by Alyssa Day
“Flying monkeys.”
He roared with laughter. “So does that make kitten over there Toto?”
Quinn noticed Alaric’s face darkening as he watched her in his friend’s arms, and she didn’t have to be an emotional empath to know what he was feeling. She tactfully stepped away from Ven and glanced at Jack, who was snarling at them all.
“Don’t flash those fangs at me, Meow Mix,” Ven advised, but she could see the concern underneath the banter. He and Jack had developed a friendship over the course of time they’d known each other. Of course, it was hard not to like Ven. He was gorgeous and didn’t know it; a funny, direct, “let’s grab a beer and watch some bad movies” kind of guy, who just happened to be hell on wheels with a sword, a gun, and pretty much every other kind of weapon. He was the high prince’s brother and guardian—which made him Quinn’s sister Riley’s brother-in-law—he was known as the King’s Vengeance, and he was pure adrenaline in a battle.
And his girlfriend Erin was the most powerful witch Quinn had ever met.
Right now, though, there was no trace of amusement on Ven’s face as he scanned the destruction. “Do you want to explain this?”
Alaric scowled but said nothing, so Quinn filled Ven in on what had happened.
“That’s it? No reason? No evil villain monologuing on why he’s attacking you, blah blah blah?” Ven whistled. “This stinks of something bigger than a random monkey attack.”
“Not to mention, they’re not random monkeys,” Archelaus said, from where he’d been sitting in the shadows.
“Greetings, old friend,” Ven said, bowing. “What have you gotten us into this time?”
Archelaus smiled and shook his head. “This, from the most unrepentant troublemaker the warrior training grounds have ever seen.”
“I did what I could,” Ven said, ducking his head modestly.
In spite of everything, Quinn laughed out loud. Ven would be Ven, no matter the situation. It was oddly refreshing to a woman who dealt in death and despair.
“The King’s Vengeance,” Noriko said, smiling a little. “You have long been one of my favorites.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. Another thing this woman shouldn’t have been able to know—Ven’s title.
“Ven, meet Noriko, who claims to be the spirit of your magic doorway,” she said, before turning to pin Noriko with a suspicious glare. “What exactly did you want to talk to us about that was so important? You weren’t luring us here for the attack, were you? Six weeks later, and suddenly you want to talk to us at exactly the moment shifters arrive?”
Alaric called up his energy spheres again, and Noriko took a step back and away from them all, turning even paler, if possible.
“I had nothing to do with that,” she protested. “My need to see you was to convey very dire news to Poseidon’s high priest.”
Alaric’s face hardened. “What is it?” he demanded.
“The final gem has been found,” Noriko said, twisting her hands together. “Everything in your world is in danger.”
“How could you know that?” Quinn asked. “You’ve been here, not talking to anybody, for weeks.”
“I was the portal spirit for millennia,” Noriko said, raising her chin. “Do you think that kind of magic simply vanishes? I can feel much that goes on in this world, especially that which is connected to Atlantis.”
Ven tensed, all traces of humor gone from his expressive face. “What kind of danger?”
“Atlantis itself could be destroyed,” Noriko said. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”
Ven rushed forward to catch the woman when her eyelids fluttered shut and she collapsed.
“If she is truly what she claims, then she is probably in shock from expending so much power,” Archelaus said. He motioned to his followers. “Or Noriko’s illness might be causing this. Please bring her with us.”
Alaric stepped closer to the woman Ven held, passed a hand over her head, and then shook his head. “She has been improving, you said, and I can detect no remaining trace of illness. This is probably simple exhaustion and shock.”
“We will move to another space, so my friends can remove the bodies and reinforce the spells protecting this area,” Archelaus said. “Thank you for your assistance in that regard, Alaric.”
“Yeah, your monkey-repelling spells didn’t work all that great, did they?” Quinn said dryly. “Maybe a nice electric fence next time.”
