by Alyssa Day
“I’m not touching her, Conlan. You need to—oh!” The priest yanked his hand away as if he’d been burned. Then he stared up at Conlan, shock widening his eyes.
“Move your shirt away from her back, Conlan. I must see her shoulder.” The utter bewilderment in Alaric’s voice persuaded Conlan to comply. He gently moved a corner of the fabric covering her.
And they both stared at the mark of the Trident, still smoking around the edges, branded into her skin.
“This is a mark I cannot heal, Conlan,” Alaric murmured.
As they stared at each other, then back at the blackened skin, Riley’s eyelashes fluttered open.
“Conlan? Alaric? Am I dead?”
Before he could answer her, she’d lapsed back into a deep level of unconsciousness. Alaric had been unable to bring her around from it and had suggested sleep. Conlan carried her to the bedroom and gently cleansed her legs and hands of the blood and gore that streaked them.
His hands trembled as he stroked the curve of her ankle, and he wanted to scream. Wanted to rage, destroy, murder someone or something.
Wanted to cry.
Did none of those things. Didn’t deserve to cry for her. He’d left her to be attacked. She could have been killed.
He wasn’t only worthless as a prince. He was worthless as a man.
She deserved better.
He paused, warm washcloth clenched in his hand, and gazed at her pale skin. Even now, his mind rebelled at the thought of anybody harming her. Someone was going to die.
Why had she been nude? What had they done to her?
Who was they?
The thought of any man—or, worse, any creature—attacking her spiked a soul-annihilating rage through him.
But why the Trident? Alaric had said it was the priest’s mark, would say no more until Riley was awake.
But the priest had been shaken. Unsure. Almost afraid, if the harsh lines of his face were any indicator.
“Riley,” Conlan whispered, pulling the blanket over her now-clean form. “Please come back to me.”
A knock sounded at the door. He positioned himself between the door and the bed, hands on his daggers. “Enter.”
Ven opened the door. “We’re ready to go. I have another place, way outside of town. No houses around it for miles. Nobody but me knows about it, since I only bought it a few months ago.”
Ven crossed to his brother. Looked down at the sleeping form on the bed. “Is she going to be okay?”
Conlan knelt beside her, gently moved the hair back from her face. “She has to be,” he replied simply. “Or I will end with her.”
Ven started to speak, stopped, laid a hand on Conlan’s shoulder. “Then we’ll make sure she’s okay. Let’s go.”
Conlan tucked the blanket more securely around Riley and swept her into his arms. He followed Ven down the hall, where the others stood waiting, loosely circling Alaric, who was as pale as death.
“Brennan and Denal are in the back of the Hummer,” Bastien said. “Alaric told us they are only sleeping, and will wake soon.”
“A sleep like I’ve never seen,” muttered Justice. “They didn’t even flinch when we carried them out to the vehicles. Makes you wonder what happened to them.”
Alexios pointed to an umbrella, lying on the floor. “Why the umbrella? There were weapons all over the floor when we entered behind you. I counted an axe, several daggers, and both of their swords. But no weapons from any intruders, nor any sign of them, except for their blood on our weapons.”
Christophe held his hands out, palms raised. “Not that this is my thing, but since Alaric is out of commission, I can try to feel what power might have been used.”
He closed his eyes and lifted his head, muscles in his neck straining. Then his body jerked, as if struck. “Somebody called power here. Huge power. On the level of what hit us at that warehouse, Alaric. What could do that?”
Christophe turned to Alaric. “Neither Denal nor Brennan can channel the elements on this level. What could have called this power?”
“It was the Trident,” the priest said flatly. “Poseidon delivered his staff to Riley and ordained her.”
Alaric’s laughter was tinged with dark wildness. “It appears Poseidon has claimed your aknasha, Conlan. Now she belongs to him.”
