Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

rage, and something like terror sliced through her. She started to speak, but he shook his head.
     
    A warning or a denial.
     
    “I ask not for your sympathy—I will not accept your pity. I have never spoken in any detail of the eternity I lived during those two years, and I never will. But you need to know that if you continue to tease me, you‟re baiting a beast the likes of which you have never encountered. I fear something in me was broken and still lies twisted, with jagged edges, inside the boundaries of what I once experienced as desire.”
     
    Grace didn‟t know what to say. Didn‟t know what to do. Only knew that she had to say or do something to help dispel the horrible aching loneliness in his eyes.
     
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    “I‟m tougher than I look,” she said, trying to smile. “Despite how little trouble I‟ve given you here in the practice ring. And I‟m very good at fixing broken things. I‟ve never tried with a broken person, though.”
     
    Abruptly, he released her and stepped back. “And so you should not have to, lovely Grace. I will avoid you as much as possible during this assignment. You have my word.
    Please accept my deepest apologies for this inappropriate display on my part.”
     
    He turned and had begun walking away before she could formulate a response. She wanted to follow him, but she needed to be careful. After all, she didn‟t know what had happened to him. What was wrong with him. What violence was masked by his undeniably stunning exterior. She‟d come to see even the scars as an enhancement, turning classical beauty to rugged. But she needed to be cautious.
     
    She watched him as he walked away from her, his body held rigidly upright, having rejected her before she could reject him. He was protecting her. He was protecting himself.
     
    Her defenses shattered. To hell with cautious. She was going after him.
     
    “Alexios!” She started walking, then running, until she caught up to him. She lifted her hands to cup his face. “Don‟t. Don‟t apologize to me. Don‟t treat me like I‟m fragile.
    Don‟t run off on me. I think . . . I think there‟s something between us, and I‟m . . . I want to take the time to figure it out. Life is short—”
     
    She broke off, laughing. “Well, okay. Life may not be short for you. But for me, for humans, yes. I learned that brutal lesson ten years ago. Give me a chance to be not just your ally, but . . .”
     
    “But?” he prompted.
     
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    She lowered her hands and stepped back, suddenly embarrassed at her own presumption. What was she, a psychologist? How did she think she could offer anything to this man who‟d clearly been through so much?
     
    “I‟m an idiot,” she mumbled, closing her eyes. “Total idiot.”
     
    “I seriously doubt that, but why would you say it? Grace?” He caught her arm and stared down into her eyes. His own had turned nearly black, with a peculiar blue-green flame in the exact centers of his pupils. She knew that Atlantean eyes were sort of like mood rings, but this blue flame thing was new.
     
    “Grace?”
     
    She blinked, feeling like she‟d just nearly hypnotized herself in his gaze. “Maybe, maybe we could take it slow. Find out . . . discover if there‟s anything between us worth pursuing. I‟m not exactly girlfriend material.”
     
    It was his turn to blink, and then a wide grin spread over his face. “Girlfriend material,”
    he repeated slowly. “Oh, may the gods help me. I can‟t believe I‟m going to have to talk to Alaric about this.”
     
    “What? What does Alaric have to do with it?”
     
    He bent and kissed her forehead, then bowed deeply. “As you say, we will take it slow.
    Until tomorrow, mi amara .”
     
    With that, he whirled around and started to run across the courtyard, then took a giant leap and dissolved into mist in midair. Grace watched the shimmering cloud that had recently been an Atlantean warrior as it sailed off through the sky.
     
    Well. That was one way to end a conversation.
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    Show-off.

Chapter 9
    Washington, DC, the Primus, later that night
     
    Vonos, lord high vampire of the Primus, smoothed out a minuscule wrinkle on the sleeve of his Armani suit jacket and then swept a triumphant glance around the room.
    He smiled as he signed his name to the document in front