Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

it.
    “Well,” she said diplomatically. “At least you brought the pancakes to us. Next time, maybe you could work on bringing the coffeepot, too.”
    The expression of sheer outraged indignation on his face sent her over the edge, and the laughter poured helplessly out. She bent double, clutching her stomach with both arms, and laughed until tears leaked from her eyes. Maybe it was hysteria, maybe it was exhaustion or the culmination of way more stress than a mild-mannered archaeologist should have to endure, but it all caught up to her at once and she laughed until her ribs ached.
    At some point, a quiet sound caught her attention and, wiping her eyes, she looked up to see that Justice was chuckling. Not a full-fledged laugh, not even a small one, but at least a chuckle.
    It was a start. The man had a sense of humor. She could work with that.
    Taking deep breaths to calm down before her laughter turned into hiccups, she plopped down on the edge of the tablecloth and picked up a fork.
    “Hey, if we‟re going to end up in jail for pancake theft, we may as well enjoy them.”
    His eyes warmed to the color of molten jade, and her breath caught in her throat. Strange how something as simple as eye color could touch her emotions this way.
    “I agree. Also I‟m starving.”
    As he sat down on the other side of the tablecloth, Keely stuffed a forkful of maple bliss into her mouth and practically purred, sending up a silent thank-you to the cook who was probably standing in the middle of her kitchen with her mouth hanging open at that very moment.
    “Oh, wow. This is wonderful.”
    He nodded, looking pretty happy himself. “They didn‟t exactly serve home-cooked breakfasts in the Void,” he said, his voice cracking a little.
    “Oh. I didn‟t . . . I didn‟t want to pry. But if you want to tell me about it, I‟d be glad to listen,”
    she offered, placing her fork down on the edge of her plate.
    His jaw clenched, then relaxed. Something dark flickered in his eyes before he finally nodded.
    “Maybe. Maybe you deserve to know. I wasn‟t always a kidnapper of lovely archaeologists, you know.”
    The smile he aimed at her was tentative, but it signaled huge progress, and she couldn‟t help smiling back at him.
    “Eat, or I won‟t tell you any of it. You look like a gentle wave would knock you over,” he admonished.
    “I‟ll have you know that I‟m stronger than I look,” she said, but she picked her fork back up and dug into a fluffy pile of scrambled eggs.
    Justice worked his way through a healthy portion of breakfast in silence, then pushed his plate aside. “You saw my . . . the king.”
    She nodded. “Your father.”
    A grimace twisted his face. “Yes, if you like. Not that the man ever showed me anything but loathing. In any event, you know about the geas —the curse—upon me never to reveal the circumstances of my birth.”
    “But you did, didn‟t you?” she said, piecing together everything she‟d heard from the others during the craziness at the portal. “You told them, when you sacrificed yourself to save your brother and everyone else.”
    “Sacrifice is too noble a word. I did what anyone would have done, after taking the measure of the situation and developing a strategy.”
    “Right. Of course. So many of us would voluntarily turn ourselves over to a . . . What was it?
    A vampire? No, wait, a vampire goddess . To save the lives of other people. Yeah, you‟re right. That‟s not noble. I do that every day before breakfast. Twice on Fridays.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Don‟t think I don‟t see what you‟re trying to accomplish.”
    “Oh, good. I so rarely even know what I‟m trying to accomplish myself, so it‟s good that you can see right through me,” she said, widening her eyes in mock innocence.
    It made him laugh, which inexplicably made her very, very happy. She decided not to overanalyze it. “Go on. You‟re not noble, you‟re off with the goddess, and then?” An oddly unpleasant thought crossed her mind. “Goddess, huh? I bet she‟s pretty beautiful.”
    “She is possessed of a terrible beauty that is almost inconceivable to human imagination,” he said grimly. “Every inch of her is a study in dark and glorious perfection.”
    “Great. Goddess. Inconceivable beauty and perfection. We could probably move on now.”
    Okaaay. That‟s one way to measure up short in the comparative looks department: go up against a goddess. She‟d thought it was bad when