They drove to the new safe house, Alaric refusing to speculate further on what might have happened. Or even discuss what he’d meant about Riley. The house was a rambling farmhouse type, set well back from what Ven said was a sparsely traveled country road. Conlan had noticed signs for various horse-related businesses and seen a few horses in fields as they passed. He waited in the car with Riley while the others cleared the building. Nobody was taking any more chances.
“It’s not set up like a bunker now, but it has great potential to be refurbished. Plus, it has the advantage of being way the hell out in the boonies,” Ven said when he returned.
“I don’t care what it takes. Put everyone on watch,” Conlan said flatly. “Well, all but Denal and Brennan. Let them rest.”
“Are you kidding? I couldn’t make them rest if I tied them down,” Ven said. “Ever since they came to, they’re hell-bent on protecting Lady Sunshine. They appear to have one helluva story to tell.”
Conlan scowled at his brother, but Ven simply shook his head, his face solemn. “I’m right there with them, bro. They said she dove into the middle of the vamps. That’s way beyond the call, man.”
He glanced at the motionless shape in Conlan’s arms as they walked into the house. “She’s quite a woman. She deserves better than what we’ve gotten her into.”
Ice spread through Conlan’s veins. When he spoke, a barely controlled ferocity underscored his words. “She does. But I can’t . . . I won’t let her go. Not ever, Ven.”
Ven shrugged. “It’s not me you have to convince. Alaric seems to have some thoughts on the matter. I’d be glad to get out of the ‘do not pass Go, marry an eleven-thousand-year-old virgin’ rules myself. But smarter men than me are going to have to figure that one out.”
He showed Conlan to a spacious room at the end of the hall on the second floor and excused himself. Conlan gently laid Riley on the bed and covered her with the quilt, wishing her breathing weren’t so shallow.
Her skin weren’t so pale.
Then he dragged a chair across the carpet, right up next to the bed, and took one of her hands in both of his. And prayed to the god who had left him to suffer for seven years.
Some hours later, Ven came back to let him know that Denal and Brennan were asking to see him.
Conlan sat in his chair, still holding Riley’s hand. He needed to touch at least her skin, since her mind and emotions were closed to him.
He forced himself to breathe past the rock in his throat that threatened to choke him. Alaric had said she’d be fine. He had to hold on to that.
Poseidon’s silence had been deafening.
“Bring them,” Conlan demanded. “I won’t leave her.”
Ven nodded. “I figured as much. They’re here.”
Conlan watched as Denal and Brennan walked into the room, their gaze focused on Riley. Brennan gave him a cursory nod, then returned his attention to the bed.
Denal threw back his head and howled a cry of such anguish that the hair on Conlan’s arms stood at attention, and an icy shiver shot down his spine.
“She’s dead?” Denal stumbled closer to the bed. “That wasn’t a dream, then?”
“She lives,” Conlan said. Denal’s attention finally turned to his prince.
“Alaric says she’ll be fine. She’s sleeping the same peculiar deep sleep as the two of you were.”
“Thank the gods,” Brennan said, voice low and reverent, as he, too, approached. “Thank Poseidon, for it truly was him in the room with us, was it not?”
Conlan’s hand shot out and caught Brennan’s arm in a steel grasp. “Tell me. What happened? Was there a battle? Why was Riley unprotected?”
Brenna
n dropped to one knee before him, head bowed. “We failed you, my prince. We failed to protect her.”
Denal knelt also, lifted a hand to touch Riley’s hair. Conlan allowed the gesture, somehow knowing that the warrior needed to prove to himself that she lived.
Then Denal dropped his face to the edge of the bed and began to sob. Great wracking sobs that shook his entire body with the force of them. Riley’s name was in there, and other, wordless, sorrow.
Conlan released Brennan and put a hand on Denal’s shoulder. “Tell me, Denal. Pull yourself together and tell me.”
He looked up, saw Alaric had joined Ven at the doorway. The others crowded the hall behind them. “Come in, all of you. Find seats. We need to hear this.”
Alaric, moving as one old and exhausted, took the room’s remaining chair. Ven and the others filed in and found perches on the floor or leaning against walls.
