Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis

The Atalantium Trilogy
I:

Bride of Atlantis

By

Madelaine
Montague

Copyright by Madelaine
Montague, April 2012

(C) Cover Art by Eliza
Black, April 2012

(C) Original Copyright,
March 2003

Smashwords
Edition

Published by New Concepts
Publishing

Lake Park, GA
31636

www.store.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction.
All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination
and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons
or events is merely coincidence
.

Chapter One

“
Just so you know, I killed
your father,” Eric whispered in her ear.

Expecting love words when she’d felt
him lean against her, felt the warmth of his breath along her neck,
Alexis Stanhope was too stunned by her new husband’s confession to
move. The scene she’d only moments before been staring at in
wonder—the full moon dancing off the waters of the Caribbean in the
wake of the cruise ship—vanished and she saw only the vision of her
father, laying prostrate on his kitchen floor, blood pooling around
him.

She could not seem to grasp what he’d
said. “You were in Seattle. How…? How could you have…?” Her lips
felt stiff. The words tangled on her tongue, as if she was speaking
for the first time.

“
Cleverly,” Eric said,
taking a step back and striking her so hard between the shoulder
blades that she tipped over the ship railing.

For several seconds she teetered on
the balustrade, too shocked and too petrified with terror to do
more than gasp, unable even to scream as she scrabbled for a hold
on the slippery railing. The beautiful sequined sheathe she had
worn for its elegance trapped her, allowing her no room to
maneuver, despite the slit down the back of the skirt, so that she
was scarcely able to do more than wiggle like a worm caught on a
hook.

Then she felt him grasp her legs,
flipping her completely over the railing. Several nails broke as
she lost her grip and then she was plummeting toward the yawning
sea, falling in slow motion, staring in shocked disbelief at Eric’s
grinning face as it grew smaller and smaller with distance, as the
waves seemed to rise up to catch her.

She struck the water almost fully
erect, feet first.

The chill of the water seemed to
loosen the grip shock had held over her vocal cords.

Subconsciously, she knew a cry for
help was useless. Late as it was, music still spilled from the
ballroom and casino where inebriated guests laughed and talked at
the top of their lungs to be heard above the music. The thrum of
the engines, the crash of churning water added to the clamor. It
was doubtful if she would have been heard had she screamed before
she went over.

Now, it was worse that
useless.

And yet she couldn’t go to her death
without telling the man who’d betrayed her how she despised him for
his cowardly attack.

“
I’ll divorce you!” she
screamed furiously.

Dimly, she heard, or thought she
heard, a laugh, and the words, “Too late.”

Despite the fact that she struck the
sea feet first, she didn’t cleave the water cleanly. Her feet took
most of the shock, but her bent knees and upper torso took the
impact in sufficient force that a shock wave traveled through her
entire body, as if she’d struck pavement.

The horror, however, overshadowing
even the stunning pain, was that she continued to fall, on and on,
almost forever it seemed.

Blackness engulfed her before her
instinct for survival took over and she began to struggle against
the water pulling at her, slowing her descent, and finally
climbing. Her arms burned with the effort. Her lungs were on fire.
Her head felt as if it would explode from the pressure of holding
her breath.

Something brushed her leg.

She screamed a silent scream, loosing
much of her captured air, swallowing a gulp of briny water. The
fright galvanized her flagging strength, however, and she struggled
harder to reach the surface, her need for air rapidly overshadowing
all other fears.

The water around her lightened … or
her eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. She wasn’t
certain which, but this time, when ‘it’ brushed against her, she
saw, or thought she saw, the shape of a man.

Eric?

Had she been mistaken? Had he come
after her?

The shape moved away, but she was too
desperate for air now to spare a thought for searching.

She could see the surface of the water
above her. The moon’s glow rippled over the restless waves, causing
the water to sparkle like silver and gold gems.

For some moments, hope buoyed her
flagging strength, but no matter how she struggled, she seemed to
come no closer. Her arms moved slower and slower. A different sort
of blackness swarmed around her. She couldn’t hold her breath any
longer.

She inhaled water as something grasped
her and propelled her toward the surface as if she’d suddenly found
a jet pack strapped to her. She thought the speed might be her
imagination, but she was moving so fast that she cleared the
surface of the water by several feet before she crashed down once
more.

She went under, bobbed up, treading
water like a half drowned puppy, flopping her arms and slapping at
the water awkwardly, dipping under the water again and again before
bobbing to the top once more.

Minutes passed before she could
control her coughing and gagging. Finally, she managed to draw one
pure breath of air and then another. Slowly, her drowning panic
subsided until other considerations began to filter through her
mind.

