Heart Of Atlantis

You did well to protect yourself so we did not need to expend resources to defend you.”
    Noriko bowed.
“Arigato gozaimasu.”
    Quinn abruptly sat down on the floor next to Jack and started laughing. “Don’t make me get my flying monkeys,” she said, shaking her head.
    Everyone stared blankly at her, except Jack, who tilted his shaggy head, his tongue lolling out, as if sharing an inside joke.
    Quinn looked up and saw them all looking puzzled. “Never mind. It’s
The
Wizard of Oz
. It’s—never mind. So, what now? Attack by flying monkeys doesn’t strike me as a random act. Who’s after you, Archelaus? Or do they know we’re here, and it’s an attack against me or Alaric? Or even Jack? Plenty of targets to choose from in this room.”
    Noriko collapsed down on a bench. “I thought the opportunity to be mortal again would be a precious gift. Instead, I find I desperately miss the power to be anywhere I want to be and nearly omniscient. What can I see—where can I go—trapped in this body?”
    “Welcome to my life,” Quinn said, with only a trace of bitterness. “I’m surrounded by vampires, Atlantean warriors, and powerful shape-shifters, and all I’ve got is a gun or two and whatever street smarts I’ve picked up over the years. It’s like fighting the Spartan army armed with a toothpick.”
    “I would challenge the Spartan army for you, Quinn,” Alaric said quietly. “You don’t always have to take it all on by yourself.”
    “I didn’t,” she said simply. “I had Jack. And then, if only for a little while, I had you and your prince and his warriors. Now I’m not sure I want any of it. I’m tired. Ten years of fighting the good fight should be enough for anybody.”
    Jack sneezed and rolled over on his back, all the while keeping those orange eyes trained on Quinn.
    She almost smiled. “No, I’m not giving up and showing the bad guys my belly, fur face. And if you want to give me crap about my decisions, you’re going to have to change back into a human and do it out loud.”
    The tiger deliberately turned his head away, and a shimmer formed in Quinn’s eyes before she dragged one sleeve across her face.
    Several white-robed people appeared at the entrance to the courtyard, wearing expressions of horror, disbelief, and even shock. Alaric attempted to view the scene through their eyes and realized it was, in fact, worthy of horror and shock. Dead, bloody bodies lay in crumpled heaps all over the floor. The peace of the sanctuary had been brutally invaded.
    He was too tired, too jaded, or too hardened to feel horror, though. Just a grim resignation that now, yet again, the battle was on. Even when he tried to escape the fight, it followed him. As did skepticism, cynicism, and suspicion. Why were these people only arriving now? Had they been part of a larger betrayal?
    One of them started babbling. “Archelaus, what happened? You— We heard— The portal—”
    “I’d like to know that, too.” A calm voice interrupted the man’s broken words.
    “Ven,” Alaric said. “I should have guessed.”
    “Somebody needed to save you from yourself,” Ven said, striding into the room. “I figured it oughta be me.”

    Quinn’s lips quirked into a grin as another six and a half feet of Atlantean warrior—this one a prince—joined the party. “Ven. Always a pleasure to see you. Do we need somebody beat up and I forgot?”
    Ven laughed and scooped her up off the ground and into a bear hug. “Hello, little sister. Glad to see you in one place. What in the nine hells happened here?”
    “Flying monkeys.”
    He roared with laughter. “So does that make kitten over there Toto?”
    Quinn noticed Alaric’s face darkening as he watched her in his friend’s arms, and she didn’t have to be an emotional empath to know what he was feeling. She tactfully stepped away from Ven and glanced at Jack, who was snarling at them all.
    “Don’t flash those fangs at me, Meow Mix,” Ven advised, but she could see the concern underneath the banter. He and Jack had developed a friendship over the course of time they’d known each other. Of course, it was hard not to like Ven. He was gorgeous and didn’t know it; a funny, direct, “let’s grab a beer and watch some bad movies” kind of guy, who just happened to be hell on wheels with a sword, a gun, and pretty much every other kind of weapon. He was the high prince’s brother and guardian—which made him Quinn’s sister Riley’s