by Alysa Day
They all took a step back when the statue started to shake and shudder.
“Thank goodness,” Sue said, beaming. “I knew--”
“Too soon, Mom,” Rose snapped. “Look.”
And Rose’s heart sank to somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles, because the statue was settling back down, and the tremors were subsiding.
And Mac was still stone.
Alejandro abruptly turned and hurled her potion pot across the garden. It smashed into a low stone wall with a resounding crash, but the noise was almost drowned out by the sound of Alejandro loudly and viciously cursing in at least two different languages.
“I’m so sorry,” Rose said. “I don’t know—we’ll brew another potion. I’ll get Mom and Granny to help, we’ll--”
“What were you doing when you were supposed to be brewing this so carefully last night?” Sue put her hands on her hips and stared down her nose at her daughter; a neat trick since she was several inches shorter than Rose.
Rose, who’d been on the last frayed edge of calm all night, threw her hands up in the air. “Sex, Mom. We were having hot, sweaty, fabulous sex all night. There. Are you happy?”
She stalked over to Alejandro, grabbed his face in her hands and planted a hot, R-rated, definitely-don’t-do-in-front-of-your-mother kiss on him and then fled to the house before she burst into tears. The last thing she heard before she reached the refuge of her kitchen was Granny’s long whistle and Alejandro’s terse announcement.
“Now, I think we call the Atlanteans.”
CHAPTER 12
Alejandro called a number that Lord Justice had once given him—a number that he’d never used. The line rang twice, and then a sequence of clicks and beeps sounded, and then the line went dead, and he was left listening to dial tone.
Well. He’d known better than to expect help from anyone but himself. Now he just had to figure out how the hell to work magic and save his partner.
“Incoming,” Granny sang out, and she and Sue both took several steps away from the statue.
Alejandro looked around, ready to draw his gun, but he didn’t see anything. “What are you talking about?”
Sue pointed to the area just to the left of Mac, where an oval shimmer of light was starting to form.
“I thought you warded this garden against magical entry,” Rose’s grandmother accused.
Sue nodded, rolling up her sleeves. “I did. Watch out.”
Alejandro looked at the oval again and grinned. He held up a hand before Sue could try to blast it.
“It’s okay. It’s the cavalry.”
Lord Justice of Atlantis, half-brother to the king, stepped through first. His long braid of swirling blue and black hair still reached his waist, and his very deadly sword still stuck up from its scabbard on his back. His sharp gaze swept the area before returning to Alejandro, and he bowed.
“You called us, and we came,” he said, and Alejandro knew it was just as likely that the “us” referred to the dual natures of Justice’s personality as it did to actual other people. But Ven stepped through the portal, and then Alaric, and Alejandro blew out a sigh of relief.
Now things would definitely work out. The King’s Vengeance, also King Conlan’s brother, and Alaric, High Priest of Atlantis, were each as deadly and magically powerful on their own as Lord Justice. The trio? Unstoppable.
“Thank you,” Alejandro said when the portal winked out of existence, so he knew nobody else was coming through. “I have a big problem.”
“Oh, honey, you are a cutie patootie,” Granny told Alaric, sidling up to him.
Alejandro’s head nearly exploded at the sight of the expression on the face of the five-hundred-year-old high priest—the most powerful Atlantean of all time, or so he’d heard—as Rose’s grandmother leered at him.
Alaric’s green gaze was ice. Grown men would run screaming for their mothers at the sight of that gaze. “I beg your pardon, Sorceress?”
Granny grinned and reached up and pinched Alaric’s cheek.
Ven howled with laughter. Howled. There was no other word for it. He doubled over and slapped his knee and still kept laughing.
“We prefer witch, Wizard,” Sue said, still unhappy with the intrusion into her territory, Alejandro guessed from the look on her face.
He hastened to make introductions. “Senora Cardinal, Abuelita Cardinal, please allow me to present Lord Alaric, High Priest of Atlantis, and Lord Ven and Lord Justice, brothers to the king.”
Sue nodded. “Pleased to meet you,” Sue said, sounding anything but.
