Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

“Where did everyone else go? Off to bed so soon?”
     
    “They‟re off to check out the local nightlife. You never even heard them leave, did you?”
    Michelle shook her head. “Lost in happy lustful fantasies, no doubt.”
     
    “Actually—” Grace broke off whatever she‟d been about to say. Stupid. Girly. Having conversations about her feelings . Next she‟d be hanging posters of kittens and rainbows in her office.
     
    “It‟s okay, you know,” Michelle said gently. “It‟s okay to feel. Okay to want an emotional connection with something other than your bow.”
     
    “I don‟t have time or room for it. If I let down my guard, if I start to care . . . and then he doesn‟t . . . I can‟t, Michelle. I want to, but I don‟t know how.” She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders. “I can‟t let my brother down by becoming distracted from the mission, anyway. He died . Every day that I go on living, if I‟m not working to win the battle, I‟m failing him.”
     
    “Oh, honey,” Michelle said, putting a hand on Grace‟s arm. “Do you really think Robbie would want this for you? This unhappy, lonely life? I knew your brother, remember? He was so full of life and joy, and you meant the world to him. If you want to dedicate your life to vengeance, perhaps consider that what he would want isn‟t this grim existence of battles and blood and death. Maybe he‟d want you to find love.”
     
    Love? Was it even possible? How could a human fall in love with a man certain to outlive her for hundreds of years? Were Atlanteans immortal? She didn‟t even know.
    The thought of growing old and wrinkled while Alexios remained with her out of loyalty Atlantis Unmasked - Warriors of Poseidon 04
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    and obligation, though he was still as virile and vibrant as the day they‟d met . . . well, it turned her stomach. She wasn‟t particularly vain, except about her hair that she really should cut. She couldn‟t even remember the last time she‟d worn lipstick, for Pete‟s sake.
     
    But to grow old and feeble while he stayed young. No. She couldn‟t stand the thought of it.
     
    “It‟s impossible. He‟s too old for me” managed to make its way out from her frozen vocal cords.
     
    “Maybe. But these Atlanteans are magical, Grace,” Michelle said. “Perhaps there‟s a way around that, too. But we‟re putting the cart far ahead of the poor horse. You don‟t even know if you‟d want to grow old with the man. Shouldn‟t you give yourself the chance to find out?”
     
    A burst of convivial laughter startled her, and she glanced down to see Sam giving Alexios a friendly punch on the arm. Men. A good dinner, a few beers, and some war stories, and they were buddies for life.
     
    Why couldn‟t it be that easy between men and women?
     
    “Maybe it should be. Easier,” she told Michelle. “Maybe I should quit worrying about what might happen eighty years from now and focus on now. On tonight. On whether sex can ever be as great as it‟s cracked up to be.”
     
    Michelle‟s smile was a little wistful around the edges. “It can be, when your heart is involved. Or, let‟s be honest, sometimes even when it‟s not.” She laughed. “But I have a feeling you‟re going to find out. Just relax and be open to the experience, promise me? I can tell you care about this man, and—”
     
    Atlantis Unmasked - Warriors of Poseidon 04
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    A loud scraping noise sounded through the chill, dark air, cutting off whatever Michelle had been about to say and putting them into instant alert. Grace instinctively sought out Alexios, but he was nothing but a blur in the air coming toward her, and then he was next to her, daggers out, crowding against her, pushing her away from the edge.
     
    “Move away from my right arm,” she snapped, needing space to draw her knife. “I knew I shouldn‟t have left my gun and bow in the room.”
     
    “It was dinner, Grace,” Sam said, moving in front of Michelle, holding his Glock at the ready in a two-handed Weaver stance. “Who takes a gun to dinner in a tourist town?”
     
    “Who but you, you mean? Funny man.” She reached into her pants pockets and through the openings cut in the bottoms of the pockets to the silver-bladed knife strapped to her right thigh and the wooden stake strapped to her left. “Alexios, can you see what it is?”
     
    “It‟s trouble. Move. Now. There are too many, Sam, and I don‟t want the