Vampire in Atlantis

The slender, curving silhouette of a woman wearing a long gown stood beside him. She held the non-pointy end of the spear. He could see nothing of her features at first, and then he saw her face, shining more brightly than a thousand afterlife-created suns.

Serai’s face.

She was to be his personal tour guide to heaven, then. Or his personal escort to hell. But her gasp spoke of disbelief, even shock.

Her next words were nothing that he could have expected, though. “I am Serai of Atlantis, a princess of Poseidon. Remember you me, Nightwalker? Be warned that you are now my prisoner.”

Memories long unused returned to him and allowed him to understand her. Her words were musical, the cadence liquid and lyrical. Ancient Atlantean. He answered her with the rusty pronunciation that was all he could manage. Shock and thousands of years of non-use had robbed him of fluency.

“Serai? I have waited more than eleven thousand years to hear your voice again.” He jumped to his feet and moved to take her in his arms, but was stopped again at spear point.

“No,” she said, the strain evident in her face, turning her perfect skin even paler than he remembered. “I’m leaving here. Now. Come with me or stay, but don’t even try to stop me.”

For the first time, he took the time to look around at his surroundings and saw the two fallen guards lying unconscious on the ground, but when he looked up to ask her about it, the sight in front of him stunned him to speechlessness for several seconds.

“What?” she snapped. “I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re thinking, although now that you’re a nightwalker, can’t you hear their heartbeats to confirm my claim?”

He pointed, still unable to form words. At the dome. The freaking glass dome that surrounded them as far as he could see—and the deep, dark blue currents of the ocean beyond it. A dark form swam past, and a single giant eye blinked at him.

“Is that . . . is that a whale?” He stared, feeling like his eyes would bug out of his head at any minute as it finally hit him. “Are we . . . are we in Atlantis?”

She rolled her eyes, apparently a timeless gesture. “Where else would we be? Now, move.”

She raised her arms and began to sing. Sing. The woman he’d loved and lost eleven thousand years ago— loved all of that time, if he wanted to be honest, although he didn’t—was singing. In Atlantis.

Or else, and he sighed as he came to the obvious realization: he really was dead. Somehow he’d ended up in the good grace of the gods instead of in the nine hells. He was here with Serai and she was singing and . . .

She’d stabbed him. With a spear.

“Nope. Probably not any form of heaven,” he muttered.

A shimmering oval of pure light appeared in front of Serai, and the smile that crossed her face in response blinded Daniel more than the light. She was so beautiful. Every bit as beautiful as he remembered, and more. Her silken dark hair was so black it had blue highlights in it, and longer than he remembered, swinging past her perfect, curving hips. Her eyes matched the ocean waves, just as blue. Just as deep.

And her lips—oh, her lips. He reacted just as strongly to their sensual curve now as he had when he was a young apprentice, showing off a little with his metal-working skills and his muscles for the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

She still was.

The oval grew larger and wider, and he knew what it was. He’d seen Atlanteans use its magic before.

“The portal. You’re singing to the portal? I’ve never seen the warriors sing.”

She cast an amused glance at him. “They are barbarians. The portal only gives fully of its magic to those who understand and appreciate it.”

“Ven did mention how capricious it could be. Dumps them in the middle of the ocean sometimes.”

She laughed and then looked as startled as he felt, before she touched her fingertips to her lips. “I haven’t laughed in so very long,” she whispered, but then she took a deep breath. “Portal, take me where I need to be, I ask and beseech you.”

A wave of golden light shimmered over the silvery surface of the portal’s oval form and Serai smiled. She took a step forward, then hesitated before turning back to Daniel.

“Come with me?”

She held out her hand, and the ocean itself took a deep breath. She held out her hand. To him. He reached for her, and then paused, as a horrible thought struck him.

“To where? It was full daybreak where I came from, and if the sunlight strikes me, I’ll die in flames. I would risk that for you without hesitation, but I would not have you in danger from the fire.”

“We have no time for this. Conlan and his guards will be after me, or these guards will wake up . . .” She broke off mid-sentence and smiled at him, and he realized he would follow her smile into the fires of all nine of the hells, without question. “Trust me?”

He took her hand and they stepped forward into the portal, but as the light surrounded them, she cried out and doubled over. He caught her in his arms and held tight to the beautiful woman, who was his past and his future, as the world fractured around them in a vortex of spinning light, and he prayed to any god who would listen. He couldn’t lose her again.

Never again.

* * *

Serai fought against the pain ripping through her insides as the vortex swallowed her and Daniel. It was the Emperor. Someone had it and was trying to work its magic. Someone not Atlantean—someone who didn’t know what he or she was doing. That must be why she’d awoken now, off schedule, and had been able to escape.

The fluctuation in the gem’s energy seared through her and doubled her over. She thought instantly of her fellow maidens, still trapped in stasis, and wondered how this would affect them. If they would survive it. Another burst of pain wrenched through her, and she wondered if she would survive it. What a great joke the universe would be playing if she survived millennia in stasis only to die in the first short hour of freedom.

The portal’s light warmed around her in a magical caress, as if it felt her pain and wanted to comfort her. At the same moment, Daniel’s strong arms wrapped around her. She rested her head against the hard muscles of his chest and sent a mental thank-you to the portal, just as it opened again and deposited them in the torch-lit darkness of what looked like a smallish cavern. Stumbling a little as her bare feet touched the cold stone of the floor, though she was still safely ensconced in Daniel’s embrace, she had a mere second or two to register the small cluster of humans surrounding them before the tiger attacked.

Chapter 4

Serai screamed and Daniel pushed her behind him, putting his body between her and the tiger and yelling at it.

“Jack, no!”

Jack? He knew the tiger’s name?

The tiger ignored Daniel and charged, leaping through the air in full feline fury, its mouth opened in an earth- shattering roar. If she hadn’t been so terrified, Serai might have admired its feral beauty. Daniel leapt up to counter the tiger’s attack, and the two of them met in midair with a crash that resounded like thunder.

The tiger caught Daniel in its deadly embrace and swiped at him with paws the size of dinner plates, each tipped with long, sharp claws. Daniel’s nightwalker strength was a match for the tiger, though, and he shoved the beast’s forearm away from his face and then hurled it across the cavern, where it smashed into the wall.

A woman yelled at Daniel, by name, and Serai’s eyes narrowed as she examined the human female. Scruffy, small, and tough, with a waiflike exterior that covered a steel core, if the look in the woman’s dark eyes told true.

“Daniel, leave Jack alone. How dare you blast in here and hurt him?” the woman shouted in one of the