Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

kissing her was the only thing keeping him sane. Her hands were trapped between them, resting on his powerful chest, and then he flipped her over and yanked her legs up.
    “Need you now,” he said roughly, thrusting into her over and over and over. “Now. Always.”
    She couldn’t talk, speech was impossible, nothing was left to her but pure sensation. She was the flame to his candle, and together they were incandescent. She climbed so high she knew the fall might kill her, but she didn’t care, she only knew she wanted him. Now and forever. Just like this, inside her body and inside her heart.
    He cried out and she came apart around him, and together they fell off the side of the world and into each other’s soul.
    Christophe knew exactly what was happening to him, and the terror he’d expected was nowhere to be found. It was the soul-meld, and he’d told himself he’d never, ever allow it to happen to him.
    Now he welcomed it.
    Her soul was warmth and light and color, it was a landscape painted by a true master. He saw her childhood and the dark grays and shades of black for the terror and sadness she’d experienced with her grandfather and father. He swam through the blues and greens as she grew older, began to move on, cared for and loved her brother, was cared for and loved in return by both Declan and Hopkins. He saw the scarlet of excitement and adventure as she took on the persona of the Scarlet Ninja. Watched her go on her first heist.
    Cried with her when she was finally able to help people the vampires had harmed.
    Her soul was as beautiful as she was and the same glorious contradiction; neat, orderly, and organized in certain parts, and wild, flowing, and free in others. She was a woman made up of so many different and contrasting colors that she absolutely took his breath away, and the realization smashed into him as he reveled in the fire of her stubborn and courageous heart: he was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her.
    Fiona clutched Christophe’s shoulders, almost feeling as if she actually were falling off the edge of an impossibly high cliff into a terrifying abyss below. Somehow, she didn’t understand how or why or if it were even real, but she was falling into Christophe’s memories.
    Darkness surrounded her, and fear and pain swallowed her up until she screamed. She was so young, no, he was, it was Christophe who was the child, this was his memory, and his poor, broken and battered body lay curled up in the corner of a rough wooden box. The darkness stank of urine and terror, and Fiona wanted to kill the woman who had done this to him. Even the rational realization that the woman was long dead, that all the townspeople who’d turned his parents over to the Fae were long dead, did nothing to reduce her need for vengeance.
    They deserved to hurt and suffer for what they’d done to him. They deserved—but then she fell again.
    Fell into warmth and confusion. His grandparents had loved him, but he’d been closed off, terrified, angry.
    Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
    Page 151 of 188
    Why hadn’t anyone saved him? Why hadn’t they saved his parents? Why were they lying to him? His young mind couldn’t understand it, couldn’t find a way to ask, so he reached the only decision he could.
    He quit trusting. Anyone, ever.
    She fell again. Warrior training. Finally the belief that what he was doing was right. He could avenge his parents. Only to learn that his duty was to protect the very humanity who had caused his family’s murder. Doing his duty, year after year, while the anger, pain, and futility ate at him.
    Falling again and again. The magic in him. So powerful. Alaric’s edict that he join the priesthood, learn to train and channel the power. Christophe’s refusal. Again feeling like an outsider. As though he weren’t good enough.
    She fell again, this time into a pool of golden warmth. Felt bathed in hope and reassurance; a sense of belonging. A feeling of home after so many long centuries without. She looked into the light, the source of this wonderful, soul-renewing hope.
    And she saw her own face smiling back at her.

Chapter 33
    Christophe held Fiona as tightly as he dared, rocking her back and forth as she cried in his arms.
    “How did you stand it?” she finally said, her sobs slowing. “So alone for so long. How could you bear it?”
    He considered the question and realized he didn’t know how to answer it. “I didn’t know any