Her own hands suddenly ached to smooth it in place.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. She couldn’t breathe. What the hell was the matter with her? She didn’t have reactions like this to men.
But this man—oh, this man. He walked across the floor toward her with a confident stride, like he owned the place. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt beneath a brown leather jacket, and he was coming toward her.
Eva took a shaky breath and wiped her hands on the bar towel, waiting. Frozen in place. Up close, she could see the color of his eyes. Dark, ocean blue. Their eyes locked, and suddenly time stopped running. This had never, ever happened to her before, and the world turned sideways—vertigo rocked her back on her heels.
She could see only him.
There was no bar, no Noel, no Dark Angels. No Scott, no troubles, no worries.
There was only a searing flash of heat from the raw, primal desire she saw in this man’s eyes when he looked at her.
It was too much—too intense. Suddenly she felt fragile, as if her bones had been hollowed out and replaced with air and light. As if she might float away if this man didn’t stop looking at her.
As if she might collapse in despair if he did.
It was too much, and she didn’t understand. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak.
Across from her, the stranger seemed to be having the same problem. He said nothing, simply stood there and stared back at her. His jaw clenched, and she could see his throat move when he swallowed, and she didn’t understand why the sight of his throat was so fascinating to her.
She didn’t understand any of it, but she knew one thing. She knew he was trouble. And she was absolutely done with anything that looked like trouble.
“What can I get for you?” she asked, so grateful that her voice didn’t tremble. Much.
He just stared at her.
“Sir?”
“I don’t know,” he finally said in a deep, husky voice that sounded strained. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I came over here for drinks, but now all I can think about is how much I want to get you in my bed.”
She gasped. She’d been hit on hundreds of times by men in bars, but never like this. Never in such a raw, blunt manner than rang with so much truth.
She wanted—fiercely, urgently wanted—to take his hand, pull him out the back door, and beg him to take her up against the wall in the alley.
She moaned at the thought, just the tiniest sound, but his gaze arrowed in on her lips. Her body clenched deep in her belly, and she squeezed her thighs together against a sudden rush of heat.
What in the name of all things holy was happening to her?
She forced herself to tear her gaze from his sensual lips and met his gaze again.
Mistake. She fell, drowning, right back down into those ocean-blue eyes.
“I can’t— I have no excuse for that,” he said roughly. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I know you must have enough to deal with without clumsy lines from idiot customers. Let’s start over. I’m Flynn, and you’re—?”
Lines? What? Her brain had quit making sense of the English language, and her body was only interested in the language of desire. Of hot, sweaty sex—with this man.
Now.
Damn, girl, pull it together.
“I’m Eva. I don’t… It’s fine,” she said automatically, her lips turning up in a fake, professional smile. Not at all like she’d just been imagining him, hard and powerful, thrusting into her. Her entire body convulsively shuddered at the thought, and omigod what was happening to her?
Flynn’s eyes flared hot again, and he groaned, low and deep, his hands tightening into fists on the bar. “I’m sorry, Eva, but you need to stop looking at me like that unless you want me to drag you out of here and beg you to fuck me.”
“I might be the one doing the begging,” she whispered before she could stop herself, and an expression of purely masculine satisfaction crossed his face before being replaced with hot, primal, naked need.
“When?” he demanded. “When are you done working?”
Now, she wanted to say. She wanted to say it so much that she didn’t trust it at all. She had to turn him down. Turn this into something light and funny. Make him—
The door to the bar banged open, and she looked up automatically to see who was coming in.
And then she ran.
Chapter Two
Atlantis, the war room, three days earlier…
Conlan, high king of all Atlantis, leaned back in his chair and blew out a long breath. Then he hurled a red rubber ball at the other man in the room. “You are a giant pain in my ass, do you know that?”
Denal caught the ball without ever looking at it and stared back at his king with flat blue eyes and an expressionless face. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Conlan came up out of his chair. “Damn it, Denal. You were one of my Seven. My most-trusted elite guard and my friends. You’re also like a kid brother to me, and now you’re going to ‘Your Majesty’ me? I’ll kick your ass, my friend.”
In the old days, Denal would have cracked a joke, or at least a smile. In the very old days, back before Conlan had even met Riley, now his queen, Denal would have all but fallen over himself to please his then-prince.
Now he simply stared back at Conlan out of those empty, cold, dark blue eyes.
“Do you want Prince Aidan’s ball back, sire?”
Conlan rolled his eyes but held up his hand to catch the ball. If he didn’t have it ready when his son woke up from his nap, there would be trouble. Funny how being high king of an entire continent—albeit a relatively small one—didn’t save a guy from his son’s wrath over a missing favorite toy. He grinned at the thought but then turned his attention back to the problem in front of him.
“Are you ever going to find your sense of humor?”
“Doubtful,” Denal said flatly, leaning back against a faded tapestry and folding his arms over his chest.
The door slammed open and an icy wind blew into the room, followed by a man wearing an even icier countenance, dressed all in black to match his black hair and black mood.
