Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

carvings, and I wouldn‟t be so sure of that.”
    He turned to face her, holding the energy sphere up. She could see every detail of his features in the softly glowing light and realized that somehow, in such a short time, her heart had memorized his face. She caught her breath, afraid of what her own expression might reveal to him.
    He studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “I don‟t understand. How can you have seen my carvings? I give them away as soon as I finish them.”
    Her hand tightened on the fish. She wanted to tell him, wanted to let him know how much he‟d meant to her over the years. But something stopped her. Some remnant of rational Keely before she‟d fallen through the looking glass.
    They needed to find water. They needed to find the Star of Artemis and use it in whatever way they could to help Justice heal his fractured mind.
    Then she could tell him amusing stories about a small wooden fish and be careful not to let on just how pathetic she was that she‟d let a simple carving and visions of a long-ago warrior take on such importance in her life.
    She forced her fingers to release the carving and dropped it beneath the neck of her shirt again. “I don‟t know. I‟m just hot and tired and probably remembering something Liam said to me about carvings,” she said, forcing a laugh. “Anyway, look at this. The final, and successful, attempt was when K‟ucumatz mixed white and yellow maize—corn—to make the flesh and blood of humans. This time it worked. One of the most important figures in the Mayan culture is the maize god, which you see on that wall.”
    He studied the second wall, luckily distracted from her remarks about his carvings. “This is similar to the maize god you told us about in the mural with Anubisa in it?”
    “Yes! Yes, it‟s clearly from the same artist or group of artists. I‟m almost sure of it. Of course, without side-by-side comparison of photographs, I can‟t be—” She swayed a little, suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness, and started panting, unable to catch her breath.
    He caught her with one strong arm around her waist. “Keely? You are unwell?”
    She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to breathe, but the heat and dehydration, probably combined with the events of the past few days, had taken their toll. He released the energy sphere, lifted her into his arms, and moved them both out of the chamber and back to the mouth of the cave, where the outside air was much fresher.
    She leaned over, pulling in slow, steady breaths, until the dizziness and hyperventilation passed. “I‟m fine,” she said finally. “Just really could use some water.”
    Unexpectedly, he smiled. “Although the Nereid still hides from me, or is recovering from the use of so much power, I find that my Atlantean gifts are returning. If water is what you want, my Keely, then water you shall have.”
    He strode outside and stopped in the middle of the clearing, legs braced apart and arms held up in the air. The sunlight shone down on him as if he were some primitive god himself, returned to his people and ready to accept their worshipful homage. He was beautiful and stern and primal, and something deep inside her stirred, shaken and moved by the sight of him. Her breasts tingled and her nipples hardened, craving his touch, and her thighs tightened as liquid heat pooled in her center, readying her for him like some ancient virgin to be sacrificed to a lusty god.
    Her face flamed at the thought and she tried to remind herself of the biological imperative that caused women to be attracted to powerful men in dangerous situations. She was a scientist. She of all women couldn‟t fall prey to something so primal.
    Even as she tried to resist the siren call of his intense sexuality, he lowered his gaze from the sky and stared straight into her eyes. His own had darkened to black with blue-green flames dancing in the exact centers of his pupils. “Poseidon, hear me,” he called out in a voice filled with tempest-tossed waves and gale-force winds, never taking his gaze from her. “Bring water to me that it may give life and health to my woman.”
    “I‟m not your woman,” she whispered, but this time even she didn‟t believe it. At that moment, with winds circling Justice like a typhoon, whipping through the clearing to center on him, energy crackling around him like miniature lightning bolts in shades of silver, blue, and green, she could deny him