Heart of Atlantis

in front of him in terrifying flashes. Losing her parents, joining the rebels, and lying to her sister. Constantly being forced to deceive the few friends she’d ever made; growing more and more alone and isolated. Choosing the harder path at every fork in the road, and offering herself up like a sacrificial lamb for the most dangerous missions and most suicidal battles.

He watched, his own composure rocked to its foundation, as she lost her faith in the very people she was fighting to protect, when the rebels were forced to fight against other humans. The collaborators were the worst. She despised them. Her hatred was so strong it smashed the walls of his mind as he watched her argue with a human who had killed other humans, again and again, for the chance to become a vampire.

“I’ll live forever,” the man had told her, smirking.

“Better luck next time,” she’d said, and then she shot him in the head. She stood over the man, impassive, as he died, and then she dropped to the ground and cried. She’d been fighting for several years by then, but it was the first time she’d been forced to kill another human, and something inside her had shattered, irrevocably broken.

Her innocence, perhaps.

He felt her emotions ice over, and her mental shields grow ever stronger, as she used her gift of emotional empathy to ferret out traitors among the rebel forces. He watched as she climbed through the ranks; as her clear head and fearlessness made her a natural leader.

He felt her cautious hope and then joy, when she met a tiger shifter who made a big impression, and a part of Alaric that he hadn’t realized was still afraid relaxed, as he experienced her love for Jack. A sister’s love for a brother—a warrior’s love for her comrade—but never a romantic love.

He swore to himself that when all this was over, he’d find a way to heal Jack and return him to himself. Surely in the combined knowledge of all of the libraries of Atlantis, there must be a way.

The soul-meld dragged him relentlessly on and on, forcing him to see the vicious attack when the vampire captured Quinn and killed her companions. Her terror and pain, hidden so well while she pretended to be her captor’s willing slave, nearly drove him mad. His throat ached, and he realized that perhaps the voice he heard roaring in rage and fear was his own.

But the visions kept coming.

The cascade of images was oblivious to his pain and rage, and unfeeling in the face of her darkest memories. They pushed him past the first time he’d met her, showing him her shock and terror at her reaction to him, letting him feel the powerful emotion that swept through her whenever she saw him or even allowed herself to think of him.

He felt the despair she’d known on that rooftop in D.C. when she’d told him she was ruined. He saw inside her heart when they’d first kissed, and now he knew that the searing heat of passion between them wasn’t only one-sided. She’d felt it, too.

Her amusement, gratitude, and resentment pulsed from her when, time after time and often in spite of her protests, he’d healed her from minor and major injuries alike.

Finally, finally, the visions showed him the dank space underground to which Ptolemy had stolen away with her, and her terror when Anubisa arrived. His stomach roiled with fury at Anubisa’s demands, and he felt Quinn’s anger and compassion for the girl who’d also been held captive.

The hotel. Quinn’s shock when she saw the wall of photos of herself; her relief when Alaric came for her. Her love for him.

Most of all, her love for him. It shone forth like a beacon, and his shriveled heart flourished in its warmth and light.

The visions faded, and he could finally see her again. His woman had the heart of an Atlantean lion and the soul of a fierce warrior, and yet was filled with the capacity to love so fully, so deeply, and without fear of whatever new crisis the future would bring them.

A thousand warriors combined could never match her courage.

“I never told you I loved you,” he said abruptly, and Quinn’s smile started to fade.

He pulled her hands up to his lips and kissed them, one and then the other. “I knew I wanted you, and I knew I needed you, but I wasn’t sure how to love, or even if it was possible for me. You showed me how very wrong I was.”

She started to speak, but he continued, needing to get the words out with some small measure of eloquence. “Mi amara, I will tell you now and every day for the rest of my life that I love you. You are the center of my existence, and you are the heart that beats in my chest. I would kill for you, and I would die for you, and I will spend all of eternity doing my best to make you smile.”

She was crying and she was laughing, somehow both at once in the peculiar manner of females. She launched herself into his arms, knocking him backward, and then she was kissing him, and his world was right with the universe.

Or it was, at least until he started glowing.

“Quinn?”

Her shock was plain to see—she didn’t know what was happening, either—and he could see light reflected in her eyes. He looked down and realized his entire body was glowing. Worse than glowing. He was shining like a lighthouse beacon, and the reason soon became painfully clear. His mind exploded outward as power rushed in—more than he’d ever channeled. More power than he’d ever dreamed of wielding, even in his darkest dreams of magic.

“You’re shining,” Quinn said, awestruck. “You’re beautiful. Doesn’t that hurt?”

He flew up into the air in the center of the loft and spun around, shedding light and magic like a whirling fountain. He floated back down, laughing out loud, as dawn broke and touched pale fingers to the brick-and-glass face of the building across from their windows.

“The sun is rising,” Quinn said wonderingly. “We were trapped in those visions all night long. Who needs the sun, though, with you in the room? This is amazing, Alaric.”

“Keely was right. The soul-meld has actually increased my power by at least tenfold.”

She flashed him a wicked smile. “Maybe she was right about the sex, too.”

He couldn’t bear not to be touching her, so he pulled her into the air with him and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

“Now all we have to do is defeat the bad guys,” she said when she caught her breath, and he grinned at her like a fool because she was just so damn beautiful, and she was his.

Always his. Forever his.

“Mine,” he said happily, and she started laughing.

“Yes. Yours. Now let’s go save the world.”

Christophe suddenly broke through with a mental blast that had an edge of panic:

Alaric, wherever you are, I need to reach you now!

Alaric realized that the soul-meld must have blocked all else.

I am here, he sent back.

Finally. We have less time than we thought. Ptolemy must be using the tourmaline, because the Trident started going crazy again, and water is now seeping into Atlantis. You have to hurry and find that stone.

Alaric nodded and sent the good news back.

The soul-meld was successful. I will immediately strengthen my connection to Atlantis to help contain the Trident and shore up the dome’s defenses.

He focused his new torrent of energy and did exactly that, and he could hear Christophe’s whoop of joy in his mind.

You did it! Hey, did you and Quinn—

Alaric cut the connection, but he was smiling. He relayed the message to Quinn, who stood up, her eyes flashing.

“Right. Now I have to go back to Ptolemy and get him to give me that rock.”