Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

Lucas and reinforcements, and we will be safe,” he said, his eyes glowing hot again. “Tonight you will tell me about Susannah and then rest.”
    So she did. Susannah, who’d had an odd quirk of her own: she never lied. She was, in fact, a psychology major, studying lies and human behavior. Everyone else had seen her as rude and abrasive; total honesty was nearly impossible to live with in polite society. But it had been a wonderful quality in a friend and roommate for Tiernan. So peaceful to be around someone who never jangled her nerves with the discordant clamor of lies.
    Tiernan had even liked Susannah’s boyfriend. He was a nice guy. Easygoing. The only lies he’d ever told, at least around Tiernan, were of the “your hair looks great with that new cut” variety.
    It had been a glorious, golden time. “Peace,” she said, “is vastly underrated. Silence, too. For nearly four entire years, I spent most of my time, other than class or working, with Susannah, and toward the end of that time, with both of them. So much silence and peace and—even better—the musical beauty of utter truth.”
    “You had no other friends?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t need any other friends. I tried, but I always had to escape when they’d start lying. I couldn’t bear it anymore, you know? I’d been so spoiled by Susannah. She had a few other friends, which was great, since I enjoy time to myself, sometimes, so I’d hang out in our apartment when she went out.”
    “But something happened,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
    “Something happened. Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” She clenched her hands together, hoping to stop them from shaking. “Something happened, and then she died.”
    Brennan needed to comfort his woman. He would have given his sword arm for the ability to break through the bars and lift Tiernan into his embrace, then vanish through the portal to Atlantis before the guards could raise a finger, let alone one of those damned guns. But the portal wasn’t answering his call, he couldn’t reach Alexios, and he was alone, completely powerless, trapped in a concrete cage far underground and far, far away from the haven of the Seven Isles.
    If—no, not if. When he got her out of here, he was going to tie her down to keep her from taking any more risks. Just the thought of what she must have done before she met him was enough to turn his heart over in his chest. She was fearless and stubborn—a bad combination in a warrior, but at least a warrior had weapons training and the skills to get himself out of corners. A journalist . . .
    Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
    Page 166 of 232
    He stopped, forced to admit the flaw in his logic. He was a warrior of great renown, and what good had training and skills done him? He was just as trapped as she.
    “She was a shifter, as you saw upstairs before all hell broke loose,” Tiernan said abruptly. “A fox shifter. But guess what? I lived with her for four years, and the first time I ever saw her in fox shape was on that video. The first time I even knew what she was?” She turned an anguished face to him. “The night she died.”
    “She never told you?”
    “She hid it. I don’t know how she managed, because she never lied to me, but she did. I never suspected a thing.” Tiernan laughed a little, but it was a bitter laugh with little humor in it. “I never asked her, ‘Hey, do you turn furry at the full moon and run around eating rabbits?’ after all, but, still, you’d think one of those times she was out all night I would have caught something off about her story when she came home.”
    “It’s not a normal thing to wonder about one’s friend,” Brennan said gently. “You should not blame yourself for not suspecting.”
    “It wasn’t a normal thing until about eleven years ago. But now everything is normal. Friends who are shape-shifters. Police officers who are vampires. Vampires in Congress, for God’s sake.
    Don’t you think Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves?” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you know Thomas Jefferson?”
    He smiled, but shook his head. “No. I did, however, meet Sacajawea once. You remind me of her. The same fearless, adventurous, questioning nature. She would have liked you.”
    Tiernan’s eyes widened, but he could tell she liked the idea. It pleased him to distract her, even for an instant, from the pain of her story and her fear about their