by Alysa Day
“Tell me,” Conlan said, fury scalding the shreds of his self-control.
“Reisen. He killed two of my acolytes,” Alaric spat the words out, clenching his fists. “Conlan, he took it. He took the Trident. He’s gone above. If the undead get their hands on it . . .”
Alaric’s words trailed off. Both of them knew the cost of misused power. Poseidon’s former High Priest lay rotting in the black abyss of the temple oubliette for overstepping his powers.
Poseidon served deadly reminders to those who betrayed him.
Conlan inhaled sharply, the hairs on his arms standing up in response to the nearly-invisible currents of elemental energy Alaric crackled through the room. For his power to leak out like that, the priest must be damn near the edge of his self-control. Or else seven years had seen one hell of a surge in his power.
Conlan didn’t know which option should concern him more.
Their friendship had weathered the strain of the demands of politics and power. Conlan trusted Alaric with his life. Didn’t he?
It was enough to split a man’s skull open.
Clenching the sheets in his fists, he fought for composure. For some semblance of royal countenance to overlay the ragged insanity threatening to eat through his mind.
Through his gut.
To his soul.
His heart was long since gone. Shattered at the end of a whip, while forced to hear silken words whispering of the atrocities they’d heaped upon his lady mother.
Anubisa and her apostates of Algolagnia. They’d murdered his mother an inch at a time, and they’d enjoyed it. Worse, they’d gotten off on it. A deep shudder wracked through him, remembering how Anubisa had pleasured herself to orgasm in front of him while she told him stories of torturing his parents.
Again and again and again.
Anubisa was going to die.
They were all going to die.
“Conlan?” Alaric’s voice almost physically wrenched him out of his memories of death and blood. Alaric. He’d said hours later . . .
“Hours? And here I am,” Conlan said, remembering. “She let me go. She knew, Alaric. She knew.”
His final day. His final hour.
“Oh, princeling, you have brought me such pleasure,” she murmured in his ear. Then she slid down his naked body and delicately licked at the sweat, the blood, and the other, thicker fluids that pooled to drip down his thighs. “But I think you must needs return to your people. You have a delightful surprise waiting for you. And, in your current state, you’re no longer any fun.”
Standing up, she’d waved one of her attendants over. “Twelve of my personal guard. Twelve, you understand? Don’t be fooled by this temporary weakness. The brat prince of Atlantis has . . . hidden strengths.” She’d run a finger down his cock, laughing as he’d tried to flinch away from her.
Then she’d flicked her gaze back to her attendant. “Throw him out.”
Still naked, long, curling hair matted with his blood, she’d stalked toward the doorway of the cell that had served as his prison for seven years. Then she’d stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Your bloodline amuses me, princeling. Tell your brother that I come for him next.”
He’d cursed, then, finding his voice again. Called her names that he hadn’t even known he knew. Until her guards came, and one of them demonstrated that he’d taken offense by way of a club to Conlan’s head.
He shook off the image in his head. He was free of Anubisa’s hell.
He would never be free of the memories.
He might never be entirely sane again.
But he was Conlan of Atlantis, and he had returned. His people wanted a king, not a broken failure of a prince.
Glancing across at Alaric, he saw the concern reflected on the priest’s face. Maybe even Alaric wanted a king, too.
Enough of the self-indulgence of dreams of vengeance – and on to the reality.
“We’re not boys causing mischief at the running of the bulls festival any more, are we?” Conlan said, a shadow of remembered freedom crossing his mind. A time before the demands of being his father’s son. Before the demands on Alaric as Poseidon’s anointed.
Alaric tilted his head, expression wary, and then he slowly shook his head. “Not for many long years, Conlan.”
“Too long,” Conlan replied. “Far too long.” He swung his legs off the healing table and rose to stand.
“Childhood may be outgrown, but loyalty never will be. You are my prince, but – more than that – you are my friend. Never doubt it,” Alaric said.
