Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

would willingly dive through her frozen depths to his own destruction.
    “No man has kissed me of his own volition for more than five thousand years,” she whispered. “I accept your offer, Lord Justice, blood kin to Conlan and to Vengeance.”
    “No!” Ven shouted, but he was too late. Anubisa put her arms around Justice‟s waist and soared upward toward the far-distant ceiling of the cavern. As they rose, Justice remembered the healing ruby that she carried—the gemstone that might save his unborn niece or nephew.
    He caught her lips in another kiss and moved his elbow so that it knocked the cloth-wrapped bundle from her arms, figuring that was when she‟d kill him.
    Shock number three thousand or so of the day: she didn‟t even seem to notice.
    So be it. Ven and Erin would be safe—Prince Conlan, his woman, and their unborn child would be safe.
    Justice had— almost —gained a family, and his actions this day would keep them safe. His ruined soul for the innocence of new life. Death or insanity was the smallest of prices for such value.
    But he wanted to say it. Needed to say it. Just once. He bent his head and gazed at Ven, and uttered the word he‟d been forbidden to say for so many centuries. “Brother.”
    Then Anubisa whispered something in a long-dead language, and his reality fractured, kaleidoscoping into the Void.

Chapter 2
    Present day, Archaeology Department,
    The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
    Dr. Keely McDermott unlocked the door to her office, glad that the few students wandering the long, fluorescent-lit hallway didn‟t pay any attention to her. She didn‟t feel much like answering questions after the long flight from Rome.
    As she hauled the heavy bag containing her precious tools into her office, she made a mental note to order a new Marshalltown trowel. Hers had seen better days and, like most archaeologists, she counted her tools among her most prized possessions. She‟d keep the old one for sentimental purposes, maybe. It had been her first, and it had brought him to her.
    Her warrior.
    She glanced down at the tiny wooden carving of a fish that rested against the front of her T-shirt, hanging on its silver chain. The old Marshalltown had discovered the delicate carved fish for her. Since first touching the fish three years ago, she‟d spent more time than she probably should have lost in visions of her very grown-up version of an imaginary friend: the blue-haired warrior from hundreds of years in the past. He‟d carved the fish while he sat next to a campfire, laughing and talking with friends. She‟d caught her breath in wonder at that first image of him. He was beautiful, so primi tively male that the sight of him had quite literally taken her breath away.
    From the silken wonder of his multihued hair to his high cheekbones, strong neck, and the broad shoulders topping his muscular torso, he should have been posing for a sculpture, instead of forming one from wood. The lines and muscled curves of his body had been so clearly defined in the flickering firelight of her image as he sat there, wearing only pants, head bent to his carving.
    Even now, probably hundreds of years after that campfire had been extinguished, the emotional resonance of his touch shone through, sparkling through her nerve endings with an almost tangible caress each time the fish came in contact with her skin. No matter that her warrior had been lying in his grave for a very long time. Trust her to be the kind of freak who lusted after a guy who‟d died centuries ago. But when she touched the carving, it offered a kind of comfort. And still, even now, a shiver of heat raced through her, bringing sensual longings she‟d thought were as dead as the civilizations she studied. For him. Never for a living, attainable man.
    Always for him.
    She caressed the odd little fish‟s wooden fin and, yet again, it was almost as if he were there with her. One of the few benefits of being a touch psychic. Her face twisted in a bitter smile.
    Lose all of your real friends, but find a hunk of a phantom warrior to keep you company.
    She sighed and wished for the thousandth or so time that she even knew his name. Anyway, whoever he was, it wasn‟t his fault that she was a friendless freak. She‟d definitely keep the trowel.
    Finally snapping out of her private daydreams, she closed her office door behind her, glancing around at her space. Mementos of her travels and digs—casts from some of her finds and a