Atlantis Unleashed (48 page)

Keely lifted her face and kissed Justice's jaw, then smiled at Ven. “It's okay. I surrender. Since even the sea god himself called me Justice's woman, I've decided to just go with it.”

Justice flashed her a look of such powerful love and acceptance that her knees nearly went weak. It was a look of belonging—a look of home. “
Mi amara
, you are mine and I am yours. Forever.”

“Forever,” she said.

Then, holding Eleni and each other, they led the way to food and rest.

Two weeks later, San Bartolo

Keely walked out of the temple into the bright afternoon sunshine and smiled at the sight of Justice playing catch with Eleni in the clearing. Her big, tough warrior was a softie where the child was concerned.

“You will work with us on this?” Señor Hector asked. As Guatemalan director of archaeological affairs, he was thrilled that the vampires were gone from the site and anxious to resume work.

“No, I'm sorry, but since the head of my department mysteriously disappeared, I have a lot to do back at Ohio State. Plus, I have another project in mind,” she said. “I'm sure you and the original team will have a wonderfully exciting time, though. Please do be sure to keep me updated so I can hear all about it.”

He nodded and hurried off to supervise the members of his staff who were unpacking the tools and supplies. She headed for Justice, her smile growing every step of the way.

“Are you two kids having fun?”

Justice lifted her into the air and swung her around. “Do you want to play?” he said silkily, his eyes going dark and very intent. She could always tell when her man had sex on the brain.

Of course, it was almost all the time, so maybe it wasn't all that impressive, as psychic talents went.

“Later,” she said, laughing. “Now put me down.”

He did, after kissing her breathless.

“When will Alejandro be back?”

Justice tossed the ball to Eleni, who promptly dropped it and ran off to chat with the grad students. She was slowly blossoming, in spite of everything she'd been through, and Keely hoped that time, that great cure, would help to eventually give her a normal, happy childhood, and that the shadows in Eleni's eyes would one day disappear. Now that they'd begun the process to officially adopt her, which she'd been assured would be considered with all speed, taking into account the best interests of the child and the great service Keely and Justice had performed for the people of Peten, Eleni was finally starting to believe that she would really have a new home and family.

A few days earlier, she had come to them and asked them to help her bury the slipper and hold a memorial service, just the three of them, for her lost mother. Keely had cried right along with Eleni after they put flowers on the tiny mound of dirt and said good-bye to Mama in heaven with Papa. Even Justice had had a few tears trailing down his face. He'd told Eleni that no brave warrior should ever be afraid to show her feelings, and that she honored her mother with her tears. Keely hoped that the ceremony had brought some measure of peace to the child so that the healing process could begin.

“Alejandro is still in training to lead the P Ops team that will guard the site,” Justice said. “He should be back in a week or so, but we'll be gone by then.”

“What about Alaric? What did he say when he examined your mind?” The thought of it still made her shudder, but she supposed it was better than what she'd gone through as a child. One short session versus years of psychoanalysis and drugs.

He shrugged. “He can't figure me out; the duality of my soul is too strange to him. Mostly I think he's just going to leave me alone.”

She hugged him. “Sounds like the perfect resolution to me. Speaking of resolutions, are you ready?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. As ready as I'm ever going to be.”

Keely glanced across the clearing and met Señor Hector's eyes and she nodded. He looked somber, but he nodded in return. They were all set.

Hand in hand, Justice and Keely entered the temple and walked up to the breathtaking mural. Even though they'd seen it so many times, it still inspired awe and wonder.

“That people living so long ago could create such beauty in the middle of building their civilization,” Keely said. “It astonishes and humbles me.”

“Wait till you see more of Atlantis,” Justice said, grinning. “It's going to rock your world.”

She laughed. “Always one for breaking a mood, aren't you? Anyway, you rock my world.”

Turning serious, she pointed to a small crevice in the mural, directly in the center of the eye of one of the fish. “This is it. I've excavated enough for you to use your water power to gently sluice it out with a minimum of damage.”

“Still can't believe Hector went along with this. Or that Alaric and Conlan put up with the delay.”

“Well, Hector kind of owed us,” she said. “Without you, they'd never have gotten access to this site again. And don't get me started on Alaric.”

He called water, and a thin, delicate stream spiraled through the air and into the crevice with the precision of a scalpel in the hands of a master surgeon. They waited, holding their breath, and within a minute or two that lasted forever, a shimmer of something appeared at the mouth of the crevice.