“Welcome to the home of the Cardinal witches, boys,” Granny said, chuckling. “We don’t get royalty around here much, if you don’t count the new Burger Emperor place downtown. I hope you don’t expect me to curtsy. Bad knees since the 1980s.”
Alejandro suppressed the urge to clutch his head, but Ven just started laughing again.
“Oh, I love you, ma’am,” Ven told Granny. “Please, call me Ven. I think we’re going to be great friends.”
“I don’t need friends. I find them burdensome,” Alaric said, nodding briefly to the two witches and then walking over to the statue. “Basilisk? You tried the usual potions?”
Sue stepped up next to him, professional interest apparently winning out over annoyance, and the two of them started talking remedies.
Justice drew his sword. “We will do a perimeter sweep,” he announced, before striding off.
“Still warm and fuzzy as ever, as you see,” Ven told Alejandro, who had to smile.
“I don’t understand ‘fuzzy,’ but I think I get your meaning.”
“So, we’re glad to help, but aren’t they a little old for you?” Ven jerked his head a little toward the witches. “We need to find you a woman your own age.”
Alejandro’s spine tingled with the awareness of being watched, and he slowly turned around to see Rose staring at him. The imprint of that wild, sexy kiss she’d given him burned on his lips and every fiber of his being screamed want. Need.
“Oh, hello, Gorgeous. I begin to understand a lot more,” Ven said, bowing deeply toward Rose.
Possessiveness like nothing he’d ever known roared through Alejandro. “Stay away from her, Your Majesty, or I will kick your royal ass for you,” he growled.
Ven turned amused eyes to him. “So, it’s like that, is it? You’re toast, buddy. Be sure to invite us to the wedding.”
Rose, who hopefully hadn’t heard any of that, clenched her hands into fists at her sides and marched into the garden right toward them. “Who are you, and what the hell is going on?”
Her voice cut through everything else, and Alaric swung around to stare at her. “I the hell am the one who is going to fix your problem. I only have personal acquaintance with one witch, but you are apparently her equal in your ability to annoy me. I advise you to be quiet and learn something.”
Rose turned pink and then white, and her entire body started to vibrate. Alejandro took a careful step back before she exploded.
Ven just grinned. “I apologize for Alaric. He woke up on the wrong side of the century, and he’s grumpy whenever he travels without his wife, poor baby.”
Alaric simply sighed, clearly well used to Ven’s jibes.
Alejandro repeated his introductions, and Rose’s eyes widened as she stared back and forth between Ven and Alaric. “Really? Atlanteans in my garden? This is definitely a weekend for the record books.”
Alaric beckoned Rose over, and Alejandro took her hand in his, earning him a surprised and grateful look that he tucked away to be remembered later, when he was alone again.
“You are not at fault, Sorceress,” Alaric said.
“I’m not a sorceress,” Rose said.
“You’re my sorceress,” Alejandro murmured, feeling like an idiot when she shot him a shocked look. He hadn’t expected her to hear that.
Hadn’t actually expected to say it.
Damn.
“We’re witches, honey buns,” Granny
said, and Alaric scowled, earning him a fresh wave of laughter from Ven.
“Yeah, they’re witches, honey buns,” Ven said.
Alaric casually flipped a hand into the air, formed an energy sphere, and then hurled it at Ven. It smacked the prince in the arm, hard.
“Ouch,” Ven drawled.
“What do you mean, it’s not my fault?” Rose interjected. “The potion didn’t work. Of course it’s my fault.”
Alaric shook his head. “No. It is not, although you are clearly well-mated to Alejandro, since both of you insist on claiming blame for guilt that is not yours.”
Rose gasped. “I’m not mated to anybody--”
“We didn’t do anything,” Alejandro said, at the same time, as he watched Sue’s frown reappear.
Granny just chuckled. “It’s about time. That girl has needed a good man for a while. You know the saying: a hard man is good to find.”
“Granny!” Rose covered her face with one hand for a moment, and then sighed. “Alaric. Your Priestlyness. Please continue.”
“And we need to get rid of the basilisk infestation,” Alejandro added.
