Making love and making plans.
She actually wanted to travel to every corner of the world just because she wanted to see the sights, not because she had to hunt and kill something there.
“London at Christmas,” she said, writing it down on a tablet that was resting on Alaric’s naked back. “Also, does even your back have to be buff? It seems a bit like showing off.”
He laughed. “I don’t know how to do swordplay exercises without using my back, but I can try.”
She licked a path down his spine, distracted from the conversation and her list by his muscular perfection, and they forgot about the paper and pen for a few hours.
Another time, his housekeeper brought them dinner, and there was chocolate ice cream, and he decided to paint her body with it and discover if the contrast between the icy chocolate and his hot mouth could entice her into any further heights of pleasure.
Turns out that it could.
It took her nearly half an hour to learn how to breathe again after the ice cream.
They dressed up in formal robes he had in his closet and danced to the music wafting in from the window when the Atlantean symphony played. But dancing involved touching, and they were too new to touching to be able to dance and not explore. The robes fell away, and soon his mouth was on her breast and her hands were on his butt, and then they were dancing in a whole different style on the silk coverlets on the bed.
He told her things he’d never shared with anyone, not even Conlan, and she told him of the terrors she’d faced as a rebel. She cried when he told her about the long days in the oubliette, and he tensed and gritted his teeth when she described the time the wolf shifter had caged her for three days, saving her for a snack, before she’d finally escaped.
“It was actually the best I ate that whole year,” she said, laughing in retrospect at the experience, which had been terrifying at the time. “He kept feeding me roasted chicken to fatten me up, and I love roasted chicken. He would have been better off to eat the chicken himself and let me go. I was a lot of trouble, and I stole his wallet on the way out.”
“How old were you?”
“Maybe seventeen,” she said casually, and he winced inside at the thought of her teenage self going through such a horrible ordeal, but he tried not to let her see it.
The soul-meld didn’t let them hide from each other, though, and she smiled. “You can’t save me from my past, remember? You can only protect me in the future.”
“We can protect each other. We are a good team,” he said, and she rewarded him with a kiss, and then they didn’t say much other than
On the third day, he brought up the scariest topics of all. Marriage and children.
“You do realize I want a little girl who looks just like you,” he said, and she choked on her glass of wine.
“Do you really see me as mother material?”
He considered her question seriously. “You’ve been taking care of an entire rebel army for several years. Do you think a child would be more difficult than that?”
“Yes. I can’t shoot my daughter if she annoys me.”
He laughed, but she wasn’t entirely sure she’d been kidding.
“Why don’t we just spend more time with Aidan and see what we think?”
“Fine. For now,” he said. “Also, do you want a church or an Elvis?”
This time she fell off the bed. When he leaned over, she stared up at him, not moving. “Do you even know what that means?”
“Yes, it means we will marry in the human way, and you will buy a horrible dress that looks like a cake, and also there will be real cake to eat, and Ven will take me to a bar in which a half-dressed woman will jump out of a very large cake.”
He reached down and pulled her back on the bed. “What is this human obsession with cake?”
By the end of the third day, both of them were willing, if not exactly ready, to join the rest of the world again.
“Thank you for this,” she told him. “This wonderful respite from anything dark or unpleasant in the world. I have never enjoyed any time more in my adult life.”
“I, too, have not wanted this time to end. Perhaps we could make this a regular occurrence,” he suggested. “Not only here, but in places around the world, as we travel for pleasure, as you said, and not for fighting or missions.”
“I would love that,” she admitted. “And I love you. I only hope that real life doesn’t intrude and pull us apart.”
“Never. In any event, we have a tiger shifter to cure.”
Quinn and Alaric had dressed slowly, neither of them in a hurry to leave their refuge, but when they finally rejoined the rest of Atlantis, it was to find that only good things had been happening for the formerly lost continent, almost a reflection of their own path over the previous three days, so they could add guilt-free to the list of superlatives about their time together. Quinn headed off in search of her sister and nephew, feeling lighter than she had in many years.
A baby? Her? No.
Well, maybe.
She put her hands in her pockets and whistled as she walked, and she almost didn’t notice and certainly didn’t mind when many of those she passed smiled indulgently. A life of leisure. She could get used to it.
Maybe.
“About time he unchained you from the bed,” said a voice she’d been afraid she’d never hear again. She whirled around to find Jack, in human form, grinning at her like a big loon.
She ran at him and threw herself into his arms, and he hugged her a little too tightly, for a little too long, before he put her down, but they both pretended not to notice.
“So, are you happy?” His voice was rough and almost hoarse, as if spending so much time in tiger shape had damaged it, or maybe the hoarseness was from the emotion she could feel circling around in him.
Regret and resignation were there, true, but also the glimmerings of something that felt a little bit like peace.
“I’ve never been happier,” she was able to tell him honestly. “But what happened? How did you finally change back? I thought you’d be a tiger forever.”
“It wasn’t easy,” he said, his expression strained. “Part of me—the biggest part of me—never wanted to come back. I’ve seen too much, Quinn. Done too much, in the name of the rebellion. I think that when my body was injured so badly, my spirit decided it was time to retreat.”
“But you came back,” she said, fiercely glad it was true. “You were still a tiger when you arrived, but now —”
Jack started walking, and she matched her pace to his long strides as they roamed together through the gardens. “Now I’m human again. Mostly. I came back because the portal arrived and told us you were in danger.”
He left it at that, and she let that part of it go. She would have done the same for him. She needed to know the rest, though.
“When did you decide to shift? How? I tried so hard in Japan to help you find your way back. I’m sorry I failed.” She walked a little faster, determined not to let him see the tears forming in her eyes.
“You did help,” he said gently, touching her arm. “But this was something I needed to do on my own. I think it was the aftermath of the battle, here in Atlantis, realizing that if an eleven-thousand-year-old lost continent could find its way, then so could a relatively young tiger shifter.”
He fell quiet, and when she realized he wouldn’t say anything else about it, their talk continued to less personal subjects. They walked in the gardens, circling under and around the fantastical trees and fountains, engrossed in catching up and content with the familiar pleasure of spending time together. All the while, however, Quinn had the bittersweet feeling that the conversation was a prelude to good-bye.
“I’m ready to move on and do something else,” Jack finally said, when their talk of Atlantis and the world had
