Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

your system are influencing your judgment and bringing you perilously close to telling tales you cannot share." She raised her arms again and spheres of pure power glowed in the palms of her hands.
     
    Before Justice could launch himself, bare-handed, across the ground in a killing leap, she hurled one of the balls at him and it smacked him in the gut. The punch of it knocked him back, smashing him to the ground. Even as his head slammed into the Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    stone floor, the healing silvery-blue light of her energy ball surrounded him and sank into him. Into his skin, into his blood.
     
    Into the dark and empty space in his soul that had briefly seen in her a vision of home.
    The light washed color and song through and around him, and he gained a too-brief knowing of what it was to be a gem singer.
     
    Then it was gone.
     
    Blinking, Justice sat up and realized that he felt about a hundred times better. His headache was gone, the constant aching across his ribs where the vamp had slashed him was gone. Both wounds now felt as if they had never existed. He didn't check underneath his bandages. He felt no need.
     
    "You healed me," he said to her. To them; the gem singer and the Goddess.
     
    "We did," she replied, still in that immense, musical voice. "And now we must find the Nereid's Heart before its ruby song consumes me."
     
    He jumped to his feet and bowed to Ven, who stood there still looking confused. "My apologies, Lord Vengeance. I was… overcome."
     
    Ven just stared at him, then finally shrugged. "I don't pretend to know what just happened, but we don't have time for this now. We need to—"
     
    But Justice never heard what Ven believed they needed to do. Because the two reluctant guards rounded the corner back to their post and stopped dead at the exact moment that he heard an angry roar. Five hundred pounds of tiger hit him in the back like a freight train, and he went down.
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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Chapter 31
    Ven saw the expression on Justice's face signal the approach of what smelled like wolf.
    He'd been standing a little to the right of the opening, out of the line of sight of anybody coming back into the cave. He leapt even farther out of the way, holding up a warning hand to Erin to stay back. The thunderous tolling sound started up again and she got that dazed look on her face, but at least she stumbled back against the wall.
     
    He turned to face the approaching shifters, so he had less than a split second of warning before Jack—all fangs and claws and pure, enraged muscle—attacked Justice.
    He couldn't hear the snarling over the sound of the Nereid's Heart, or whatever was making that enormous noise, but he could tell from the tiger's wide-open jaws that there was definitely snarling going on.
     
    He'd known they must have drugged or poisoned Jack to knock him out. What he hadn't known is what effect the drugs might have on a ferocious weretiger.
     
    Figures it wouldn't be good.
     
    He raised his sword and plunged it into the chest of the first shifter to hit the room. The Were had been moving fast enough that the impact drove Ven back a few paces.
    Before he could yank his sword out, Erin moved away from the relative safety of the shadows against the wall and headed for the fierce battle going on between Atlantean and tiger.
     
    "Damnit, Erin, get back!" he shouted at her, not that she could hear anything but that damned ruby. This plan was fucked clear to the nine hells and back.
     
    He had time to see Erin throw a shield around herself, and then the second shifter was on him. He abandoned his sword and went hand to hand, dropping to the ground and using one leg to sweep the Were's legs out from under him. The man dropped hard to Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    the ground, then snarled at Ven out of a rapidly lengthening muzzle. He was about to have a fully transformed werewolf to deal with, and he just wasn't in the mood. Before the sparkling shimmers of transformation had fully dissipated, Ven balanced the silver and orichalcum dagger by its tip and then hurled it the short distance to his target.
     
    Silver in a Were's heart stopped them like nothing else. Ven didn't have time to enjoy his victory, however. He whirled around and leapt into the ball of fur and blue hair snarling and growling on the ground. He managed to get an arm around the