“Babies,” Alaric, former high priest and most powerful mage ever to use magic in Atlantis, said with a slight baring of his teeth. “I do not understand the fascination. Prince he may be, but his chief talent at this age appears to be producing copious amounts of drool.”
Conlan started laughing. Since Alaric was married to Quinn, Queen Riley’s sister, he was forced to spend a lot of time with his nephew. Who was, of course, the most brilliant baby in the history of the world.
He said as much to Alaric, who groaned.
“Certainly the child is a prodigy among prodigies. Just this afternoon, he moved his bowels in such a manner as to cause rhapsodies to all involved evidently.” Alaric shuddered.
“There were people involved in his bowel movements?” Conlan shook his head. “No. Forget it. I don’t want to know. We’re here to talk to Denal.”
“Imagine my joy,” Denal drawled, eyes narrowing.
Alaric pulled out a chair. “Sit. This might take a while. I need to explain what’s happening.”
“You assume I care what’s happening.”
“Sit down,” Alaric snarled. “I understand your anger—”
“I don’t give a damn what you understand,” Denal snarled right back, coming up off the wall he’d been leaning against. “Nobody left you in the Fae lands, did they?”
Alaric shook his head. “I said I understand. I didn’t say I cared even the slightest bit. You swore your service to your king, did you not? Many have died in that service. So you lost a little time. Now you need to grow up. We’ve got a job for you, and Conlan is still your king, isn’t he? Or are you surrendering your Atlantean citizenship?”
Conlan, pacing back and forth while the other two argued, felt the question like a punch in his gut. If Denal agreed—if he said he didn’t even want to be a citizen of Atlanti
s anymore, not one of Poseidon’s Warriors—the loss would be the same as if somebody ripped off one of Conlan’s arms.
Denal’s face turned white under his tan. “I didn’t— I don’t mean that. You know I would never mean that. I won’t give up on my country or my king, even if they both gave up on me.”
“I’m sorry,” Conlan said simply. He couldn’t believe it, but he didn’t think he’d ever said it to the warrior before. “You’re right. We left you in the Fae lands longer than you ever should’ve been left there. The time—well, you know about the time. The years you were in their world were only a matter of weeks here. But we never should have lost you to them in the first place.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “You deserved better.”
Denal met his gaze, and Conlan saw something like shock on the man’s face for an instant before he smoothed it back to the expressionless mask he’d chosen to wear for so long. Denal started to speak but then stopped. He stood there for a moment, nodded to himself, and then pulled out a chair and sat. “All right. Tell me about this problem and what you need from me.”
It wasn’t acceptance, Conlan knew, but it was close enough for now. “The world wasn’t ready for Atlantis to suddenly appear. No matter what they say, no matter all the political fawning and folderol that have gone on, I think there are many, many nations whose leaders would’ve preferred we stay sunken beneath the sea.”
“They liked us better as a mythical lost continent than as an actual found continent,” Alaric interjected, frowning.
“Even more so since they found out about Poseidon’s Warriors and our sworn duty to protect humanity,” Conlan added.
“Especially once they found out some of the ways we’ve gone about it,” Denal put in, his eyes narrowing. “Evidently we’re supposed to follow their rules when we fight murderous vampires or demons on their lands.”
“Give me three warriors and a week, and I’ll teach them all what we think about their rules,” Alaric said darkly, and the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.
“Calm down before you turn my ass into an ice cube,” Conlan said. “Let’s try it my way for a while. And if you give me any crap about turning into a politician, I’m gonna order you executed.”
“Can you do that?” Denal’s eyes widened.
“He can try,” Alaric said, calling to his magic, which sparked in his hand. Then he started ostentatiously juggling tiny balls of sheer silvery power from finger to finger.
Conlan rolled his eyes and then leaned forward, pointing at each of them in turn. “Okay, children, back to the matter at hand. I’ve agreed to take part in an international task force looking into some of the rings of paranormal crime going on all over the world. Riley has agreed to be on the international board of Save All the Children Now since her social work background will be very helpful there.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed Aidan’s ball from hand to hand. “We’re starting with the United States since Riley and Quinn know it best, and Quinn, having been one of the two rebel leaders for all North America for several years, can help coordinate. She’ll be meeting with some head guy at the Paranormal Operations division of its FBI—they call it P-Ops—and we’re also talking to Interpol and Scotland Yard in Europe. Since my original Seven, other than Ven and you, Denal, are scattered all over the world, we’ve got eyes on the ground when we need them. But for now we need more immediate help. We need soldiers—warriors.”
Alaric pointed at Denal. “We need you. Most of our people are already organized by location. You’re going to lead a new team and work cooperatively with some of these human crime-fighting organizations.”
Denal’s mouth fell open in the most honest reaction Conlan had seen from him yet today. “I’m going to lead—what do you mean, a new team? You’re naming a new Seven?”
Conlan traded a glance with Alaric and then shook his head. “I wish I could. You have no idea how much I wish I could,” he said fervently. “But I’m stuck playing king for a while, now that they know about us. It’s your team. You name them.”
