by Alyssa Day
Bringing tears to his eyes.
He fought them back. Fought against the silken net she so effortlessly wove around his heart. Around his soul.
The woman who could tame a sea monster.
And he, the monster.
"You're nothing like your sister," he agreed. "And yet you're exactly like her. Foolishly idealistic, the both of you. She saves crack babies, and you save the world."
Feint, attack. "Did you know that Riley gave up her life for two of our warriors?"
She paled even beyond the marble whiteness that was her skin. Her perfect skin.
The skin he wanted to taste.
"What?" she gasped. "But, wait. You said 'gave up her life.' She was pretty clearly alive in that room."
"Yes. Poseidon plays with semantics as easily as he plays with destinies and lives. He took her for his own."
She scowled. Took a step closer to him. "What the hell does that mean? Is some ancient pervert of a mythological god going to try to rape my sister? Because I'll kick his fishy-tailed ass for him."
Alaric flinched at the blasphemy, then a thunderbolt of epiphany smashed into him. He'd fight Poseidon himself to protect Quinn. He was ruined.
Strange that the word she'd used to describe herself flowed so easily into his mind. Ruined.
"Why are you ruined?" he asked abruptly. "What were you talking about?"
It was her turn to flinch. She whirled on her heel to stare out at the view. Abandoned buildings and junked cars held nothing to capture her attention, but something in her memories evidently did.
He silently moved until he was immediately behind her. Could feel her body heat warming the iciness of his skin. The frozen tundra of his heart.
Knew he had to get away or get burned.
Before he could move, she turned back again and nearly ended up in his arms. They were so close a mere breath separated them.
A breath and eleven thousand years of dogma.
"The rebel and the priest," he rasped. "What a pair we are."
Her eyes were huge in her starved face. "But a pair is what we could never be. I've done things… black and unforgivable things. In the name of freedom."
He put a hand up to touch her face, stopped with his fingers an inch away from her skin. "And I've done nothing. In the name of a god."
He flashed back a dozen or so paces, stood staring at her. Letting the full impact of his hunger and his wanting thunder toward her. Into her.
She bent at the waist, wrapping her arms around herself. Started to cry. "I have no right to ask it, but please go now," she said, a fractured dignity in her voice. "We'll work together tonight, and then we'll never see each other again. But go now. Don't torture me with visions of what I can never have."
He bowed to her, and then somehow he found the strength to walk away. Knew that facing Barrabas would be as nothing to the courage he called upon now.
Chapter 35
Riley stumbled, grabbed the edge of the counter where she'd been looking for the cookies Quinn had mentioned. The blast of pain sheared through her, nearly driving her to the ground.
"Quinn. Oh, Quinn," she moaned.
Instantly, Conlan was at her side, putting his arms around her and growling at Jack, who'd moved to help her. "Riley? Are you okay?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. It's Quinn, she—" The flow of torment abruptly stopped. Quinn had slammed shut her shields.
Riley sent sympathy and love to her sister.
Quinn, I'm here for you. I love you. I'm not sure what's going on with you, but I'm here for you.
But the only response was silence.
Ven walked into the room. "Hey, we're going to scout out the area now that it's getting dark. We'll pick up some food while we're out. Justice is pretty familiar with D.C. and of course Quinn's men…"
His voice trailed off and his focus zoomed in on Jack. "What the hell are you? I've never smelled that before."
Jack scowled at him. "Great manners, asswipe. Go around sniffing people all the time, do you?"
Ven smiled. "You wanna go? 'Cause I'm sitting on a shit-load of tension, and I'd be happy to rearrange your face just for fun. So let's go."
Jack's mouth was suddenly crowded with teeth. "Maybe you want to check the state of the moon before you go challenging the alpha of my streak, water boy."
Riley pulled away from Conlan, stepped between the two men. "Do we have a measuring tape in the room?"
Ven blinked, shot her a puzzled look. "What?"
She put on her best sweetness-and-innocence smile, and Conlan fought to keep from laughing. He knew what was coming.
