Atlantis Unleashed (30 page)

It was Conlan's turn to smile as Ven clutched at his heart with a mock expression of pain on his face. “Oh, that's just hitting below the belt. Don't Your Highness me, if you want us to be the good friends I know we're going to be,” Ven said.

“I don't need any more friends,” Keely said, enunciating clearly. “I'm sure
you
don't need any more enemies, not to mention any international incidents. So tell me where Justice is—right now—or you're going to have both on your hands.”

She felt Justice before she heard him. Warmth seemed to flow into the room and wrap itself around her, carrying the scents of salt water and sea air. Pure relief combined with utter contentment swept through the tension in her nerve endings, calming and soothing. She could almost feel the whisper of his breath in her hair, the sound of his voice in her ear.

Justice had arrived, and her reaction was so simply and unreservedly joyous that it scared her even more than those snakes they'd been discussing. Her body and heart seemed literally to sway toward him, like a flower turning to the sun. How had he broken through her defenses so easily and so powerfully?

The hard length of his body was suddenly pressed against her back as he wrapped his arms around her. “Even after everything I have forced you to endure, you fight for me,
mi amara
. I have done nothing to deserve you, but I will never let you go,” he murmured in her ear.

She stiffened and tried to pull away, the primitive claim he'd staked on her setting off all her warning alarms, but his arms were like steel bands holding her in place against the heat of his hard body. A struggle would only cost her a measure of dignity and do nothing to reassure Ven and Conlan, who were staring at Justice with a mixture of gladness and wary reserve.

She
knew
Justice, knew him more than she'd even known anyone, in spite of the short time since they'd actually met. She'd lived with his presence for years, and she'd seen the horror of his life and his terrible loneliness through her visions. It wouldn't harm anything to let him believe she was completely on his side, no matter what. That she wasn't afraid of him.

She wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't the truth, anyway. If they could use the Star of Artemis . . .

“That's it. We need to use the Star,” she burst out. “It can help him. I saw it in my vision.”

Conlan and Ven exchanged glances, and she caught the skepticism.

“You don't believe me.”

Conlan shook his head. “It's not as simple as that. Although there are legends that the Star of Artemis can heal a mind broken by the stress of battle or through some injury or illness, none of us know whether the legends are true. The Star was one of the seven gems scattered to the far reaches of the earth before the Cataclysm. Only two have been returned to us and those only quite recently.”

“We have no idea where it is,” Ven added. “And although we have a fair idea that you're right about the Star, some of the rest of what you're telling us is impossible. Nereus could not have had a wife.”

“I know, I know. Priesthood, celibacy, whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Times change. You admit you don't know where the Star is. Isn't it possible that Poseidon's priests used to be able to get married, and you just don't know about it? Liam told me that Nereus lived eight thousand years ago. It's not exactly like you have eight-thousand-year-old wedding photos lying around, do you?”

Justice finally relaxed his hold on her, and she gently pulled away from him and began to pace up and down the room, thinking out loud. “Anyway, it's not just the Star of Artemis. You need to have every one of those gems in order for Atlantis to rise. That is, if you
want
Atlantis to rise. By the way, what ocean are we underneath? How far down are we? Why haven't submarines picked you up with their technology? Or naval aircraft, or even satellite imaging?”

She looked to Justice, but his gaze had turned inward and his fists were clenched at his side, as though he were fighting another internal battle. She only hoped he'd continue to win, because she didn't want to know what would happen if the Nereid took control. Especially since Justice wore his sword sheathed on his back, the hilt rising behind his shoulder. The Nereid let loose with a sword.

That would be bad.

As though he heard her thoughts, Justice smiled at her briefly, reassurance in his eyes. He was trying to let her know that he was winning the battle, so she flashed him a brilliant smile of support and belief in return.

It wasn't all that hard to smile at him, crappy circumstances or not. He was so beautiful it actually hurt to look at him, even in his simple white shirt and dark pants. He looked like he belonged in princely robes or carved in marble and up on a pedestal. She allowed herself to spend a moment simply savoring the sight of him.

His hair was braided back again and, for a moment, she let herself imagine the tactile pleasure of slowly unbraiding it. Feeling the blue waves slip like silk through her fingers and fall like a curtain over her body.

Heat washed through her and she abruptly turned to examine one of the walls so that none of them saw her telltale blush. A couple of deep breaths later, she put her game face back on and still wanted those answers. “Well?”

Conlan took a seat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. She noticed he had a large, sturdy mug, not one of the delicate china cups. So maybe that
had
been the guest china she'd been served from.

Or maybe her brain was trying to distract her with trivia to take her mind off the fact that she was arguing with Atlantean royalty underneath the ocean somewhere.

Way to go, Keely.

“Those are questions and answers for another time,” Conlan said quietly, but with a hint of steel in his voice. Definitely giving off a “don't push your luck” vibe. “We haven't survived for millennia by disclosing our secrets so easily, even to such a brilliant scientist as yourself.”

