chest until he let her go.
“You presume too much,” she said, but her haughty words were ruined a little by her breathlessness.
“Yep.” He took her hand again and headed toward the damn grinning tiger shifter and his lantern. He was almost to the cave when he realized he was whistling.
Life was suddenly looking up.
When they entered the cave, the atmosphere was noticeably chilly, and it had nothing to do with the weather. The positioning of the inhabitants told the whole story in a glance. Alaric leaned against a wall, scowling at Reisen, who stood as far as possible from the priest. Quinn stood, seemingly relaxed, in the center of the space. Only the stress in her eyes and her slightly increased heartbeat told Daniel that she wasn’t nearly as calm as she liked to project. A slender, not very tall human woman with blond-and-blue hair and a wicked grin sat on the floor near Quinn, a computer on her lap. She kept shooting glances at Reisen, who pretended not to notice, or perhaps really didn’t notice, since he was practically inhaling Serai with his eyes.
But Serai ignored him, her gaze fixed on Alaric, her face becomimg pale and bloodless. “You.”
Alaric took a step forward. “Princess. How are you here? What—”
“Stay away from me, or I will hurt you,” she said, her voice only trembling a little.
Daniel stepped between them at the same time that Quinn caught Alaric’s arm with her hand.
“She must return to Atlantis,” the priest said, flinching a little at the contact but not pulling away.
“I will never again listen to an Atlantean who tells me what I must do,” Serai said, raising her chin.
Daniel aimed a flat stare at the priest. “Alaric. You’ll need to go through me to get to her, so please choose which part of your pretty face you want to get smashed in first.”
Quinn glared at Daniel. “That’s not really helping. You either, Alaric. Can we discuss what we’re here for and then you can have a private meeting about Atlantean issues? I really don’t have time for this right now.”
She twined her fingers through Alaric’s, pulling him back, and the dark look the priest shot at her would have stopped most people in their tracks. Quinn only smiled and shook her head.
“You know better than that,” she whispered so softly that Daniel was sure most of the people in the room couldn’t hear her. “The only thing about you that scares me is your absence, Alaric.”
The priest stood frozen for a long moment and then inclined his head and moved back to his place by the wall. “We
“I’m no princess, Alaric, but yes, we will talk. You don’t scare me, however, so you can stop trying.”
She was lying; Daniel could hear her heartbeat racing. The priest scared her, and Daniel had to fight hard against the rising red tide of fury demanding that he attack Alaric. Neutralize the threat to Serai.
Reisen surprised everyone by stepping into the silence. “I need to talk to you, too, Lady Serai.”
“I think not,” Daniel said, baring his fangs at the Atlantean, who showed no signs of being intimidated. Maybe once you’d had your hand torn off by a vampire, you didn’t much fear the one who’d saved your miserable life.
“Daniel,” Reisen said, nodding stiffly.
“Reisen. Long time, no have-to-save-your-ass. Or is that long time, no see? I always get these human sayings confused.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Really? We’re going to do this now?”
“I believe it is an imbalance in the male brain,” Serai said regally. “They name it testosterone in this time. In mine, we merely called it stupidity.”
Quinn burst out laughing, and even Alaric cracked a smile, which made Daniel almost fall over.
“Either works,” Jack said as he entered the cave behind Daniel and Serai. He touched Serai on the arm. “You okay, kitten?”
“Tiger-skin rug. On my floor,” Daniel said, but with no heat. He couldn’t resent Jack’s concern. Beneath all that tiger fur, Jack was a warrior who took his job of protecting others seriously. Daniel inclined his head to Jack in thanks for being with Serai during the afternoon hours when he could not, and Jack punched him in the shoulder.
Serai stared at them both like they were lunatics.
“It’s a guy thing,” Jack said, shrugging. “He knows now that I’m pissed off about Quinn; I know he’s pissed off about you. It’s all good.”
“Certainly that would make perfect sense, if the world were upside down. However, I choose to ignore rather than debate your logic and simply respond that I am well,” Serai said. “Thank you for your assistance today.”
Jack grinned. “Tigers love nothing more than a nap in the sun. Throw in a beautiful woman for company, and it’s the cherry on the cake.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes, but Jack just laughed and walked farther into the cave and leaned against the wall between Reisen and Alaric.
“If we’re done posturing, maybe we could get this meeting started so we can move on,” Quinn said. “Jack?”
Jack nodded. “Okay, here’s what we’ve found out so far. Banker named Smithson seems to be the head of a massive consortium of investment bankers throughout the world. They’re bored with playing with their money, stepping on Third World countries, draining old people’s pensions, and the like. They want to dance with the big boys and never worry about trifling little things like banking laws or international monetary regulations.”
“Smithson is here?” Quinn asked.
“Right here at Sedona National Bank, which is apparently a front for all kinds of bad and wrong.”
The woman with the computer raised her hand.
“Melody, you don’t have to raise your hand,” Quinn said patiently, as if she’d said it many times before.
“Oh, sure, I’m sitting in on a meeting with the rebel leader, scary tiger man, and possible Area 51 man in black over in the corner,” Melody said, indicating Quinn, Jack, and Alaric in turn, before pointing at Daniel. “Plus let’s not forget terrifying vampire dude who blows up defenseless chocolate cakes. You think I’m not going to be a little extra polite?”
Serai looked at Daniel. “You destroyed the cake? I loved that cake.”
Daniel glared at Melody. “Can we move on?”
Her black-rimmed eyes widened. “Um, sure. We found out that the records of all the consortium dudes are on an encrypted laptop that Smithson keeps in a safe-deposit box in his own bank, because, duh, he, like, runs the place.”
Serai tilted her head, clearly fascinated by Melody’s outrageous appearance and manner of speaking. “Duh?”
“It’s goth chick for ‘of course, as you all realize,’” Melody said, grinning. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“You have no idea,” Serai said, flashing a genuine smile that made something in Daniel’s chest tighten.
Alaric straightened and pinned Serai with a flat gaze. “Yes. About that. You need to go back.”
Serai raised her chin. “I think you are the last person to tell me what I
Reisen made a choking sound, and Daniel tried not to laugh. He wondered when the last time was that somebody had dared to defy the high priest of Atlantis—or call him youngling, which, as far as Daniel understood, meant something like “wet behind the ears child.”
Alaric stood frozen for a long moment, and then he covered his eyes with one hand and shook his head, muttering to himself. Finally the priest took a deep breath and tried again. “You don’t understand. The Emperor is operating incorrectly. You may be in danger.”
Serai put her hands on her hips. “Really? I might be in danger? You mean, apart from the bit where the fluctuation in the Emperor’s power nearly killed me in the stasis pod, so I had to escape? Or the part where someone is trying to wield the gem’s magic and sent me into seizures as I came through the portal? No, wait— maybe the fact that if I can’t find the Emperor and retrieve it before whoever has it tries again, the power fluctuations that already almost killed me could kill all of us?”
She was shouting by the time she reached the end, and everyone stared at her in shock.
Finally, Melody raised her hand again. “So, Atlantis has an emperor? That’s cool. I always thought Napoleon was the bomb. Who has him? Can I meet him?”
Quinn sighed. “You’d never know she was the smartest hacker ever to turn down an offer from the CIA’s elite computer squad, would you?”