Conlan read the truth in Alaric’s eyes and felt better for it. He held out his hand and they clasped arms, an unspoken renewal of friendship that maybe both of them needed.
Then he stretched, pleased to find his body in working order again. He’d need every ounce of energy. “So both my ascension and my matrimonial obligations to a long-dead virgin are delayed,” he said drily. “I find myself unable to summon much concern about the latter.”
“Not dead. Merely sleeping, awaiting your need. It is your destiny.” Alaric reminded him.
As if he needed reminding. As if he hadn’t had that particular duty drummed into his head for hundreds of years. Love didn’t figure into the breeding patterns of the Warriors of Poseidon; most especially not into those of royalty.
He scowled at the whimsy. Love. A myth to coddle children, at best. “I’m out of here. I’m going after that bastard Reisen. I will retrieve the Trident, Priest. And justice will be meted out to the House of Mycenaeus.”
Alaric grinned at him, giving Conlan a glimpse of the boy he’d once been. “We leave now. Ven is preparing for the journey. So much for the welcome home processional.”
Conlan tried to return the smile, but his mouth had lost its memory of how to smile, after so many years of grimacing in agony. Years of howling out his rage and despair.
Alaric raised one eyebrow, his mouth flattening into a grim line. “That’s an . . . interesting . . . expression. You’ll have to tell me one day exactly what they did to you.”
“No,” Conlan answered. “I won’t.”
Atlantis Rising
The USA Today bestselling first book in the Warriors of Poseidon series! High Prince Conlan and Riley meet and Atlantis will never be the same.
Eleven thousand years ago, before the seas swallowed the Atlanteans, Poseidon assigned a few chosen warriors to act as sentinels for humans in the new world. There was only one rule--desiring them was forbidden. But rules were made to be broken . . .
Riley Dawson is more than a dedicated Virginia Beach social worker. She's blessed with a mind link that only Atlanteans have been able to access for thousands of years.
Conlan, the high prince of Atlantis, has surfaced on a mission to retrieve Poseidon's stolen Trident. Yet something else has possessed Conlan: the intimate emotions and desires of a human.
In the battle to reclaim Poseidon's power, how long can a forbidden love last between two different souls from two different worlds?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of RITA award-winning and RWA honor roll member author Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she writes the New York Times best-selling Warriors of Poseidon paranormal series & League of the Black Swan paranormal romance/urban fantasy series. As Alesia, she writes comedies that make readers snort things out of their noses, and is the author of the award-winning memoir about military families during war-time deployments: EMAIL TO THE FRONT. As Lucy Connors, she writes gritty contemporary romance novels for teens (www.lucyconnors.com). She’s a diehard Buckeye who graduated summa cum laude from Capital University Law School and practiced as a trial lawyer in multi-million dollar litigation for several years before coming to her senses and letting the voices in her head loose on paper. She lives somewhere near an ocean with her Navy Guy husband, two kids, and any number of rescue dogs. Please visit Alyssa at her website, follow her on Twitter (she’s very chatty there!), or frie
nd her on Facebook (warning: dog photos regularly appear).
BOOKS BY ALYSSA DAY
The Warriors of Poseidon series
Atlantis Rising
Atlantis Awakening
Atlantis Unleashed
Atlantis Unmasked
Atlantis Redeemed
Atlantis Betrayed
Vampire in Atlantis
Heart of Atlantis
Dark and Deadly
Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance
Bodyguard
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Ashley
Alejandro’s Sorceress
Copyright © 2014 by Alesia Holliday
Bewitch
Copyright © 2013 Felicity Heaton
Darkness Falls
Copyright © 2014 Erin Kellison
Rogue's Passion
Copyright © 2013 Laurie London
The Forbidden Life of Alex Moore
Copyright © 2014 by Erin Grady
The Mating Heat
Copyright © 2014 Bonnie Vanak
Trapped
Copyright © 2014 Twin Bridges Creations LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.