moment. Not to mention that Jack had shown up and was snarling and baring his teeth at Alaric. She spared a moment’s embarrassment that he’d seen her kiss Alaric but dismissed it as the unimportant detail it was.
Flying monkeys, attacking vampires, Atlantean portals come to life? Check.
One kiss? Not such a huge deal in the scale of things. She almost involuntarily raised her fingers to her swollen lips, though. Alaric’s eyes darkened as he watched, and he bent down as if to kiss her again.
“Alaric, get your priestly ass out here, or I’ll kick it for you,” Ven roared from somewhere in the maze of caves and corridors. “We have an emergency.”
Alaric tightened his arms around her for a moment, but then he sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “When is it ever
“It never stops for people like us,” she told him. “You know it, and I know it. World-bending kisses don’t change reality.”
He lifted her into the air until they were at eye level to each other, and the slow smile that spread across his face was nothing but pure masculine satisfaction. “World-bending?”
“Yeah, don’t let it go to your head,” she muttered. “And put me down.”
He lowered her to her feet and then kissed her again, hard and fast, before turning toward the bellowing sound of one seriously outraged Atlantean prince.
“World-bending,” he repeated. “Those may be the best two words I’ve heard in five hundred years.”
With that, he strode out of the room, leaving her to follow on still-shaky legs. She consoled herself for her weakness with the excellent view of his very fine ass.
Jack, still in tiger form, slouched into the corridor and head-butted her, grumbling some kind of cat complaint.
“Eye candy,” she told the tiger formerly known as her best friend and co–rebel leader. “Pure eye candy, in the form of an absolutely delicious backside, wasted on a man who doesn’t even realize he’s beautiful. Stupid Atlantean.”
He snarled, and she decided to take it for agreement.
Ven rounded the corner, saw them, and belted out a string of what she was sure were the choicest Atlantean swear words. “Finally,” he said, breaking into English. “Where in the nine hells have you been?”
Then he glanced behind Alaric at Quinn, and stopped short. “Oh. Ah, yeah. You two were . . . uh . . .”
“No, we were not,” Alaric snapped. “Though not for want of trying, not that it’s any of your damn business.”
Quinn felt her face flush with heat, but she clamped her mouth shut against the retort trying to bubble up.
Ven’s mouth fell open. “Did you just say— But you— Ah, okay. I don’t have time to go all Oprah with you. We’ve got a big problem.”
“When do we not?” Alaric sliced a hand through the air. “What is it, already?”
“We’re too late to retrieve Poseidon’s Pride. Some lunatic who calls himself Ptolemy Reborn has taken it, Alaric.”
“That’s impossible. No human, even a powerful wizard, would have the magic to be able to touch that gem,” Alaric said.
“What about a vampire?” Quinn asked. “Or shape-shifter? Their magic is different from yours. Maybe—”
“Impossible,” Alaric repeated. “Only an extremely powerful Atlantean could touch the tourmaline. It’s the crown jewel, so to speak, of Poseidon’s Trident.”
“That’s just it,” Ven said, his face grim. “Old Ptolemy is claiming to be the king of Atlantis.”
Alaric’s face hardened, and his eyes flashed so hot that Quinn was surprised that twin laser beams of emerald light didn’t incinerate Ven where he stood. “He claims
“Ooh, boy, Conlan and Riley do not need to deal with this,” Quinn said, her own anger rising at the thought of more trouble for her sister, who’d almost died at the hands of vampires and then nearly lost her baby during a particularly difficult pregnancy and childbirth.
Riley would be queen of Atlantis, but at what cost? Quinn glanced at Alaric and wondered if she could ever be as brave as her sister and risk everything for love. A hot wave of shame washed over her, leaving bitterness and bile in its wake. Not that Alaric could ever love her, when he knew what she’d done. What she’d become.
Ven threw his hands in the air in disgust. “Are we going to stand here and talk about it, or do you want to come back with me and see the impostor son of a bitch?”
“He’s here?” Alaric’s energy spheres were already swirling into shape in the air surrounding him when Ven shook his head impatiently.
“No, he’s having a press conference, believe it or not. Old Ptolemy is a media whore apparently.”
They swiftly followed Ven down a few turns and twists, to find Archelaus already watching the news conference on television when they arrived in his chambers. Quinn knew from a quick study of his body language that the news was all bad.
“He’s speaking in front of the United Nations building in New York, and he’s claiming to be descended from Atlantean royalty. It’s not good. He just told the reporters that Atlantis exists, claimed to have any number of witnesses who have met High Prince Conlan or, as Ptolemy calls him, ‘the pretender to the throne,’ and said that Atlantis is positioned to rise to the surface of the ocean any day now.”
Ven shook his head. “We knew we couldn’t keep the secret forever, not with the way we run around protecting humanity, kicking vampire ass, and generally making a nuisance of ourselves with the big, bad, and uglies that go bump in the dark.”
“But this isn’t anything expected, is it?” Quinn asked. “Is it possible he really is who he claims he is? I mean, he is holding your jewel in his hand, isn’t he?”
“It must be a fake,” Alaric said. He stared at the television screen so hard she was surprised the heat in his eyes didn’t burn a hole in the screen. “Can you make the device speak louder?”
“Turn up the volume,” Ven said.
“As I said,” Alaric snapped.
Quinn shook her head at the two of them.
Archelaus pressed a button on the remote and the voice of the wannabe Atlantean king filled the room.
“I have documented proof that I am the direct lineal descendant of Alexander the Great, conquerer and Atlantean, and I will take my rightful place upon the throne as soon as Atlantis rises from its watery grave,” he intoned.
Ven snorted. “Watery grave? Seriously?”
Quinn was stuck on a different part of the man’s statement. “Alexander the Great was Atlantean?”
Alaric shrugged. “Narcissist. Lust for power. Amazing while it lasted, though.”
Quinn studied the man standing at the bank of microphones. He definitely looked regal. He was tall and imposing, with a TV politician kind of look to him. All toothpaste-commercial teeth and good hair. Even a tan, whether real or spray-on. But under the made-for-prime-time charisma, she could just see the jagged edges of something with real teeth. Something that would chew up enemies and vomit up their remains before calmly flossing.
She shuddered. “There’s power there. Dark power. I’ve seen enough
Alaric slanted a measuring glance at her. “I tend to agree, even without the added incentive of his ludicrous claim.”
“He does kind of look like you,” she pointed out. “The collective you. Atlanteans. Same dark hair, same height and bone structure, but with an added layer of smarm. Are you sure there’s no chance he could be a descendant, like he claims?”
“Impossible to tell from here,” Alaric said.
Reporters surrounding the man shouted questions at him, but he stood calmly in the center of the firestorm of attention, smiling slightly as if he were mildly amused. Finally, he held up his hands, and the questions slowly died down as the reporters began to fall silent in order to hear what else he would say.
“I will answer all of your questions eventually, but what I have to say now is of the most urgent nature.” He drew a sheet of paper out of a large envelope and held it tightly, making eye contact with each reporter in turn.
