Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

that he could smell her clean, fresh scent. Flowers and the ocean.
     
    Surer now—definitely louder, her voice pounded through his head: Conlan! If you're okay, get your ass over here and unlock this door, or I will pound on your head!
     
    He started laughing at the contradiction. Ah, his delicate flower. Never one to say the expected, was she?
     
    Nope. And she wasn't his anything, either. Better for both of them if he didn't forget it.
     
    Sobering, he sent his reply back to her: On my way. Try not to chew through the wall, okay?
     
    He felt a slight trace of her amusement sparkle through him in colors of warm honey and gold. Then that peculiar slamming sensation in his head, which cut off any trace of her.
     
    Oh, yeah. She was pissed. This ought to be fun.
     
    Not.
     
    Reisen looked up from his contemplation of the object in his hands, eyes still dazzled, when the thud of heavy-soled boots thundered down the hall toward him. Micah strode into the room, followed closely by several more warriors.
     
    "My lord," Micah said, breathing harshly. "While patrolling, we discovered a nest of shapeshifters based in a tattoo parlor in Virginia Beach."
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    Reisen laughed. "That seems a little odd, doesn't it? Do you think the tattoos come back after they take animal form and then return to human?"
     
    Micah folded his arms over his chest, staring at Reisen with his usual implacable expression. "My lord?"
     
    Shaking off both the whimsy and the near-trancelike state he'd gone into while staring at the hen's-egg-sized emerald in his hands for the past hour, Reisen stood up. "And?
    What did you do about it?"
     
    Micah shrugged. "We returned here to tell you about it. I wasn't sure if our quest allowed time for battling a bunch of furballs. Especially after the Council's decree that we only destroy shapeshifters proven of wrongdoing."
     
    Reisen carefully replaced the emerald in its silk pouch and gently tucked the pouch back inside its small wooden box. The leaders of the East Coast cell of the Platoists had been only too anxious to give him the emerald, when they'd learned the truth of their organization's central tenet.
     
    Atlantis was real.
     
    Moreover, Reisen was an Atlantean prince. They'd treated him like a god. He hadn't exactly hated it.
     
    He'd thought the human was going to piss in his pants. Luckily for all concerned, the man had managed to contain his excitement long enough to retrieve the emerald and gift it to Reisen.
     
    Who now had to figure out how to use it. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
    But some things were easy. "We all swore a sacred vow to protect humanity. It gains us Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
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    nothing to restore Atlantis to its rightful place in the world, if that world is overrun with bloodsuckers and shapeshifters. In this, as in so much else, the Council is wrong."
     
    Micah nodded, smiling. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said, with his hands on the handle of his battle-axe. "All this tension has me in the mood to kick some shapeshifter ass."
     
    The warriors ringing Micah nodded and growled their agreement. Reisen carefully packed the small wooden box and the fabric-wrapped bundle of the Trident into a leather carrying bag. One of the warriors stepped forward. "May I carry that for you, my lord?"
     
    "Thank you, but this is one burden that I'm honored to carry myself." With that, Reisen led them to the main room of the house to do some planning. He still had more than a day before the scheduled meeting with the Platoists.
     
    Plenty of time to kick some shapeshifter ass.

Chapter 16
    Riley was still grumbling under her breath a good ten minutes after Conlan had shown up and unlocked the door to her room. She'd read him the riot act. Just when she'd started to trust him and believe in all his crazy Atlantean royalty stuff, he'd pulled a prison warden act on her.
     
    But after he'd sketched out the bare-bones truth about the vampire threat, some crook named Reisen who'd stolen a precious artifact, and apologized five or six times, she'd calmed down.
     
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    It was insane, but she knew she could trust him. Amazing how being able to feel a man's emotions cut through the doubt. This was mainly about protecting her.
     
    She'd switched to subverbal grumbling after tasting the coffee he'd brought as a peace