Justice rounded the corner of the house just then, and Rose’s mouth fell open.
“He’s married. And possibly schizophrenic,” Alejandro growled.
Rose tried to yank her hand away, but he tightened his fingers on hers. She gave him a look, but quit struggling.
“Are you insane?” she finally asked, her tone sweetly and falsely polite. “Did the P-Ops training rot your brain?”
“No, but you might,” he muttered, shaking his head to clear it of thoughts of her lush body wrapped around anybody but him. That kiss had clearly destroyed his ability to reason.
She edged as far away as she could get while he still had her hand.
“Rose Cardinal, Lord Justice. Lord Justice, Rose Cardinal,” he said, realizing he sounded rude and not giving much of a damn.
Justice bowed and Alejandro scowled at him. Justice and Ven exchanged a glance, and then Justice grinned. “We see. You have found your Keely.”
Granny looked interested. “What is a Keely? And how did you get your hair that gorgeous color?”
“Keely is our wife, and our hair is the result of our half-Nereid nature,” Justice told her. “We will take care of the basilisks with our sword now, since we must return to Keely.”
“That’s not the royal we, that’s the two sides of his charming personality talking,” Ven offered, when all three Cardinal witches stared at Justice.
“You can’t kill the basilisks,” Rose said.
“Oh, no,” Sue agreed. “You kill those creatures over my daughter Buttercup’s dead body.”
“Where should we put it?” Alaric asked.
Alejandro stared at him. “Put what?”
“The child’s dead body,” Alaric said, but then he seemed to catch on pretty quickly that he’d gotten it wrong when Sue threatened to ‘cut his priestly balls off with her kitchen shears’.”
“STOP,” Rose shouted. “There will be no killing and no castration. But for the love of the goddess, will somebody please tell me how to fix Alejandro’s partner?”
“Your bay laurel was from a stunted tree,” Alaric said, which meant nothing to Alejandro but obviously meant something to Rose and her family.
“You have magic powerful enough to tell that by just looking at the residue on the statue?” Granny hugged herself and chuckled. “Hoo boy, if you weren’t already married, I’d make a run for you myself.”
“I don’t have magic. I am magic,” Alaric announced.
Ven rolled his eyes. “The same way he is arrogant.”
Alaric lifted a hand in warning, and Ven grinned.
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to blast me again,” the prince said, surrendering. “Just fix the stone man so we can get going. Erin and I are going out to lunch.”
“Lord Vengeance’s wife is also a witch,” Justice told Rose.
She nodded politely, although Alejandro could see that she was itching to get on with transforming Mac. “And what is your wife?”
“She is an archaeologist,” Justice proudly proclaimed.
“I never thought I’d get to meet an Atlantean,” Sue said wonderingly, her hostility apparently gone.
“And Mac?” Alejandro asked, getting a little edgy himself, although he had confidence in the Atlanteans after what he, Justice, and Keely had been through in Las Pinturas.
“Yes. Mac.” Alaric called a dancing wave of shimmering blue water through the air to himself and then twirled one finger and sent it swooping and dancing around the statue of Alejandro’s partner.
Rose watched, fascinated. “Is the precise movement of the water important to your magic?”
Alaric finally allowed himself to smile. “Not at all. It just looks impressive. And here is your human.”
The water vanished and Mac, fully himself again, stood staring at everyone gathered around him.
Alejandro let Rose’s hand go and hurried over to grab his partner’s arm. “Mac! Are you all right?”
Mac blinked. “Mommy?”
Alejandro caught him when he collapsed.
CHAPTER 13
“He will need to sleep for at least a day, maybe two. I will send him to Sue Cardinal’s couch,” Alaric said. He gestured, and Mac vanished.
“Thank you so much,” Rose said, impulsively hugging the high priest who was also a miracle worker.
Alejandro made a low growling noise in the back of his throat, and Ven, the funny one, started to laugh again.
“You are amazing,” Sue said.
Alaric nodded. “Yes.”
Granny grinned again. “And humble.”
“Mom, let’s go take care of the agent,” Sue said. “You can flirt with Atlantean high priests another time.