Frantically, she looked around for the
ship.

When she finally saw it, she was
certain her eyes were playing tricks on her. It couldn’t have gone
so far … could it?

It was hopeless.

They’d sailed on without
her.

No one had seen Eric’s cowardly
assault.

No one had heard her scream as she’d
fallen overboard.

No one except the man who’d pushed her
… her husband of five days.

Some freaking honeymoon!

* * * *

She had no hope of catching the ship.
She knew that with a terrible certainty. It was miles away now.
Slowly, she turned in a circle. As far as the eye could see, there
was nothing but water, and more water.

She was going to die here.

Something broke the surface of the
water only a few yards from her, leapt toward the sky, then crashed
down so hard that water rolled over her.

She screamed, then laughed a little
hysterically.

It was a dolphin.

It must have been the dolphin that had
pushed her to the surface.

Well, if he wanted the ‘trash’ out of
his pond, he was going to have to push her a hell of a lot further.
They’d left their last port of call hours earlier. They weren’t due
to dock at home port for hours more. She was miles and miles from
land in any direction.

She heard a splash again, this time
behind her, and whirled toward the sound.

The head of a man emerged from the
water less than two yards from her.

She was so stunned, she could only
stare at him.

Irrationally, hope surged through
her.

It died almost instantly as she
realized she had already looked for a ship, a boat--anything. She’d
seen nothing but the vanishing cruise ship. If he was actually with
her, and not some figment of her imagination, then he was only
company to drown with. He’d probably fallen off, or been pushed
off, the same vessel.

She looked at him pityingly as he
moved toward her and finally realized that he was probably nothing
more than a figment of her hysteria, or hopefulness incarnate. In
the bright moonlight, she saw that he was exceptionally handsome,
with the perfection of features one expected only to find in models
or movie stars.

The light from the full moon sparkled
in his long, flowing hair. It looked, she decided almost
whimsically, like spun moonbeams.

She felt oddly unmoved by her good
fortune.

Wasn’t it every woman’s dream, after
all, to be rescued by a handsome young hero?

But then, he was far too gorgeous to
be real, wasn’t he? And, in any case it seemed unlikely that he was
going to rescue her.

Obviously, her mind was playing tricks
on her, filling her with hope when there was none.

Or maybe it was just her eyesight? A
trick of the moonlight? If he was real, then he could not be as
perfect as he appeared.

Then, too, unless he possessed
uncommon swimming skills, it wasn’t likely that he would end up
being her hero.

“
Speken ze duetch?” He asked
as he stopped a few feet from her, tilting his head
quizzically.

Great! He didn’t even speak English!
What kind of providence, or fantasy, was this?

“
Par le vous
François?”

Alexis’ jaw dropped in surprise.
Bilingual? Here? In the middle of godforsaken nowhere?

“
Habla Espanol?”

“
Hell! Now I know I’m
hallucinating.”

“
Ah! English … wait.
American?”

“
You’ve got to be kidding
me.”

He frowned. “This means
joke?”

“
No it doesn’t mean joke,
damn it. I mean, yes, but … never mind.” Alex realized with some
surprise that she was as angry as she was frightened. She had every
right to be furious, of course. Her new husband had not only just
admitted that he’d murdered her father, he’d just thrown her
overboard. She didn’t want to think about the implications of his
actions, or his last comments, however, and shied away from them
almost as quickly as the thoughts scurried furtively through her
mind. Her fear, she realized, had translated into defensive anger.
She was furious because she was too terrified to think of anything
except that, she, who absolutely hated the sea, was going to die in
this place.

She must have been out of her mind to
have allowed Eric to talk her into a honeymoon cruise.

Where had her sense of self
preservation been when she’d fallen for a con man? Where had it
been when she’d yielded to his persuasion? Shouldn’t alarm bells
have gone off? Did all women turn into mindless morons the moment
an attractive man popped the question, or was it just
her?

Her father had owned a small
construction outfit. He hadn’t been rich, merely well-to-do, but
he’d had sufficient money to draw the sharks. She’s spent most of
her adult life suspecting every man who’d ever courted
her.

Then she’d met Eric. He’d seemed to
have far more than her family had. It hadn’t occurred to her for
one moment that he’d been another shark, far worse than any that
had gone before him.

She’d brought him home to daddy, and
he’d killed her father without her any the wiser … fooled even the
police, who’d been convinced his alibi was air tight, then rushed
her to the alter not six months later, and off on their ‘honeymoon’
cruise so he could neatly dispose of her, as well.