Atlantis Rising

face.

'I'll tell you what happened, my prince,' Alaric continued, rasping out the words. 'What happened was I sent my healing energy inside Quinn. Inside that human. And she grabbed hold of me.'

He shoved a hand through his hair and laughed a little wildly, eyes flaring green and hot.

Savage.

'She dug her mental claws into my balls, is what happened. I healed her, and she destroyed something in me. Shredded it.'

'What—' Conlan never got the question out.

'My control,' Alaric snarled. 'The absolutely rock-hard control that I've spent centuries perfecting. Your little girlfriend's sister reached out with her emotions, or her witchy empath nature, or what the hell ever, and all I wanted to do was fuck her.'

Conlan moved back half a step at the ferocity in the priest's voice and dropped his hands to his dagger handles. For an instant, icy death menaced in the air between them.

Alaric laughed, bitter again. 'Oh, you don't need your blades. In spite of the fact that I wanted her more than I've wanted anything in my life, I won't touch her. Although, even now, my mind tortures me with images of pounding into her body, right there on the ground in the mess of her own blood, fucking and fucking her until I drive myself into her soul.' Alaric viciously kicked at a tree and shards of bark flew into the air, then disintegrated in the green energy bolts he shot at them.

This was new and dangerous territory, and Conlan attempted to proceed with caution. 'Alaric, you must —'

'Yes. I must. I must never succumb to any lusts, or my power is ended. Certainly, I would be of no further use to you or to Atlantis. No use to the jealous bastard of a sea god whom I serve,' the priest said flatly, his voice suddenly devoid of the rage and passion that had infused it moments before.

'I must get away from her,' he continued. 'Now. From this place. I am ruined for this day, in any event. This… this energy drain has voided any hope I had of re-scrying for the Trident until I recover. I will meet you back at Ven's safe house tonight.'

Conlan grasped his friend's shoulders, shaken by the blasphemy he'd never heard from him before. 'Alaric, know that your use to me and to Atlantis goes far beyond the powers you gained from Poseidon. Your wise counsel has served me well for centuries, and I will need you when I ascend to the throne.'

Alaric stared over Conlan's shoulder toward Riley and her sister. 'These empaths. They signal a treacherous difference in our ways, Conlan. I can sense it. Change is coming. Peril that comes from within our very souls.'

With that, he took two running steps and leapt into the air, transforming into sparkling mist that quickly vanished.

Conlan watched the air into which Alaric had disappeared for a long moment, considering his parting words.

But Alaric had been wrong. Change wasn't coming.

It's already here.

Chapter 20

Twenty minutes later, Conlan stood with Ven, grimly contemplating the pile of bodies they and the rest of the Seven had pulled behind the deadfall of trees. Centuries of serving as a warrior had yet to inure him to the foul stink of death, and his stomach growled an urge to reject its contents. He scrubbed at his hands with leaves, then realized the futility of the effort and called water from the surrounding leaves and a tiny stream some hundred yards away to cleanse his hands.

The mist became fluid in the cupped bowl of his hands and he washed the blood from hands and forearms, wondering how Reisen and his remaining warriors had escaped undetected after surviving this carnage. They must have been spattered with gore.

Except, of course, when they traveled as mist. Which may have explained why Riley no longer detected them. He'd have to test his theory with her sometime. Sometime when a dozen dead men weren't lying at his feet.

Almost involuntarily, his mind reached out to hers, but she'd slammed those damned shields of hers down so tightly he wouldn't know she was there if he hadn't just left her. It was better that way, though. There was only so much that she could be expected to endure.

Justice and Bastien were roaming through the woods on either side of them, searching for any sign of Reisen and his remaining warriors, while Christophe and the others stood guard.

Emotionless Brennan stood with Riley and her sister.

Riley had told him they were wasting their time. 'They're gone. Or they've magically learned how to mask their emotions in the past half an hour. Because I can't feel a thing.'

Conlan was unsure of how far he could rely on her ability to sense the Mycenaean warriors, given the extent of the terror she'd just experienced. But her senses, however compromised, were all he had.

Alaric was gone.

'We've got to get rid of the bodies. We can't leave this mess for the human authorities,' Ven growled, wiping sweat off his forehead with his arm. 'It's a nightmare.'

Conlan nodded. They'd tallied seven dead shape-shifters and five Atlanteans. The evidence of the battle needed to be destroyed. 'We're not exactly going to dig a big hole,' he replied. 'There is one way, but it will take both of us to do it to so many.'

Ven shot a look at him. 'You're not thinking—'

'What else could I be thinking? We must employ the final solution.'

Ven whistled. 'Mortus desicana. I didn't even know you knew how to channel that kind of power. Have you ever—'

Conlan cut him off. 'No. Not that I wouldn't have tried it on Anubisa, if I'd had a fraction of a chance. But this is different. These men are already dead. The penance would not be tasked against us.'

'Are you sure about that? What does the temple rat say?'

Conlan hesitated, unsure of how much to divulge. Alaric would hate to be exposed in any weakness.

In any event, there was no time. 'He's gone. The healing—he returned to the safe house.'

'What? He went all girly after healing a simple bullet wound? I'm going to give him so much grief—'

Conlan heard rustling in the trees approximately fifty yards away and concentrated. It was Justice. But the sound underscored their need for haste. 'Ven. Focus. Will you help me channel the mortus desicana to destroy these bodies, or do I do it myself?'

. 'I'll help you. Poseidon help us both if you're wrong about the penance. Twelve bodies… we might not survive it.'

Looking around quickly to make sure that Brennan still kept Riley away from the bloody pile of the slain, Conlan took a deep breath and held his hands up, sending his call into the wind.

If she saw this, she'd think he was the same kind of monster who'd created this bloody nightmare.

Beside him, Ven did the same, and they both began to chant.

'Poseidon, Father of Water,

'Lord of elements, avatar of justice for all Atlanteans,

'Hear our plea, feel our need,

'Lend us your power for the mortus desicana,

'Hear our plea, feel our need.'

For a moment, nothing. Despair surged through Conlan. Had Poseidon truly abandoned him as unworthy after what Anubisa had done to him?

Damaged goods. Damaged goods. Damaged—

Then a surge of electric power stormed into his body. From the air, from the water in the ground, from the wind itself. Up through his feet, through his skin, down into his skull from the cloudless sky. The power of the elements ripped through his flesh, screamed through nerve endings, tore at his control.