Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

again at the risk she was taking, even though the fate of his own fractured mind might rest on discovering the location of the Star of Artemis.
    Finally, she stopped walking and stood, head bowed, her fiery red hair falling forward to hide her face from view. His fingers ached to stroke the silken strands away from her forehead as he pulled her close to him.
    His arms ached to hold her and never, ever let her go. Lean on her strength to help him fight the battle waging within him. Her calm was the check to his madness, her light the balance to his dark.
    She was his Keely. Our Keely, whispered the Nereid. Ours and only ours, forever. Let her do this one small task, and then we will leave this place until we gain the strength to use our combined powers to conquer. It is our rightful place, as heir apparent to Atlantis .
    Justice recoiled and drew on all of his mental reserves to lock the Nereid away in a far corner of his mind. He didn‟t know how long he could keep it under control, but he would never listen to treasonous plans from the poisonous stranger who lived inside his head.
    Inside his soul.
    He was doomed, and he was damned, and the only faint hope he had of surviving with any of his sanity intact lay in the strength of this human female.
    “I‟m ready,” she said quietly. So quietly he almost didn‟t hear her. “I‟m going to take off my glove now and touch it, but only with one hand. Sometimes that lessens the force of the impact. I‟m not sure why.”
    Slowly, reluctantly, she pulled off her left glove and dropped it to the floor. Turning to Justice, she attempted a small, wavering smile. “Hey, wanna hold my hand?”
    She lifted her right hand, still gloved, and he leapt forward to take it.
    “Always,” he said.
    Her green eyes briefly shone with a flash of happiness or, perhaps, hope. Then they darkened again with grim resolve. “Okay, let‟s do this thing.”
    She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, visibly relaxing the tension in her body as she prepared herself. Then her eyes snapped open and she grinned. “Feels like I should say something important or ceremonial here, but I got nothing.”
    Before he could think of a reply, she reached out with her left hand and grasped the edge of the cushion farthest away from the Trident itself. Then her eyes widened until he could see white rimming her entire pupils. Her hand clutched spasmodically at his, and then a bolt of pure energy shot through her body and slammed him across the room. He crashed down on his back but was up in a second.
    Keely screamed so loudly and with such anguish that acid seared through his stomach as he shot across the room toward her. Ven, swearing a flaming streak in Atlantean, headed for Keely. Conlan dove at the cushion to yank it out of her grasp.
    But some kind of completely transparent energy shield, like nothing Justice had ever encountered before, bounced them all away from her and on their asses on the cold, hard marble floor.
    Keely, still standing there with her hand grasping the cushion so tightly that her knuckles were white, shuddered and shook, still screaming. Her eyes rolled back in her head until he could see nothing but white, and he snarled and leapt toward her again.
    He must reach her. He must protect her. He‟d promised to hold her hand, always, and he was failing her.
    The energy shield smashed him back again, and this time his head cracked against a wall a dozen feet away. He put a hand to his scalp and it came away bloody, but it wouldn‟t stop him if it took a hundred tries, or a thousand tries; by all the nine hells and even those deeper, he would save Keely or die trying.
    Suddenly, her screaming stopped. The unexpected silence cut through them like the sharpest blade. Keely‟s eyes returned to normal, but emerald fire blazed from them as though something or someone more than just Keely looked out.
    “He took it,” Keely said, her voice steady and clear, in spite of the convulsions racking her body. “Reisen took the Trident so that he could become the king. The House of . . . Mycenae.
    The House of Mycenae should rule. Poseidon made him pay for his arrogance. He . . .
    something about his hand. The vampires took Reisen‟s hand.”
    “How could she know that?” Conlan asked, awe infusing his voice.
    “Justice could have told her,” Ven said, but Justice saw the doubt in his brother‟s expression.
    They were starting to believe.
    Another shock visibly raced through