Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

after that.
     
    Conlan took another step closer to Anubisa, and her fingers tightened on Riley's fragile neck, a clear warning.
     
    "Oh, I think not, princeling. I can smell your cock on her. So this is the slut you would have willingly, when I had to take you by force?"
     
    She flicked a contemptuous glance up and down her captive, then almost negligently tossed Riley across the room so hard that he heard her head smash against the wall.
    "You know I don't share my toys."
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    He tried to run to Riley as she slid down the wall into a broken heap on the ground, but Anubisa caught him in a fire-bolt of power, chaining him in place with invisible bands of her dark magic.
     
    Barrabas crawled toward Anubisa on his hands and knees, babbling. "My queen, my goddess, thank you, thank you. You came, you are here, and all will be saved."
     
    She curled her index finger, beckoning Barrabas to her. Conlan fought to channel the elements, call any power at all, but he was as helpless under her control as he'd been during his captivity. All he could do was watch as she called her minion to her.
     
    Anubisa smiled, delicately stepping over the body of a fallen shapeshifter. "You are my first, Barrabas. My oldest child, my precious one. Of course I would come when you called."
     
    Her eyes glowed red, and she parted her lips to show Barrabas a mouth crowded with razor-sharp fangs. Punishing, ripping, and tearing fangs.
     
    Conlan knew all about those fangs, would have shuddered if his body hadn't been held in a vise grip of power.
     
    Barrabas swayed, trapped hypnotically in his master's deadly pull. "Yes, your first, my goddess."
     
    She gracefully lifted a hand to touch him, ripped the shirt from his body. "Then why?"
    she screamed, rage suddenly lighting her face into incandescence.
     
    "Why did you not tell me you had the Trident?" she roared, and the sound of it smashed all the glass in the room. Burst eardrums. Curdled the blood of anyone still conscious.
     
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    Gave Conlan hope. If rage overwhelmed her, there was a chance he could defeat her. If Riley still lived—and he refused to believe that she did not—Poseidon would find a way to heal her.
     
    If Riley is dead, not one undead creature will leave this room, except as ash.
     
    Barrabas shrieked, and the sound pierced Conlan's skull. He jerked his gaze back to the vamps in time to see Anubisa lift her head from Barrabas's shoulder.
     
    What was left of Barrabas's shoulder.
     
    A chunk of it was in her mouth.
     
    She smiled at him again, blood and pieces of flesh trapped in her fangs. "You have failed me. Worse, you tried to deceive me, fool."
     
    She flicked out a hand, ripped his pants from him. The vampire knelt naked and bleeding in front of her, sobbing and shrieking in a hideous cacophony of pleading and apology.
     
    "We have to set an example, don't we, my dear?" she murmured, voice almost gentle.
    Then she curled her hand into a claw and it shot out toward Barrabas's groin.
     
    A tortured shriek beyond any Conlan had ever heard since leaving her lair ricocheted through the room, and he watched in utter horror as she opened her fingers to show Barrabas the bloody spectacle of his own balls in her hand.
     
    "Yes," she repeated, delicately sucking the meat out of her hand. "We have to set an example."
     
    As Barrabas fell over, still screaming, her hand shot forward again.
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    This time, she came back with his heart. Barrabas never uttered another sound.
     
    Riley felt consciousness coming back to her in ripples, as muted waves of sound and light washed into her mind. Conlan's horror, unshielded, nearly made her vomit, but some instinct told her to play dead.
     
    She damn near was, if the pain crashing through her head was any clue.
     
    She opened her heart and her mind, opened her soul, and begged for help.
     
    I believe. I came to you in defiance before, now I come to you in abject humility, Poseidon. You are the sea god. You have power over these, your subjects.
     
    Utter silence flooded her brain. She'd failed.
     
    She traded humility for defiance.
     
    Will you really let this bitch win the day?
     
    Still silence. Hopelessness devastated her. If even the god who'd marked her deserted her, what hope did she have against the goddess of death?
     
    THERE