Heart of Atlantis

forward and hug him. “I actually do kind of understand, and I’m sorry for what you’ve endured, but kidnapping me and forcing me to have your kids, plus conquering my world, isn’t the way to my heart.”

He looked surprised, and then he laughed. “I don’t care about your heart. It’s another organ entirely that I need.”

Leering, he patted her stomach, and any shred of sympathy she’d had for his plight vanished in the wave of revulsion that punched her in the gut as hard as he’d punched her in the face.

“For now, though, you have to go,” he said as, at some unknown signal, his family started to swarm the spot where they stood. “I’ll hold them off and then make it back to you later. You’ll be safe enough.”

He picked Quinn up and threw her at the wall as hard as he could, over the gaping, shark-toothed maws and grasping, claw-handed reach of the atrocities who were leaping for her. She braced for impact and wondered if she could survive a shattered skull, but the wall dissolved into the garish orange light of his portal, and she fell through it. The last thing she saw of his dimension was one of his relatives stabbing its swordlike appendage into Ptolemy’s back so hard that the tip of it came out the front of his chest, exactly where his heart would have been if he’d been human.

Ptolemy opened his mouth to scream, and a blackish-green oily liquid gushed out. Surely that had killed him. Surely. In spite of the nausea-making vortex, she smiled fiercely—both with triumph and because she had a wonderful secret. Those creatures were trapped on their side of the vortex; none of them seemed to be smart enough to figure out the portal.

And, even better, Quinn’s past had come to her rescue. One of her mentors in her early days of rebel training had been a champion pickpocket. Quinn had forced herself to embrace Ptolemy for a very, very good reason. She put her hand inside the front waistband of her borrowed pants and double-checked that the leather pouch she’d borrowed from Lauren’s things was still secure.

And that Poseidon’s Pride was secure inside it.

She’d known she was quite likely to die from daring to touch the gem, but she’d had to try, and apparently Alaric’s magic, which he’d shared with her, was powerful enough to protect her. Or else it was gearing up to incinerate her, but she was frankly too tired to care which, especially if this never-ending trip through the demon portal didn’t end soon.

As if on command, it dumped her—out of the portal and into the frying pan, so to speak—and she landed in the same hotel room where Ptolemy had held her hostage before. The windows Alaric had blown out were in the process of being replaced, and seven thugs pointed seven guns at her.

She raised her hands in surrender and sank slowly into a velvet chair. “Hey, as long as I’m here, can we order room service again? I’m kind of hungry.”

“You don’t get food, bitch,” one of the uglier ones said. These were all humans, though, so ugly was relative compared to what she’d seen back in Ptolemy’s homeworld.

Ha. Ugly was relative compared to his relatives. She’d made another funny. Either that or relief was making her giddy. She laughed out loud.

Big, bad, and comparatively ugly raised his hand, as if to hit her, and suddenly the other six guns were trained on him.

“Ptolemy said not to touch her. Not to lay a single finger on her in any way, or he disembowels all of us,” a very serious-looking man dressed in all black said firmly. “I like my intestines where they are.”

“She laughed at me,” the first one complained, and the man in black shot him in the head.

Quinn quit laughing, fast.

Brain spatters on your clothes tended to do that to a person.

She lost the battle, after all. She leaned over and threw up all over one of the thugs’ shoes. Then she sat there, huddled into a ball in the chair, with her eyes shut tightly as she tried to contact Alaric. She could still feel him through the soul-meld link, and even more strongly than when she’d been in the same room with him, which made her wonder if her own terror or the presence of the tourmaline was causing that.

She didn’t care which it was, ultimately, so long as it worked.

After a little while, she decided to conserve her energy for another try later. She opened her eyes and looked for the man in black. The brain shooter.

“I need to go to the bathroom, please,” she said politely.

He nodded, and she walked straight to the bathroom, closed the door, and cleaned up the best she could. She washed the blood and brains off her face and hands and clothes and realized that very few people could say that about themselves, that they’d washed brains off their clothes.

Then she realized that her racing thoughts, breathing, and heart rate meant that she was slipping into a state of shock, which made sense, given the events of the past several days. She had to sit down on the edge of the tub, put her head between her knees, and take deep breaths.

A knock sounded at the door, and it opened before she could answer.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” It was the man in black again. He must be in charge.

She raised her head and considered him for a moment. “Would you be?”

Something shifted in his icy blue gaze, but he simply nodded. “Fair enough.”

He retreated and closed the door, and she sat alone in the bathroom, on the cold edge of the tub, for a very long time. When she thought she had the strength to try to call Alaric again, she powered up and fired out the loudest mental blast she could manage.

Alaric, I need you right now.

This time, he answered.

I’m on my way.

Quinn smiled again, doing little more than baring her teeth. The guy with his brains on the floor might be the lucky one of the bunch.

Chapter 28

Atlantis

Alaric walked out of the temple to a scene of mass confusion. Dozens of people seemed to be milling about; a few were laughing and talking, but mostly they conversed in quiet and serious tones. On closer inspection, he realized they weren’t random people. They were the Warriors of Poseidon, and they were all back in Atlantis.

The Seven were together again, for the first time in far too long. Even Denal, who seemed to have aged years in the months he’d been in the Fae lands. Unfortunately, that was a risk that anyone who entered the Summerlands had to expect. He was hugging Riley, who was laughing and crying at the same time.

Apparently a family trait.

Alaric’s mouth suddenly fell open, and he had to clamp it shut. A family trait. One she shared with her sister. Now that he and Quinn had reached the soul-meld, did that make him brother-in-law to the high prince and princess? He shook his head at the irrelevance of the question, given the current situation, but he couldn’t help but flinch at the idea. Riley was the type to expect regular family dinners, no doubt.

Given the circumstances, if they even survived long enough to have family dinners, Alaric resolved to appreciate them.

“Alaric,” Daniel called out from where he was talking to Bastien and his mate, Kat Fiero, and Alaric nearly did a double-take at the sight. He scanned the area and, sure enough, there was Ethan, another panther, sweeping Bastien’s sister Marie into a passionate embrace.

“There are shape-shifters in Atlantis,” Alaric said wonderingly, and Conlan, who’d suddenly appeared from the gods only knew where, clapped him on the back.

“Who would have thought we’d see the day?” the prince said. “I’m glad the old taboos have fallen, but I could have wished they’d picked a better day to visit.”

“They’re visiting?”

“No, it was a poor attempt at a jest,” Conlan said grimly. “The portal abducted them all and brought them here. Everybody’s story is the same. They suddenly heard ‘you have need,’ saw a flash of light, and the portal whisked them here. Everybody except Denal showed up with the person or persons who’d been with them. Even