Atlantis Rising (16 page)

Sobering, he sent his reply back to her:
On my way. Try not to chew through the wall, okay?

He felt a slight trace of her amusement sparkle through him in colors of warm honey and gold. Then that peculiar slamming sensation in his head, which cut off any trace of her.

Oh, yeah. She was pissed. This ought to be fun.

Not
.

 
Reisen looked up from his contemplation of the object in his hands, eyes still dazzled, when the thud of heavy-soled boots thundered down the hall toward him. Micah strode into the room, followed closely by several more warriors.

“My lord,” Micah said, breathing harshly. “While patrolling, we discovered a nest of shape-shifters based in a tattoo parlor in Virginia Beach.”

Reisen laughed. “That seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Do you think the tattoos come back after they take animal form and then return to human?”

Micah folded his arms over his chest, staring at Reisen with his usual implacable expression. “My lord?”

Shaking off both the whimsy and the near-trancelike state he’d gone into while staring at the hen’s-egg-sized emerald in his hands for the past hour, Reisen stood up. “And? What did you do about it?”

Micah shrugged. “We returned here to tell you about it. I wasn’t sure if our quest allowed time for battling a bunch of furballs. Especially after the Council’s decree that we only destroy shape-shifters proven of wrongdoing.”

Reisen carefully replaced the emerald in its silk pouch and gently tucked the pouch back inside its small wooden box. The leaders of the East Coast cell of the Platoists had been only too anxious to give him the emerald, when they’d learned the truth of their organization’s central tenet.

Moreover, Reisen was an Atlantean prince. They’d treated him like a god. He hadn’t exactly hated it.

He’d thought the human was going to piss in his pants. Luckily for all concerned, the man had managed to contain his excitement long enough to retrieve the emerald and gift it to Reisen.

Who now had to figure out how to use it. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. But some things were easy. “We all swore a sacred vow to protect humanity. It gains us nothing to restore Atlantis to its rightful place in the world, if that world is overrun with bloodsuckers and shape-shifters. In this, as in so much else, the Council is wrong.”

Micah nodded, smiling. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, with his hands on the handle of his battle-axe. “All this tension has me in the mood to kick some shape-shifter ass.”

The warriors ringing Micah nodded and growled their agreement. Reisen carefully packed the small wooden box and the fabric-wrapped bundle of the Trident into a leather carrying bag. One of the warriors stepped forward. “May I carry that for you, my lord?”

“Thank you, but this is one burden that I’m honored to carry myself.” With that, Reisen led them to the main room of the house to do some planning. He still had more than a day before the scheduled meeting with the Platoists.

Plenty of time to kick some shape-shifter ass.

Riley was still grumbling under her breath a good ten minutes after Conlan had shown up and unlocked the door to her room. She’d read him the riot act. Just when she’d started to trust him and believe in all his crazy Atlantean royalty stuff, he’d pulled a prison warden act on her.

But after he’d sketched out the bare-bones truth about the vampire threat, some crook named Reisen who’d stolen a precious artifact, and apologized five or six times, she’d calmed down.

It was insane, but she knew she could trust him. Amazing how being able to feel a man’s emotions cut through the doubt. This was mainly about protecting
her
.

She’d switched to subverbal grumbling after tasting the coffee he’d brought as a peace offering. It was hot, sweet, and delicious.

Words that could also describe Conlan. She peeked up at him through her lashes. How unfair was it that the man looked even better in the morning? All that muscle hadn’t diminished one bit in the light of day. Worse, she noticed new things about him. Like the faint blue highlight to his black hair. It didn’t look like a salon job, so it must be an Atlantis thing.

She tightened her hands on her coffee cup, mostly to keep from reaching out to touch his hair.

It was a compulsion. A craving. It felt the way her addict clients had described the need for their drug of choice.

Conlan paced back and forth in the room, mostly ignoring her. Or at least not looking at her. Considering the tension in his massive shoulders, she’d bet big money that he wasn’t unaware of her.

She was clean, at least. The small bathroom attached to her room—her prison cell—was well stocked with an assortment of soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. Brand-new toothbrushes wrapped in plastic lay in rows in a drawer under the sink.

The thought of it pissed her off all over again. “So, bring a lot of women here, do you?”

He stopped pacing and whirled around to face her. “What? What are you talking about? I haven’t been to this house in more than a decade. It belongs to my brother.”

She nodded. “It figures. Like brother, like brother, right? You’re just a couple of good old boys who kidnap women and drag them to your evil lair.”

“Are you on some sort of medication? Or are all human females as completely illogical as you are?” He looked genuinely puzzled, which almost made her smile.

“So you spend a lot of time protecting humanity, just not much time having conversations with it. Us. Am I getting the gist of this?” She drained her coffee cup, placed it on the small table next to the wall, and nodded at the door. “Also, are you going to let me out of here anytime soon? Not that being abducted hasn’t been great fun, but I have a date with Detective Ramirez.”

She flinched at the sound of the low rumbling growl that started in his chest and worked his way up out of his throat. “You’re not going anywhere, Riley,” he said. “And if you like this Ramirez at all, you’ll forget about going on any dates with him. I seem to be somewhat unstable even hearing of the idea.”

The look on his face was possessive and predatory all at once. He suddenly resembled a feral jungle animal defending its territory.

She
so
hadn’t had enough coffee for that. “Are you going to start peeing on the walls next, to mark your territory?” she asked, all sweetness and light. “Because we had a tomcat who did that when I was a kid.”

She smiled up at him. “My dad had him neutered.”

