Atlantis Awakening (21 page)

Before Justice could move, Alaric caught his shoulder in a firm grip and heat seared through his body. The priest's eyes flared brightly, then dimmed back to their normal green, and Justice felt a renewed surge of energy pour through him and a lessening of the pain from his head and the dagger slice across his chest. He clasped Alaric's arm in a gesture of thanks and farewell, and then he shimmered into mist and shot into the sky, following the trail left by the vamps.

The future of all Atlantis is resting on my shoulders, after all these centuries of anonymity,
he thought, as he soared over the treetops.

We're all doomed.

The cabin

Ven waited until Jack and Quinn headed outside to patrol the perimeter, and then he took the untouched plate of food out of Erin's hands. “We'll pack this out with us in one of those sturdy plastic bags on the shelf,” he said. “Definitely no littering in a national park.”

“Are you really worrying about litter?” Erin asked tiredly. “We may not even survive this. Who'll carry the plastic bag out then?”

“What we need to focus on right now is rest. You must have drained your energy going up against Lillian.”

She shook her head, and the firelight kissed golden highlights in her blond curls, making him want to touch her hair. Touch every part of her.

“No. I didn't,” she denied. “I channeled the Wilding, and for the first time, ever, I didn't have any backlash from it. I'm not sure whether to be glad or afraid.”

He sat down next to her and took her hand, needing some form of contact. Needing to touch her skin, even in such a small way. “Tell me. Tell me about the Wilding, and why it's forbidden. I don't understand why you're not making use of every means of magic at your disposal to defend yourself.”

She was silent for so long that he assumed she wasn't planning to answer him.

“Is this some sort of witch secret? Your super magic handshake that you're not allowed to share with outsiders?” He grinned. “Cross my heart, I promise I can keep a secret.”

A ghost of a smile crossed her face, but quickly faded. “It's not that. It's no secret. It's just that I'm beginning to believe that the traditional thinking on this subject is wrong. The rationale for never using the Wilding is that it's a dark magic. That using it could open the door to dark forces intent on usurping a witch's power.”

He leaned over and tucked a loose curl behind her ear while he considered her words. “You don't believe that anymore?” he finally asked.

“I don't know what to believe. I know that my intentions are good. I know that I would fight against the dark magic with everything in me. But I also know that—right or wrong—I just killed a human being. A woman who was like family to me.”

“That was self-defense. She would have killed you. She
told
you she was going to kill you. She killed your sister. She also killed Berenice—sacrificed her for the death magic. There's nothing of the dark inside you, Erin.” He struggled for persuasive arguments, but didn't know how to convince her of what he knew to be true. The most basic law of nature—kill or be killed—had struck home with her in a brutal way, and her emotions were blocking out reality to protect her.

It was rational, but not particularly helpful, considering their circumstances.

She pulled her hand away from him and jumped up, then started pacing the small space. “How do you know that? How do I know it? How can I
ever
know it? Isn't that like insanity? The truly insane people never guess that they've lost touch with rationality, do they? So, maybe you never realize the dark has taken you over until you're entirely submerged.”

“Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe questioning whether you're going crazy or surrendering to the dark side of magic is a tangible sign that you're not,” he countered.

She stopped and turned to face him. “I don't know, Ven. All I know is that I'm drowning and can't seem to find my way back to the surface. All I have ever wanted is to destroy Caligula and get revenge for what he did to my family. Now I'm finally about to face him, and so much more is at stake. He has my sister. He may have the Nereid's Heart, which I need to help Riley and the baby. And suddenly I'm easily channeling a type of magic I've been forbidden from using my entire life. I'm playing a game of chess against a master strategist and all the rules have changed.”

“Maybe. Maybe everything you say is true. But now you have me. I'll be the knight to your queen. And we have Jack and Quinn for pawns. Or bishops. I doubt Jack would agree to be a mere pawn,” he said, imagining the look on jungle boy's face if he heard himself being called a pawn. “You need to rest, Erin. We'll go after him in the morning—in the daylight. And we will succeed.”

