Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

one of her dates had been obsessed with Jessica Alba.
    At least Jessica was human. Ish.
    Justice was clutching the end of his braided hair so tightly his knuckles were white. “You don‟t understand. Her attraction is like the flame to the moth, or the snake to its prey. She is death and despair and madness, somehow packaged in the dark fantasies of a deranged mind.”
    Any childish thoughts of jealousy vanished in the face of his obvious struggle to explain it to her. “Is yours? Deranged, I mean? What did she do to you?”
    His face hardened and he almost imperceptibly shook his head. “No. I won‟t tell you that. I won‟t tell anyone that, ever.”
    Justice was silent so long that she thought he‟d changed his mind about talking to her. But then he nodded, as if coming to some internal decision.
    “Breaking the geas shattered my sanity. The curse was such that I always assumed I‟d die if I ever broke it, but maybe something in the Void changed its nature. I don‟t know. I just know that Anubisa wanted . . . She wanted me. She wanted me to do . . . things. Unspeakable, hideous things. But my mind fractured into a thousand pieces when I was unable to fulfill the geas and I came very near to dying. She wouldn‟t let me die.”
    The lump in her throat made it hard to talk. No one should have to endure so much as he had, centuries of life or not. She forced out the words. “And then? When you didn‟t die?”
    A smile so terrifying spread across his face that she almost physically recoiled from it. “Then she cast me into the Void, and said that she would take my brother in my place.”
    “Do you have another brother? Besides Ven and the high prince?”
    “No. She held Conlan prisoner for many long years of torture, so I know she‟s planning to go after Ven again next. But now I‟ll be here to stop her.”
    She didn‟t point out the obvious: that there wasn‟t much they could do stuck in the cave.
    More and more she was starting to believe that they would make it out.
    She was starting to believe in him.
    “Will you be able to overcome the damage from breaking the geas ? I mean, you do reference yourself in the plural sometimes,” she ventured.
    “My mother was a Nereid, Keely. You saw her. She gave me qualities and, evidently, powers from her lineage. Powers that I don‟t know anything about, yet. I think when my sanity fractured, it somehow let loose the Nereid side of my soul. He battles me even now, because he wants—”
    He broke off, and a dark flush swept over his face.
    “He wants?” she prompted, even though she was suddenly sure she didn‟t want to know what the Nereid wanted. Not when it made Justice‟s face turn to icy marble like that.
    “He wants you,” he said flatly. “He wants to strip you bare and get you under him, whether you agree or not. He wants to take you, Keely, and I‟ll die before I let him.”
    Her gasp echoed in the silence between them, and she nearly tripped over her own feet stumbling to move back and away from him.
    Anguish tightened Justice‟s features, and his eyes darkened to black as he sat, perfectly motionless, watching her. “So now you know, at least some of it. You know the darkness, the death, and the despair. There has been light, as well, but I would judge that you won‟t be able to hear of that now.”
    Some part of her responded to the pain in his voice and wanted to comfort him, but the reality of just how isolated she was—trapped with a self-confessed madman—was coming back to the forefront of her awareness. No matter what sympathy or even empathy she had for him, she couldn‟t do him any good if she were dead.
    Or brutalized by the evil side of his nature.
    It took every ounce of her skill and training, but she managed to speak calmly. “Of course I would love to hear about the happy times, but you‟re right. Now isn‟t a good time. We should work on finding that way out of here, don‟t you think?”
    As he rose gracefully to his feet, she was extremely proud of herself for not flinching. When they escaped this cavern, after this experience, she‟d be able to face anything.
    If they ever escaped this cavern.
    Firmly silencing the foreboding voice in her mind, Keely turned toward the cavern walls again. There had to be a way out, and she was going to find it.

Chapter 22
    Justice roamed around the cavern, searching in vain for a way out. Whatever power he‟d managed to call on earlier to transport them was silent, as if