It wouldn’t happen again.
He transformed into mist and arrowed toward the park. Toward Quinn.
Toward a future he suddenly wanted to live in, again.
Quinn walked around the palatial bedroom, which was dressed in rich blues and tawny golds, silk and fine linens. Whatever hotel this was, they’d spared no expense in the decor. Even the air smelled like money—cool and crisp. She didn’t have time to appreciate luxury, though—she needed to find a way out. The windows were impossible without tools she didn’t have, the air vents were too small, the doors were bolted from the outside with unpickable locks, and the phones had been ripped out of the walls. Ptolemy had abruptly told her he needed to go out for a while, locked her in this room, and left.
At least he’d given her food. Before he’d gone, he’d had room service deliver a cart full of various delicious meals for her to sample, and she’d done her best to devour as much as she could. It was much easier to plot and scheme on a full stomach, even though now that she’d been fed, her exhaustion was pulling her down, trying to suck her into sleep.
The moment she felt Ptolemy’s demonic presence disappear into a wave of creepiness that felt like that portal again, she tried to contact Alaric. She didn’t know how to call out to him, exactly, so she opened her senses as far as she could and shouted his name. An image flashed into her mind: Alaric in the air, rage burning through him, as he went entirely nuts trying to find her.
He was—oh no, oh holy crap, no—he was trying to destroy the world. Flashing impressions of a giant tsunami and of Poseidon roaring at Alaric punched into her mind, and she yelled at Alaric to cut it out, but he either didn’t hear her or he was too far gone to care.
She took a deep breath and put every ounce of energy she had into trying one more time, before he did something so horribly destructive it could never be fixed, and she yelled at him—out loud and in her mind.
This time, somehow, she was sure he heard her, but the momentary connection between them faded. To distract herself she decided, in typical rebel fashion, to eat while there was food. By the time she’d eaten two more plates of dinner and worked her way to the chocolate mousse, she couldn’t keep her worry at bay any longer. What if Poseidon had killed Alaric? Or smited him, or whatever gods did to misbehaving high priests?
Alaric’s voice sounded in her head, and she nearly fell off the chair in relief.
He was alive. He was
The window shattered, and Alaric blew in before she could finish the thought. Right. Who needed a key when you had an Atlantean?
He hit the floor running, caught her up in his arms, and took possession of her lips with deliberate, possessive intent; branding her body and heart with his fire. Searing her soul with his passion.
“Never, never, never leave me again,” he murmured, over and over, as he kissed her, but he didn’t allow her breath to respond before he captured her mouth again .
She’d never been kissed with such single-minded intent as this man brought to it—her skin flashed hot, and her entire being rose up to meet him, as though gravity lost its claim on her when Alaric touched her. He kissed her so completely—so deeply and thoroughly—that it was almost hard to remember they were surrounded by shards of glass in what had briefly been her very well-decorated prison.
But she finally did remember, and she reluctantly pulled away.
“We have to get out of here, Alaric,” she whispered, her voice trembling from the aftershocks of intensity.
If they ever made love, she didn’t know how either of them would survive it. Just from his kisses, she was weak at the knees. And hot in places north of the knees, which made her face flush to realize.
“Where is he? I need to kill him and get that jewel,” Alaric said when he finally raised his head. His eyes were pure green fire, and she never, ever wanted him to let her go.
“Your cheeks are quite charmingly pink,” he said slowly, a smile spreading across his gorgeous face.
Of course, that only made her blush harder.
“Forget my cheeks. Focus. Ptolemy left, I don’t know where he went, and he took Poseidon’s Pride, I’m sure of it. He always has it on his person or very close to him,” she told him. “I felt a blast of that creepy magic, only a thousand times worse than usual, just after he locked me in here. I think he might have temporarily returned to his demon dimension to get backup.”
“Then we will leave now and develop a plan, and I will return to confront him once you are safe. We have maybe forty-eight hours, I’m thinking forty to be safe, and then Atlantis collapses. There is no time for Ptolemy to disappear into another dimension. If he doesn’t return soon—”
She interrupted him. “Oh, I don’t think he’ll leave me alone for long,” she said dryly. “Take a look in the other room.”
Alaric gestured with one hand, and the door flew open, smashing into the wall behind it. He stalked out into the other room, keeping Quinn behind him until he could check for danger, and then he stopped dead, just as she had earlier, and she knew he’d seen the Wall of Creepy.
“He has been after you for a long time,” Alaric finally said, his voice so coated with ice she was surprised a snowstorm didn’t spontaneously form in the room.
“I know. Don’t you think I know?” Her teeth started chattering from delayed reaction. “Some of these pictures are from years ago. He wants— He said he wants—”
Alaric swept her into his arms. “I don’t care what he wants. He’s not going to get it. We’re leaving, now, and you’ll never have to see him again.”
With that, he blasted the glass out of the windows, picked her up, and flew out of the building with her in his arms. She closed her eyes, held on to him with all her might, and offered up a sincere wish that he was right. Also, that he wouldn’t drop her.
They were due a little good luck, weren’t they?
Even as she thought it, she realized she’d probably jinxed them, because that was how the life of Quinn Dawson, ex–rebel leader, was going these days. Would it be fire, hail, or a plague of flying cockroaches?
They rounded the corner of the hotel, heading for the park, and nearly ran into a police helicopter and the officer hanging out the side with a loudspeaker.
“Stop flying now, land on the nearest surface, and put your hands up,” he commanded, and Quinn started to laugh. She couldn’t help it.
“Here we go again.”
Chapter 21
Alaric raised a hand to blast the annoying metallic monster out of the sky, but Quinn stopped him.
“No. Those are the good guys. Can’t we just make a quick getaway?”
So he swooped underneath the helicopter, darted right, and was halfway across the city before the machine had time to turn around. There were advantages to his method of flight.
She directed him to a large building near the water, and he landed in the alley next to it, managing not to draw any more unwanted attention.
After a brief battle where her desire to walk fought his need to hold her, he finally, reluctantly, released her. She led the way up three flights of stairs to an industrial loft with a state-of-the-art security keypad next to its massive steel door. She punched in a long string of numbers and then held her thumb over a small square of glass. It scanned her, and the door opened.
“Welcome, Quinn,” an electronic voice said, as they entered the space.
“She’s an artist, but she also does something for the northeast region of P-Ops,” Quinn explained.
