Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

anguish in his eyes. “She did it for me. She stepped between the stake and my back.”
    Daniel looked down at Deirdre, bloodred tears streaming down his face. “Not for me. You should not have done this for me. You were still too weak from the torture to survive this trauma.”
    Deirdre smiled a little, then gasped and doubled over. Daniel cried out, but she wasn’t dead.
    Not yet. But Brennan could tell from the way she looked that it wouldn’t be long.
    “You saved me once, now I return the favor,” Deirdre told Daniel. “You can still accomplish so much good. I am broken and more than ready to rest.” She looked up at Brennan. “Please give my love to my sister, and tell her I died with a prayer in my heart for her.”
    Then she grasped the stake and, before Daniel could stop her, pushed down until it angled into her heart and shoved it farther into her chest with one powerful movement.
    “No,” Tiernan cried, but it was too late, and they watched, unable to look away, as Deirdre dissolved into pale, silvery ash in Daniel’s arms, and even that faded and vanished before their eyes.
    “No,” someone cried out, but it wasn’t Tiernan this time. Brennan jerked his head to the right to see what new danger was approaching, but it was Quinn, running down the corridor toward them, keeping pace with Alaric, who juggled spheres of blue-green power.
    Quinn stopped and fell to her knees beside Daniel. “No,” she said again.
    But it was too late.
    Daniel threw his head back and screamed a long, wild, feral cry and Quinn flinched back. Alaric reached for her, but stopped himself before he touched her shoulder, instead turning to Brennan.
    “We’re here to rescue you,” Alaric said, raising an eyebrow and scanning the area.
    “Great timing,” Tiernan managed to say.
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    Alaric’s lips moved a fraction, which for him was almost a smile. “Perhaps I could at least assist with that?” He pointed to her broken arm.
    Before she could answer, he released the power spheres he’d been holding and let them roll down her arm, where they re-formed, coalescing into a sleeve of pure light.
    Tiernan made a contented humming sound deep in her throat, her head falling back while the magic did its work, and then the light winked out. She held out her arm and cautiously stretched it and bent it and then looked up, her eyes wide, and smiled at Alaric.
    “Thank you very much. That was hurting a bit,” she said.
    Alaric inclined his head. “Think nothing of it.”
    Tiernan took Brennan’s hand. “Okay, I won’t. After Brennan brought me back from the dead, fixing a broken arm seems kind of ordinary.”
    Alaric trained a piercing stare on Brennan. “I will need to hear more of this.”
    “Fine. Later. Let’s get out of here,” Tiernan said. She knelt down by Daniel. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Daniel. She saved us. She was very brave.”
    Daniel stared blindly at her, not seeing Tiernan or anything else, Brennan suspected. “She was mine to protect, and I failed her.”
    “No,” Brennan said. “She made her choice, and she died a hero.”
    Quinn put a hand on Daniel’s arm. “We need to go.”
    “Yes, please,” Tiernan said. “Can we please get out of here? I can’t die or face death one more time down in these miserable tunnels.”
    Daniel nodded and stood up, leaning on Quinn. His nostrils flared when he came close to her, and his face hardened, taking on a predatory cast for a split second, but then he pulled away from her, shaking his head. Brennan noticed that Alaric tensed, like he was ready to lunge at the vampire, and didn’t relax at all even when Daniel backed away from Quinn. They started down the corridor in the direction from which Alaric and Quinn had come, and met no more resistance along the way.
    “Lucas is rounding up the rest of the scientists in the conference room upstairs,” Quinn said.
    “I will remove their memories of anything to do with this horrible procedure,” Daniel said.
    “You’ve been going by the name Devon?” Quinn asked. Evidently the rebels knew quite a bit about what had been happening here, as usual.
    “Yes. I was here for the same reason you are. Enthralling shifters and humans is wrong.
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    Categorically wrong. I’m not going to let power-mad vampires take over the world and turn everyone on the planet into a