As they moved away from the courtyard, Archelaus led them down a corridor. Archelaus’s people took Noriko away to get some rest. Which was just as well, since Quinn was far too cynical after all of her years in the rebellion to buy her story all that easily. She didn’t trust Noriko. She didn’t trust anyone. The less the woman heard, the better.
Ven looked a question at her, and she explained the portal spirit/dying Japanese woman problem.
“You couldn’t stay out of trouble if you tried, could you?” he asked her, but then he grinned. “On the other hand, who could make this stuff up? This would be a great Syfy Saturday night movie. Sharktopus has nothin’ on us.”
Quinn didn’t know whether to laugh or punch him. She narrowed her eyes and was about to blast him with a snappy comeback when she realized he was right. Her shoulders slumped. Jack padded up behind her and nudged her hip with his shoulder, as if in moral support. Or maybe she was ascribing human motives to him as a kind of wishful thinking, when he was becoming more and more tiger by the moment.
At the entrance to the cave, a wall of air shimmered in waves of pearlescent opal, as if magic protected this opening, too. Which, of course, it did, Quinn reflected, as she walked through a barrier that had the consistency of a soap bubble. It snapped shut behind her, hopefully offering better protection than the monkey doorway.
She took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air and allowed her gaze to sweep the view from an upper slope of Mount Fuji. “It’s so beautiful here. So high above battles and blood and death, or so you’d think. Almost like a waking dream—but of someone else’s life.”
“We’re above the clouds,” Ven said. “The exact opposite of my home so far beneath the ocean’s surface. It kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”
“More than eleven thousand feet elevation here,” Archelaus said, joining them. “Over twelve thousand at the summit. Fuji is one of three sacred mountains—”
“Perhaps we could save the ancient history for later and discuss the current problem?” Alaric’s voice cut through the air like a sword through silk.
Quinn could sense—just barely, though, even with her empath senses flaring to high—the tension boiling beneath his icy demeanor. She wondered if she’d be around when he finally erupted. An interesting thought: Alaric and Mount Fuji, both dormant volcanoes; both with majestic exteriors hiding barely leashed danger. She grinned at the idea of telling Alaric he was exactly like a lava-filled mountain, and he slanted a look at her, clearly wondering where her mind was.
“Nice of you to give a damn, after weeks of being mostly incommunicado,” Ven said dryly. “Anyway, that’s just it—the current problem is ancient history. Noriko was telling the truth. Archaeologists at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have found Poseidon’s Pride.”
Alaric and Archelaus simultaneously inhaled. In anyone not an Atlantean warrior, Quinn would have called it gasping.
“Poseidon lost his pride?” Quinn glanced from face to face. “Did he also lose his gluttony, avarice, and lust? Is this some weird seven deadly sins kind of thing?”
Alaric was shaking his head before she’d finished her admittedly lame joke.
“Poseidon’s Pride is the final missing jewel from his Trident. It’s a tourmaline that gives immense, possibly immeasurable power to its wielder. We’ve been searching for it for centuries.”
“Göbekli Tepe sounds familiar,” Archelaus said. “Why is that?”
“Human archaeologists recently discovered the site. It’s an Atlantean temple built around eleven thousand, six hundred
years ago, and they’re calling it the oldest known example of human monumental architecture, which is kind of surprising, now that they know about supernatural creatures and magic, but whatever. It’s the first known building bigger than a hut, basically,” Ven said. He shook his head. “They’ve all got their panties in a twist over how a bunch of people who were still nomads foraging for food could have transported sixteen-ton stones.”
“Ridiculous concept,” Alaric said dryly. “Of course Atlanteans built it. The Elders at the time sent our people to all corners of the earth to perpetuate our race before Atlantis descended beneath the seas at the time of the Cataclysm. Certainly many of them would have built temples.”
“Atlantean magic,” Quinn said, finding it easy to imagine, given what she knew of their powers. “Serai could probably move a boulder without smudging her lip gloss.”
Alaric shrugged. On him, even a shrug looked elegant. “Serai is an eleven-thousand-year-old Atlantean princess. Her magic is more powerful than mine in some ways.”
