Heart Of Atlantis

vampire’s head rolled from its body seconds after Jack struck. Serai, the Atlantean princess Jack protected, trembled and backed away.
    “Help Serai,” Quinn shouted at Alaric. “She’s just out of stasis after eleven thousand years. It’s not like she knows how to protect herself from this.”
    But seconds later Serai transformed into a beast that had been extinct for millennia, using ancient magic long forgotten. A shimmer of brilliant silver power surrounded her, and then a saber-toothed tiger roared where an Atlantean princess had shivered in the cool night air.
    The cacophony of battle, rude and loud and clashing, stilled for a frozen moment in time as attackers and defenders alike swung toward the sound of an ancient, deadly predator. The forest itself froze as nature’s darkest memories conjured up long-forgotten fears.
    Quinn’s small guns barked out a warning—once, twice, thrice—and Alaric whirled to find a dead vampire slamming into the ground at his feet. He looked up to meet Quinn’s gaze, all smoke and mystery in the moonlight.
    “I may not have any magic, but I do okay,” she said, shrugging her slender shoulders.
    Before she’d finished speaking, Alaric was leaping toward her, calling power to himself and forming energy spheres in both hands. The trio of bloodsuckers rushed at Quinn with deadly intent, and Alaric knew that whoever had masterminded this attack had painted a target on her. Kill the North American rebel leader, and maybe the entire human rebellion falls apart.
    He almost laughed at the thought. Maybe not the rebellion, but a single man—both warrior and priest—yes, that man would fall apart. And the world would be lucky to survive it.
    Quinn saw him coming and swung around in a half circle so he could stand at her back. She fired her guns, and he hurled energy spheres with both hands, dealing oblivion and the true death to vampires and shape-shifters both.
    When the wave of attackers subsided, either dead or regrouping, Alaric heard the single vampire who was actually on their side shout Serai’s name.
    “That’s Daniel,” Quinn said. “What happened?”
    “Serai has fallen,” Alaric said grimly. “Whether from wounds or from too-ambitious use of her magic after eleven millennia of stasis sleep, I cannot tell from here.”
    Daniel flew through the air toward Serai and landed with one foot on each side of her waist, standing over her prone body. He snarled something at her and then slashed his crossed daggers at an attacking vampire with such preternatural speed that even Alaric almost didn’t see him do it.
    He saw the vamp’s head roll across the ground, though.
    “We have to help them,” Quinn said, and she started to run.
    Alaric did not waste a single breath arguing with her. He simply followed her.
    Protected her.
    Until someone else screamed, and Quinn skidded to a halt so abruptly that he nearly knocked her over.
    “The tiger is down,” someone cried out, anguish raw in her voice.
    “Jack? Jack!” Quinn shouted his name and changed course. Alaric knew that if Jack were killed, Quinn might not survive it. The shifter and Quinn had fought the rebellion together for long years, as close friends and powerful allies.
    But they’d never been lovers. Or so Alaric hoped, but doubts stalked him some days with caustic thoughts. Thoughts he only wrestled with in the deepest reaches of the dark, when nightmares donned their garments and walked the surfaces of mortal minds.
    He knew that
Jack
loved
her
. That was hard enough to accept.
    He shook his mind free of mental meanderings as they reached Jack, and Quinn collapsed down to her knees on the cold, rocky ground and fell on top of the blood-soaked tiger.
    “Jack!” she screamed, over and over and over, like a hammer beating at the fragile bulwarks of Alaric’s sanity. “Save him. You have to save him.”
    Alaric called to Poseidon to lend him the magic he would need to heal the dying tiger. He threw his head back, closed his eyes, and strained every muscle and tendon as he forced his body to hold power beyond measure. He turned to Jack and thrust the power into the tiger’s body, only to have it slam back into him in a vicious backlash that knocked him off his feet and smashed him to the ground.
    Alaric could heal nearly any wound, but even he, high priest of the sea god himself, could not retrieve those who had gone past the gates of death. Now it only remained to destroy the woman he loved. He drew