Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

natural at the game. If we’re going to be in it, we should be in it with someone who can manipulate the rules to our advantage. When the Americans changed their constitution to allow for a third house of Congress controlled entirely by our kind, they opened the door for total domination.”
    “They all but laid down and bared their necks,” Jones spat out, his lips peeled back from his teeth. “It’s our duty to accept their sacrifices.”
    “Perhaps, but one does not become leader of the Primus by murdering humans,” Devon said.
    “The next Primator must be seen as one who can work with them, or he will suffer the same fate as the last two have.”
    “Or she,” came a husky voice from the shadows of the far corner. “Perhaps a woman will become Primator this time.”
    Devon smiled, enjoying the way the champagne silk sheath hugged her curves as she stepped forward into the light. “Of course, Deirdre. If any woman could do it, it would certainly be you, my darling.”
    She walked around the corner toward him, neither noticing nor acknowledging in any way the lustful and speculative glances from every other vampire in the room. He held out his hand and she took it, her fingers icy cold.
    “Shall we dance, my love?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and staring so deeply into his eyes that he almost shivered from the soulless despair in her own.
    “Absolutely,” he said, bending to kiss her hand. “Gentlemen, we will talk more tomorrow night.
    Until then.”
    Not bothering to wait for their agreement, he left the room, still holding Deirdre’s hand. The instant the door closed behind them, she snatched it back, and strode rapidly down the hallway.
    “Do you think you convinced them?” she said, a safe distance from vampire ears, compulsively wiping her hand on her dress and probably not even realizing she was doing it.
    He shrugged. “We’ll find out tomorrow. One way or another, this will go forward.”
    “Litton is a fool.”
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    “Yes, but he’s a brilliant fool, and we need him.”
    She paused in the hallway just before stepping into the edge of light spilled from the ballroom doors. “I don’t like fools. They can’t be trusted to behave in a consistent manner.”
    “He’ll behave, or we’ll kill him. Is that consistent enough for you?”
    “Powerful men control their women? Is that really what you believe, vampire?” The ice in her voice was cold enough to freeze the entire world, and yet it only scratched the surface of who she was and what she had endured.
    Devon regretted it, but he could not change the past. If only he had that power, there were so many, many actions of his own and others he would undo. Not only vampires had regrets, however. He’d learned that painful lesson recently.
    “You know it is not what I believe,” he finally answered. “But I have a role to play, as do you.”
    A dead, humorless smile spread over her pale, pale face. “Then we dance.”

Chapter 10
    Every muscle in Brennan’s body tightened as the first wave of hot, powerful jealousy washed over him. The ballroom was large, but the crowd was pressing in on him, the pounding bass of the music amplifying the pounding in his skull. Hundreds of humans, mostly male, all of them staring at Tiernan, or at least so it appeared to his feverish emotions.
    Staring at her. Lusting after her.
    They needed to die. Painfully. Slow, bloody deaths.
    She tightened her clasp on his hand as if she could sense how near he was to losing all control.
    “This will only work if you calm down,” she said, loudly enough to be heard over the music.
    “This would work, as you put it, much better if you were ugly or wore a cloak that covered you from head to toe,” he muttered. “I cannot be responsible for my actions if any of these men dare to touch you.”
    “Who else would be responsible?” she said, laughing at him. The sound of her laughter was like a beacon of light to the darkness of his existence, and it offered him a measure of much-needed calm.
    He swept his gaze from the shiny dark waves of her hair down to her smooth shoulders, lingered awhile on the delicious curves of her breasts, barely covered by the red silk of her gown, and then moved on to her womanly hips and long, long legs, until he reached the pointed toes of her silly shoes. “If we have to make a rapid exit, those shoes will be less than Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of