He crossed the room and pulled her into an embrace. “We'll succeed, because we have no other choice. Now we need to rest until it's my turn to stand watch. I'd like nothing more than to hold you while you sleep. Will you grant me that gift?”

She tilted her head up and flashed him a mischievous smile. “Really? You'd like
nothing
more than that?”

He groaned and dropped his hands to her hips and pressed her even closer to him, demonstrating the hardening evidence of the effect she had on him. “I think you know better than that. But you need to sleep, and there's also the problem that a certain rebel leader and weretiger could walk through the door at any minute. Once we've saved your sister, retrieved the ruby, and healed Riley, I'll have you safely back in Atlantis. Then I'll show you
exactly
what I'd like to do more than anything else. In fact, I think I'll show you for several days and nights in a row.”

The sound of her low laughter tugged at something in his chest, something he shoved out of his mind. Erin needed a warrior. He was one of the best.

Simple.

Everything that
wasn't
simple could wait until he'd had the singular pleasure of slicing Caligula's head from his body. Ven bent his face to her hair, so she wouldn't see the bloodthirsty expression on his face. He might be a monster, but it took a monster to defeat another. He would find soft words, gentle expressions, and everything she might want when his mission was complete and his woman was safe.

He lifted her into his arms and walked back to the pallet. As she curled up next to him under the blankets, he realized an undeniable truth: no matter who he had to kill to protect her, no matter what he had to do to keep her, he was never going to let her go.

 

Quinn shivered with a bone-deep chill that wracked her body. “Look, Jack, I don't have a fur coat and this goose-down jacket isn't doing it. I think we gave them enough time to play footsie, talk about what happened, or whatever they needed to do. Let's get the Atlantean to patrol for a while. Maybe he can at least use his super-magic water powers to melt the snow and make a hot tub or something.”

The tiger nudged her with its large head, then paced forward and shimmered back to human shape. The sight still awed her. Natural magic would never become ordinary to her through repeated viewing.

“You whine a lot for a kickass rebel leader, woman,” Jack growled at her, the timbre of his voice still carrying a hint of his animal form. In either shape, he was pure predator.

“Yeah, whatever. And I still want to know where the extra pounds go. You're five hundred pounds, give or take, in tiger form, and, what?” She cast a measuring gaze from his head to his toes, probably four or five inches over six feet. “Maybe two fifty in human?”

“Two sixty, the last I checked,” he drawled, one eyebrow raised. “Your point?”

She scrambled to catch up with him as he headed for the cabin. “That
is
my point. Where does that extra two hundred and forty pounds go? If we could figure out how you do that and bottle it, we could make a fortune.”

He slowed down until she matched his stride, although she had to take two steps to his one. “Quinn, I have no idea what you're talking about. Bottle what? Make a fortune how?”

“Weight loss secrets!! Somebody uses our patented ‘Tiger Super-Magic Pounds Off' formula and magically transforms her body so that she weighs fifty pounds less,” she explained, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

He exploded, right on cue. “Are you nuts? First off, they'd have to be a shape-shifter. Second—”

The laugh escaped; she couldn't help it. He just looked so damn irate. He whipped his head to the side and glared down at her. “Great.
Great
. We're patrolling for vamps, after we just put down half a dozen Weres, and we've got what has all the makings of a suicide mission to face in a few hours, and you're making jokes,” he grumbled.

Pain swept through her, washing out any trace of the laughter. “Don't you think I know what we're facing, Jack? Don't you think I'm doing everything I can think of to keep from falling apart? That's my sister and my niece or nephew whose lives depend on our success. Don't think I've forgotten that for even a second.” To her utter humiliation, her voice broke on the words. “Sometimes a little stupid black humor is the only thing that keeps me sane.”

Jack put an arm around her and awkwardly hugged her. “I'm sorry, Quinn. Sometimes I forget that our fearless leader is also a girl.” The kindness in his voice threatened to break through the shield she'd put around her emotions, and she was terrified that if she started to cry, she might not stop for a long, long time. So she resorted to her usual defense—toughness.

Stepping away from him, she started walking faster. “Yeah, well, try to keep up, little kitty. And if I ever hear you call me a girl again, I'm going to break your furry balls for it.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said drily. “I'm rather fond of my balls, furry or otherwise.”