“Charming, while giving me nothing. You guys are good,” she said, putting a healthy dose of admiration in her voice. No matter. She was patient. She could wait.

“In regard to your visions, although my instincts tell me that you are speaking the truth, or at least the truth as you believe it to be, I would be a poor leader, indeed, if I were to take your word for something so critical,” Conlan said slowly. “However, if there were some way you could prove to me the validity of your visions—”

“Yes,” Keely said. “Sure. If you—”

“Absolutely not,” Justice said harshly. “We have caused Keely to suffer far too much. We will not allow you to bring her to any further harm.”

Keely whirled around, her heart in her throat. She heard it in his voice, never mind the plural self-reference again. The Nereid was back, and Justice's fury over the potential threat to her was dangerously near to causing his fragile control to topple. She took a step toward him with some thought of comforting or helping, but he moved with a blur of speed and was suddenly across the room from her, still clenching his fists.

“Do not,” he growled at her, the words suddenly rich with a liquid accent she'd heard before—from his mother in the throne room during her visions. Then he turned the force of all that rage on his brothers. “We have seen Keely for centuries in our vision quest. She is ours, and you will not harm her.”

Before Keely could move, Ven had somehow positioned himself so that he stood between Keely and Justice. He spoke calmly, as if trying to soothe a frenzied animal.

Or simply a brother who'd gone insane when a
geas
shattered.

“Justice, you know we don't want to hurt her. You know we want to do everything we can to help you. Am I talking to both of you now? Have you gone
Sybil
on me?”

Suddenly, shockingly, Justice threw back his head and laughed. It was a warm, hearty, normal laugh, with nothing chilling or alien about it. A wave of relief hit Keely with such force that her knees weakened from the onslaught. He'd done it. He was in control.

When Justice stopped laughing, he looked at Ven and grinned. His eyes were clear again. “You and your damn movies. The Nereid has no frame of reference for
Sybil
or
Dawn of the Dead
or
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
, either. Maybe that's the trick. I can battle the other half of my soul with B movies.”

Ven very subtly moved so that he was no longer blocking Justice's view of Keely. “You see? All these years, you goons mocked me for my excellent taste in quality filmmaking, and now it just might save you from losing your marbles.”

Conlan folded his arms across his chest and looked at Keely. “I thought having
one
little brother was bad enough. Now I've got two of them to deal with. I may abdicate the throne and move to Fiji, where it's quiet.”

Keely snapped her mouth shut, from where it had been hanging open down to about her kneecaps. Staring at them in disbelief, she put her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding me? Justice's sanity and the fate of all Atlantis might be at stake here, and you're making bad jokes?”

“We're guys,” Justice said, still grinning. “It's what we do.”

It was the sanest, most absolutely ordinary thing that he'd said in the entire time she'd known him, and that grin on his face transformed his features from dark and terrifyingly beautiful to drop-dead, fall-at-his-feet-with-her-clothes-off sexy. She couldn't do anything else but stand there smiling back at him like a giddy coed with a crush on the professor. She didn't know how much time passed, while they all stood there grinning at each other, but of course like all good things in her life it was too soon over.

Conlan drained his coffee mug and put it back down on the table. “I have devised a plan that will both test at the veracity of your visions and also perhaps give us the information we need in order to track down the missing jewels, Dr. McDermott. You will object read the Trident.”

Keely stumbled and fell back against the wall, then slid bonelessly down until her butt hit the floor. “Oh, sure. No problem, Your Highness. For my next trick, I'll read the sacred object of power—of a
god
.”

She couldn't help it; she started laughing helplessly. “After what Poseidon's sword very nearly did to me . . . oh, hell. You may as well call me Keely instead of Dr. McDermott. Why be formal when I'm going to be dead soon?”

The Nereid tried to break free again, and Justice ruthlessly shoved him back into a corner of his mind, but the mere thought of Keely in danger threatened to smash his control to jagged shards.

“She will not touch the Trident, you godsforsaken son of a squid,” he gritted out, trying desperately to keep from going for his sword. “Brother or no, I will kill you if you try to harm her in any way.”

Conlan slammed a fist down on the table, but before he could reply, Ven started laughing, lightening the tension in the room a fraction. “Son of a squid? Really? That's not bad. Points for the nasty visual, man.”

Keely, her head jerking back and forth as she tried to look at everyone simultaneously, suddenly started laughing, too. “I know I'm an idiot, but now all I can think of is Squidward from
SpongeBob
. Did you know they have a movie called
Atlantis SquarePantis
? One of my American colleagues on the Lupercale dig had a young son who watched it over and over until I thought my ears would melt. You guys should get a copy.”

Ven whistled. “
Atlantis SquarePantis
. Nice. I'll have to pick that up next time I'm up top. Too bad UPS doesn't exactly deliver down here.”

Justice, calmer now, still wasn't seeing the funny. He glared at Keely. “You joke when your life is in danger?”