Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

in her empathic net as surely as Riley had done to Conlan.
     
    But certain sea creatures founder and drown in nets.
     
    And Alaric was looking like one of them.
     
    Then they were gone, leaving him alone with a creature that everything in his heritage told him he should destroy.
     
    Riley watched them leave, then heaved out a sigh. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and smiled at Jack. "So. Tell us about being a tiger. Where are you from?"
     
    Alaric faced Quinn on the roof of the building. Fighting desperately for self-control. For calm.
     
    For the courage not to fall on his knees in front of this human female and beg for her touch.
     
    How Poseidon must be laughing at his high priest now.
     
    She watched him, wariness in every line of her body. "You're the most powerful with the magic, aren't you? I can feel it singing in your veins, thrumming underneath my skin.
    What did you do to me when you healed me? And thank you for that, by the way."
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
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    He stalked her, paced in an ever-diminishing circle around her position. Knowing he should stop.
     
    Unable to do so.
     
    "I did nothing unusual, although current events suggest that Riley may have aided in your healing," he said roughly. "What was unusual was what you did to me."
     
    She wasn't even beautiful. He'd always thought he'd fall someday, into grand and gloriously unrequited love with an amazing beauty. A goddess among women.
     
    Among Atlantean women.
     
    Yet this scruffy human—this rebel—wasn't anything like what he'd imagined. She was so thin as to look starved, all huge eyes with black circles under them over hollow cheeks. Her short hair looked like she'd cut it with that knife she kept in her pocket. Her clothes were no better than what he'd seen on beggars on the streets.
     
    He wanted her so badly it was an actual physical pain squeezing his balls.
     
    "I don't know what you think you see, but I'm not like my sister," she said, voice and emotions filled with sorrow. The heat and colors of her emotions swirled around him, tortured him. Wine red, dusky gray, and the blue of the sea at twilight danced into him, through him, piercing him with poignancy.
     
    Bringing tears to his eyes.
     
    He fought them back. Fought against the silken net she so effortlessly wove around his heart. Around his soul.
     
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    The woman who could tame a sea monster.
     
    And he, the monster.
     
    "You're nothing like your sister," he agreed. "And yet you're exactly like her. Foolishly idealistic, the both of you. She saves crack babies, and you save the world."
     
    Feint, attack. "Did you know that Riley gave up her life for two of our warriors?"
     
    She paled even beyond the marble whiteness that was her skin. Her perfect skin.
     
    The skin he wanted to taste.
     
    "What?" she gasped. "But, wait. You said 'gave up her life.' She was pretty clearly alive in that room."
     
    "Yes. Poseidon plays with semantics as easily as he plays with destinies and lives. He took her for his own."
     
    She scowled. Took a step closer to him. "What the hell does that mean? Is some ancient pervert of a mythological god going to try to rape my sister? Because I'll kick his fishy-tailed ass for him."
     
    Alaric flinched at the blasphemy, then a thunderbolt of epiphany smashed into him. He'd fight Poseidon himself to protect Quinn. He was ruined.
     
    Strange that the word she'd used to describe herself flowed so easily into his mind.
    Ruined.
     
    "Why are you ruined?" he asked abruptly. "What were you talking about?"
     
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    It was her turn to flinch. She whirled on her heel to stare out at the view. Abandoned buildings and junked cars held nothing to capture her attention, but something in her memories evidently did.
     
    He silently moved until he was immediately behind her. Could feel her body heat warming the iciness of his skin. The frozen tundra of his heart.
     
    Knew he had to get away or get burned.
     
    Before he could move, she turned back again and nearly ended up in his arms. They were so close a mere breath separated them.
     
    A breath and eleven thousand years of dogma.
     
    "The rebel and the priest," he rasped. "What a pair we are."
     
    Her eyes were huge in her starved face. "But a pair is what we could never be. I've done things… black and unforgivable things. In the