than a few bites.
She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter, even though she figured that this was the kind of cold that came from the inside. The idea of death wasn't a warm and cheerful one.
Her gaze followed Quinn as she walked around the room, talking to her band of freedom fighters. Who would have believed that her fragile sister would grow up to be a rebel leader? Or that Riley herself would fall in love with the heir to the throne of a mythological land?
The entire experience was like being written into the script of an urban fantasy where the boundaries of prosaic reality blurred into fantastical images.
The thought surprised a laugh out of her, causing Conlan, who stood across the room talking to Jack, to glance over at her, one of his dark eyebrows raised. The man's awareness of her was almost viscerally intense; she felt his presence in her blood, under her skin, racing across her nerve endings.
She shivered again, but from a wholly different cause. Decided to have a little fun. Sent a very specific emotion winging over to him.
Desire.
She focused all of her concentration on the image of the two of them together, limbs twining. Her mouth on him. Her hands on him.
She watched as it hit him. Saw the sharply indrawn breath, the muscles in his jaw clench. Seconds later he was standing in front of her, crowding her back against the wall.
'Interesting talent,
She smiled up at him. 'Oh, yeah.'
She waved to catch Quinn's attention, nodded her head toward the door. 'We're going to get some rest,' she said, knowing she wasn't fooling her sister.
Probably wasn't fooling anybody. In a room full of shape-shifters, they could almost certainly smell her heightened desire. The thought made her face go red, but didn't stop her.
Quinn nodded once and looked away. She hadn't told Riley anything about Alaric. Had merely looked at her, pain beyond measure in her eyes, and said there was nothing to tell.
The memory stopped her. 'Conlan, maybe we should—'
He understood instantly; she could feel it in him. 'Yes, we can stay if you want. But does Quinn really want us to?'
She gazed at her sister again. Quinn sat nearly head to head with Jack, both of them poring over the blueprints to the Primus yet again.
Jack was yet another issue. Riley had watched his oddly feral eyes track Quinn wherever she moved. The weretiger had deep feelings for her sister, it was pretty obvious. But Riley didn't think they were lovers. And what about Alaric?
'She's a grown woman, love. You cannot solve her problems for her,' Conlan murmured in her ear.
'That doesn't mean I won't try,' she said ruefully.
'Come with me now. Let me hold you for a little while until the dawn.'
She sighed. Nodded. 'Yes. Quinn showed me a room where we can sleep. It's cramped, but—'
He took her face in his hands, searched her eyes. 'Wherever you are is as paradise come to earth for me.'
Her breath caught in her throat. In what world was it fair that she'd finally found the other half to her soul, and it was unlikely either of them would survive another day?
'But we have tonight,' she whispered. 'Let's make it enough to last forever.'
And she led him out of the room.
Barrabas snapped the neck of the Atlantean in front of him and watched the dead warrior fall to the floor. Then he threw his head back and howled his rage out to the stone walls of the chamber.
Drakos stood well back from the carnage, probably afraid that he'd be next. With the mood Barrabas was in, it was surely possible.
'How is it possible that these puny sacks of flesh can withstand my mind-control powers?' he hissed, kicking one of the bodies so hard he heard the ribs snap like kindling.
It would have been so much more satisfactory if the man had yet lived. Barrabas so enjoyed it when they screamed.
'But they did scream before they died, didn't they, Drakos?'
He walked through the gritty residue of the three vamps from his blood pride.
Point taken. Poseidon didn't approve of vampires touching his precious toy.
They'd died spectacularly, though. A waterfall of flaming death. Barrabas had to admit the sea god had style. One had to admire such creative methods of murder and annihilation.
His vampires had died screaming, too.
The Atlantean leader, Reisen, hung from one of the manacles on the wall, bloody and near death. But that one had never screamed. Not even when Barrabas hacked his hand off with a sword.
One had to admire such courage, too. Except when it obstructed his plans. Then one had to torture it mercilessly to death.
'Reisen thinks the others will come for the Trident. The prince and the priest,' he mused, carefully rubbing his boot on one of the dead bodies to remove the blood. He watched as the thing's shirt turned reddish black, then deliberately stepped on its face as he strode over it.
'They wouldn't dare confront you, my lord,' Drakos responded. He even looked outraged on Barrabas's behalf. A nice touch, that, genuine or not.
'A prince and a priest,' Barrabas repeated. 'Haven't these Atlanteans ever heard of the separation of church and state?'
He laughed and watched Reisen flinch, lifting his handless arm toward his chest. 'Maybe we'll have to introduce you to the new and improved Bill of Rights when we take over your precious Seven Isles, what do you think?'
Reisen lifted his head and glared at Barrabas. 'Conlan will obliterate you, and Alaric channels more power than you ever dreamed of, bloodsucker.' He coughed, spat out a glob of blood.
Then the Atlantean smiled, blood running down his chin. 'And I will dance on your salted grave.'
Barrabas roared out his outrage, and the lights in the chamber flickered. 'You will never live to see it, worm.'
But before he could rip the warrior's head from his body, Drakos was in front of him, back of his hand smashing into the man. Reisen's head snapped back and cracked against the wall, then he collapsed, unconscious or dead.
Drakos bowed. 'Perhaps he might prove useful later, my lord. Once he is sufficiently persuaded, he may be key to our learning more of the Trident.'
Barrabas narrowed his eyes, wishing yet again that he could scan his general's mind. 'Do you offer good strategy or defiance, Drakos? Why do you always seem to walk the razor edge between the two?'
'Would you want a weakling as your second?'
Barrabas waited several minutes before responding. Let Drakos worry. 'No. But do not take that as leave to defy me. General Drakos.'
Drakos bowed again. 'Shall I bring the last of them? The one they call Micah?'
'Oh, yes. We still have a few hours until dawn. Let us see if we can make this one sing for us.' Barrabas walked back across the bodies of the dead, enjoying the snap of bones as he crushed limbs.
'I do so love the sound of music.'