“This time I don’t think seven will be enough,” Alaric said, frowning. “We’re going to have different missions going on in different places, coordinating with different law enforcement organizations. Why don’t we start with twelve and go from there?”
“Twelve?” Conlan thought about it. Liked it. “Sure. Denal’s Dozen. What could go wrong?”
Denal shoved his chair back from the table and stood. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
He turned and strode out of the room, never once looking back.
Conlan blew out a breath and threw the ball into the wall, hard, caught it on the rebound, and threw it again. “I’m not cut out for politics. My sword hand is itching to get out there with Denal and form this new team.”
“He troubles me,” Alaric finally replied, still staring at the empty doorway. “I don’t know if he’s stable enough for this responsibility.”
“You said that about me once, remember? After I’d escaped from the vampire goddess and years of torture at her delicate hand, may she burn in the nine hells forever.” Conlan drummed his fingers on the table. “The problem is, you were right then, and you might be right now. I wasn’t stable. Far, far from it. But I put on a good front until my duty—and Riley—pulled me out of the darkness. All we can do now is watch him. Let him take the reins and see what he does. He’ll either manage it or he won’t, and we’ll figure it out then.”
Alaric nodded sharply, then rose and headed toward the door. Just at the doorway, he stopped and turned to look at Conlan. “If he fails, there could be enormous international repercussions. You understand that, correct?”
“If he fails, I won’t particularly give a damn about the international repercussions,” Conlan said quietly, crushing the ball when his hands clenched into fists. “We’ll be in far worse trouble than that.”
Chapter Three
For the first time in his entire life, Flynn entered Atlantis by way of a ship. To be fair, it was the first time he’d ever actually entered Atlantis. He’d been born there, he’d grown up, and then he’d left and never returned. Now he had to come by ship. The portal hadn’t answered his call, not that he’d been all that surprised. He was sure High Priest Alaric, the Holy Board Stuck Up His Ass-ness, had tuned the portal’s magic to keep riffraff like him out. So here he was, the prodigal child, coming home by boat. To Atlantis, now proudly in the world again, and on the surface of the ocean instead of beneath it.
It was a spectacular sight.
The marble and crystal spires of the palace rose high over the magnificent structure, and the human tourists beside him on the deck oohed and aahed in appreciation. He ignored snatches of chatter about the handsome king and the American queen and focused on his home, suddenly stabbed by a sharp ache of homesickness that surprised him. He hadn’t expected to miss Atlantis as much as he had, and by now he thought he’d gotten past it.
But she was beautiful. Even an Atlantean who’d run away from home had to admit that.
From this approach, the palace was the centerpiece of it all. He knew from playing there as a child that the palace was surrounded by magnificent gardens filled with flowers that smelled like the inside of a dream. Nowhere else in the world had he encountered flowers with such sweet scents.
After the flowers, the garden’s second set of jewels was its fountains, with sculptures that put to shame anything Rome had to offer. Atlanteans had always created art on a much grander scale than elsewhere in the world, perhaps because Atlantis had never had rivals to fear, not for thousands of years. His ancestors had been advanced in every way—in technology and the arts, in learning and scholarship. Atlantis had been a paradise for men and women of learning and culture until, as always happened to paradise, someone stronger grew greedy enough to want to possess it and strong enough to try.
They’d tried to fight, those early Atlanteans, but Atlantis had always prized learning over warfare and art ove
r battle. Her trained soldiers had been laughably few and, when they’d been in immediate danger of being overrun by the soldiers packed onto the ships bearing down on them, the high priest at the time and all of his acolytes had worked the greatest magic in the history of the world.
They’d enclosed the entire continent and all her people in a magical dome and taken her down—far, far down—beneath the sea.
Only a few years ago, after eleven thousand years of being lost to the annals of time, then-prince Conlan and his brother, Lord Vengeance, had worked with Alaric to find a way to bring Atlantis back into the world. It had almost been too late though. The dome’s magic had been failing, or so Flynn had heard.
But here it was again. Atlantis. Unimaginable beauty. The white-sand beaches where he’d played with his friends, spending hours watching the sea creatures outside the dome. Sometimes the sea creatures had looked back at him. The gloriously green trees that even now, in January, would be heavy with fresh fruit. The soldiers…
The soldiers?
He looked again. Yes. The soldiers. They were checking people in through some kind of bureaucratic process. My, how things had changed. He shrugged. He was an Atlantean citizen, after all. There wouldn’t be any problem.
There was a problem.
Nobody knew who he was.
He leaned against the damn sign where they’d told him to stand and scowled.
non-Atlantean visitors please wait here
What a joke.
“Look. It’s easy enough for me to prove it. Find one of my brothers. I hear Liam is one of Poseidon’s Warriors now, and Dare might be in port with the Luna.” He glared at the sign and considered shaping water into a club and bashing the damn thing into little sign-shaped pieces.
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 20