Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

clawing at him to try to get down. "No! Not my sister. Let me down. Let me down now!"
     
    Instead, he pulled her closer, turning her face toward his chest, so she wouldn't have to look at the carnage surrounding them. Then he strode over and around the bodies toward Alaric.
     
    When he reached the deadfall of trees, he relaxed his hold on Riley and set her gently on the ground. Alaric was kneeling in front of the body of a woman. A wound in her shoulder was pulsing blood. Conlan scented the air. The sulfur smell of gunpowder.
     
    She'd been shot.
     
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
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    Quinn had short dark hair, instead of Riley's gold, but her silken white skin and delicate facial features were stamped with Riley's strength and beauty.
     
    Riley threw herself on the ground and put her arms around her sister, sobbing. For an instant—a split second that passed so quickly Conlan wasn't sure he'd actually seen it—Alaric tensed, fingers curling into claws, as if he were going to attack Riley.
     
    Even as Conlan moved to place himself between the two, the moment faded. The green flames in Alaric's eyes muted slightly.
     
    "Help her!" Riley lifted her sister's head carefully onto her lap and stared at Alaric. "Help her! I know you can do it. You healed poison and sword wounds and broken heads. You can surely heal a little—oh, my God, it's a gunshot wound. Please, please," she begged, somehow sobbing and issuing a command all at once.
     
    Alaric shook his head back and forth, a dazed expression on his face. His eyes were wild, almost rolling around in his head. Conlan had never seen him like this.
     
    "I can't," he muttered brokenly. "I can't reach her. I can only feel the pain she's sending out. I can't get past it."
     
    Conlan dropped to one knee beside Riley and put his arms around her, hoping to give some comfort. She elbowed him viciously and shook him off, never for a moment looking away from Alaric. She curled her lips back from her teeth and snarled so ferociously she almost looked like a shapeshifter herself.
     
    "You can, and you will, because I will push you past it." With that, she grabbed Alaric's forearm in a viselike grip and forced his hand down to her sister's shoulder. "I've seen healings on TV. Witch healings. They need to touch in order to do it. I'm guessing it's the same with you."
     
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    As Conlan watched, somehow Riley managed to win the struggle with Alaric, combating his reluctance with sheer desperation. As the priest's hand passed through the last inch of space separating it from Quinn's shoulder, Conlan saw an aquamarine glow pass from Alaric's palm into Riley's sister.
     
    When Alaric's fingers finally touched Quinn, her body, resting in Riley's lap, jumped at the contact, and her feet drummed into the red-and-gold pile of fallen leaves in which they lay. Riley, still holding tightly to Alaric's arm, closed her eyes.
     
    Alaric threw his head back, flinching, the cords in his neck standing out in stark relief as every muscle in his body seemed to tighten.
     
    Conlan lifted his hands to Riley's shoulders, but an electric shock slammed him back away from her. For the space of several seconds, the three—Alaric, Quinn, and Riley—were frozen in a painful tableau, limned in a luminous blue-green light.
     
    Then, as one, Riley and Alaric slumped forward, gasping for breath. Conlan caught Riley before she could fall forward onto her sister, gently taking her chin in his hand and searching her face for signs that she had been harmed.
     
    Alaric caught himself, one hand on his knee, the other still in place on Quinn's shoulder.
    "I do not know why you were caught up in the healing process, Riley. I have never channeled the healing powers like that before. Are you harmed?"
     
    Before Riley could respond, a quiet, slightly husky feminine voice cut across the sound of rasping breaths. "If you move that hand one inch closer to my boob, I'm going to cut it off."
     
    Alaric took one look into Quinn's eyes as they opened and fell back away from her.
    Shooting to his feet with such speed that Conlan almost wasn't able to track him, Alaric backed away from them, shaking his head and muttering something to himself.
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
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    Conlan was unable to make out the words, but he heard the cadence of ancient Atlantean and wondered at it. He stroked