"Well, I figured you two could whip them out, and we'd measure them and get it over with," she said, voice lilting.
It took a beat, but then both Ven and Jack roared with laughter, and they held their hands out to each other to shake.
"Ven. Want to show us the lay of the land, jungle boy?"
"Jack Shepherd. And it's jungle man to you."
Ven looked to Conlan, who nodded, and Ven and the tiger left the room. The plan was a good one. Although they had no reason not to trust Quinn, her judgment in the people around her was a question mark until proven otherwise.
Doing surveillance in advance was a no-brainer.
Riley snorted, shaking her head. "Boys will be boys, right?"
A dark shadow twisted through the room and materialized into Alaric. "What is the plan?"
"Where's my sister?"
"She's on her way. She wanted… a moment alone."
"If you hurt my sister, I'll—"
Conlan put a hand on her shoulder and sent his thoughts to her.
Riley. Look at him. Look with your heart. He'd die before he'd hurt her.
She paused, turned her focus to Alaric, then glanced back at Conlan.
Perhaps. But there are more ways to hurt than only one.
"The plan is that we wait and attack at dawn, when the vamp strength is at its nadir," Conlan replied to Alaric.
"Then I will return just before dawn," Alaric said, voice rough. "Guard her for me, Conlan." His gaze flicked to Riley. "Guard them both."
Alaric lifted his arms and vanished.
Riley shook her head. "I'm never going to get used to that, am I?"
Conlan moved to the door, checking to be sure that Ven had left sufficient guard. Knowing that his brother would have it covered, but needing to move. Needing to do something.
"Sitting and waiting sucks," he said.
"You think?" Riley's voice was more than a little sarcastic. "And yet that's what you want me to do, right?"
"That's different. You're…"
"A woman? Oh, you so do not want to go there, mister," she warned.
He pulled her close to him again, rested his forehead against hers. "You are the heart that beats within my body. If you were to die, my existence would end with yours," he murmured.
She shivered in his arms, then raised her face for his kiss. "You're gooood."
"I know."
Riley laughed. "Enough with the smug, fish boy. You're also way too old for me, by about four hundred and fifty years or so. Remember that when you're getting all full of yourself."
"That's prince fish boy to you," he teased.
Slowly, the smile faded from her face. "Is this what they call laughing in the face of death? Because I don't feel all that amused."
Quinn's voice sounded from the door. "Welcome to the club, baby sister."
Ven and Jack brought back enough sandwiches for a small army, but Riley hadn't been able to manage more than a few bites.
Small army. Yeah, well, that's exactly what we are. Very small army.
She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter, even though she figured that this was the kind of cold that came from the inside. The idea of death wasn't a warm and cheerful one.
Her gaze followed Quinn as she walked around the room, talking to her band of freedom fighters. Who would have believed that her fragile sister would grow up to be a rebel
leader? Or that Riley herself would fall in love with the heir to the throne of a mythological land?
The entire experience was like being written into the script of an urban fantasy where the boundaries of prosaic reality blurred into fantastical images.
Either that, or a seriously bad trip. I picked a bad time not to be a drug addict.
The thought surprised a laugh out of her, causing Conlan, who stood across the room talking to Jack, to glance over at her, one of his dark eyebrows raised. The man's awareness of her was almost viscerally intense; she felt his presence in her blood, under her skin, racing across her nerve endings.
She shivered again, but from a wholly different cause. Decided to have a little fun. Sent a very specific emotion winging over to him.
Desire.
So I hear that "life is in jeopardy, might be the end of the world" sex is pretty hot.
She focused all of her concentration on the image of the two of them together, limbs twining. Her mouth on him. Her hands on him.
She watched as it hit him. Saw the sharply indrawn breath, the muscles in his jaw clench. Seconds later he was standing in front of her, crowding her back against the wall.
"Interesting talent, aknasha. Care to take this somewhere private and show me more?"
