Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

Alaric sacrificing his needs to those of his people, the human archaeologist and object reader Keely had discovered a bitter truth: Poseidon had never decreed celibacy for his priests. Not even his high priests, of whom so much was demanded.
    No, the call for chastity had instead been the desperate attempt by a group of elders to prevent Atlantis from being destroyed. So far, that was all they knew. Not how or why. They knew the when, approximately eight thousand years ago. Nereus had been high priest and Zelia had been his wife.
    Wife.
    The word knocked the air from Alaric’s lungs. He immediately thought of Quinn’s reaction to such a term, and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. Rebel leader, yes.
    Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
    Page 190 of 232
    Warrior, certainly. Brilliant strategist, without question.
    But wife?
    The leaves near him rustled slightly and he tensed, knowing that enthralled shifters roamed the woods. He called power and stood ready. However, it was not an enthralled wolf shifter that leapt out of the trees to land lightly, in spite of its enormous size, in front of him. It was Jack.
    Humor gleamed in the tiger’s slanted eyes, and he made a deep, rumbling sound that a fool might have mistaken for a purr. The fool would have lost a hand shortly thereafter.
    Alaric inclined his head. “Jack. Always . . . interesting to see you.”
    The tiger bared its teeth, but Alaric merely raised an eyebrow.
    “Now, boys, play nice,” she said, appearing from the woods on the opposite side from where Jack had been. Alaric turned to look at her, and the rest of the world disappeared.
    “Hello, Quinn. It has been too long.” He was proud of himself for managing the calm tone. He was even more proud of himself for not snatching her up and abducting her to somewhere no one would ever, ever find them.
    Someplace with no demands on either of them. No responsibilities.
    A place, then, that existed only in fantasy.
    “Hello, Alaric,” she said, and the husky sound of her voice resonated in every nerve ending in his body. His power flared hot and bright, and he wanted to call a waterfall, a thunderstorm, a tsunami, and lay them all at her feet.
    Jack snarled and swiped a paw against a young tree, taking half of its bark off.
    “I think Lucas will not appreciate that,” Quinn told him. “Will you please wait in the headquarters for us?”
    Jack snarled again, but Quinn just aimed that steady, weighing gaze at him, the one nobody ever wanted to have find them wanting. No wonder she was such a good leader. Men and women would die for her.
    Had died for her.
    She carried them all in her soul.
    Jack turned around, swishing his tail hard so that it smacked into Alaric’s legs, and then bounded off toward Lucas’s giant log-cabin headquarters. As he crossed the clearing between the trees and the house, he shifted shape between one bound and the next, so that the tiger seamlessly became the man, fully clothed, in the space of seconds.
    Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
    Page 191 of 232
    “He’s very good at that,” Alaric observed, hearing the inane stupidity of his words even as he spoke them.
    But Quinn only nodded. “He dislikes you,” she said, in her blunt way. She confronted most problems head-on. “He thinks I’m pining away for you, and he thinks I should be his mate.”
    Alaric went deadly still. “What do you think?” he asked, when he was able to speak.
    She shrugged. “He’s right, and he’s wrong. I am pining away for you, and I’m not his mate. His human soul cares about me, but his cat is indifferent. Friendly enough, but definitely not in a mating way. The dual-natured must find the mate that both halves of their soul desire for true happiness.”
    “Do you believe in that?” he asked her. “True happiness?”
    She looked into his eyes, and he fell into hers, drowning in the deep, liquid dark. “I used to,” she said. “Once, long ago.”
    “Your sister Riley is happy with Conlan,” he challenged her. “Soon they will rule Atlantis together, with their son beside them.”
    A shadow of pain crossed her face. “I still haven’t met my nephew. Tell me about him. Aidan. Is he well?”
    He nodded. “He is a healthy, well-formed boy with a fierce spirit. He is definitely his parents’
    son.”
    She smiled. “I was hoping for that. For her. She deserves to be happy. But with Atlantis on the verge of war, how happy can the ruling