Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

She opened her mouth and screamed a long, utterly silent scream, and he threw back his head and laughed. "Yes, Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    twenty minutes is surely long enough," he said out loud, making certain that she heard him over the wordless sound of her own agony. And then he fucked her until he came, howling out his own completion mere minutes before the dawn.

Chapter 20
    The backcountry, Mount Rainier
     
    Ven watched Erin trudge along next to him on the snow-covered path, her eyes on the ground in front of her feet, weariness clear in every stumbling step she took. She'd kept insisting she could carry her own backpack until he'd overruled her and simply taken the damn thing. Still, traveling the mile or so from where he'd stashed the nondescript sedan Gennae had loaned him had taken more energy than she had.
     
    "I'd travel as mist and carry you, but Alaric warned me that even channeling that much Atlantean magic so close to Caligula's hideout might warn him that we were here. We can't afford to take the chance," he said for the third or fourth time.
     
    She nodded, not bothering to respond. He probably sounded like an old woman, hovering around her. All he wanted to do was protect her, cherish her, make love to her for the next century or two, and here they were walking right into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
     
    As they came to the top of another rise, Erin stumbled again and he caught her before she fell, then lifted her into his arms. "I've had enough of this. Your exhaustion is beating at me."
     
    She didn't argue with him, which scared him more than anything else had. Simply looked up at him with the skin around her eyes bruised dark and purple, then rested her head against his shoulder. "It sings to me, Ven. Can't you hear it? The Nereid's Heart sings so loudly, calling me. It needs me to rescue it from the dark."
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    He listened, focusing his Atlantean hearing on the sounds of the mountain dawn, but heard nothing out of the ordinary. "I'm sorry, Erin, I don't hear it. Is it unpleasant?"
     
    "No, it's beautiful. Magical, even. If my gem song is apprentice music, this is the sound of the master. So lovely…" Her voice trailed off, and he glanced down to see her eyelids fluttering as she tried to stay awake.
     
    "Don't fight it, mi amara, just rest. We're here now." He stopped in front of a tiny wooden cabin that was so well camouflaged by the trees surrounding it that it was invisible from a distance of more than eight or ten feet. Setting her gently down, he untied a complicated series of knots in a rope pull that held the door closed, and then pushed the door open. Entering before her, he was greeted by a slightly musty scent, but no errant wildlife had made the cabin into a den, so it was as clean as it had been when he'd last used it, more than eighty years ago.
     
    Erin walked into the one-room structure behind him and stopped, staring around. "What is this place? It doesn't seem like an official park structure."
     
    "I'm not sure the park even recognizes its existence," he said. "It's been here for more than a century, I'd guess. Maybe it was a trapper's cabin. The tradition among serious hikers is to keep it clean and use what you have need of and leave what you can spare for others." He strode over to the crude wooden shelves built onto one wall and checked out the supply of tinned goods. "Most of this is fresh enough that it will be edible, and I can always catch some game."
     
    "No," she said, shaking her head. "I know it's stupid, but I can't stand the thought of any more death right now, not even a rabbit or bird."
     
    He didn't argue, simply nodded and dropped their bags on a bench, then refastened the door from the inside. The two small windows were boarded shut against the winter, but there were cracks in the walls and the room was icy.
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    "We need to make a fire. There's chopped wood in the fireplace, but I don't see any matches." He searched the shelves, swearing under his breath at his failure to bring any with him.
     
    "No matter," Erin said. She moved her fingers gently in the direction of the fireplace and the kindling under the logs sparked and flamed until a steady fire crackled.
     
    She raised one eyebrow. "It's a simple enough trick that even first-year novices can raise fire. Isn't it something