She smiled up at him. "Oh, yeah."
She waved to catch Quinn's attention, nodded her head toward the door. "We're going to get some rest," she said, knowing she wasn't fooling her sister.
Probably wasn't fooling anybody. In a room full of shape-shifters, they could almost certainly smell her heightened desire. The thought made her face go red, but didn't stop her.
Quinn nodded once and looked away. She hadn't told Riley anything about Alaric. Had merely looked at her, pain beyond measure in her eyes, and said there was nothing to tell.
The memory stopped her. "Conlan, maybe we should—"
He understood instantly; she could feel it in him. "Yes, we can stay if you want. But does Quinn really want us to?"
She gazed at her sister again. Quinn sat nearly head to head with Jack, both of them poring over the blueprints to the Primus yet again.
Jack was yet another issue. Riley had watched his oddly feral eyes track Quinn wherever she moved. The weretiger had deep feelings for her sister, it was pretty obvious. But Riley didn't think they were lovers. And what about Alaric?
"She's a grown woman, love. You cannot solve her problems for her," Conlan murmured in her ear.
"That doesn't mean I won't try," she said ruefully.
"Come with me now. Let me hold you for a little while until the dawn."
She sighed. Nodded. "Yes. Quinn showed me a room where we can sleep. It's cramped, but—"
He took her face in his hands, searched her eyes. "Wherever you are is as paradise come to earth for me."
Her breath caught in her throat. In what world was it fair that she'd finally found the other half to her soul, and it was unlikely either of them would survive another day?
"But we have tonight," she whispered. "Let's make it enough to last forever."
And she led him out of the room.
Barrabas snapped the neck of the Atlantean in front of him and watched the dead warrior fall to the floor. Then he threw his head back and howled his rage out to the stone walls of the chamber.
Drakos stood well back from the carnage, probably afraid that he'd be next. With the mood Barrabas was in, it was surely possible.
"How is it possible that these puny sacks of flesh can withstand my mind-control powers?" he hissed, kicking one of the bodies so hard he heard the ribs snap like kindling.
It would have been so much more satisfactory if the man had yet lived. Barrabas so enjoyed it when they screamed.
"But they did scream before they died, didn't they, Drakos?"
He walked through the gritty residue of the three vamps from his blood pride.
Point taken. Poseidon didn't approve of vampires touching his precious toy.
They'd died spectacularly, though. A waterfall of flaming death. Barrabas had to admit the sea god had style. One had to admire such creative methods of murder and annihilation.
His vampires had died screaming, too.
The Atlantean leader, Reisen, hung from one of the manacles on the wall, bloody and near death. But that one had never screamed. Not even when Barrabas hacked his hand off with a sword.
One had to admire such courage, too. Except when it obstructed his plans. Then one had to torture it mercilessly to death.
"Reisen thinks the others will come for the Trident. The prince and the priest," he mused, carefully rubbing his boot on one of the dead bodies to remove the blood. He watched as the thing's shirt turned reddish black, then deliberately stepped on its face as he strode over it.
"They wouldn't dare confront you, my lord," Drakos responded. He even looked outraged on Barrabas's behalf. A nice touch, that, genuine or not.
"A prince and a priest," Barrabas repeated. "Haven't these Atlanteans ever heard of the separation of church and state?"
He laughed and watched Reisen flinch, lifting his handless arm toward his chest. "Maybe we'll have to introduce you to the new and improved Bill of Rights when we take over your precious Seven Isles, what do you think?"
Reisen lifted his head and glared at Barrabas. "Conlan will obliterate you, and Alaric channels more power than you ever dreamed of, bloodsucker." He coughed, spat out a glob of blood.
Then the Atlantean smiled, blood running down his chin. "And I will dance on your salted grave."
Barrabas roared out his outrage, and the lights in the chamber flickered. "You will never live to see it, worm."
But before he could rip the warrior's head from his body, Drakos was in front of him, back of his hand smashing into the man. Reisen's head snapped back and cracked against the wall, then he collapsed, unconscious or dead.
