Vampire in Atlantis

a split second with vampiric speed.
    She could be his, the monster inside him whispered. She belonged to him. He could take her, right now, and never let her get away from him.
    “Daniel, I need your help.”
    He sighed. The four deadliest words in any language, especially when spoken by a damsel in distress. He smiled at the thought of a woman who could become a saber-toothed tiger ever being a damsel in distress, but what the hell. He had his little quirks—the delusion that he could ever be a white knight foremost among them—and he was way past believing he could change.
    “You’re smiling?” Her voice rose, and he could tell she was annoyed. She’d gotten that little frown on her face, the same patrician, aristocratic expression that had warned her guards all those years ago that they’d better leave her alone for a while or face a highly unpleasant few hours.
    “You need my help, and I gladly and most willingly give it, my lady,” he said, sweeping his best, if quite rusty, bow. He’d been a blacksmith, not a courtier. “But I need more of the facts. What is the Emperor doing to you, and what do you need my help with?”
    “It’s connected to me and to the other maidens, who are still in stasis, and somebody is trying to use it. Someone has already tried to channel magic through it, and it nearly killed him . . . no, her,” she said thoughtfully. “It felt like female magic. She’s gone now, from my awareness, either dead or unconscious, but for a moment we were connected. I could feel the others, too. If this woman, this witch, tries to wield the Emperor again, it could kill us all.”
    At the thought of Serai’s death, the breath left Daniel’s body so fast and hard he nearly doubled over, but instead he put his hands on the hilts of the daggers he always wore, even in Washington.
    Actually, especially in Washington.
    “We need to find it. Now,” he said, and his voice rasped as he formed the words.
    “I can feel it,” she said. “I think I can find it. We should leave now.” She started toward the cave entryway, but stumbled before she’d gotten three steps.
    “You have to rest first,” Daniel said, catching her before she could fall, and steeling himself against the punch of bloodlust. “Sleep. Your body isn’t used to so much activity. I don’t know how you’re walking at all, actually, after such a long period of inactivity. How are your muscles not atrophied?”
    “The Emperor and the high priests over the years took care of that. Magic can achieve what science cannot, after all. Think of it. How am I even alive in a world that has changed beyond any possibility of recognition?”
    She pulled away from him a little but then surrendered to his unspoken demand, leaning back against his chest and sighing. Daniel realized she was trembling, and he swept her into his arms and carried her back over to the pallet. He arranged the blankets around her again, prepared to wait on the floor near the entry way, blocking anyone from entering, but she stopped him with one slender hand on his arm. He stared down at the curve of her wrist and at her delicate fingers, wondering how something so clearly fragile had the power to stop him in his tracks.
    “Please, stay with me?” she whispered. “I’m afraid to fall asleep. I’ve slept so long and . . . what if I never wake up? Please stay with me and promise me you’ll wake me. Promise you won’t let me slip away.”
    He looked up and was trapped. Caught in her gaze, fixed—immovable—by the crystalline hint of tears tangled in her long lashes. “I’ll stay. Rest now, and we’ll find your Emperor when you wake up.”
    She didn’t close her eyes or relax a single muscle, and he realized she needed to hear the words.
    “I promise,” he said, and with a long, gentle sigh, she relaxed back onto the blankets, closed her eyes, and almost immediately fell into an exhausted sleep. He sat next to her, fighting his own need for sleep, content to watch her. An hour or so later, a quiet noise alerted him to Quinn’s presence in the entryway.
    “Is that her? The one you left behind?” Quinn looked tired; even more tired and thinner than the month before when he’d last seen her.
    “Yes. This is Serai,” he said quietly, not wanting to wake his sleeping beauty.
    “Get some rest, Daniel. I’ve got some of my top people on lookout. We’re safe here.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Even from Jack?”
    “Even from Jack,” she said,