Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

witches nearly destroyed you ten years ago, my lord. And I will be happy to help them slice your sorry head off your neck."
     
    Drakos stepped back, as if to remove himself from a domestic quarrel. Wise vampire.
     
    "Deirdre, my love," Caligula purred at the fair-haired vampire who floated to the ground between he and Drakos. "How lovely it is to hear the dulcet tones of your voice again. It is so rare that you rise from the ground these days."
     
    She spat at his feet. "I would starve myself to the true death if only it were possible, and you know that. But you keep me guarded every second of every night."
     
    She shot a glance at Drakos, and it was almost surprising that the scorn in her words and gaze didn't turn the general to ash where he stood. "I see you've found a new minion to follow your imperial commands."
     
    "Although this has been lovely, Drakos has work to do, my dear. Perhaps you would care to take your rest with me this day?" Caligula held his hand out to her, knowing that she would not take it.
     
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    Knowing that, one day soon, he would break her. And he'd use her only surviving sister to do it. He'd been accused of obsession before, but all of that paled compared to his desire for Deirdre's surrender.
     
    "I will see you dead and rotting in hell, Caligula, before I ever willingly take your hand,"
    she hissed at him, leaping back a half dozen feet across the floor.
     
    "Perhaps, my darling. Perhaps. But there are many ways of rotting in hell, and you may yet join me there."
     
    He shot up and into the air of the cavern to a niche near the very top where he would take his rest and wait for the night. Very powerful wards protected him from disturbance while he slept; he'd tested them many times before he sucked the life out of the terrified witch who'd cast them. Glancing down at his general, who stood facing his reluctant bride, he called down one final direction before retiring to the darkness of sleeping death. "Progress, Drakos. Bring me progress, or I will find a general who will."

Chapter 11
    The Cave of Gems, below the Nereid Temple, Atlantis
     
    Marie led Ven down ancient stone steps, worn smooth with the tread of maidens for thousands of years. Strange that part of his mind was thinking about the freaking steps, when he held Erin in his arms and she was either dying or dead.
     
    Stranger that the rest of his mind was thundering in tortured agony that he could not survive the death of a woman he'd only known for a brief ripple in the waves of time.
    The anguish rose up from his gut, from his chest, and forced its way through his throat.
    He roared out his pain and rage as he followed the First Maiden ever farther down into the dark.
     
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    Several paces ahead of him, Marie stopped, clearly startled by the sound, but one look at his face and she simply nodded and continued to move, more quickly now, down the corridor.
     
    Although they were descending into the heart of the Temple of the Nereids, Ven sent out a prayer to Poseidon:
     
    She cannot die. I don't know why, I don't know how, but she has become more important to me than my own life. I owe you my service and my honor, Poseidon.
    Please spare this woman for me.
     
    Marie made a sharp turn and Ven had an instant to hope that Bastien's sister was as thoroughly competent as her brother. He followed her around the curve in the wall and stopped dead at the sight of an enormous glowing jewel. A jewel that Marie stepped inside.
     
    "It is a natural geode and the center of the Nereid Temple. It is where the Nereid's Heart lay before the Cataclysm," Marie explained. "The ancient ones wrote that the Cave of Gems is a natural restorative and power source for gem singers."
     
    She indicated a plain wooden table centered in the oval space. Six paces took him to the table; he immediately settled Erin's limp body on it. Marie pulled a green silken cushion from somewhere on the floor and slid it beneath Erin's head as he gently lowered her.
     
    Ven scanned the room and noticed that there were gemstones everywhere—distributed in deliberate patterns throughout the room, fastened to the silken cushions that lay scattered about, and even embedded in the base of the wooden table. The walls of the geode itself were a multifaceted shimmer of sparkling violet stone. As he smoothed the hair away from Erin's face, he