Drakos bowed. "Perhaps he might prove useful later, my lord. Once he is sufficiently persuaded, he may be key to our learning more of the Trident."
Barrabas narrowed his eyes, wishing yet again that he could scan his general's mind. "Do you offer good strategy or defiance, Drakos? Why do you always seem to walk the razor edge between the two?"
"Would you want a weakling as your second?"
Barrabas waited several minutes before responding. Let Drakos worry. "No. But do not take that as leave to defy me. General Drakos."
Drakos bowed again. "Shall I bring the last of them? The one they call Micah?"
"Oh, yes. We still have a few hours until dawn. Let us see if we can make this one sing for us." Barrabas walked back across the bodies of the dead, enjoying the snap of bones as he crushed limbs.
"I do so love the sound of music."
Chapter 36
Conlan made it nearly two entire steps inside the dim room behind Riley before his control snapped. He slammed the door shut behind him and yanked her back against him, nearly crushing her in his arms. "I can't do this, Riley. I can't go into this battle tomorrow with you anywhere near danger. Please don't ask it of me."
She turned in his arms, put her arms around his neck. "I don't think it's up to us. I get the feeling that this is some kind of proving ground, and Poseidon is making all the rules. When he put this mark on my back, he put my game piece in play."
Conlan laughed, the sound of it ringing bitter and hard in his ears. "Because that's all we are to him. Pawns in some insane chess match."
Riley touched his face, traced the edge of his lips with one finger. "Doesn't history teach us that we are only pawns to all of them? My God, your gods, everybody's gods? We play the best game we can, and then we die. Match over. And all we have to show for it is how well we played the game."
She smiled. "I think I stretched that metaphor completely out of shape. But you get my meaning."
He closed his eyes. Focused on the feel of her breath on his skin. The heat exploding up through his body at her touch.
"I don't care about games or gods. Not to
night. All I want is to hold you and burn this moment into my memory for all time," he said roughly, tightening his arms around her.
"Yes," she said. Simple and direct. Just yes. And then she lifted her face to kiss him, and his world caught fire.
He lifted her, and her legs came up and around his waist. He cried out at the fierce pleasure that pounded through him at her touch. His body hardened, muscles clenching, and he walked, carrying her, until her back was pressed against the wall.
She moaned into his mouth and twined her fingers in his hair, pulling his head toward her as she plunged into his kiss. He shifted his hands until he felt her rounded ass in his palms, and he squeezed and caressed her, pulling her forward so her skirt rode up her thighs and nothing but his pants and the thin silk of her underwear was between them.
It was still too much. He propped her up on one of his thighs and shifted his hands to rip the lace in two and yank the pieces off her. Then he pushed his leg up so that the hardness of his leg rubbed against her wetness.
She moaned and writhed against him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. "Yes, touch me. Take me, Conlan. I need you."
He bent to bury his face in her neck, needing to shout out his triumph but wanting to muffle the sound from everyone gathered so near. With a muted growl, he bit at her neck where it curved into her shoulder, then caressed the spot with his tongue, soothing the tiny scrape.
She moaned again and arched into him, frantically pulling at his shirt, trying to get her hands on his skin. He ripped his shirt up out of his pants with one hand, unbuckled his belt and unzipped in seconds. Before he could do anything else, she put her hands on his shoulders and used them to lift up a little.
Then, looking into his eyes the entire time, she centered herself and slid down on his erection, wrapping him in her heat and wetness. He couldn't help it, he shouted out her name. Grabbed her delicious ass again and squeezed. Lifting her and driving into her again and again, watching pleasure glaze her eyes until they fluttered closed.
Then he stopped. She whimpered, blinked at him. "Why did you stop?"
Slowly, inch by inch, he lowered her onto his shaft again, watching her face. "Because I need to see you while I take you. I need to look into your eyes and see into your soul, my Riley, mi amara aknasha. I need to know that you are mine, now and forever."