Heart of Atlantis

danger, or deceit.

Surely she’d earned that much over the past ten years.

“No spaceships that I know of, but I wouldn’t discount the notion,” he said without a trace of humor. “We did the best we could to assist any of your ships floundering in various massive storms, especially ones Poseidon caused when he was in a petulant mood, but we are limited in how much we can help, according to how many of us can travel by portal at any time. We can’t exactly swim up from the dome.”

“The pressure would crush you.”

“Not to mention our best swimmers can only hold their breath for six or eight minutes. Five miles is a long way down.”

“This may be the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot,” she said. “Let’s at least walk and see if we can find something to drink and some fruit.”

He held up one hand, and a swirling ribbon of water spiraled playfully through the air from the trees until it stopped and hovered in front of Quinn.

“It’s perfectly safe to drink.”

Quinn took him at his word and drank deeply from the magical water fountain. “It’s delicious,” she said, surprised. “As pure as the water at Fuji.”

“You’re unlikely to find any purer. Nobody ever comes here but me, as far as I know. The island doesn’t show up on your radar, or tracking devices, or whatever instruments your people use to chart the planet.”

Alaric drank, too, and then released the swirling water, and it retreated back through the trees.

“You don’t always have to take it all on, either, you know,” she said quietly, making a sharp detour in the conversation. Even when she was frustrated and angry with him, even though he’d blocked his emotions from her, the crushing weight of his loneliness hovered at the edges of her awareness. “The weight of the world. The responsibility for everyone else’s problems. Sometimes it’s okay to let somebody else worry about you.”

His eyes darkened, and a glimmer of something almost too powerful to be faced head-on looked out at her from behind that emerald glow. But a bird broke through the trees nearby, and the sound broke through the moment.

He held out his hand to her. “Let’s explore, if you like.”

She stared at him, afraid that she would be accepting so much more than just his hand.

“It’s your choice, Quinn,” he said, his eyes shuttered against her—against the possibility of rejection.

In the end, it wasn’t a choice at all. She put her hand in his and simply waited, breathing slowly in and out so as not to react, as the electric sense of connection settled into place between them. They could deal with the issue of their attraction later. For once, she simply wanted to be Quinn. Not rebel leader, not forbidden love of an Atlantean high priest—just Quinn.

He said nothing, as if recognizing and granting her wish. They started walking, and she pretended, if only to herself, that they were normal tourists, sightseeing in paradise.

For once—just this once—pretending would be enough.

Chapter 8

Alaric watched Quinn as she walked along the beach, head down, eyes fixed on the sand or on a place he could not see; perhaps her own dark past. He’d long found that the solitude of the island setting was a balm to his own soul. A place where no demands would be placed on him—where no legions of enemies lined up to be battled, defeated, and killed.

They visited him, though, those legions. The faces of everyone he’d ever defeated, in the never-ending battle to protect humanity from its own folly; they haunted him in his sleep and, at times, visited him in his waking hours, as well. The ones he’d lost through his failure to protect fast enough, hard enough, or with sufficient scope—those ghosts accused him, too. A parade of death that had long caused him to believe his future would be a rapidly narrowing tunnel of madness and despair.

But then he’d met Quinn. Strong, courageous, and compassionate. A small human female who dressed like a homeless teen, fought like a hardened battle veteran, and plotted like a master strategist. It was she who should be claiming to be descended from Alexander the Great. None would have the slightest doubt.

Quinn glanced up at him, her brows drawn together in concern. For him. The experience was so novel that it sent another shock wave pounding through his body. Someone worrying about him —the monstrous high priest of terror. The one Atlantean women warned their children about, as if he were the bogeyman of their nightmares. “Be good, or High Priest Alaric will take you away to the temple.”

They thought he didn’t know. He’d trained himself to ignore it.

They thought he didn’t care. He’d forced himself not to.

“What are you thinking about? You have a death grip on my hand,” Quinn said, stopping and turning to look up into his face. “It’s Ptolemy, isn’t it? We should go. As long as he has Poseidon’s Pride, everybody is in danger.”

Alaric loosened his grip on her hand and then raised it to his lips. “Yes, Ptolemy. And other things, thoughts of little merit. This place has that effect on me, I’m afraid. Too much time and space for darker thoughts to intrude on common sense.”

A shadow crossed her face, and she pulled her hand away from him and hugged herself as if cold, in spite of the warmth of sand-reflected sun. “I don’t have the centuries of this battle behind me like you do, but believe me, I know about darker thoughts. I sometimes wish I could have been the sweetly ignorant person I pretended to be for my cover identity. It’s amazing what a pink dress and a little lipstick can do for a woman’s perceived IQ.”

He knelt to retrieve a perfectly intact shell, pearly white with creamy brown striations, and shook off the sand before presenting it to her.

“I do not know what this IQ is, but I believe I understand your meaning. Perhaps we should buy Ven a pink dress, so he fools the enemy the next time we go into battle?”

Quinn laughed. “Oh, boy. Can you imagine? No, wait. How about Lord Justice? With that crazy blue hair and the ever-present sword? Actually, though, that might be even scarier.”

She ran a finger along the edge of the shell before closing her hand around it. “Thank you. This is beautiful.”

“A reminder that life is not all blood and death,” he said, wishing he believed it.

He could see in her eyes that she did not believe it, either.

“Ours have been.”

“So that the lives of others would not,” he returned. He found another shell, a broken one, and hurled it far out into the waves. “It has always seemed a fair trade. Until now.”

“Until now,” she repeated slowly. “Alaric, I can never be what you might want me to be. I have forgotten anything I ever knew about any emotions but rage and pain and vengeance.”

“Emotions can be relearned, Quinn. Brennan taught us that.”

“Brennan was a warrior under a horrible curse from Poseidon not to feel any emotion until he met his one true love and then she died. How cruel and twisted is that? Your god isn’t exactly what I’d call loving and benevolent.”

“But Brennan found Tiernan, and she saved him from both the curse and himself. Don’t you think we’re all looking for exactly that?”

Quinn started walking again. “I don’t know. I don’t have time to care. I have to find Ptolemy and discover what he wants with me, before one of the many enemies I’ve made in the past tracks me down to put a final end to my adventures in rebellion.”

“I have a bargain to propose,” Alaric offered. “We spend the day here, not thinking or talking about enemies, or pretenders, or death. Then tomorrow we can return to our normal lives and kill all the ‘bad guys,’ as you so eloquently put it, that you might want.”

Quinn’s eyes were enormous as she weighed his words, and finally she nodded. “I agree. But Alaric, I never