“Not many ways,” Ven said. “Not in battle ways.”
Alaric’s eyes glowed a hot green. “No. But that vampire she’s in love with isn’t likely to let her anywhere near a battle again.”
“Daniel knows better than to try to tell Serai to do anything,” Ven said. “She turned into a saber-toothed tiger, dude.”
“Never, ever call me dude.”
Quinn sighed. “So the point is . . .” She made a “move along” gesture with her hand.
“The point is that nobody but Alaric can touch that gemstone without dying horribly. So far, seven people associated with the dig have spontaneously combusted.” Ven shuddered. “Bad way to go.”
“So Alaric must go retrieve it,” Archelaus said.
“I’m going nowhere,” Alaric said. He leaned against the rock face on the side of the mountain and almost casually drew Quinn back against him, wrapping his arms around her waist. She felt his breath in her hair as she stared out at the clouds, and for a moment she tried to pretend they were the kind of people who could go sightseeing together.
The kind of people who could say no. No to duty. No to honor.
It didn’t work.
She let herself lean against his powerfully muscled chest for just a few seconds longer, and then she forced herself to move away, trying to ignore the pain that pierced her chest. Even a rebel leader could fall in love, after all. It’s just that nobody could ever know.
Ever.
Not even Alaric.
“Christophe can go. Or even Serai. They both wield sufficient magic,” he said grimly. “It doesn’t always have to be me. Look what Serai did with the Emperor. She’s an expert in retrieving lost gems.”
Jack snarled at him and bared his fangs again.
“I agree with the tiger, Temple Rat,” Ven said. “It’s not like you don’t have reason to be fed up, but we need you, and it’s your duty.”
“To the nine hells with duty,” Alaric growled. He raised his arms and shouted up to the sky. “Did you hear that, Poseidon? I’m done with you.”
An explosive boom of thunder cracked through the sky, shaking the ground under their feet.
Quinn mentioned the fact she’d just been considering. “Mount Fuji is a volcano.”
“It is,” Archelaus agreed. “But it’s dormant.”
“Sure, that’s what they all say, just before the lava starts spewing,” Quinn muttered. “Let’s not make the nice sea god angry.”
Ven shoved his hands in his pockets and stared silently out at the panoramic vista, until she elbowed him.
“Hey, I’m not arguing,” Ven said. “Cataclysm? Doom of the gods? Atlantis sinking beneath the ocean? Any of that ring a bell? I never laugh in the face of potential disaster.”
Alaric’s look of disbelief was priceless. “You always laugh in the face of potential disaster.”
“Always,” Quinn agreed.
“Oh. Right.” Ven shrugged, grinning. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
“Regardless of all that, I think your answer is clear, youngling,” Archelaus said to Alaric. “You may be done with Poseidon, but he’s not done with you.”
Alaric’s stare was a nearly tangible thing, burning into Quinn with the heat of living flame—strange, that, since fire was the one element forbidden to Atlanteans. But the high priest had his own form of wild magic, she knew. One that whispered to her of silken seductions in the middle of the night, during the fractured hours of sleep when she found herself consumed by impossible dreams of a dangerous warrior.
He had always worn his duty and honor like a shield, one that matched her own shield of shame, remorse, and regret. Between the two of them lay a vast chasm of dark and bloody acts sacrificed at the altar of good intention. Not even a world-bending kind of passion could bridge that canyon, regardless of what Alaric, in his temporary insanity, might believe.
“Poseidon,” Alaric said slowly, catching Quinn’s gaze with his own, “is no longer my priority. Both he and you will come to believe me soon enough.”
The pressure—of the moment, of the day, even of the decade—built up inside her until her lungs seemed unable to push air into and out of her body. Pain—physical, emotional, even spiritual—swept through her, burning its way through determination and resolve. Quinn finally did the one thing she hadn’t done in a very long time. She ran from danger, instead of facing it. She turned and strode back into the cave, blindly seeking refuge from the man who’d just staked his claim on her future. At her side, the man who’d been so essential a part of her past stalked down the corridor on all fours, leaving his humanity further and further behind with each swish of his silken tiger’s tail.