One moment, he was standing across the room from her, and the next he was right up against her body, crowding her backward until her butt hit the dresser. “I’ve already faced one female who wanted to neuter me,” he whispered in her ear. “Trust me on this. If I could survive
her
, my balls are infinitely safe with you.”

She bit her lip, flustered. The scent of him, oddly like sunlight on seawater, clean and bracing, filled the bare inch or two of space between them. She had the oddest urge to bury her nose in his neck and simply stand there, inhaling him.

She raised her hands to his chest, instead, blocking him. “I didn’t—I mean—your balls are safe—oh, heck. All I meant was that I have to go to the police station and make a statement. Detective Ramirez is the lead on the case.”

Conlan’s shoulders relaxed, and the aggression he’d been radiating went down a notch. Cautiously, Riley lifted the mental shields she’d placed around her emotions earlier. She and Quinn had practiced for hours as kids, at first building pretend brick walls and then, as they grew older and more sophisticated, pretend titanium doors in their minds.

“What is kryptonite?” Conlan asked, fingers twining around a strand of her hair.

“What? How did you . . . oh, right. I opened the door,” Riley said, at first startled and then resigned. “Well, since it’s already open, let’s go for broke.”

With that, she lifted her hands to his face, braced herself, and for the first time in her life sent her emotions, her thoughts, and her curiosity winging inside of another person.

And was nearly brought to her knees.

Shift:
A boy, it had to be Ven, and another, the scary healer guy, maybe? She wasn’t sure, since the boy with the green eyes so like Alaric’s was smiling.

Shift:
Rows of men, all huge, muscled, gorgeous, naked to the waist, sparring with swords and daggers in some kind of arena.

Shift:
Fires. Knives. Teeth, no, fangs. Pain. Searing, agonizing, ripping pain. She was dying—no, he, he, it was Conlan, they were torturing him, they were killing him . . .

“No!” she screamed, her hands falling away from his face as she fell backward into the strength of his arms. “No, no, no, no, no.”

As he lifted her gently, held her in his arms, all she could do was sob.

 
Conlan stared down at the woman crying in his arms and felt the walls he’d built around his heart start to crumble. He literally heard the crashing sounds of the bricks and mortar, and all he could think of was how badly he needed to get away from her.

As he started to release her, she clutched at his arms and looked up at him through pain-drenched eyes. “
Damn
them for what they did to you. I hope you track them down and rip their bloody guts out. I’m so sorry, Conlan. I should—I should never have intruded on your privacy.”

She slowly reached up to touch the scar at his throat. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, whispering. Then her eyes narrowed and she met his gaze again, her expression ferocious. “I hope I get a chance to run into any of the ones who hurt you. They won’t hurt anybody else, ever again.”

He blinked, unable to remember when words had touched him the way hers did. She wanted to
protect
him. She wanted to
avenge
him.

The cracking sound of those walls he’d built up inside himself turned into an avalanche.

He tightened his arms around her again, burying his face in her hair. “Never apologize to me for your grace and your light,
mi amara aknasha.
”

She pulled away a little and looked up at him through the tears running down her face. “What does that mean?”

He shook his head, the lump lodged in his throat rendering him unable to form the words in English. She’d
really
think he was insane if he let her know he’d called her his beloved empath.

Speaking of insane, he probably had about ten seconds before Ven came pounding on the door. He sucked in a huge breath and pressed a kiss to her forehead, then dropped his arms and stepped back. “Riley, I know this must feel like you got dropped into the middle of one of those horror movies Ven loves so much, but you have to trust me—”

Riley flashed a brilliant smile at him, wiping the tears off her face. “Trust you? Are you kidding? After what I just saw, I’d trust you with my life.”

Relief washed over him, loosening the clenched muscles in his neck and shoulders. “Good,” he said, trying to smile. “Because you may have to.”

Riley followed Conlan down a long hallway lined with classic horror movie posters. She stopped, laughing, in front of the toothy tomato decorating the
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
poster and then turned her gaze to
The Blob
.

“Steve McQueen,” she mused, tracing the edge of the frame with one finger. “I
loved
this movie.”

Conlan held his hand out to her and grinned. “You and my brother are going to get along just fine.”

As they rounded the corner into some kind of large games room, she jerked to a stop at the sight of the crowd of enormous men who sat, stood, leaned, and basically filled up every ounce of space. Well, the men and the cartons, boxes, and trays of food that covered every spare inch of surface. The room looked like an invading army had stopped by for breakfast.

God, they were huge. No wonder they needed to eat all that food. It probably took a zillion calories a day to feed each one of them. She closed her eyes for a moment, reaching inward to be sure her titanium-door emotional shields were firmly in place. She didn’t want a repeat of the night before.

Almost to a man, they all shot up to attention and stared at her, most of them grasping the handles of the daggers they wore.

Would you like some coffee with your instruments of death?
She covered her mouth to try to stop it, but she had an insane urge to laugh. Stress giggles, Quinn called it. Except Quinn rarely got them.

Riley always did.

She tightened her hold on Conlan’s hand and lifted her chin to face them, the flash of hysteria draining away at the sight of the deadly intent on their faces.

“This is Riley Elisabeth Dawson,” Conlan said. “She is
aknasha
, and she is welcome among us. Please accord her all courtesy.

“Riley, let me introduce my warriors. These are the Seven, my most trusted comrades. You know Ven, of course,” Conlan said, gesturing to his brother.

“Ah, yes, the classic movie buff,” she said, smiling. “Steve McQueen
rocks
.”

Ven grinned at her from across the room, holding up a half-eaten bagel in salute. “You are clearly a superior judge of films, Lady Sunshine.”