They tramped toward the cabin in silence, continuously scanning the ground, skies, and trees for any threat. After several minutes, Jack cleared his throat. “So. Alaric. Do I need to take him out for you?”

She stumbled, taken completely off guard by his obviously sincere offer. “No, I don't need you to try to kill the
Atlantean high priest
for me, Jack. I think they might take that rather badly. Create some kind of international incident, probably.”

He shrugged. “Like I care about politics.”

“Very funny. Cut it out, Jack. I'm not a girl, and I can take care of myself,” she grumbled at him.

He stopped, caught her arm, and yanked her to a stop. She looked up at him, startled, and was shocked by the feral rage in his suddenly slanted tiger eyes. “You're my partner, Quinn, and no, you're not a girl. You're very much a woman. You already know I'd kill for you—or for our cause. Maybe you ought to know that I'd also die for you. If this priest is giving you a hard time, you say the word, and I'll do my best to make sure he never does it again.”

Before she could think of a response, he dropped her arm and started forward again, muttering something she was sure she didn't want to hear under his breath. It took her a minute to process. Jack hadn't been talking to her as his partner. He'd been talking to her as a woman.

She felt the shockwaves of an emotional earthquake rock her mental landscape as she watched him walk away from her. Somehow in all the time they'd worked and planned and fought together, she'd forgotten one thing about Jack.

He wasn't only her partner. He was a man.

Still bemused by the sudden turn in conversational topic, she was caught off guard when a dramatic drop in the already frigid air temperature was her only warning before Justice shimmered into shape between her and Jack. Jack's tiger senses must have alerted him to the Atlantean's presence, because he whirled around, crouching low and going for one of the knives he always carried before he realized who it was and stilled his hand.

Quinn rushed forward. “Justice, what is it? News from Riley? Is she worse?”

He bent slightly in a brief bow, the moonlight through the trees dappling his hair into silvered midnight blue and black. “No, and I am sorry that my appearance should give you cause to fear on her behalf. She is unchanged, to the best of my knowledge. However, there is other news.”

He filled them in on the attack and what Caligula and Daniel had said. “Unfortunately, the undead emperor now appears to realize that Erin is on her way here.”

“Erin is already here,” Jack said. “She and Ven are resting at the cabin. They had some excitement of their own.”

Justice raised one eyebrow, and Jack told him about Lillian and the shape-shifters. “It does not appear that Caligula knew anything of Lillian's plans,” Justice said. “He would not have come to Seattle after Erin if he had. Nor did Drakos mention it.”

“Speaking of finding Erin, how did you find us?” Quinn asked.

“We of Atlantis can communicate on a shared path, and even when we silence the link, as now, for fear of who or what may be listening, we have the ability to sense one another to a certain extent.”

“Let's move this conversation indoors,” Jack said. “Quinn's freezing her ass off.”

Justice flicked a not unappreciative glance down and back up Quinn's body, and she had a momentary glimpse of exactly how irresistibly sexy the warrior would be to any normal woman, before she focused her gaze on the path again.

There was that word again.
Normal
. Something she could never be. She heaved a sigh and started trudging toward the cabin. “Yeah, let's get indoors. Why did you come out here anyway, instead of heading straight for Ven, if you could track him?”

“I sensed movement in the area and wanted to scout whether you were friend or foe,” Justice said.

Quinn suddenly froze midstep, and eased her hands down over the handles of her guns. “Speaking of foes,” she whispered. Justice immediately drew his sword and dropped into battle stance, and Jack shimmered into the transformation in seconds. But, almost before he'd fully achieved his tiger shape, a hailstorm of darts came soaring through the air and struck him hard, piercing his thick coat. The tiger roared out his rage and fury, twisting in midair in a futile attempt to avoid the tiny missiles.

Quinn nearly staggered as she watched Jack paw at the air, snarling at the stinging darts. If they contained poison, he could die. The man who'd fought at her side, saved her life too many times to count, and offered to battle a powerful Atlantean high priest just because Alaric might be giving her a
hard time
might die in front of her.