Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

Conlan with a stare. "What side are you coming down on?"
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 201 of 351
     
    "Side of what?" Riley asked. "What are you talking about?"
     
    "Side of the revolution, baby sister."
     
    Riley sucked in a breath. Sure, she'd heard rumors of a revolution against the rapid encroachment of the supernatural species into human society and government. But she'd stayed out of it. She wasn't political—she had enough to do just trying to keep her clients healthy and fed.
     
    And alive.
     
    Conlan nodded slightly. "Okay. Here's as much of the truth as I'm willing to tell you right now, and I do it on the condition that neither of you share this information with anyone."
     
    Ven's chair came down on all four legs with a bang. "You can't do this, Conlan. You can't—"
     
    "Riley has a right to know, since we are taking her home with us. And her sister must therefore know, as well."
     
    Riley felt the nerves in her neck go board rigid. "You said that before. Funny, I don't seem to remember being asked to go anywhere."
     
    Conlan took her hand in his and squeezed it. "Do you trust me?"
     
    "I—" She paused, thought back to the glimpses she'd had into his memories; into his soul. "Yes. I trust you. This aknasha thing we have between us—it may be overwhelming my common sense, but I do know that I can trust you. But where is home? Are you really talking about the lost continent of Atlantis?"
     
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 202 of 351
    Ven snorted. "We were never lost. Just hiding from you fools."
     
    Quinn leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the table. "I'd watch who you called fools if I were you, fish boy."
     
    He grinned. "Wanna check me for gills?"
     
    "Enough! Can we quit with the bickering and just get on with it?" Riley asked.
     
    Conlan nodded. "Yes. We're from the continent of Atlantis. More than eleven thousand years ago, the Seven Isles rode the surface of the waters as do your own lands. Our civilization and technology were far superior to that of the humans of the time, but we shared such knowledge of the sciences and the arts as we deemed appropriate."
     
    "So you condescended to help out us poor lowly humans?" Quinn sneered.
     
    "Quinn. Not helping," Riley murmured, and her sister rolled her eyes, but subsided.
     
    "As often happens, the humans with whom Atlantis had always enjoyed a peaceful coexistence became greedy," Conlan continued. "Not all; not even most. But a few corrupt ones in power. Enough to push the idea of conquering our lands and taking for themselves what was ours."
     
    "Yeah, like especially the gold and anything of value," Ven growled.
     
    "We could have worked it out. According to the ancient scrolls, we were on the verge of working it out. But that's when the vamps decided to get involved," Conlan said.
     
    Riley shuddered. "You had vampires even back then?"
     
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 203 of 351
    "The bloodsuckers have been around since the beginning, when the god Chaos bedded his twisted daughter Anubisa and began the whole foul—" Ven lapsed into a lyrical-sounding language that wasn't the least bit recognizable to Riley.
     
    "They may be aknasha, but they don't understand ancient Atlantean, Ven," Conlan observed, a wry grin quirking up the edges of his lips. Then the humor faded from his face and an expression so terrifyingly haunted took its place that Riley squeezed his hand, hard, to try to pull him out of whatever hell he saw in his mind.
     
    It seemed to help, a little, but Riley still saw the stamp of a predator on the fierce cast of his face. She was careful not to reach out and touch his emotions.
     
    She knew she didn't want to visit whatever he saw in his mind.
     
    "Anubisa," he ground out. "The unholy union of Chaos and Anubisa, the goddess of death. Their offspring were the ancestors of all bloodsuckers. Anubisa is a vamp herself but, as near as we can figure out, she feeds on negative emotion more than blood. The more passionate, the better."
     
    "Like the pain of torture," Riley whispered, suddenly understanding what she'd seen and felt in Conlan's memories.
     
    He pulled his hand away from hers and smoothed his expression to a mask of calm.
     
    A false mask of calm, most likely. How could he have survived that? How could anyone?
     
    With the thought came despair. "How can we defeat somebody who thinks she's a goddess?"
     
    "She is a goddess," Ven