She cupped her gloved hands underneath the opening and water poured into them, followed by a golf ball-sized sapphire that gleamed with the brightness of a lovers' moon.

“Oh, Justice,” she whispered. “It's so beautiful. The Star of Artemis. At long last.”

“I still cannot believe Conlan and Alaric did not forcibly smash through the mural and take the Star,” Justice said, his lips quirking at the memory of
that
argument.

“Well, they owed you one, too,” she said fiercely.

“And you are so quick to defend me,
mi amara
.”

She held out the Star. “Now we can discover what it really does. If it heals fractured minds.”

He stared down at it for a long time, then slowly shook his head. “No, my love. My mind is no longer fractured, and I have no desire to perhaps learn that the Star would rend me in two again.”

He leaned down and pressed a brief kiss to her lips. “Your love has healed everything that was broken in me, and I have no need of this rock. Now or ever.”

Keely touched her necklace and closed her hand around the tiny fish. “I can't believe that this little fish showed me the face of the man who would become my universe. You've healed everything that was broken in me, too. I cannot imagine a life without you. Now or ever.”

Their words carried the resonance of vows. Keely realized that centuries of battle, honor, and courage, combined with the horrors of his childhood, had unleashed not only one but two beasts in Justice. Now, through the power of their love, the beasts were joined together to form one whole. The man she would love forever.

She twined her arms around his neck and kissed him, the promise of an eternity of love on her lips. Seconds or minutes or hours later, Eleni's impatient voice came from the entrance to the temple.

“Come
on
, already,” she demanded. “I want to play ball, please.”

Laughing, Keely and Justice pulled apart and, hand in hand, walked out into the sunlight, toward their child and their future, together.

Turn the page for a special preview
of the next book in the
Warriors of Poseidon series

By Alyssa Day

 

Available July 2009 from Berkley Sensation!

 

“It's almost impossible to shoot a bow while driving.”

Grace Havilland clenched her fingers around the steering wheel of the Jeep and waited for the Atlantean warrior riding shotgun to respond to what she thought had been her very reasonable point.

Waited. Waited a little longer. She'd met Alexios months ago and seen him sporadically since, but she'd never been in such a small space with him. It felt like being trapped in a cage with a lion that'd just eaten a full meal. Deadly, dangerous, and exhilarating, but maybe—just maybe—you'd live through it.

Unless he suddenly felt like a snack.

She wrenched the wheel to the left when she saw the deceptive DEAD END sign appear in the headlights and then took the deserted side street. Alexios finally turned to face her, his golden hair brushing the tops of his shoulders and sweeping forward to hide the scarred left side of his face. Reinforcing the lion imagery so strongly she flinched a little.

He raised a single eyebrow.

“The sign keeps people out,” she explained. “HQ escape route and a shortcut to the hospital. Since we're a little behind everyone else, I wanted to catch up.”

A weak but warm voice floated up from the backseat. “Shortcut would be good.”

“How are you doing, Michelle?” Grace asked, not daring to look over her shoulder at this rate of speed.

“Well enough, considering that nasty vampire nearly ripped my head from my neck. Lucky for me that your dishy Alaric popped in with the magic healing powers. My first mission with you Americans and the rebel headquarters gets attacked. Bit of a bad penny, me.”

Alexios made a strangled snorting sound. “Dishy Alaric. Now there's something I bet he's never heard in his nearly five hundred years. Alaric, the dishy high priest of Poseidon's Temple.” In spite of the rich, dark amusement in his voice, he never once quit scanning every inch of the deserted street as they raced through it. Always on guard. Always alert.

A warrior in every facet of his being.

Grace slanted a glance at him. Six feet and a few inches of pure, primitive male, all hard lines and curved muscle. He'd fought like an avenging angel back at HQ when their strategy meeting had been viciously destroyed by the wave of vampires and shifters crashing through doors and windows in a multi-pronged attack. She'd loosed arrow after arrow, each one finding its target, but Alexios and his sword and daggers were everywhere at once, stabbing, slicing, and slashing. All the while, his expression had remained utterly calm and controlled. Even as he'd circled around her, ripping heads from vamps and . . .

A realization seared through the memory. Always around
her
. He'd fought in a perimeter around her, leaving her room to shoot her bow, but never straying far from her side. Anger started a slow burn.

“Were you protecting me in that fight?” she asked, slowly and carefully, trying to put a lid on her temper. Not good to accuse and attack the fierce warrior ally unless it was true. “Because you know that I don't need protecting. I've been doing this for a long—”