Heart Of Atlantis

again, and this time he stared a blazing path down her body. Probably looking for any injury he could heal with his magic. She herself wasn’t much to look at. It never failed to surprise her that an Atlantean god of a man would be interested in a scruffy, skinny freedom fighter who dressed in other people’s castoffs and hadn’t worn makeup since she was sixteen years old. Back when the world was innocent of all the dark and twisted things that did far worse than merely go bump in the night.
    Alaric headed toward her with that nearly vampire-fast speed of his, and he was kneeling before her almost before she’d seen him take his first step.
    “Are you injured?” It was command more than question. The
Tell Me Now
was implied.
    “No.” She lifted her chin, knowing he’d read her defiance. Not caring much.
    His eyes narrowed, and he gently grasped her jaw in one strong hand, tilting her chin to the side.
    “You lie. Blood is seeping from this scrape on your neck.”
    A pulse of blue-green light shimmered briefly, and she knew from the accompanying warmth that he’d healed her.
    She attempted a smile. Failed. Settled for truth. “Your manners could use some work. ‘You lie.’ Really?”
    He released her chin but rested his hand against her now-healed skin, as if unwilling to break the contact. “How is stating fact a breach of manners?”
    This time, she did smile, although it was a mere quirk of her lips. He was untamed and always would be, like the other feral man in her life.
    “Jack,” she said, her voice anguished. “Alaric, will we ever find a way to restore his humanity?”
    Her warrior priest turned his powerful gaze to the tiger, lying so still on the ground.
    “I will do all in my power, Quinn, but I cannot lie to you. The chances are not good.”

Chapter 2
    Six weeks later
    Quinn sat in her claustrophobic room and stared at nothing, trying to ignore the quarter ton of tiger leaning up against her. She wondered if she should take another shower, wander back to the garden, or simply bash her head against the wall to alleviate the unmitigated disappointment and sense of failure. As always, the idea of showers in a cave vaguely amused her. She hadn’t bothered to ask how Archelaus had installed showers and other modern amenities in a cave. She’d seen enough of Atlantean power over the element of water to take it for granted. Of course, in a world where vampires, shape-shifters, and even the Fae had walked out of fairy tales and into reality a little more than a decade ago, there were many, many things that nobody bothered to disbelieve anymore.
    The crystal clear water in her cup was from a mountain stream right here on Mount Fuji—no magic involved except that of Mother Nature herself. It tasted better than any water she’d ever had before. She stared down at it as if answers to her multitude of problems might be hidden at the bottom of the cup.
    Whiskey would have been better. She could usually find an answer or two at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Even if they were the wrong answers, at least she had a place to start. The one thing she’d never, ever been good at was feeling helpless, and now she’d lived through six entire weeks of being completely and utterly unable to help Jack.
    They’d rested. He’d healed from his physical injuries and eaten enough to clear out half of Japan’s livestock, probably. But human Jack—
her
Jack—still hadn’t put in an appearance, and it was looking less and less likely every day.
    Jack looked briefly around the room and then dropped his head back down on her leg. The low bed sagged from the weight of five hundred pounds of tiger, but she wasn’t about to tell him to sleep on the floor. He’d voluntarily followed her into the room and up onto the bed, after ignoring her for the past week. She was glad and—maybe, just maybe—a little bit hopeful that he’d followed her at all.
    She hesitantly put a hand on his head, and his eyes snapped open. Another mystery of the shape-shift: his eyes were green in human form and pure amber fire as a tiger. She stared into their depths, thinking of that saying about eyes being the windows to the soul. If it were true, then there was nobody home in Jack’s soul.
    Nobody human.
    Only a disturbingly feral intelligence peered out at her from behind that glowing amber. She steeled herself against the shudder trying to shake its way through her body and rubbed one silky ear between her fingers. Jack