Atlantis Unmasked (41 page)

He kissed her again and then, together, they stepped through the portal and into Atlantis. As they passed through the magical doorway, she was certain that she heard her brother's voice, and she stumbled from the shock of it.

“Well done, baby sister.
Now
you live. For me, for yourself, and for your baby. Well done.”

If there were tears in her eyes when she first stepped foot on Atlantis, she thought it was only fitting. Now. Now she would live, with love, light, and laughter.

Alexios smiled down at her, and together they and their unborn daughter took the first step into their future.

Turn the page for
a special preview of the next book
in the Warriors of Poseidon series

 

 

By Alyssa Day

 

Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

Rome, 202 B.C.

Brennan fell against the stone wall of the tavern, laughing uproariously. “Another round for the house!” He fumbled in his pouch for a fistful of gold coins and tossed them on the serving wench's tray. Her dark eyes widened until he could see white all the way around her irises.

“But this is far too much,” she protested, her gaze darting furtively toward the fat innkeeper. “He will cheat you, you know,” she whispered.

He took the tray out of her hands and dropped it on a table, uncaring that the mugs and coins flew in all directions, then pulled her close in a drunken embrace. The generosity of ample breasts, overflowing the bodice of her gown, distracted him from his pursuit of ale for a moment. Her right nipple was barely covered by dingy lace, and he experimented with tightening his embrace to see if it would pop out entirely.

Sadly, his brilliant ploy didn't work. He inhaled a deep breath of the roasted meat and ale scent of the tavern and immediately wished he hadn't, as his head started spinning.

“So, my lovely one, is there some place more private we might go and I can give you a chance to earn even more of that gold?” He grabbed a fistful of her lovely round arse and squeezed, grinning.

But her face wore an expression of utter confusion. “I'm sorry, I don't know any foreign language,” she said, almost cringing as if he would beat her for her failure. She sidled away from him and scrambled for the scattered coins, slapping the hands of greedy bar patrons trying to help themselves to either coins or free mugs of ale.

Brennan blinked, befuddled, but then he realized he must have been speaking in Atlantean, which he had a tendency to fall back on in times of stress or extreme drunkenness.

He spoke Atlantean a lot these days.

He felt the rumble coming up from his belly and managed to considerately turn his head to avoid belching in her face. “An—Another place? Private?” he managed, this time in her native tongue instead of his.

“Oh!” Her face cleared as she understood instantly. He probably was not the first, or even the tenth, of her customers to seek out a dark and private place with the buxom wench during the past several days. The thought momentarily sent a shudder of distaste through him, but as he released her and downed the bottom half of his mug of ale any misgivings vanished in a sea of effervescent intoxication.

Catching his hand, she dragged him through the cheering crowd of revelers, all raising a toast to their benefactor. He bowed sloppily, nearly tripping over the unfamiliar sandals, but the determined woman, almost certainly more enchanted with the contents of his pouch than with him, righted him with a steadying arm and herded him toward a doorway in the back of the tavern.

“Give her a good one, Brennan,” one of his most regular drinking buddies, a Centurion called Sergius, called. “She likes it if you squeeze her tits while you tup her.”

Brennan stumbled again, a disquieting sense of wrongness pervading his sodden mind. Why was he here? He was one of Poseidon's finest, finally called to service in the sea god's chosen elite, and he was rotting out his brains and his gut with second-rate women and third-rate ale.

The wench shoved the wooden door shut behind him and grabbed his cock through the heavy folds of his toga, and his doubts disappeared in a spike of lust.

“Now let's be seeing what coin you have for a poor innocent girl,” she cooed, leering at him with pursed lips and with narrowed eyes that had not seen innocent in years. Then she squeezed his cock again, harder.

He roared out a great whooping noise and grasped her melon-sized tits with both hands. “Now that's the idea,” he said. “Why don't you lift that skirt and let me see what you've got under there?”

As he bent his head to hers, the wench's eyes widened again and then went blank, almost fish-eyed, as they glazed over and then closed. Her head fell back and her plump body went limp, oversetting his already precarious balance so they both went crashing to the filthy floor. Some remnant of courtesy stirred Brennan to flip them as they went down so he landed on the bottom of the heap, cushioning her unconscious body from the fall.

“Well. I never had exactly
that
effect on a woman before,” he muttered, staring around himself in befuddle ment.

“AND SO YOU STILL HAVE NOT,” a voice thundered through the room. Brennan's free hand automatically went to his dagger, but he found only an empty sheath.

“YOU THINK TO DRAW YOUR WEAPON AGAINST ME?” The voice continued, and now it sounded somewhat annoyed. Brennan's head tried to clear but the sheer quantity of ale he'd consumed during the day thwarted any attempt at mental acuity.

“I am a Warrior of Poseidon,” he declared, but even to himself he had to admit the claim feeble, considering his present circumstances.

“YOU ARE MY WARRIOR, YES, THOUGH I WOULD BE MOCKED AMONGST ALL OF THE OTHER GODS WERE THIS TRUTH TO BECOME KNOWN.”

Oh,
miertus
. This was one tsunami of an ale-induced hallucination, if Brennan suddenly thought he was hearing the sea god himself. He struggled with the limp weight of the wench, trying to move her to one side so he could rise and at least face this . . . whatever this was . . . on his feet.

A flash of silvery blue light shot through the dark room, and suddenly the woman was gone—vanished as if she'd never been there. Brennan leapt to his feet and whirled around and around, nearly falling down again as vertigo overtook him.