Denal’s shoulders stopped heaving, and he took a deep breath. “Brennan should tell it. Having no emotion would be a blessing beyond all reckoning at this moment. I can’t—” His voice trembled, and he stopped, shaking his head.
Brennan stood straight before them. “If only I could feel the pain that should be burned into my soul. Lady Riley deserves no less.”
Slowly, and ascribing all fault to himself, Brennan relayed the night’s events, his gaze continually returning to Riley as he spoke.
Denal interrupted several times, trying to shoulder the blame.
Brennan shook his head at the younger warrior and concluded. “And then I pulled the sword out of Denal’s body, and the poison from the vampire bites overwhelmed me. I was dying, my lord.”
Conlan listened, silent, shaking with rage. When Brennan paused, Conlan leaned forward. “We have acted as protectors and only stepped in when the vamps attacked humans in the past. But they brought this to our doorstep. They hurt Riley. Now they die.”
He looked around at his men and Alaric, all of whom nodded, grim faces echoing his own determination. “They all die,” he repeated.
Alaric spoke up, voice quiet. “But we need to know what happened after that. Riley must wake up and tell us her part of the story. Clearly Denal is alive, and Brennan is no longer infected with the vamps’ poison. And there are . . . other matters.”
None but Conlan had seen the brand seared into Riley’s back. He nodded, appreciating the priest’s discretion.
Denal raised his head to stare at the priest, eyes reddened from the tears that still fell. “I know what happened after that. Somehow, I saw it all. I was in a beautiful place, filled with the sweet scent of the ocean. Nothing hurt, not even the sword wound that ended my life. But as I rested and welcomed the peace, I saw Riley on the floor of that room, holding my body.
“I, too, saw and heard everything that happened. Lady Riley bargained with the sea god himself. She offered her own life for ours.”
The voice from the bed was so thin and hoarse that Conlan thought he was imagining it. “He told me you do not bargain with a god,” Riley whispered. “So why am I still alive?”
Conlan was out of the chair, thrusting Denal to the side, in an instant. Riley looked up at him, her eyes huge in her pale face.
“Riley! You’re awake.”
He touched her hair, her face, leaned forward to press the gentlest of kisses to her mouth. Thank the gods.
Thank the gods.
She smiled at him, tears glistening in her eyes. “What’s more amazing is that I’m alive, I’m guessing. Especially after that crack about Poseidon frolicking with a Nereid. I hear gods have had people hanged for less.”
She shifted in the bed, grimaced. “My shoulder really hurts, though. I’m not sure what happened to it.”
Conlan felt the tears running down his face, didn’t care. “It’s okay. We’ll take care of it. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters. If you had gone from me—”
He heard a throat clear behind him. Alaric put a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we should leave Riley to rest now. There is much we need to discuss.”
Conlan shook off the hand. “Yes, you should all leave. I’ll stay here while she rests.”
Denal stood, happiness and shame warring on his expression. “There are no words for my joy that you live, my lady. I will spend the rest of my life repaying you for your sacrifice.”
He bowed to her, and tears spilled over Riley’s lashes. Brennan also bowed, then knelt beside the bed. “Your sacrifice for one as worthless as myself is beyond anything I can comprehend. Should you ever have need of me, you have but to call.”
She smiled at them, pulled herself up on the pillow a little. “You put your lives on the line for me. For me to do the same for you was not a sacrifice. I am so glad you’re alive!”
She held her arms out to Denal, who quickly looked to Conlan. Conlan nodded his head, and Denal leaned down so Riley could hug him. When he pulled away she did the same to Brennan.
If Conlan had held any hope of protecting even the furthest dark corners of his soul from his love from her, that moment crushed those illusions. The sight of her reaching out to his warriors, and the knowledge of the sacrifice she had made for them, honored him—honored them all—beyond the greatest gift.
He gently grasped her hands in his own and bowed his head, spoke the words forcing themselves up and out of his soul in ancient Atlantean:
I offer my sword, my heart, and my life to protect your own.