Future and past were both too much to contemplate for Quinn’s exhausted mind, so she focused on the present. She found an empty room with beds in it, and she collapsed onto the nearest one, silently apologizing to the bed’s owner for the tears she could no longer contain.
She’d solve it after she slept. All of it.
Before exhaustion pulled her under, she thought she saw an Alaric-shaped shadow appear in her doorway, but when she tried to stir, a gentle glow of silvery blue light surrounded her and she found herself drifting further into sleep.
Jack snarled and then began to snore, a low, rumbling noise, and she thought she heard Alaric’s laughter.
“You may be sure, mi amara, that we will discuss this habit you have of allowing another man into your bed.”
Her lips almost curved into a smile, and then the world curled around her into the warmth and safety of darkness.
Chapter 4
Quinn woke up from a dream of walking through fire toward a dragon with glowing emerald eyes, and found herself alone on a bed in a room she didn’t recognize. She automatically checked her knives and guns; all were in place, so she took her first full breath since opening her eyes.
“Always the warrior first.”
She snapped her head toward the darkest corner of the room, where Alaric leaned against the wall, blending in with the shadows as if the darkness within him had become tangible while she slept.
“Interesting comment, coming from the warrior priest,” she countered. “Which comes first with you?”
“You come first with me,” he said harshly, as if he despised her for it. Or hated that she’d asked; that he’d been forced to voice taboo desires. An Atlantean priest sworn to celibacy wanted a rebel sworn to redemption. All of his gods must be laughing.
“Always you, since the moment I first lay my hands on you to heal that bullet wound. Since I fell inside your soul. Don’t you know that by now, Quinn?”
She caught her breath at the stark pain in his voice, but steeled herself against it. Warriors and rebels had no business falling prey to emotion.
“You can’t protect me from the monsters, Alaric,” she said quietly.
His laughter was dark and somehow terrifying, even to Quinn, who lived her life pretending to fear nothing.
�
�Protect you? I would drown the entire world for you, and laugh as every single living being on it died. I’m the monster, Quinn. Better you find a way to protect yourself from me, because I am the high priest of blood and battle, and the lord of death and destruction. I will never, ever let you go.”
Before she could begin to form a response to that, he was across the room and yanking her up off the cot and into his arms. “Never, do you hear me? I will give up my friends, my country, my duty, and even my honor—but never you.”
He swallowed her protest with his lips, as he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that devoured her, claimed her, branded her as his. She felt herself falling, melting, burning, and she had no chance to deny him or even her own feelings. The walls between them shattered and—for one glorious moment—they stood together, locked in a tempest of need and want and a far more powerful emotion.
One she didn’t dare name.
She tangled her hands in his silky hair and kissed him back with every ounce of longing she’d been suppressing for so very long, and the feel of rightness—of home—that unfurled within her was so intense that she almost didn’t hear the shouting.
Almost. But so many years of training couldn’t be denied for the illusory dream of a moment. Not to mention that Jack had shown up and was snarling and baring his teeth at Alaric. She spared a moment’s embarrassment that he’d seen her kiss Alaric but dismissed it as the unimportant detail it was.
Flying monkeys, attacking vampires, Atlantean portals come to life? Check.
One kiss? Not such a huge deal in the scale of things. She almost involuntarily raised her fingers to her swollen lips, though. Alaric’s eyes darkened as he watched, and he bent down as if to kiss her again.
“Alaric, get your priestly ass out here, or I’ll kick it for you,” Ven roared from somewhere in the maze of caves and corridors. “We have an emergency.”
Alaric tightened his arms around her for a moment, but then he sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “When is it ever not an emergency?”
“It never stops for people like us,” she told him. “You know it, and I know it. World-bending kisses don’t change reality.”