“What? Where did she—”

“THE WOMAN HAD NO PLACE IN OUR DISCUSSION. SHE IS NOW AT HOME IN HER BED, ALONE FOR A CHANGE,” came the dry response.

“But why are you here—” Brennan belatedly realized that he was in no way showing appropriate deference to the sea god and dropped heavily to his knees. “My lord, accept my profuse apologies. Do you have need of me?”

“WHAT SAD EXAMPLE OF GODHOOD WOULD HAVE NEED OF SUCH AS YOU?” the voice thundered. “YOU HAVE TRIED MY PATIENCE WITH YOUR CONSTANT DRUNKEN DEBAUCHERY AND EXCESS. HADES HIMSELF, RULER OF THE NINE HELLS, ASKED ME TO GIFT YOU TO HIM.”

“Hades?” Brennan struggled to follow the sea god's logic. His knees hurt from dropping to the stone floor and his head was thumping from the booming sound of Poseidon's voice. In fact, he was feeling quite sorry for himself and not a little beleaguered by his severe misfortune. “What would Hades want with me?”

“PRECISELY. A MATTER OF A SENATOR'S DAUGHTER, PERHAPS? BUT THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE FALLEN SO FAR, DRIVEN BY YOUR LUSTS AND EMOTIONS, THAT THE GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD WOULD DESIRE YOUR PRESENCE, SADDENS ME GREATLY.”

“But—”

“SILENCE! BE ADVISED THAT I AM NOT A GOD TO ENDURE SADNESS. EVER. I AM NOW AT AN END OF MY PATIENCE. NOW THAT YOUR EMOTIONS AND HUNGERS HAVE DRIVEN YOU INTO THE ABYSS, I WILL REMOVE ALL SUCH FROM YOUR LIFE FOR ALL ETERNITY.”

Brennan shifted on the floor, daring to raise his head and search yet again, but the sea god had only manifested his voice. “Not to be impertinent, but when you say eternity—”

Lightning and thunder crashed through the room, the percussive force smashing Brennan, facedown, into the ale-soaked stone.

“DARE QUESTION ME AND YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY CLEANING THAT FILTH WITH YOUR TONGUE.”

Brennan nodded, not daring to say another word, as the hot, slow trickle of blood from his battered head spread under the side of his face. Eternity. Silence. Got it.

“I CURSE YOU THUS: FOR ALL ETERNITY, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS YOU MEET YOUR ONE TRUE MATE, YOU WILL FEEL NO EMOTION. NEITHER SADNESS NOR JOY; NEITHER RAGE NOR DELIGHT.”

Thunder crashed through the room again, and Brennan belatedly wondered why no one from the tavern had come back to investigate the storm taking place in their storeroom before the sea god continued.

“WHEN YOU DO MEET HER, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE A RESURGENCE OF ALL OF THE EMOTIONS YOU HAVE REPRESSED OVER THE YEARS AND CENTURIES AND EVEN MILLENNIA.”

Poseidon laughed, and his laughter contained all the sound and fury of storms at sea and civilization-destroying tidal waves.

“IF THAT ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH TO DESTROY YOU, YOU WILL ALSO BE CURSED TO FORGET YOUR MATE WHENEVER SHE IS OUT OF YOUR SIGHT. ONLY WHEN SHE IS DEAD—HER HEART STOPPED AND HER SOUL FLOWN—WILL YOUR EMOTIONS RETURN TO YOU, THUS ALLOWING YOU UNTIL THE END OF YOUR DAYS TO REPENT BRINGING DISHONOR UPON THE NAME OF THE WARRIORS OF POSEIDON.”

Brennan, robbed of any coherent response as the enormity of Poseidon's curse sank in, just lay on the floor, stinking of blood and ale, still too drunk to comprehend the full extent of what was happening to him.

With a final crack of thunder, the sea god disappeared with a booming admonition. “REMEMBER.”

The peculiar feeling of heaviness that always accompanied great power disappeared, and Brennan's ears popped with a sizzling burst of pain as they adjusted to its absence. Warmth pooled in his ear canals, and he wondered what had burst in his head and whether the healers would be able to repair what Poseidon himself had wrought.

Dragging himself up off the ground, slowly and cautiously lest Poseidon reappear and smite him, Brennan patted his chest and arms, reassuring himself that he was still whole. Once he found that he had sustained no bodily injury, he laughed in relief.

Except . . . he did not.

He did not laugh, and he did not feel relief. He felt precisely nothing, save for a vast, bleak emptiness in the wasteland of his soul where—just moments ago—his emotions had resided.

What Brennan did not know then was that he would not laugh again for more than two thousand years.

Aknasha
—empath; one who can feel the emotions of others and, usually, send her own emotions into the minds and hearts of others, as well. There have been no
aknasha'an
in the recorded history of Atlantis for more than ten thousand years.

 

Atlanteans
—a race separate from humans, descended directly from a mating between Poseidon and one of the Nereids, whose name is lost in time. Atlanteans inherited some of the gifts of their ancestors: the ability to control all elements except fire—especially water; the ability to transform to mist and travel in that manner; and superhuman strength and agility. Ancient scrolls hint at other powers, as well, but these are either lost to the passage of time or dormant in present-day Atlanteans.

 

Atlantis
—the Seven Isles of Atlantis were driven beneath the sea during a mighty cataclysm of earthquakes and volcanic activity that shifted the tectonic plates of the Earth more than eleven thousand years ago. The ruling prince of the largest isle, also called Atlantis, ascends to serve as high king to all seven isles, though each are ruled by the lords of the individual isle's ruling house.

 

Blood pride
—a master vampire's created vampires.