name for her yet?'
Dina smiled a little. 'I'm going to call her Paris. Like that city in France? With the tower? It's so beautiful. We learned about it in school. I'm gonna take her there someday. Paris Marguerite, after Grandmama.'
'That's a beautiful name, Dina. Paris Marguerite. Now please give me the gun. You don't want Paris Marguerite to grow up without her mommy, do you?' Riley slowly straightened up off the floor, ignoring the screaming muscles in her thighs. She stretched her hand out, palm upward.
'Please give me the gun. I'll help you. We'll figure this out together. Please give me the gun, so Paris Marguerite grows up with her mommy to take care of her.' She held her breath as Dina wavered, looking back and forth from Riley to Morris.
A man's life balanced on the wavering edge of a teenager's indecision. Nope. That hadn't been in the damn manual, either.
Dina took a huge, shuddering breath, and her shoulders slumped a little. She yanked the gun out of Morris's mouth and held it out toward Riley. Riley felt the breath she'd been holding for the past half hour seep out of her lungs.
Morris's eyes snapped open. He burst up off the bed, blood running down his face from his mouth, and slammed a fist into Dina's jaw. 'You hit me over the head, bitch? You pull a gun on me? I'll show
As Dina fell to the ground from the force of the blow, Morris aimed a kick at her belly. Riley launched herself out of the corner and toward them, screaming, 'No, no! Morris, no! Don't hurt her! Don't hurt your baby!'
The room kaleidoscoped into a fractured image of movement and cacophony of sound. Almost in slow motion, Riley saw the kick land with full force against the side of Dina's huge belly. She heard Dina screaming, Morris screaming, someone else screaming—was that
She jumped him, not caring that he had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds. 'No, no,
Morris yanked a handful of her hair viciously, snapping her head back. 'Nobody tells me what to do. Especially not some worthless social worker.'
He raised his fist.
She yanked her head to the left, just as his huge fist slammed into the side of her face.
Fist coming again. 'No, please…'
But he ignored her, face twisted with rage beyond hearing, beyond reason. His fist exploded again, except it wasn't his fist.
It wasn't her face.
As Riley fought the blackness, the hand in her hair loosened. Morris's face changed in a caricature of slow motion from a grimace of violent hate to one of surprise. They both looked at the scarlet stain blossoming, blooming, spreading over his shirt. Even as Riley touched a questing finger to the dark stickiness that splattered her face, the room went black.
Conlan opened the portal, focusing on the East Coast of the United States. Virginia, to be precise. Ven had been 'collecting intel,' according to Alaric.
Translation: beating information out of scumbags for miles in every direction. His brother always had favored the direct approach.
Now Ven was calling the rest of the Seven to him to accompany Conlan to the surface. Except Conlan was in no mood to wait. Not even for his brother. Maybe especially not for his brother. If he saw even a glimmer of pity in Ven's eyes, he'd—
Seven years of disuse, and the magic was rusty. Or the portal, temperamental on a good day, was playing with him, Conlan discovered, as he stepped through into water.
Lots of water.
Luckily he'd instinctively heaved in a deep breath before plunging through the shimmering opening. There was another lesson learned the hard way: the portal had its own power, independent of the Atlanteans who had first harnessed it more than eleven thousand years ago.
They ought to hang a 'User Beware' sign on the capricious thing. He kicked off and headed for the surface, judging he was about ten meters deep from the looks of the shallow-water flora and fauna that shimmered in the diluted moonlight.
But distances could be tricky in the sea.
And then, there was the problem of where the hell the shore might be. He wouldn't be the first to end up treading water in the middle of the ocean.
The portal's idea of a practical joke. If portals had emotion, this one was packing a vindictive sense of humor.
As he broke the surface and sucked in a lungful of air, an almost-tangible force smashed into him. Agony sliced through his head, then shut off as if by a switch. A bitter taste seared his mouth; a sourness like lemon soaked in brine. •
Another wave of pain crashed through him, knocking him off balance. He nearly sank below the waves again, barely noticing the sands of the shores nearby.
He shook his head from side to side, trying to escape the fire inside of his head. He barked out a laugh. He'd had a lot of practice with pain, just lately.
Crazed thoughts swirled in his bruised brain.
He almost laughed again, but snorted water up his nose instead. Choking and coughing, he finally forced his limbs to cooperate and headed for the shore, eventually realizing he could touch bottom and walk.
His training kicked in, keeping him upright and coherent.
A third wave of pain seared through him, driving him to his knees, face caught under the breaking waves. He fought his way back to standing, plunged forward toward the shore.
His boots hit dry sand, and he collapsed, stumbling onto his knees. He sent a mind call out to Ven.
Needed help.
But it wasn't Ven's familiar patterns that answered his call. Instead, a tiny pinprick of awareness deep in his mind sparked, sputtered like a candle in a back draft, and then focused.
An image of beauty sheared by pain. A woman with sun-colored hair.
Something slammed shut in his mind, and the woman and the pain vanished. Almost as if a mental door had closed.
And Conlan wasn't the one who'd shut it.
Chapter 3
Riley blinked at the EMT who was peering into her eyes while his fingers measured out her pulse. She looked
