseless maiden” attitude.
Riley rolled her eyes. “Brennan? You’re the older and wiser, right? Don’t I make sense?”
The doorbell rang again.
Finally Brennan nodded. “You may go. I will stand behind the door as you effect the transaction.”
“Fine. Let’s go before my pepperoni gets cold.”
She paused the movie—you had to love Fay Wray—and pulled her wallet out of her jacket on the way. Brennan handed her some folded bills.
“You will not pay for our food, Lady Riley. Although we thank you for the offer.”
She shrugged, let him put the money in her hand. “Okay. Maybe being a royal warrior pays better than being a social worker?”
Brennan positioned himself behind the door, moving an umbrella out of the way. “Do Atlanteans really need umbrellas? I thought you guys liked water,” she teased, hoping Denal would start talking about the dome again.
But Denal merely grinned and shook his head, lurking behind the closet door. She glanced down at the wad of bills. “Sheesh, we don’t actually need a couple of hundred dollars for pizza. The guy would get a heck of a tip!”
Laughing, she pulled open the door, still separating the bills. “Come on in, dude, how much is—”
And was knocked backward onto the floor by the first of a swarm of hissing vampires.
Alaric faced Reisen across the heads of the cowering humans, wanting to vomit at the sacrilege of seeing the Trident in this dismal place.
With this thieving bastard.
The concussion of his first blast of energy had bounced off a circle of power surrounding the Trident and its bearer. Yet even as the Trident protected Reisen, its siren call sang ever more urgent in his head.
Rescue me, priest. Take me back to the temple of my god.
The power in it, amped up beyond any he’d known before, scorched him even while it seduced. Power beyond imagining.
And Reisen had only added the first jewel.
Yes, only the first. Restore me to my glory, Alaric, and glory and power will be yours beyond measure.
For the span of a mere whisper of thought, Alaric’s thoughts turned to Quinn. But she could never be his. If power would be his only mistress, he would ride its heat.
He raised his arms, levitated into the air, and floated over the bodies of the warriors who’d fallen at his first blast.
“I’m coming for what is rightfully mine, Mycenaean,” he called, his voice deep and resonating with the power he channeled.
“Yours? You claim much for yourself, priest. The Trident belongs to Poseidon. You are merely his servant,” Reisen sneered. “Or do you aspire to godhood now that Conlan is dead?”
“Conlan lives, fool. He is even now on his way to defeat your pathetic force—what is left of you after the shapeshifters defeated you yesterday.”
“You lie!” Reisen roared. “You would lie about your dead prince in pursuit of your own power?”
Conlan’s voice cut through the hum of gathering power. “It seems the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Reisen jerked his head toward his very alive prince. Shock must have loosened his grasp, for his hands trembled on the Trident, and he nearly lost his grip on it.
Even as Reisen’s warriors stirred and started to rise from where they’d fallen during the first blast, Ven, Justice, and the rest flowed in through the building’s windows and a back door. Surrounded the room.
Reisen stood, gaping. “Conlan! How are you alive after seven years?”
Conlan took a step toward him, menace shadowing his features, royal command in every line of his body. “Oh, we’ll talk, Mycenaean. Or rather, I’ll talk, and you’ll listen. But for now, you’ll return the Trident to Poseidon’s priest.”
Reisen held the shining staff in the air. “I think not. We have decided that Atlantis shall take a new path. Even if you are not compromised by so many years with Anubisa, you are stuck in the past. I am the way of the future. With this, I am unstoppable.”
Alaric drew on the elements, formed a ball of shining power and hurled it at Reisen. The Trident only deflected a part of its force, and the energy sphere smashed Reisen back a few steps. Around him, warriors of the House of Mycenae drew steel and began their approach.
Conlan turned his gaze to Alaric, nodded. “Let’s play.”
Riley stared up into the red and glaring eyes of the vampire whose hands crushed her throat. She heard voices; the sound of battle. Denal and Brennan roaring out the name of Atlantis and Poseidon. Yet somehow it all sounded far, far away.
And seemed to be happening in slow motion.
All she could focus on was the drop of saliva gathering at the corner of the vamp’s mouth as it killed her. As it drew back its lips over yellowed and cracked fangs and reared its head back to strike.
She was going to die at the fangs of a vamp with bad teeth.
I never told Conlan that I love him.
Despair gave her power. She thrust her arms up, then out, in the tactic she’d learned to break the grip of an attacker.
Of course, that had been with attackers who couldn’t lift her house with one hand, like a damn vampire would be able to do.
But still, it weakened his grip for a split second. Enough for her to slam her knee up into its crotch, wondering as she did it if vamps even had testicles.
Its hideous shriek told her they did.
She rolled out from under the screaming creature, and she was screaming herself. Shattering the night with an ear-splitting, wordless scream.
Sending her thoughts and terror out to Conlan, more powerfully than she’d ever broadcast.
Vampires! Too many! Denal—oh, God, no.
She froze for a moment, overwhelmed with horror. Too many, too many, too many.
And I’m not going to die like this.
She grabbed the umbrella that still, improbably, leaned against the closet door and ran for the four vamps that were attacking Denal.
“Get your lousy hands off my friend!” she screamed, even as Denal stabbed the point of his sword through the chest of the vamp in front of him. It must have hit the heart, because the vamp exploded into a nasty mess of blood and bone onto the carpet.
Even as Riley forced herself to run through it, the pointy end of the umbrella aimed at another vamp, the mess began to dissolve.
Brennan shouted at her from the corner, where he battled three more. He must have already killed some of them, because there had been far more than seven pouring through the door.
“Riley! The one who attacked you! You must take its head!”
She stopped, stared at Denal, then Brennan, then back at the vamp, now trying to stand.
“With a freaking umbrella?” she yelled.
“Behind you! The closet!”