Alyssa Day: Atlantis Rising

She needed to feel the caress of the waves, and she'd be fine.

Conlan stood alone in the dark, eyes closed, senses unfurled to seek out the presence of anyone nearby.

Friend or enemy.

Hell, he almost preferred an enemy. He was solidly in the mood to kick somebody's ass. He bared his teeth in what passed for a smile. Then his eyes snapped open.

Because the door holding the emotion out of his mind had smashed open again. He staggered, fought to remain standing under the barrage of anguish. All he could do was try to ride it out and pray his brother or Alaric arrived soon. He closed his eyes again. Fought for focus. Turned to the portion of his training not conducted with swords and daggers.

Compartmentalize. A Warrior of Poseidon cannot countenance emotion. The price of arrogance is your life, Conlan.

He could almost hear Archelaus whispering in his head. Use all of your senses. Never rely on your mind, alone. To underestimate your enemy's potential to create illusion means death .

He focused, strained. Achieved detachment. His mind analyzed the problem of his own duality; emotionless calculation studied raging grief.

The evidence supports no internal cause. Seek the external.

So, then. It was outside of him. Somebody—or some thing —broadcasted grief powerfully enough to shove through his mental defenses.

The enemy he'd been wishing for, maybe. It was sure as hell no friend. No Atlantean could send emotions to another. "Well, they say be careful what you wish for, right?" he muttered to himself, muscles straining with the effort of managing the flood of anguish.

He spared a thought for the source. Somebody, somewhere, was suffering all nine hells' worth of hurt.

Riley trudged away from her old Honda, parked carelessly across a couple of spaces in the deserted parking lot, heading toward the beach. Not many beachgoers at this hour on a chilly October night.

The smell of sea air and salt water reached her, and she took a deep breath, a tendril of calm threading its fragile way through her. Her stomach growled a reminder that it had been more than fourteen hours since she'd eaten. Almost without thinking, she reached into the pocket of her jacket for one of the protein bars she usually carried around.

Regular meals were unpredictable in her line of work.

She started to peel a corner of the wrapper off the bar, and it hit her: Morris would never eat anything again.

The thought smashed into her, doubling her over. What was the magic number? How many times would she have to watch somebody die before she could be blase about it?

And what the hell kind of person was she that she even wanted to?

Forcing herself to straighten up, she glanced at her watch, then swore under her breath. Nearly curfew. She knew all about curfew; she even had the requisite copy of the 2006 Nonhuman Species Protection Act taped up to a window of her home, as mandated by the new law. "I don't care. I need this walk. Nobody will bust me for a few minutes past human lights out," she muttered. The ocean meant healing. Solace. Her mind desperately needed both.

Talking to myself. Now there's a sign of imminent whacko-dom.

She kicked an empty can out of her way as she finally reached the sand and shoved the unopened protein bar back in her pocket. Maybe later.

The moonlight pirouetted on the surface of the waves, careless in its joy. Unaffected by human concerns. Riley glanced up, judging its phase. She hadn't caught the lunar alert on the radio that morning.

Waxing gibbous. Good. Still a couple of days before the full.

They'd all gotten way better at keeping track of the moon since the shape-shifters had first announced their existence. Funny what a difference a decade made. She probably would have guessed a waxing gibbous had something to do with monkeys, before.

Life had been way easier when the moon was just something cows jumped over in storybooks.

Cows. Storybooks.

That damned bear and its pink ribbon.

Riley sank down on the sand near the water and gave in to the tears.

When a fresh wave of grief flooded his mind, Conlan raised his head, scenting the air.

She's near. She? I don't know how I know, but, yeah, it's a she. Maybe a few miles from here?

He started walking, sped up.

Began to run. Flashed into molecules of pure water with the preternatural speed of his kind.

Must find her.

Need, inexplicable but intense. Primal determination.

Must find her now.

Riley heaved in a shaky breath, trying to surface from the currents of sorrow threatening to drag her under. Dina would go to jail.

Please, God, watch out for Dina.

Riley looked up at the impervious moon again and laughed bitterly. Although, why do I bother? It's not like the hundreds of prayers I've sent up before have made a difference. The baby is the worst of it. If she even lives, she's going to a foster home .

Riley thought of a baby she'd just placed with a foster home; one of the better ones. Mrs. Graham loved all of her kids, but had a special affinity for the broken ones. The baby had peered up into Riley's face as she'd handed his twitching, crack-addicted body over to his new caregiver. His tiny fingers had furled and unfurled like sea anemones searching for a sunlight that might never come.

She rubbed her arms, shivering. Mrs. Graham was at max capacity. Riley didn't have anybody available who was as good. Dina's baby probably would be raised in an even worse form of the culture of violence and poverty that had shaped both Dina and Morris.

If the baby even lives.

Riley almost physically shoved the thought to the back of her mind. She couldn't go there. Not now.

Not when she was so close to the edge of sanity.

Put it in the box, Riley. Think about it tomorrow.

Even as she clenched her jaws to stop the scream clawing its way out of her throat, some weird sixth sense picked up the danger. She caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of her eye, creeping across the sand, flickering in and out of sight in the shadows cast by the clouds.

Three of them. She jumped up into a crouch, ready to run, scanning the area for a way to escape.

Stunned that—for the merest split second—she'd felt too hopeless to even try to save herself.

Conlan swirled through the air faster than he'd ever moved, arrowing his focus to use the droplets of water in the sea air as a prism, until he could see the outline of her shape.

Score a point for Atlantean vision.

Shadows caught at the moonlight, obscuring her face. All he could see was a slender form, huddled on the beach. The impact of her grief magnified—trebled—when he saw her shoulders shudder.

She was definitely the source of the emotional grenade that had smashed into his defenses. No army. No vamp mind-control conspiracy.

One lone human female. And she was projecting emotion .

She was aknasha . Empath.

Stunned, disbelieving, he sent a tentative mind probe to her. Her mind clamped on to his probe, the energy of her thoughts rearing up, defensive. As if she sensed danger.

She thought he was a predator. He bared his teeth, nearly smiling. He'd been called worse.

He tried to shut down his mental shields, but she lashed out at him. Defense turned to offense—seeking to discern what the hell he was.

Get out of my mind ! Defiance. Courage.

Pure, heated emotion.

And, buried way down deep: a tendril of fear.

His logic tried to make sense of the impossible. Not even Atlanteans could project emotion into the mind probe anymore. And yet she did. On a level so intense, so visceral, that his warrior senses nearly missed the threat to her.