Heart of Atlantis

casually drew Quinn back against him, wrapping his arms around her waist. She felt his breath in her hair as she stared out at the clouds, and for a moment she tried to pretend they were the kind of people who could go sightseeing together.

The kind of people who could say no. No to duty. No to honor.

It didn’t work.

She let herself lean against his powerfully muscled chest for just a few seconds longer, and then she forced herself to move away, trying to ignore the pain that pierced her chest. Even a rebel leader could fall in love, after all. It’s just that nobody could ever know.

Ever.

Not even Alaric.

“Christophe can go. Or even Serai. They both wield sufficient magic,” he said grimly. “It doesn’t always have to be me. Look what Serai did with the Emperor. She’s an expert in retrieving lost gems.”

Jack snarled at him and bared his fangs again.

“I agree with the tiger, Temple Rat,” Ven said. “It’s not like you don’t have reason to be fed up, but we need you, and it’s your duty.”

“To the nine hells with duty,” Alaric growled. He raised his arms and shouted up to the sky. “Did you hear that, Poseidon? I’m done with you.”

An explosive boom of thunder cracked through the sky, shaking the ground under their feet.

Quinn mentioned the fact she’d just been considering. “Mount Fuji is a volcano.”

“It is,” Archelaus agreed. “But it’s dormant.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say, just before the lava starts spewing,” Quinn muttered. “Let’s not make the nice sea god angry.”

Ven shoved his hands in his pockets and stared silently out at the panoramic vista, until she elbowed him.

“Hey, I’m not arguing,” Ven said. “Cataclysm? Doom of the gods? Atlantis sinking beneath the ocean? Any of that ring a bell? I never laugh in the face of potential disaster.”

Alaric’s look of disbelief was priceless. “You always laugh in the face of potential disaster.”

“Always,” Quinn agreed.

“Oh. Right.” Ven shrugged, grinning. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

“Regardless of all that, I think your answer is clear, youngling,” Archelaus said to Alaric. “You may be done with Poseidon, but he’s not done with you.”

Alaric’s stare was a nearly tangible thing, burning into Quinn with the heat of living flame—strange, that, since fire was the one element forbidden to Atlanteans. But the high priest had his own form of wild magic, she knew. One that whispered to her of silken seductions in the middle of the night, during the fractured hours of sleep when she found herself consumed by impossible dreams of a dangerous warrior.

He had always worn his duty and honor like a shield, one that matched her own shield of shame, remorse, and regret. Between the two of them lay a vast chasm of dark and bloody acts sacrificed at the altar of good intention. Not even a world-bending kind of passion could bridge that canyon, regardless of what Alaric, in his temporary insanity, might believe.

“Poseidon,” Alaric said slowly, catching Quinn’s gaze with his own, “is no longer my priority. Both he and you will come to believe me soon enough.”

The pressure—of the moment, of the day, even of the decade—built up inside her until her lungs seemed unable to push air into and out of her body. Pain—physical, emotional, even spiritual—swept through her, burning its way through determination and resolve. Quinn finally did the one thing she hadn’t done in a very long time. She ran from danger, instead of facing it. She turned and strode back into the cave, blindly seeking refuge from the man who’d just staked his claim on her future. At her side, the man who’d been so essential a part of her past stalked down the corridor on all fours, leaving his humanity further and further behind with each swish of his silken tiger’s tail.

Future and past were both too much to contemplate for Quinn’s exhausted mind, so she focused on the present. She found an empty room with beds in it, and she collapsed onto the nearest one, silently apologizing to the bed’s owner for the tears she could no longer contain.

She’d solve it after she slept. All of it.

Before exhaustion pulled her under, she thought she saw an Alaric-shaped shadow appear in her doorway, but when she tried to stir, a gentle glow of silvery blue light surrounded her and she found herself drifting further into sleep.

Jack snarled and then began to snore, a low, rumbling noise, and she thought she heard Alaric’s laughter.

“You may be sure, mi amara, that we will discuss this habit you have of allowing another man into your bed.”

Her lips almost curved into a smile, and then the world curled around her into the warmth and safety of darkness.

Chapter 4

Quinn woke up from a dream of walking through fire toward a dragon with glowing emerald eyes, and found herself alone on a bed in a room she didn’t recognize. She automatically checked her knives and guns; all were in place, so she took her first full breath since opening her eyes.

“Always the warrior first.”

She snapped her head toward the darkest corner of the room, where Alaric leaned against the wall, blending in with the shadows as if the darkness within him had become tangible while she slept.

“Interesting comment, coming from the warrior priest,” she countered. “Which comes first with you?”

“You come first with me,” he said harshly, as if he despised her for it. Or hated that she’d asked; that he’d been forced to voice taboo desires. An Atlantean priest sworn to celibacy wanted a rebel sworn to redemption. All of his gods must be laughing.

“Always you, since the moment I first lay my hands on you to heal that bullet wound. Since I fell inside your soul. Don’t you know that by now, Quinn?”

She caught her breath at the stark pain in his voice, but steeled herself against it. Warriors and rebels had no business falling prey to emotion.

“You can’t protect me from the monsters, Alaric,” she said quietly.

His laughter was dark and somehow terrifying, even to Quinn, who lived her life pretending to fear nothing.

“Protect you? I would drown the entire world for you, and laugh as every single living being on it died. I’m the monster, Quinn. Better you find a way to protect yourself from me, because I am the high priest of blood and battle, and the lord of death and destruction. I will never, ever let you go.”

Before she could begin to form a response to that, he was across the room and yanking her up off the cot and into his arms. “Never, do you hear me? I will give up my friends, my country, my duty, and even my honor—but never you.”

He swallowed her protest with his lips, as he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that devoured her, claimed her, branded her as his. She felt herself falling, melting, burning, and she had no chance to deny him or even her own feelings. The walls between them shattered and—for one glorious moment—they stood together, locked in a tempest of need and want and a far more powerful emotion.

One she didn’t dare name.

She tangled her hands in his silky hair and kissed him back with every ounce of longing she’d been suppressing for so very long, and the feel of rightness—of home—that unfurled within her was so intense that she almost didn’t hear the shouting.

Almost. But so many years of training couldn’t be denied for the illusory dream of a