Vampire in Atlantis

beloved, and probably didn’t even realize it.
    She’d never forget it.
    But, still, they were talking about the past. “Warlord’s wife . Prince’s wife. King’s wife. What does it matter? All of them would have robbed me of my freedom in different ways.”
    “Would Conlan have forced you to wed him if you said no?” Daniel growled. “I can convince him of the error of that thinking the next time I see him.”
    “I don’t know. I like to think not, especially with the choice he himself made that shattered Atlantean law, but I just don’t know. Princes generally choose with politics in mind, not people, or so the Emperor has shown me over the past millennia.”
    “Back to that day,” Daniel prompted. “You finally got out when the mage woke up to help, he told me.”
    “He terrified me. I was suddenly aware that someone other than me was down there, and I was afraid that one of the soldiers had found his way in, but then I thought it might be a nightwalker. I’d only heard of them—you—vampires,” she explained, stumbling over the words. “I didn’t know what to think. If his bloodlust was going to mean my horrible death.”
    “Adrianus had been controlling his bloodlust for centuries by then.”
    She stopped, closing her eyes and reaching out for the Emperor’s unique energy signal again. “I can feel it, closer this time. Daniel, we’re nearly there. But, oh, no, not again.”
    Pain smashed into her as the witch controlling the Emperor channeled power through it once more, and Serai doubled over. “It’s stronger this time. I think I’m in trouble. Oh, by the gods, it hurts.”
    Daniel shocked her by throwing her on the ground, safely cradled in his arms, and covering her body with his own. “We’re definitely in trouble. I can hear voices, and they’re coming from the trees and sky, and they’re moving too fast to be human. This can’t be a coincidence. Whoever has the Emperor, they have vampires with them.”

Chapter 16
     

     

Sedona National Bank, inside the vault
     
    Melody grinned at the big hunk of muscled Atlantean roaming restlessly back and forth in the claustrophobic bank vault.
    “Does it help? The pacing, I mean. Does it make life better? Make the time pass faster? Cure the common cold?”
    Reisen snarled something at her in a language she didn’t recognize, but she translated what he said well enough as “impatient man talk.” He was clearly the action hero type, not the sensitive-and-prone-to-anxiety type she usually fell for.
    Whoa .
    Even in the privacy of her own mind, thinking “fell for” in context of this man was way, way off base. It was like curling up for a few hot hours of World of Warcraft and finding a gnome and Tauren hot-tubbing in Arathi Basin.
    Just not gonna happen. No way.
    But man, oh, man, was the guy hot. Seriously hot. Mega hot. All those muscles. Plus those flashing blue eyes and bad boy long black hair combined to make her want to rub up against him and purr.
    A lot.
    Unfortunately, he’d been the perfect gentleman in the hotel room he’d insisted they share for her protection. She’d been all “right, for my protection , heh heh heh,” but her flutters of anticipation had turned to stark dismay when he hadn’t even tried to touch her once. Not even by “accident.” She’d almost thought he was gay, until she’d dropped her towel accidentally-on-purpose and seen the flash of sheer admiration and male lust cross his face. That had been great for her ego . . . right up to the point where he’d stalked past her into the bathroom and taken a long and, she suspected, very cold shower.
    Alone.
    She hadn’t quite worked up the courage to join him. A little too brazen ho-bag for her.
    Now she sat on the floor of the vault, working her magic on a tough algorithm, trying to get past the encryption on what she figured was some very juicy data, while Reisen paced. And paced. And paced.
    “What time is it?”
    “Nine o’ clock. This is going to take me a while, so you should try to relax.”
    “What is the value of this data, anyway? Why is it so important?”
    “From what Quinn said, it’s everything you ever wanted to know about the plans to fund a mega vampire and banker consortium. Their goals are apparently to take over all financial institutions, crush any rebellions, and—so Quinn said—there’s even a faction that knows about you guys. They apparently want to convince the world that Atlantis is an evil superpower