Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

the fanciful impression and sat down in a chair in the corner farthest from her, so as not to threaten her any more than he already had. He refused to admit, even to himself, that his legs felt as if they would no longer hold him up. Shame swamped him and he was unable to meet her eyes, terrified of the condemnation he’d see in them. That he deserved.
    “Let us begin, then, with an unforgivable truth that occurred more than two thousand years ago,” he said, steeling himself against the disgust he knew she’d feel for his debauched existence and the deaths he had caused. She was the one—she must be the one—and now he would destroy any hope that she would ever have any feelings for him other than fear, revulsion, and condemnation.
    After Corelia and the babe, though, he had known he could never deserve a chance at happiness. It had been an eternity since he’d even thought the state possible.
    Poseidon had won. Finally and irrevocably. Brennan would tell his story, she would order him from her, and he would welcome death. There could be no going back from this, once it began.
    “It was the year you name 202 B.C. I was a young warrior then—” He looked up her, the bitter shame nearly swamping him as she stood, still at the door, clutching the two sides of her ripped shirt together. “Please. If you desire to repair your clothing, I will turn my back.”
    She laughed, but it was wild and held no humor. “Repair this? That will take more than the mini sewing kit. Turn around, and I’ll change.”
    He did, expecting to hear the sound of the door opening as she made her escape. Instead, after a short pause, he heard the zipper of her bag opening and had to force himself to stomp on the images of her undressing that his mind tried to provide.
    “Okay,” she said.
    He turned around and found her leaning against the wall, one hand again on the door handle.
    She’d pulled on a dark sweater to replace the shirt he’d torn, which was no longer in sight.
    Bitter shame burned through him again, but he gritted his teeth against that or any other emotion. She deserved to hear his story without his sniveling self-pity coloring any part of it.
    She nodded at him to continue, her dark eyes fixed and staring as if she were nearly in a trance, whether from fear or anger he could not tell.
    “Truth, warrior,” she murmured. “Sing me the truth of your Atlantean secrets.”
    Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
    Page 33 of 232
    Something about her voice sent chills sweeping up his spine. It was different, somehow. Almost hypnotic. Perhaps—but he could not stop to analyze it. No going back, after all. So he sat in the too-small chair in the too-small room and he told her the story of a warrior cursed by his own god.
    No going back.

Chapter 5
    Tiernan took slow, deep breaths and tried to convince herself she wasn’t insane. To stay in the room with this man, who’d assaulted her only minutes earlier—it was stupid and dangerous.
    But the stakes she was playing for were so high; high enough that she’d been willing to risk her life in order to discover the truth. And the feeling she got from Brennan was not, oddly enough, danger. It was sadness. A vast, unbearable despair. He hadn’t even noticed the tears streaming down his face as he’d held her. The lace of her bra was still damp. Her cheeks heated at the memory of his face on her chest.
    He’d said he was sorry. He’d mentioned a curse, and it had been the truth. Now she would listen with one hand on the door, ready to escape, in case she didn’t like what she heard. She could do that much. She could risk that much.
    She nodded again, and Brennan began his story. An almost unbelievable story—totally unbelievable to anyone but her—that began in ancient Rome. She studied him carefully as he told her of his “drunken debauchery” all those years ago. Every line of his body echoed his remorse. He sat with his head bowed, shoulders slumped, and hands clasped together and resting between his legs. How he’d failed in his duty, forsaken his honor, and been the worst man ever to walk the planet, according to his story.
    Any journalist worth the ink in her printer would have dismissed him as dangerous and deluded, or at least any journalist who couldn’t tell truth from lies merely from hearing the words. An unpleasant idea occurred to her and she interrupted him right in the middle of “alone with an innocent maid.” Maybe she could no more