From now until the last drop of ocean has vanished from the earth.
You are my soul.
She smiled, of course not understanding a word of it, and her eyelids drifted closed.
He never even heard the others leave the room.
Chapter 31
Death came for Riley, shriveling her skin and burning acid into her flesh, again and again as she slept, until she finally screamed her way through to wakefulness. Except the screaming was confined to the dreams. The only sound coming from her throat was a husky gasp.
Even that small sound was enough to wake the man lying next to her on the bed. A different bed than the one she’d slept in the night before, she noticed.
A different room.
Conlan tightened the arm that lay protectively across her waist. “Riley? Are you awake? Are you well?”
She looked up into his eyes, saw the familiar blue-green flame burning in his pupils. The sign of his passion for her.
His love.
“They’re really okay? I didn’t dream that, too?”
He nodded. “You saved them both. Your sacrifice—” His voice broke.
She lifted a hand to stroke his hair back from his face. “Shhh,” she soothed. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
His entire body shuddered. “If I’d lost you—don’t ever risk your life like that again.”
Riley smiled, feeling weaker than she’d ever been. And yet stronger, at the same time. “There you go ordering me around, again. We have to work on this royalty complex you’ve got.”
Conlan’s lips curved at the corners. “Get used to it. I’m going to be ordering you around for a very long time.”
He bent and gently kissed her forehead, her nose, and then her lips. “I’m never letting you get away from me. You understand that, don’t you?”
He pulled her closer to him in a fierce hug. “Never.”
She opened her shields, felt the full extent of his passion, and her own body shuddered in response. “Conlan? I need to feel you now. I need to feel your warmth.”
“I’ll hold you all night long, mi amara. I’ll hold you forever,” he murmured into her hair, gently caressing her arms.
“No.” She pushed him away, sat up. Tried to escape the boulder that crushed her lungs. “I need to feel alive. I need to tell you—I need to show you—”
She rolled over so that she lay half on top of his body, put her hands on his face. “I need,” she whispered.
And then she kissed him like she was dying of thirst, and his lips held the last drop of water.
Conlan moaned at the feel of her. He’d tried so hard to be gentle. To give her the comfort and safety he’d been so sure she’d want, instead of overwhelming her with his hunger.
But she was kissing him like she wanted to devour him. The passion in her touch unleashed the floodgates of desire he’d fought to keep barred. The terror that he’d lived through at the sight of her limp body lying there on the floor.
The relief that she lived.
“Riley, my aknasha, I love you. I need you. I need to be inside you right now, right now, right now,” he groaned into her mouth.
She smiled, opening her mind and heart to allow him to feel her own heat and need. Without thought, beyond reason, he ripped at his clothes, desperately needing to feel his skin against hers.
Riley trembled with wanting him. Needing him. Needing to feel him inside her, so she could know she was alive. His big body shook as he yanked and tore at his clothes until he was as nude as she. He swept the quilt off her and replaced it with his body, pushing her legs apart and driving his fingers inside her to feel her, test her, learn that she was ready for him.
He made a low sound deep in his throat and centered himself over her. She felt the thickness of him straining at her, and she arched up to help him. He was so fiercely aroused he had to work himself inside her, and she stretched to a point just short of pain as the length and the breadth of his erection pushed steadily into her.
She cried out with the wanting, with the hunger, and kissed and bit at his mouth as if she were consuming him. He pulled out a little and she whimpered, and then he drove into her as far as he could go.
And she screamed. Screamed and clawed at him, dug her nails into his shoulders, into his back. Begged him for more, more, harder, harder. Reaffirming that she lived, that he lived, that he was there with her.
At least for now.
Saw the ferocious predator she’d unleashed in his face. Reveled in it.
“You’re mine, Riley. Mine, mi amara aknasha, my beloved empath. I’m going to take you now, fuck you, sear myself into your soul,” he growled, jaw clenching with the shreds of self-control he seemed to have left. She could feel the burning drive to possess her that shook him, heart and soul.