Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

following some internal rhythm, she lifted her hips over and over, then sank back down against him, taking him into her. Taking him all. Reveling in the feel of control.
     
    Until control broke and she had to take, to plunder. To rise and fall with the tides, with the waves of passion, cresting with the heat and power. He arched his body into hers, thrusting up, giving and taking and giving more until she felt her body tightening around his and she made sure she was looking into his eyes as the world exploded around them.
     
    A long time later, when she could finally move, she realized that he‟d pulled the blanket around her shoulders and covered them. “Not bad for „gently,‟ ” she murmured, smiling against the warmth of his chest.
     
    His arms tightened around her for a moment. “Not bad? Is that all? I‟ll have to try harder next time,” he said, amusement in his tone.
     
    But then reality intruded, slicing into the space between them like a blade. “Alexios? We have to get up. Alaric may be here anytime now, and we need to prepare for the meeting with the Fae.”
     
    He lay still and silent for several seconds then finally sighed. “You‟re right. What does it mean that, for the first time in centuries, I would be glad to forfeit duty and relinquish honor for another hour in your bed?”
     
    She started to laugh. “It means we have a lot in common.”
     
    Alexios paced back and forth across the parapet, continually trying to reach Alaric, but the mental pathway was blackly silent. Either the priest would come or he wouldn‟t.
    Atlantis Unmasked - Warriors of Poseidon 04
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    There was nothing Alexios could do to influence the outcome. The sun was beginning to set over the little town, which meant that the time for the meeting with Rhys na Garanwyn was drawing near.
     
    Grace was blocking him out, avoiding his eyes when he tried to talk to her and compulsively sharpening her arrowheads. Her contented smile had changed to harrow-eyed denial when he‟d suggested she stay behind. She didn‟t want to discuss options, and she had flatly refused to allow him to meet with the Fae alone. Other than forcibly restraining her, he could find no way to keep her from that meeting. And, given that the elf prince had specifically come to Grace, Alexios couldn‟t be sure that leaving her out of this meeting would not be a grave insult. The Fae were tricky when it came to things like that, and Alexios was a warrior, not an ambassador. The delicate niceties of politics and negotiation were beyond him.
     
    He felt the icy wind first, its temperature far below the winter sea breeze. When he swung around, Alaric was standing behind him, his dark clothing ripped and blood-spattered, and his eyes wild.
     
    “Bad day?” Alexios asked mildly.
     
    Alaric clenched his hands into fists at his sides, a faint blue-green light pulsing in an eerie halo around his skin, but then the meaning of Alexios‟s words seemed to sink in, and he almost imperceptibly relaxed.
     
    “You could say that.” The priest‟s eyes were sunken deep into his head and he looked almost worse than the crazed panther shifter Alexios had trapped in a cell. Eddie. Which struck him as a ridiculous name for someone who turned into a lethal predator, but nobody had appointed Alexios as head guy in charge of names.
     
    And now, even his brain was rambling.
     
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    “Do you need a break? Are you going to be up to this meeting? The Fae—”
     
    Alaric snarled, and the power sizzling through the air ramped up a notch. “I don‟t need you to tell me about the Fae, youngling,” he snapped.
     
    Alexios held up his hands. “Sure, I‟m not arguing with you. Don‟t want to end up a dark splotch on the cement. But watch the youngling stuff—I‟m only a hundred or so years younger than you.”
     
    Alaric made that hideous snarling noise again, but this time his gaze had shifted, and his eyes had gone a flat silver. Alaric was in pure predatory mode, and Alexios was suddenly, hideously sure that he knew why.
     
    “Grace,” he said, her name a prayer on his lips. “Please tell me you‟re not threatening Alaric in any way.”
     
    “I‟m pointing my bow right at him, but it‟s more of a precaution than a threat,” she replied. “You might want to back down, priest. I am a descendant of Diana and my goddess hunted your sea god in her day.”
     
    For one horrible