Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

She laughed and laughed until tears started rolling down her cheeks, and Alejandro crouched down next to her and touched her cheek with one hand.
    “You are very courageous, Keely, but even the strongest steel can find its breaking point. Let me assist you in carrying your man to a better place to rest.”
    “He‟s not my man; he‟s a thickheaded buffoon,” she mumbled, scrubbing at her face, and it was Alejandro‟s turn to laugh.
    “All men are buffoons at times,” he said gently. “The heart of a good person cannot lie, and your heart shows plainly on your face whenever you look at him, as his does when you are near.”
    She just sighed. He called out, and one of his men came over to help. Between the three of him, they managed to lift Justice‟s heavy form and get him inside to a pallet of blankets in one corner. As soon as she saw them, Eleni wiggled out of the arms of the woman who‟d been holding her and ran to them.
    “Señor Justice, Señor Justice! You cannot be hurt. I did not see you hurt,” she cried out. Then she hurled her tiny body on top of Justice‟s chest and put one arm around him, still holding that awful slipper in the other, and cast a reproachful glance at Keely. “Except when you hit him. You should not have done that. Hitting is wrong. We must use our words to resolve our differences,” she said in a singsong voice, clearly parroting something she‟d heard many times.
    Alejandro and the other man strode off, probably to return to guard duty, and Keely dropped to her knees next to Justice‟s still body. “You‟re right, Eleni. It was wrong of me to hit him, and I will apologize when he wakes up. Is that okay?”
    Eleni nodded, the tracks of tearstains shining silvery in the dust coating her cheeks. “I was so afraid. Even though I did not see you being injured, I was so afraid. But you came back, like you promised.”
    Keely soothingly patted Eleni‟s thin back and rashly made a promise—to herself and to the child. “I will always come back, Eleni. If you like, you can stay with me from now on.”
    But Eleni was drifting off to sleep, still clinging to Justice, and she didn‟t respond. Probably hadn‟t heard, which was all for the best. Keely wondered if she was going crazy. Falling in love with a magical warrior and then punching him. She‟d never punched anyone before in her life. Promising something to a traumatized child that probably would be impossible to achieve.
    Still, she‟d seen the impossible on a daily basis since the moment Liam had walked into her office talking about Atlantis. Surely arranging for one orphaned child to come home with her couldn‟t be that difficult.
    Firmly putting all of it out of her mind, she curled up next to Eleni and Justice and put her arm over both of them. She was exhausted and needed sleep. She‟d think about the rest of it in the morning. As she fidgeted, trying to get comfortable, she felt Justice‟s warm hand pull hers to his chest, so that it rested on his heartbeat. Comforted by the feel of it, strong and steady under her palm, Keely finally let her mind and body sink into the warm darkness of sleep.
     
    Several kilometers away, in the temple at San Bartolo, the wounded vampire finished telling the leader of his blood pride the tale of the events of that night. Enraged, the leader‟s yellowed fangs lengthened so fast that they slashed bleeding ribbons in his lips. He bellowed out a howl that was so long and loud that all of his pride members in the area dropped to their knees and cowered.
    “They dare? They dare to threaten me?” he screamed. “We shall see who lives to threaten whom after this night!”
    “Perhaps,” ventured the vamp whose leg was still trying to heal, “we could wait for the rest of us to return at dawn from hunting and go in strength when night next falls?”
    The leader swooped down on him, eyes glowing red and savage. “You dare to question me?”
    he hissed.
    “Never, never, my lord. But if you could have seen the power of the explosion . . . I only suggest that we return with sufficient force that no hint of danger could come near to touching you.”
    The leader drew back, a calculating expression on his face. “Perhaps you are right. A true leader never risks himself; I am far too valuable to take any chances of facing the true death.”
    He slowly turned to face the mural of the goddess Anubisa preparing to feast on the puny maize god of the ancient Maya. “We will destroy