Alaric watched them hurry off, and then he shook his head. “I can only hope not,” he said, shuddering just a little.
Rose smiled at the high priest. “Granny is fairly formidable.”
“Yes,” Alaric said again, this time more fervently.
Justice called the portal, and the familiar oval shape started to shimmer into existence. “Until next time, our friend,” he said, nodding to Alejandro.
“Thank you. I am in your debt,” Alejandro said.
“The debt is ours, and can never be repaid,” Justice replied. “Until next time.”
With that, he stepped into the portal and vanished. Ven paused for a moment and glanced out at the garden and then back at Rose.
“My wife might be able to help you with your basilisk problem—in a humane way,” he offered, and Rose sighed with relief.
“That would be amazing. Thank you.”
“I’ll be in touch, Alejandro. Keep your woman close to you; she’s a keeper,” he said, and then he grabbed Rose’s hand and kissed it. “You take care of our boy, Rose Cardinal.”
Rose, blushing, stammered out an incoherent response and then managed to form an actual sentence. “I’m not his woman.”
Ven threw back his head and laughed. “That’s what all of our wives used to say.”
With that little nugget of wisdom, he vanished through the portal, too.
Alaric was the last to go, and he stopped and took Rose’s chin in his hand. “Interesting. Your magic resonates with that of Alejandro. No wonder you are so well mated.”
“We’re not mated,” she protested, but then the first part of his comment pierced the fog in her sleep-deprived brain. “His magic? He has magic?”
Alejandro looked stunned. “I don’t have magic.”
“Of course you do,” Alaric told him. “Have you ever missed a shot, even once?”
Alejandro paused and thought about it for a minute. “Not when I’ve been really aiming,” he said slowly, a look of disbelief dawning on his face. “Not even once, since I was eight years old.”
Alaric nodded. “There is magic in the world even older than Atlantis. The magic that infuses a guardian who h
as survived trial by fire and blood. This is what burns inside you, Alejandro.”
Alejandro sighed, his shoulders slumping, and Rose wanted nothing more than to hold him, right at that moment. Maybe forever.
“I’m tired of the darkness, my friend,” Alejandro said. “I find myself wishing for sunshine and peace.”
“I think you have found her, as I found my own Quinn, although I wonder what she would say if she heard me refer to her as sunshine,” Alaric said, a smile slowly curving his lips.
Rose had to admit the high priest was totally gorgeous, in a “scary, hot guy you meet in your nightmares” kind of way, when he wasn’t being an arrogant ass. All three of the Atlanteans had been hunky males of the supreme alpha variety, just like Alejandro.
She glanced at her P-Ops agent and amended the thought. Well, not nearly as beautiful as Alejandro.
“Thank you again--”
“He’s gone,” Alejandro said. “He doesn’t like long goodbyes. Or, actually, any goodbyes.”
Rose nodded. “I--”
He yanked her to him and swallowed whatever she’d been about to say with his mouth, taking hers in a long, hard, almost brutal kiss. She was helplessly clutching his shoulders by the time he raised his head.
“If you ever look at another man that way, I might have to shoot him,” he warned, his dark eyes heating up. “And as you just heard, I never miss.”
Rose was, for maybe the first time in forever, speechless. “You—I—you—You are a complete ass,” she finally sputtered.
He shrugged, and in that moment he was every inch the arrogant male predator that she’d avoided all her life. She didn’t understand why it seared a bolt of red-hot desire straight through her, but it did. Oh, yeah. It certainly did.
He leaned in close, and she had to clamp her lips shut to keep from kissing him again.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m tired of fighting it. I’ve never felt like this about anybody in my entire life. So, yeah, I’m a complete ass. But I’m your complete ass. Deal with it.”
She did the rational, adult thing. She was Rational Rose, right?
She bolted.
CHAPTER 14
When she turned and ran, Alejandro thought about surrendering. Hadn't the world gone to hell enough in the past eleven years, now that vampires, shape-shifters, and witches were all real? Maybe Rose Cardinal was too much for him, and he should simply raise the white flag, lie down, and surrender.