Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

throat, and a fierce wave of protectiveness washed through him. He never wanted Grace to have to face this kind of tragedy again. Not tragedy—not pain—and definitely not danger.
     
    He found himself wishing that she were a descendant of Aphrodite, instead of Diana. A beauty content to stay safely out of danger instead of a huntress. But she looked up at him and offered a tremulous smile, and he knew she was both.
     
    And he was lost.
     
    “I‟m going to kiss you now,” he said, but then he waited, not knowing whether he expected rejection or permission. Not knowing which he feared more.
     
    “I‟m going to let you,” she whispered, but she didn‟t. Didn‟t passively wait for him to kiss her. Instead, she lifted her face and pressed her lips to his, and the gentle pressure sparked a conflagration inside him.
     
    He wanted to kiss her, claim her, brand her as his own. Every instinct battled common sense and care; reason forced him to act gently—she was injured. Primitive hunger older than mankind—older than Atlantis—roared out its demands. He pulled away a little, winning the battle against his darker side, but she refused to let him go. She moved even closer to him so that she was sitting half on his lap, and she lifted one hand into his hair and pulled his head closer to hers.
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    “I don‟t care. I know this is wrong and callous to kiss you like this. To want you like this.
    When so many were injured—” She stopped and sucked in a shaky breath. “I know it‟s wrong and weak for me to need you like this, but I do. I could‟ve died tonight, and for the first time in all the years I‟ve faced that final moment, I was afraid.”
     
    She stared intently into his eyes, willing him to understand. “I was afraid, because for the first time I had something to lose.”
     
    He kissed her again. He could do nothing but kiss her and hold her and touch her. Kiss her even more deeply. Some part of him, some sane, rational part, reminded him to be careful of her injured side. He held her as though she were made of the most fragile Atlantean spun glass, and he kissed her as though to stop kissing her would mean the end of all hope and light and love.
     
    Love. Even as the unfamiliar word flashed across his consciousness, something changed. The world shifted on its axis and the stars somehow fell out of the sky and exploded into the room with them.
     
    Alexios was kissing Grace, and he was falling. Spiraling down into a glowing funnel cloud made of vividly contrasting colors. Darkest green and pale gold, emerald and amber, streaks of black silhouetting the jewel tones composed entirely of light. He was falling into colors, and he suddenly realized a shocking truth. He was falling into Grace‟s soul.
     
    She made some tiny noise, a moan or a gasp, but he captured it in his mouth, captured a jagged bolt of shadowed amber that he knew, somehow, to be her sorrow and fear.
     
    He instantly understood, though it had never happened to him in all the long years of his life. He was reaching the soul-meld with Grace, and exhilaration mingled with terror and threatened to capsize his sanity.
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    Grace clung to Alexios with one hand and held tightly to her injured side with the other, as if she could cling to him like ballast and save herself from the raging rapids of her emotions. He kissed her like nobody had ever kissed her. He kissed her as if she mattered— as if she meant everything to him—as if his warmth and hunger could redeem the dark, empty spaces inside her.
     
    She pressed closer and closer to him, wanting to feel his heart beating against her own, and the pain of her wounds seemed like a dim memory compared to the heat and hunger searing through every part of her. She was alive . She was alive, and she hadn‟t lost him. That could be enough for now. They could keep the darkness at bay.
     
    But then the heat and the longing changed. Transformed. The metamorphosis she‟d wondered about earlier crashed down on her with the force of a goddess‟s caprice. A spectacular rainbow of colors—the entire spectrum of color—exploded between them and around them and through them. Colors danced and pirouetted through her heart and soul and in the rhythms of the music of their kiss. She tried to pull away from him, dazzled by the light and the color, not understanding but