Vampire in Atlantis

smiling a little. “He’s still unhappy about the blood bond. We need to talk about that sometime,” she added, her smile fading.
    “I know.”
    She turned to leave, and then looked back. “I’m happy for you, Daniel. Don’t screw this up.”
    “But that’s what I do best,” he whispered when he was sure Quinn could no longer hear him. He finally gave in to the impulse that had been driving him and smoothed a stray curl away from Serai’s pale cheek. He thought of Quinn and the unwanted blood bond, and then of Deirdre, dying to protect him.
    “I’ll kill for you,” he vowed to Serai’s sleeping form. “I’ll die for you. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do to keep you safe. And then I’ll leave you, because that’s the best gift I could ever give you. My absence.”
    She curled toward him, into the heat of his body, as if agreeing, and his resolve hardened even as his heart turned to ash inside his chest. He’d already planned to die once this day. Another time was no hardship at all, he swore to himself.
    No hardship at all.

Chapter 7
     

     
    Quinn entered the main chamber of the cavern, deep in thought but still on her guard, to see that another Atlantean had joined the party. Some days she wished she’d never heard of the so-called lost continent, or at least that it had stayed lost. Hard to forget it, though, when her sister was married to the high prince and would soon be queen. Delicate, sweet Riley, queen of Atlantis. It boggled Quinn’s mind. Or it would have, if she hadn’t been living in a world gone crazy since the day nearly eleven years ago when vampires and shape-shifters worldwide had announced to the planet that they really did exist and then promptly started taking over, by any means necessary.
    The political means were somebody else’s problem, not Quinn’s. It was the violent means employed by almost all bloodsuckers and the rogue shape-shifters that Quinn concerned herself with these days, and had for the past several years. A girl needed to keep busy, after all. Especially when the girl was leader of the entire North American rebel faction.
    Not all of the humans were content to become sheep for the taking.
    Her gaze returned to the Atlantean warrior taking up more than his fair share of space in the room, chatting with some of her people. Another ally, although a dangerous and probably unstable one. She could work with that, though. Hell, most of her best friends were dangerous and unstable. By the time she reached him, she was grinning.
    “Reisen. Good to see you. How did it go?”
    He raised an eyebrow, probably at her uncharacteristic good humor, and then waved at her with the arm that ended in a badly healed, scarred stump just above where his wrist had been before he’d pissed off one of the worst vampires ever to suck blood.
    “Only one hand in the grave, so it’s a good day,” he said, grinning back at her.
    It was her turn to be surprised. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Reisen smile. He was an Atlantean lord who’d been exiled for daring to touch Poseidon’s trident, or steal it, or something awful. Tried to stage a coup, maybe. The details were murky, and none of the Atlantean warriors she’d met had ever felt the need to enlighten her. Reisen himself had come to her and joined the human rebels with a need for vengeance—or maybe redemption—and a damn near suicidal fervor. He’d insisted on taking any mission that had the absolute least chance of success, and somehow he’d made it out of every single one not only alive but successful.
    Usually injured, sometimes near death, but always successful. But never, ever smiling.
    Until now.
    Which, Quinn being Quinn, made her suspicious.
    “Why are you smiling? What kind of deep-shit massive trouble have you brought me that could possibly cause you to move your rusty face muscles like that?”
    He laughed, and she almost fell over. Laughed? Reisen?
    She stalked to the cavern’s opening and stared out into the sunlight of the beautiful, clear, Arizona morning, as it reflected off the glorious red rock surrounding them. As always, the sight of this tiny pocket of nature’s beauty, unspoiled by death or war or vampires and their evil plots, nearly brought her to her knees in gratitude that there were at least a few of these places left on earth.
    “Nope,” she said. “No sign of the apocalypse. And yet Reisen just laughed. Is it some horrible bit of magic gone bad?”
    Reisen crossed to stand