Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

call the Wilding. I can't get past this warding any other way."
     
    "So do it. You've already proven that you can control it," he said. "I'll be right here with you."
     
    "It's not that, Ven. It's that vampires and anybody who is part of the dark seem to be able to sense the Wilding. By calling it, I'll be giving our position away."
     
    He turned those dark, warrior eyes on her. "I think we're past worrying about that.
    Breaking the ward may set off some kind of magical car alarm, for all we know. And if there's only one way in, it's bound to be guarded. I'd already given up any hope for stealth a while ago."
     
    He bent to place his sword on the ground, then scooped her up and kissed her fiercely.
    "No matter what occurs, remember that your soul has melded with mine, Erin Connors. I do not plan to let you escape me so easily."
     
    "Same goes, Lord Vengeance," she whispered. "Same goes."
     
    Then she gently pulled away from him and opened her mind and soul and the power of her gems to the Wilding, and reveled in its power as it immediately came to her call and spiraled through her body. It was a matter of seconds to undo the ward, which now seemed almost pathetically simple to her. As the last strand of its magic snapped, destroying the warding entirely, the ground shook beneath her feet. The powerful sound of a tolling bell—or possibly a ruby calling to its singer—rang through the ground and up into the air through a dark opening that slowly appeared in the snow.
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
    Page 252 of 296
    This time, even Ven heard it, if the startled glance he sent her way was any indication.
    "That's the Nereid's Heart?"
     
    "I think it must be," Erin said, finding it hard to speak over the gem song, ruby song, and heart song flooding through her senses. "It's lovelier than I ever could have imagined."
     
    He retrieved his sword and raised it, then peered down into the darkness of the hold.
    "There are steps carved into the rock, like a stone ladder, and what looks like a tunnel branching off from it," he reported.
     
    Erin simply smiled at him, feeling drunk with the wonder of the pure, undistilled power that poured through her, circled around her, and wrapped her in its heat.
     
    His eyes narrowed as he watched her, but he said nothing, just held out a hand. She placed her own in his and he squeezed it briefly and then started down into the hole.
    The ruby continued to toll its clarion call to her, to her, only to her.
     
    The power. The power. Oh, the power. She could lose herself in it. She wanted to lose herself in it. To hide away from the pain and desolation of the past ten years.
     
    "Erin." The voice was faint and barely penetrated the music, but it kept nagging at her.
    "Erin! Snap out of it! I need you with me if we're going to do this."
     
    Ven. It was Veil, he'd climbed back out of the hole, and he was saying something. With difficulty, she focused her gaze on him. "Do you hear the ruby, Ven? It's singing to me and tempting me with so much power. A seduction of power," she said, lifting her arms and twirling around, her voice lilting with the cadence of the ruby song.
     
    "Erin! I need you to concentrate." He grabbed her shoulders, stared down into her eyes and spoke a single word. "Caligula.".
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
    Page 253 of 296
    The name was a slap of cold water against the fog permeating her brain. Clear, sober thought instantly returned as she clamped all of her control down, hard, on the Wilding.
     
    "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It just caught me for a minute." She shuddered against him. "It's so seductive, Ven. It wants me to call it and own it, and it would be so easy to fall into the whirlpool of its power and never return."
     
    "You have to fight it. You must control it, or we'll never succeed." The blue-green flames were back in his eyes and for a momentary flash of time, she could see into his soul to the deep concern he had for her safety.
     
    She twined her hands in his silky black hair and closed her eyes, not speaking, not thinking, just letting the pure tactile sensation of his thick hair sliding through her fingers occupy her entire present.
     
    She stood that way for at least a minute, and then she released him and nodded. "I'm back. I've got it under control. It's okay."
     
    "Are you sure? I will not take you into the darkness if there is no hope of return, my lady," he said quietly, dropping back into