Vampire in Atlantis

they’re resting for the night?”

“Maybe. But those were vampires that passed us earlier, and if they are part of a more powerful vampire’s blood coven, they won’t be sleeping.”

She leaned against him briefly, then took a deep breath and started walking again. “Why would a witch be helping a vampire? Why would they want the Emperor, anyway, or even know about it?”

“Who knows? I don’t know anything much about Atlantean history, Serai, and anyway, you’re not the only one who slept most of the world away. I slept for nine thousand years, hibernating until the horrors I’d seen—the evil I’d done—could fade in my memories.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” he said, kicking a log so hard that it shattered into kindling. “No, it didn’t. But I deserve to live with the memories of what I did. It’s my own version of hell.”

“Not just bad memories, though,” she said, almost whispering. “You remembered me.”

“I did. I remembered you.” He stopped walking and roughly pulled her to him, needing to feel her in his arms. “I will always remember you, even when you have come to your senses and left me, but I promise you that you will remember me, too.”

With a desperation born of passion, he took her mouth with his own. Claimed it—claimed her—though he could never deserve to keep her. Kissed her as if he were a dying man and she the only chance at life.

“Remember this,” he said fiercely. “Remember the feel of my mouth on yours, my body against yours, when you find that perfect Atlantean man someday.”

She started to protest, but he silenced her with his lips, kissing her so hard and deep that he could almost pretend that she belonged to him and always would. It would have helped him find his way back to sanity if she’d fought him.

Instead she pulled him closer, and he was lost.

Long minutes later, he raised his head, coming back to himself enough to realize they stood unprotected in the middle of the path, and their enemies were closer than was safe. Serai clung to him, her body trembling, and he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to strip her clothes from her and take her, bury his cock in her warm sweetness, and make her his.

His timing sucked.

“I love you,” she said.

And the bottom fell out of his world.

He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out but a hoarse, choked noise, and then finally he made his stunned brain work and words happened. “Your timing sucks.”

Her eyes opened so wide that they were enormous in her pale face, shining like the night stars in the moonlight, and he had just enough time to realize how unbearably hurt she would be by what he’d said before she started laughing.

Serai laughed so hard she doubled over, clutching her stomach, and then she laughed some more, while he grew more and more puzzled. When she finally could breathe again, she rose on tiptoe and kissed his chin.

“Oh, my love. You are still that blacksmith at heart, aren’t you? I was afraid you were too elegant and powerful and sophisticated for me, a poor inexperienced maiden, but you are still my Daniel, aren’t you?”

He looked away from her, scanning the area, the sky, the trees, the river. Anything to avoid looking at her beautiful, innocent, hopeful face.

“I can never be your Daniel. Forget that boy, that stupid useless blacksmith. What we thought we had was a childish dream, and we’re both too old and wise to believe that dreams can come true.”

“But, Daniel—”

“No. You deserve better, and I deserve the death I was seeking the day I fell into Atlantis and found you.”

All traces of her laughter and even her smile were long gone when he dared glance at her again.

“Oh, Daniel. Older and wiser never has to mean hopeless or in despair.” She reached out to him, but he moved away and pointed to the red wall of stone curving away from them about a hundred yards off.

“I know those rocks. There’s a hidden cave with a stone structure the Sinagua built around the other side, and it faces onto a small canyon. There are stone stairs leading to spaces with enclosures even deeper in the cave, and we can rest there. The sun will be up soon, and in any event you need to rest.”

She shook her head, stubborn as usual, but before she could argue, she cried out and fell to the ground, her body twitching and jerking uncontrollably.

Regretting his harshness, he raced to her and lifted her off the ground and held her close until the spasms subsided. Why not tell her anything she wanted to hear? If she died from the damn Emperor’s magic, at least she’d have been happy for a few short hours. He grimly called himself a thousand kinds of fool until she could speak again.

“She’s using it again. The witch. The Emperor is still some distance away, but we’re gaining on it. She seems to be learning how to use it. I’m not sure how much more I can take.” A bout of coughing interrupted her and she leaned against him until it stopped, but her voice was hoarse when she continued. “Rest. You’re right. I need to rest. I can’t help any of them if I fall apart before we even find it.”

Lifting her into his arms, he strode to the cliff wall and tucked her head against his chest before he climbed the steps carved into the stone face to the cave dwelling. He didn’t let her look up until they’d moved back into the cave and away from the opening, so her fear of heights didn’t further incapacitate her. He hated to do anything that might scare her, but it wasn’t safe on the ground, especially not when the sun rose.

“Rest now, mi amara,” he said. “We don’t dare have a fire, in case the vampires have human thugs working for them who would see it.”

She nodded and slumped down against a wall, clearly exhausted beyond the point of arguing or even speaking. He pulled the blankets from his pack and made a bed of sorts for her, then lay down next to her and pulled her into his arms, so her head was pillowed on his shoulder.

“Tell me about that tower,” he said quietly, but with an undercurrent of pure steel. He would know the truth of this.

She closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him while she spoke. “Even the soft ground of the palace gardens is unforgiving if the fall is from a high enough place. I shattered my body.”

He inhaled sharply, feeling something inside him shatter, too, at the thought of her pain. “How did you live?”

She shrugged slightly, her eyes still closed. “How does anyone survive anything in Atlantis? When I opened my eyes, sure I was about to die, the healers were running toward me. Soon I was good as new,” she said bitterly.

“All but in your mind,” he said.

“And my heart. Please, Daniel, let it go. I can’t talk about it now.”

He kissed her—gentle, brief—and then forced himself to let it go. For her.

“Do you need anything else? Food or water?”

She didn’t answer, and he was afraid she was punishing him, but when he tilted his head to look into her eyes, she was sound asleep. Exhaustion and weakness had overcome her, and he needed to keep her safe until darkness came again and they could go on and succeed in their task. Nothing else mattered until then. Nothing.

But she loves me, a dark voice whispered deep in the recesses of his heart. She loves me, and I will never, ever give her up.

“She deserves better,” he said aloud, fully aware that he was talking to himself—out loud—and that was surely step one on the path to madness.

Mad or no, she loves me, and she is mine.

The sane part of his mind, he found, had no wish to argue, so he allowed himself to fall into a light doze, now that they were securely hidden from any view from outside.

She loved him. She loved him.

But when he slept, he dreamed of purple fire.