Heart Of Atlantis

dressed in all black who’d tried to shoot Alaric until he’d frozen the man’s gun to his hand in an impenetrable block of ice. Alaric raised his sword again, but then Quinn stepped between him and his target.
    “No,” she shouted, waving her arms. “This one protected me from the others, and even more important, he might know more about Ptolemy’s plans.”
    Alaric slowly lowered the sword as her words penetrated his raging mind. “He hurt you. I see your face.”
    “No, that was Ptolemy. I’ll tell you everything, but it wasn’t this man. He protected me.” She stepped closer and put her arm around Alaric’s waist, careful not to block his sword arm.
    “This one protected you,” he repeated, still not believing it.
    She nodded. “He shot the dead one for trying to hurt me.”
    “And yet he held you captive at gunpoint,” Alaric said, his outward calm back in place. “He will die for that alone.”
    “I can’t tell you anything if I’m dead,” the man said, finally speaking up. He must have had ice in his veins, since he wasn’t shaking or begging or crying.
    “Do you know anything to tell?” Alaric placed the tip of his sword against the man’s throat and pushed, just hard enough to cut the skin. Blood dripped down the man’s neck.
    Quinn nudged Alaric to the side a little. “What’s your name, and what did Ptolemy tell you?”
    “I’m Westbury. He didn’t tell me much, unfortunately,” the man said. “His plan once he arrived was to head to the Bermuda Triangle, if that makes any sense at all.”
    Alaric exchanged a grim glance with Quinn. It told them far too much.
    “It’s a measure of your integrity that you admit you know little,” Alaric said. “And yet you have no loyalty, to admit so much.”
    “He doesn’t deserve my loyalty,” Westbury said, holding up his ice-encumbered right hand with his left. “He took my sister and promised to give her back to my family in exchange for my services. Now I may never see her again.”
    Quinn’s eyes widened. “What does she look like?”
    “I have a picture, but . . .” The man glanced pointedly down at his frozen arm.
    Quinn looked at Alaric. He considered, then nodded. Made the ice vanish.
    Westbury showed her a photograph on his telephone, and Quinn smiled.
    “I met this girl. She’s fine, or at least she was mostly fine when I last saw her. Bruised but mostly unharmed,” Quinn said. “I don’t know—”
    The man’s phone rang at that moment, and a different photograph of the same girl flashed on the screen. Westbury answered it, spoke briefly but with unmistakable emotion, and then closed the phone.
    “She’s in the emergency room. She said that you saved her, and I was . . . I can never make this up to you,” he said hoarsely to Quinn, and Alaric watched as she made another conquest right before his eyes.
    “Go. She needs you,” Quinn said, brushing Westbury’s gratitude aside.
    She was embarrassed when they did this, the thankfulness. The devotion. Alaric knew her well enough to understand this.
    Westbury was wise enough to look to Alaric, though, before moving. “Either kill me or let me go to my sister.”
    Suddenly, Alaric wanted nothing more than to be alone with Quinn . He came to a decision.
    “Go. Your actions were somewhat offset by your motives,” he said abruptly. “But never let me see you again.”
    Westbury nodded before taking a card out of his pocket and handing it to Quinn. “Any time, any place. Just call me, and I’ll be there.”
    As soon as the man left the room, Alaric called to the portal, which again appeared almost instantly. He wrapped his arms around Quinn, and together they stepped into the portal.
    “Back to Atlantis, now,” he commanded.
    “I had to sacrifice the shell you gave me. I needed the weight for the switch,” she told him.
    “I’ll find you another,” he promised.
    “I have it,” Quinn whispered. “Poseidon’s Pride.”
    “I know,” he said, and then he healed her lip and face before kissing her senseless. He sank into her emotions with the first touch of her lips, and he claimed her mouth with every ounce of possession and need he felt for this miracle of a woman.
    His
woman.
    His for all of eternity.
    He was still kissing her, with her enthusiastic participation, when they arrived in Atlantis. Suddenly the air rang with applause, and Alaric realized they were the center of attention.
    “Oh, no,” Quinn said, pushing away from him. “Put me