Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

Poseidon's justice might not have burned out of him.
     
    But duty was ingrained too deep. Destiny rode him too hard for him to imagine any other path. He locked down his shields and took a deep breath. "I am sorry, Quinn. I am…
    weary."
     
    She pushed herself off the bed to stand, unsteady on her feet. "I understand. I have the idea that I may need to thank you for saving my life again." She crossed the narrow width of the room and knelt down in front of him and put her hands on his knees. "So, thank you."
     
    He sat, frozen in place, the heat from her hands searing through his pants to the skin below, to the nerve endings, to the very blood cells that rushed through his veins.
    Caught in a sparkling prism of sensation, he knew that her gratitude would be his destruction.
     
    "You cannot—" He could barely force the words past the pain suffocating him. "You cannot touch me, Quinn. You cannot ever touch me."
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
    Page 166 of 296
    She stared up at him, her enormous eyes gone as dark as despair and filled with an anguish beyond what could possibly be borne by such a fragile human. "I know, Alaric. I know I'm not worthy to touch you. I could never be worthy. But in this one moment, stolen from reality, please let me."
     
    He shook his head. She didn't understand. It was he who could never be worthy of her, he who could not abandon his people and his duty and Atlantis, he who had performed such unredeemable actions that he could never erase the stains from his soul. "Quinn, no, you do not understand—"
     
    But before he could finish the sentence he did not know how to form, she rose and touched her lips to his, and his world shattered. He leapt up in one powerful movement and yanked her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion and fury and urgent need that had been clawing at him since the first time he'd seen her face. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, fervent longing in her taste, in her touch, in the glory of her warm and welcoming mouth.
     
    He kissed her, his arms wrapped so tightly around her that a distant, sane part of his mind recognized that he might hurt her and he loosened his fierce hold, just a fraction.
    Not enough to let her go; he could never let her go.
     
    She pulled back for a moment to draw a breath, and he pressed kisses to her face and neck and cherished her with a stream of words in Atlantean, words she could not understand, words she could not know spoke of longing and need and desperate, soul-deep hunger.
     
    He lifted his face to claim her lips again, and saw the iridescent sparkle of her tears as they streamed down her face. "I knew it would be like this between us, Alaric," she whispered. "I knew, and I knew it would be so much worse for me if I ever touched you.
    If I ever had a single taste of what I can never find or have or hold."
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
    Page 167 of 296
    Pain sliced through him, agony so fierce and grinding that his back arched from the strength of it and he jerked, startled, when his head bumped the ceiling of the room. He blinked and looked down, only to realize that he had floated, carrying her, several feet off the ground. He focused enough of his waning energy to gently lower them so that their feet touched the floor again, and then, his arms still tightly wrapped around her, he kissed the tears as they fell from her eyes.
     
    "You honor me with your tears, mi amara" he whispered. "I cannot be what you need, but know this. There has never walked the earth or the waters of the oceans a more worthy woman than you. Your courage and spirit shine brightly enough to pierce the most evil darkness. If I could have nothing else in this lifetime or the next, I would wish for an eternity at your side."
     
    She inhaled sharply, a harsh sound of pain that crushed the fragments of his heart that still remained in his chest. "Alaric, if you only knew… The things I've done. I can't—"
     
    He could no more stop himself than he could cease his need for breath. He bent to kiss her again, to somehow claim a kiss that would suffice to warm the next several centuries of his barren, lonely existence, but then stopped, alerted by a noise in the corridor. He flashed to stand between Quinn and the door a mere second before it slammed open.
     
    Denal stood there, misery etched in every line of his face. "Conlan sent a message to us with one of the warrior trainees. It's