Heart of Atlantis

way. He’d always loved egg rolls.

He knew the history here, just like he’d absorbed everybody else’s story when Poseidon turned him into a magic doorway. After a terrible curse had forced Brennan to live for thousands of years with no emotion, he’d found his one true love and broken the curse by her death.

Tiernan didn’t look any the worse for wear, luckily, even though she’d been the one who died. Big win for CPR.

“You have need,” the portal spirit told them, before taking them and their food to Atlantis.

* * *

Paris, France, in the penthouse suite of a very luxurious hotel

Lady Serai, who was smoking hot for an honest-to-goodness Atlantean princess from eleven thousand years ago, sat slumped in a fancy chair while the vampire she loved massaged her feet. Dudes seriously did not stay in any Motel 6.

“You can’t keep this up,” Daniel said, frowning. “The power drain is killing you. Do you have any update on what’s happening now?”

“Alaric just arrived, and he brought some enormous source of new power with him,” she said, her eyes wide. “It’s as if his magical abilities have quadrupled or even more. We might have a chance to save Atlantis. I need to be there, Daniel.”

“You have need,” the portal spirit agreed, and it carried them gently to Atlantis. Lady Serai was royalty, after all.

Chapter 27

Somewhere inside a demonic dimension

Quinn cautiously moved behind Ptolemy, considering him the lesser of many, many evils, as she watched his “brothers” caper and tumble around on the ancient mosaic tile. Its beauty compared to their hideousness created a sickening juxtaposition that her brain kept trying to reject. Apparently the mind shut down when reality took such a horrible left turn. Her stomach also contributed to her general misery, since it roiled at each new assault to the senses.

Ptolemy’s family wasn’t just a visual tragedy.

Oh, no.

They stank, too. They reeked with a stench like rotting sewage and sulfuric acid, which led her to wonder anew if she really had landed in her dimension’s version of hell. It certainly smelled bad enough.

She finally ventured a question, when Ptolemy and his brothers ended a conversation that had consisted of squeaks, grunts, and shrill whistling noises. “What do they want?”

“They want you,” he said, sounding amused. “They don’t have mates, either.”

“Oh, hell no,” she blurted out.

He turned to her and smiled that hideous smile full of teeth. “Possibly they only want to eat you, though. Suddenly I look better to you?”

She wanted to disagree, but in comparison to this bunch, he was at least mostly human-looking. She’d be damned if she’d be signing up for either option, though.

The din built up to a dull roar again, and Ptolemy turned to give his family his full attention. Probably safest. Quinn watched with growing interest as he drew a familiar small wooden box out of his pocket. She didn’t know what he’d done with the scepter.

“I have retrieved the crown jewel of Atlantis!” He withdrew the tourmaline, placed the box on a ledge, and flourished the gem about. The chattering and squeaks rose to a nearly unbearable level, and then a hush fell on the room as Ptolemy prepared to do . . . nothing.

He waved Poseidon’s Pride about in a high arc over his head, and absolutely nothing at all happened.

“Maybe it doesn’t work here?” Quinn held out her hand. “Want me to take a look?”

“It’s not a faulty handgun, you moron,” Ptolemy snarled at her. “What possible use would you, a mere non- magical human, be?”

She held up her hands, palms out, in surrender. She didn’t have any desire to be his next victim. “Hey, I was just offering to help. Shutting up now.”

One of the bolder brothers—cousins? uncles? Quinn had no idea and didn’t really want to think about it— started to lurch closer, chittering loudly, until Ptolemy leapt forward and smashed it in the face with one clawed hand. Sensing weakness, the others swarmed the fallen one and tore it to shreds before moving back and giving Ptolemy and Quinn a little space.

She’d been in enough battles to realize that the temporary retreat wouldn’t last. This was pretty clearly an “eat what you kill” kind of society, cousin or not, and she was starting to worry that she would be the one who got eaten. Or worse. Her mind stuttered away from the alternatives.

“It must be useless in my dimension,” Ptolemy finally said, and Quinn rolled her eyes.

“Gee, I wish I’d thought of that.” She sniped, and Ptolemy casually backhanded her so hard she flew backward and cracked her head against the wall before falling in a heap to the floor.

Maybe there really was a time to quit being a smart-ass, and captive in a demonic dimension was a good place to start. Her skull rang with pretty little bells for a few long minutes, as she blinked and tried to focus. She was fairly sure he’d torn open her lip, too, but she didn’t care enough to take her hands away from her poor, aching head, until she noticed one of the smaller atrocities staring at her like she was catnip and he was a very hungry kitten. Then she started to worry. More.

“Wipe your face,” Ptolemy said, throwing a piece of cloth at her. She looked at it and realized he’d torn it from his shirt.

“Human blood is a delicacy to them,” he said nonchalantly, but she noticed his gaze was fixed a little bit too intently on her chin.

“Only to them?” She wiped the blood away and then rolled up the cloth and threw it as far as she could from where she still sat on the floor. Several of the creatures hurled themselves into a biting, snapping frenzy over the cloth, which she didn’t find reassuring in the least.

“If I can’t get this to work, we might have to run for it,” Ptolemy said, continuing the hit parade of not reassuring. He shoved the gem into his jacket pocket and scowled as he scanned the room.

“Can’t you just call your portal and get us out of here?”

“Not without taking some of them with me. Do you think your world is ready for them?”

She looked around at the mass of monsters inching bit by bit closer, many of them actively drooling long, glistening ropes of slime as they watched her with, generally, more than two eyes each.

“No, my world is definitely not ready for them,” she agreed. She put a hand on her knife hilt and prepared to kill as many of them as she could before they killed her.

She just hoped Alaric found a way to be happy, one day. The thought of Alaric reminded her of the shell he’d given her and bolstered her courage, in spite of the pain still ringing in her skull, and she climbed to her feet, the better to fight off the atrocities.

“I’m not asking this to be a smart-ass, but why did we come here again?”

“I wanted you to see why I must escape this place, so you would better understand me when we are mated,” he said sadly. “Instead, I have caused you to become even more horrified by me.”

For one brief moment, she almost felt sorry for him. She thought she’d had sibling rivalry problems, when she and Riley hit puberty together, and there were two emotional empaths in the same house. At least neither of them had tried to kill and eat the other one’s boyfriend.

Of course, neither she nor her sister was a murderous kidnapper who wanted to take over somebody else’s world, either.

She squared her shoulders and tried to put a tiny bit of empathy in her voice as she forced herself to lean