Heart of Atlantis

“Apparently I can,” he said dryly, adjusting his pants to try to find a comfortable fit.

“But Poseidon—”

“He can get his own woman.”

Alaric climbed off the bed and started stalking her across the room, step by step.

“We can’t,” she blurted out. “Not with Atlantis hanging in the balance.”

Maddeningly, that was the ultimate truth. No matter how hard he’d tried not to think about it, just for these few stolen moments, everyone in his world depended upon him. He had to find Poseidon’s Pride and return to Atlantis, no matter how tempting this interlude with Quinn had been.

It was as if the cold light of reality had suddenly pierced through the web of self-delusion he’d been hiding in for the past hour or so. His exhilaration at finding Quinn had left him stupid—almost punch-drunk—and now he must face his responsibilities and save his people.

“You’re right,” he said flatly. “But there is one thing we can do. If you agree, however, it must be solely for your own reasons, or for what is between us, and not from any misplaced feeling of altruism. You have given enough, done enough, and suffered enough for one hundred lifetimes.”

“What are you asking me?”

He stared at the perfect face that had haunted his dreams since he’d first met her and asked the question driven by need; the question that should have been posed only through love:

“Quinn Dawson, will you agree to attempt the soul-meld with me?”

Chapter 23

Quinn forced herself to pause before shouting yes. Everything about Alaric made her crazy: crazy impulsive, crazy passionate, just . . . crazy. She wanted that feeling of belonging to him forever and ever, didn’t she?

Doubts and fears tried to edge their way into her mind, but she shoved them aside. Not now. Not this time. There was no room for doubt, and yet . . . what if?

What if the celibacy thing was real, and Alaric lost all of his power? How long would it take for him to hate her? What if the emotion that had caught them up with the force of a whirlwind was driven by excitement and danger, and now that she was no longer a rebel leader, their lives would become ordinary and boring? What if they wound up stuck together for a very long time, maybe even hating each other?

But she looked at him—really looked at him—and she realized she didn’t believe any of the doubts or fears. She couldn’t believe them. She’d seen inside of this man, this proud, dangerous, terrifyingly courageous man, and she knew him. Knew his heart; knew his spirit. He’d never stop loving her—even though he hadn’t yet said the words, she knew he did—and sometimes, life was worth a leap of faith.

“Yes,” she said, finally, simply, staring into his incredibly green eyes. “Yes, I accept you. Um, I thought the soul-meld had to be—”

“No. It can take place platonically,” he said, but then he flashed a breathtakingly wicked smile at her. “But it won’t be nearly as pleasurable, I imagine.”

He crossed the room in three quick strides and took her hands, but she shook her head, placing a hand on his chest to stop him. “Not here. There’s no magic here. Downstairs, with the art. If we can’t create beauty with our bodies while we do this, let’s at least be surrounded by it.”

He led the way down the stairs, and the weight of what they intended to do—and the knowledge of what it might mean for Atlantis’s survival—echoed in each footstep. She glanced around the room and almost immediately settled on the perfect spot in front of the windows, as the sun set in a blaze of glorious golden light. She turned and held out a hand to Alaric, swallowing any nervousness when she saw him walking toward her, walking into the spotlight of sunshine, his strength and passion outlined in every line and angle of his strong, beautiful face.

He would be hers—for as long as she survived—and the knowledge was a gift she held close to her heart.

“The painting you admired,” he said, gesturing to the canvas. “What better symbol for our union than hope?”

She nodded, unable to trust her voice, as Alaric took her hands in his and solemnly looked at her.

“Are you sure?”

She smiled up at him, and realized she truly was sure. No matter where she went in the future, Alaric was a man who could and would stand by her side. Fight by her side. Love her. Always.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice rang out clear and strong, like a bell chiming the way to her future.

“Close your eyes.”

She did, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “Now open your mind and heart and soul to me, mi amara, as I do to you.”

She took a deep breath, tightened her grip on his hands, and threw her emotional shields wide open. Then she fell to her knees as pure power, of a scope she couldn’t have even begun to imagine, poured into her. She realized Alaric had dropped down to kneel, too, still holding her hands, and she cried out as more and more and more energy rushed through her body.

“I can’t,” she said. “It’s too much. I’m only human.”

“You’re far more than human, Quinn. This is part of the soul-meld for a high priest of Atlantis.”

She thought he said something else, but she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything except the inferno of magical energy threatening to swamp her mind and incinerate her nerve endings. She found herself balancing on the edge of a towering and terrible knowledge, and as it poured into her and filled her, she suddenly knew things.

Knew things she couldn’t have known, saw things she couldn’t have seen.

Flashes of brilliant blue-green light scorched through her mind and illuminated scenes of Alaric’s life, careening from image to image like some insane Ghost of Atlanteans Past, and all she could do was try to hold on for the ride.

Alaric as a child, running and playing with the other boys. Carefree and happy; but, even then, there was a certain reserve to him. He stood apart, and she felt the loneliness that never quite left him.

Alaric as a young man, riding a horse at a breakneck pace across green fields, with Conlan chasing after him, both of them laughing.

The two of them, carousing in what looked like a tavern, surrounded by admiring young women.

Quinn cried out again as an especially intense surge of power or magic or whatever Alaric must carry around inside of him all of the time spiked into her brain and she lost her senses for a few moments. When she climbed back up out of the dark to conscious thought, the images showed her an older, harder Alaric.

He shouted at Conlan that he didn’t want to be high priest. He didn’t want the duty or the responsibility. “What happened to our plans to travel around the surface for a few dozen years, doing nothing but eating, drinking, and wenching?”

But the Conlan in the vision only shook his head, sadness on his face, and the insane tour continued, with Quinn soon floating on the edge of a dark, dark room.

“The darkness of the Rite of Oblivion is only equal to the darkness in your own soul,” a voice was saying, but the voice’s owner was hooded and robed, so Quinn couldn’t see his face. She could see Alaric clearly enough, though, wearing nothing but a loose pair of pants, struggling as three robed figures pushed him toward a hole in the floor. Alaric’s clenched jaw, and the corded muscle starkly outlined beneath his skin as he tried to resist, told her that whatever waited for him underground was something that would terrify anyone with less courage.

“If the oubliette accepts you, it will give you back to us. If it does not, it will take you a very long time to die,” the sadistic bastard said, and then the three of them shoved Alaric into the hole.