Alyssa Day: Atlantis Rising

Next to him, Riley shivered at the jungle sound resonating through the small room. Conlan jumped up, flashed across the table to face Jack. "Calm down, he's with us."

"I don't care who he is, he needs to keep his hands off my partner, or he's going to be fertilizer." Jack's eyes glowed an eerie yellow-green shade and the pupils lengthened to slits.

Quinn's voice came from behind Conlan. "Jack, stop it. This is Alaric, and he healed me from that gunshot wound. He has… civility issues."

Heat and light shot through the room, and Conlan didn't have to turn around to know who was generating it. "Alaric! A little control, if you please. We've got a lot to deal with, here."

Alaric's voice was rusty, strained. "A word, if you would, my lady. I need—I need—" He broke off, breathing harshly.

Riley started to go to Quinn, but Conlan stopped her with a hand on her arm. This was something Quinn and Alaric had to figure out before they could all work as a team to storm the Primus. Riley glared at him, then felt his emotions and signaled that she understood. Nodded and sat back down.

Quinn finally spoke, her voice unbearably weary. "Yes. We need to talk. Especially since that's all we will ever do with each other. Come with me. The rest of you, please just wait. Get to know each other."

She laughed. "Eat a cookie."

As Quinn and Alaric left the room, Conlan achieved a moment of clarity. The realization that Quinn had trapped Alaric in her empathic net as surely as Riley had done to Conlan.

But certain sea creatures founder and drown in nets.

And Alaric was looking like one of them.

Then they were gone, leaving him alone with a creature that everything in his heritage told him he should destroy.

Riley watched them leave, then heaved out a sigh. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and smiled at Jack. "So. Tell us about being a tiger. Where are you from?"

Alaric faced Quinn on the roof of the building. Fighting desperately for self-control. For calm.

For the courage not to fall on his knees in front of this human female and beg for her touch.

How Poseidon must be laughing at his high priest now.

She watched him, wariness in every line of her body. "You're the most powerful with the magic, aren't you? I can feel it singing in your veins, thrumming underneath my skin. What did you do to me when you healed me? And thank you for that, by the way."

He stalked her, paced in an ever-diminishing circle around her position. Knowing he should stop.

Unable to do so.

"I did nothing unusual, although current events suggest that Riley may have aided in your healing," he said roughly. "What was unusual was what you did to me."

She wasn't even beautiful. He'd always thought he'd fall someday, into grand and gloriously unrequited love with an amazing beauty. A goddess among women.

Among Atlantean women.

Yet this scruffy human—this rebel —wasn't anything like what he'd imagined. She was so thin as to look starved, all huge eyes with black circles under them over hollow cheeks. Her short hair looked like she'd cut it with that knife she kept in her pocket. Her clothes were no better than what he'd seen on beggars on the streets.

He wanted her so badly it was an actual physical pain squeezing his balls.

"I don't know what you think you see, but I'm not like my sister," she said, voice and emotions filled with sorrow. The heat and colors of her emotions swirled around him, tortured him. Wine red, dusky gray, and the blue of the sea at twilight danced into him, through him, piercing him with poignancy.

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.

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."