Heart Of Atlantis

love you,” she told him. Without qualification; without hesitation. Never again would she doubt it.
    His entire body shuddered, as if he’d been terrified of a far different reaction, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then his eyes glowed even hotter, and tiny blue flames danced in his pupils. He tightened his grip on her hands and said, “Quinn,” and then he was gone, probably lost to his own visions, and all she could do was hold on and pray that he still wanted her after he’d seen the blackest regions of her own soul.

    Alaric didn’t even have a chance to apologize to Quinn. He’d had no idea that the soul-meld would subject her to the blasts of his magic, or he never would have asked her to do it. Hells, he never would have
allowed
it. He’d tried to release her when the surge of power intensified beyond human endurance, but the ancient ritual refused to be interrupted once begun, and its magic was far too strong for him to break.
    He’d feared that she’d banish him from her presence, cast him aside, and even ridicule him once she learned the darkest secrets of his being, but instead—miraculously—she’d
smiled
. She’d told him she loved him. And now—now the soul-meld took him, and the time for reflection was gone.
    Alaric watched, trapped on a crazy whirlwind like an insane version of a child’s carousel, as Quinn’s life spun in front of him in terrifying flashes. Losing her parents, joining the rebels, and lying to her sister. Constantly being forced to deceive the few friends she’d ever made; growing more and more alone and isolated. Choosing the harder path at every fork in the road, and offering herself up like a sacrificial lamb for the most dangerous missions and most suicidal battles.
    He watched, his own composure rocked to its foundation, as she lost her faith in the very people she was fighting to protect, when the rebels were forced to fight against other humans. The collaborators were the worst. She
despised
them. Her hatred was so strong it smashed the walls of his mind as he watched her argue with a human who had killed other humans, again and again, for the chance to become a vampire.
    “I’ll live forever,” the man had told her, smirking.
    “Better luck next time,” she’d said, and then she shot him in the head. She stood over the man, impassive, as he died, and then she dropped to the ground and cried. She’d been fighting for several years by then, but it was the first time she’d been forced to kill another human, and something inside her had shattered, irrevocably broken.
    Her innocence, perhaps.
    He felt her emotions ice over, and her mental shields grow ever stronger, as she used her gift of emotional empathy to ferret out traitors among the rebel forces. He watched as she climbed through the ranks; as her clear head and fearlessness made her a natural leader.
    He felt her cautious hope and then joy, when she met a tiger shifter who made a big impression, and a part of Alaric that he hadn’t realized was still afraid relaxed, as he experienced her love for Jack. A sister’s love for a brother—a warrior’s love for her comrade—but never a romantic love.
    He swore to himself that when all this was over, he’d find a way to heal Jack and return him to himself. Surely in the combined knowledge of all of the libraries of Atlantis, there must be a way.
    The soul-meld dragged him relentlessly on and on, forcing him to see the vicious attack when the vampire captured Quinn and killed her companions. Her terror and pain, hidden so well while she pretended to be her captor’s willing slave, nearly drove him mad. His throat ached, and he realized that perhaps the voice he heard roaring in rage and fear was his own.
    But the visions kept coming.
    The cascade of images was oblivious to his pain and rage, and unfeeling in the face of her darkest memories. They pushed him past the first time he’d met her, showing him her shock and terror at her reaction to him, letting him feel the powerful emotion that swept through her whenever she saw him or even allowed herself to think of him.
    He felt the despair she’d known on that rooftop in D.C. when she’d told him she was ruined. He saw inside her heart when they’d first kissed, and now he knew that the searing heat of passion between them wasn’t only one-sided. She’d felt it, too.
    Her amusement, gratitude, and resentment pulsed from her when, time after time and often in spite of her protests,