Desire Me (29 page)

His movements were deep and sensual, and her climax began to build almost immediately. Swifter and swifter, she climbed until
she couldn’t hold it any longer, and the world seemed to shatter in a million glassy fragments all around her. She clung to
his shoulders as the pleasures rocked her, and she was vaguely aware of his own climax as his abdomen tightened against her.

She lay sleeping, curled against his side, her breathing slow and even. Sabine was a passionate woman. It had been good on
the train, but damn, that had been explosive and powerful. He caught sight of the small vial glistening between her breasts.

She had proof of Atlantis, and he’d seen it work. Twice now. She had it on that necklace she wore.

His gunshot wound had healed faster than some shaving cuts he’d endured, and then after his injury in the bathhouse, she’d
poured the elixir directly onto his wound, and it had healed almost instantly.

Marcus would be able to tell there was something unique about it. It would be the necessary proof Max needed to borrow Marcus’s
submersible boat. Then he would be able to locate the lost continent and see it for himself.

Max’s family was long dead and buried. That was a reality he’d accepted long ago. Only in his most maudlin moments did he
let himself linger over regrets. His family would never know what he’d accomplished. They could never enjoy his success or
acknowledge his achievements. It was the most bitter reminder of how solitary his position in the world was. Of course, he
would always have the men of Solomon’s, men who could appreciate his success as intellectual equals.

And he would have Sabine in his bed. That would be enough for her and for him. It would have to be, because he could not give
her his heart.

The following morning as they rode back into London, Sabine wanted to make certain they concentrated on the task at hand,
that they didn’t get distracted by their night of lovemaking. He’d taken her a second time before they’d fallen into a deep
sleep. When they’d awakened, it was to find their hostess had already left the house, but had readied a carriage for them
as she’d promised.

Neither had spoken about the night before. It wasn’t as if she’d expected Max to fall to his knees and recite poetry or whisper
proclamations of love. It wouldn’t matter if he had. They couldn’t be together.

She was Atlantean, and he was English. She could sit here and think of many reasons why she wanted to be with Max. But choosing
him would be the same as walking away from her people, and she could never do that. Just as Agnes had chosen her duty over
the desires of her heart, so would she. Not that she loved Max, she didn’t, but she did desire him.

And he’d made it all too clear he was not looking for a wife. Not only that, but after watching her mother grieve for Sabine’s
father and now Agnes for Phinneas, Sabine knew that love only brought heartache.

This line of thinking would get her nowhere. They had a weapon to find, and if her aunts were right and her birthday had something
to do with the timeline of the prophecy, then they only had four more days. He sat opposite her, his legs stretched in front
of him, but completely avoiding contact with her. Did he regret last night?

The carriage jerked, and when it did, her bag slipped off the seat and was dumped onto the floor.

She knelt to pick up the contents.

He leaned forward to help her.

“Here, you missed this.” He held a calling card out to her, but before she could grab it, he’d snatched it back. It was the
card of the chemist who’d come into her shop a couple of days before.

He looked down at the card in his hand. “Bertrand Olney. Why does that name look so familiar?” He looked up at her. “Where
did you get this?”

She frowned. “He came by the shop that day I went in. He’d handed me the card, and I guess I stuffed it in my bag. I’d forgotten
all about him.”

“What did he want?” Max asked, suspicion sharp in his voice.

“He’s not the one we’re looking for,” she said. “He wasn’t strong enough.”

“I’ve seen his name.” He shook his head. “I can’t place it, though.”

“It’s nothing. He was a chemist; offered to buy the recipe for one of my products.”

“A chemist? That’s where I’ve heard of him. In the
Times
,” he said. “There was a story about how chemist Bertrand Olney had been murdered the previous night in his home. It did not
appear to be a burglary.”

“What?” Sabine asked.

“He was murdered.”

She didn’t know what to think about that. Should she feel remorse or compassion for him, despite the fact that he’d appeared
to be a dishonest little man? She supposed she should, yet she felt nothing. So she changed the subject.

“How can you be so certain the dagger we found was not the dove?” she asked.

“I told you, wrong era. It was crafted far too late to have come out of Atlantis or anything near that time period. And the
engraving on the blade gave another clue,” he said plainly.

“Yes, you mentioned that last night, but I saw no such thing.”

“
The great army is commanded as the ten were done
,” he said.

“Great army. That could refer to the armies of the Great War.”

“You’ve mentioned the Great War before. Tell me about it,” he said.

“Atlantis invaded many countries, destroying most of them. The military abused the elixir, making them nearly
undefeatable.
That’s when the guardians and their families fled. They took the elixir, and eventually the army weakened. Poseidon punished
them for their greed, and he commanded the ocean to swallow the island,” she said.

“No one was punished, Sabine. It was merely an earthquake or volcano that destroyed the island,” Max said.

“That is not what my people believe. The elixir was a gift to us, and we did not obey, therefore we received retribution.”

“A biblical plague,” he said.

“If you want to view it in such terms,” she said.

“Well, soldiers from the Great War is a good theory. What I focused on was the ‘as the ten were done.’ I believe it refers
to the Ten Commandments.”

“Thou shall not commit murder,” she said. “Tell that to the Chosen One.”

“I don’t believe it’s referring to any one of the commandments in particular, but rather to how they were presented to the
people,” Max said.

“From a mountaintop?” she asked.

“No, on stone tablets. I think our next quest is to locate a specific tablet.”

She thought on it a moment. “The Rosetta Stone,” she suggested, then shook her head. “What good will a tablet do us?”

“Another clue?” he suggested.

“At this rate we could chase after clues for the next one hundred years,” she said.

“Consider this an adventure, Sabine.”

“Perhaps we do not have time for an adventure. There are lives at stake,” she said. Hers included.

“Indeed there are. Not only the remaining guardian,
but the rest of our military leaders, who protect the rest of us.” He
nodded. “Yes, there is much at stake.”

“Why do you care so much?” she asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

“My club,” he said without missing a beat. “It is not our intention or prime purpose to guard the crown, but Solomon’s has
on occasion been given the opportunity to protect our monarch and our great country.”

She didn’t believe that for a second, but Max always had an answer for everything. “So you do it for patriotism?”

“And perhaps for other, more personal reasons.” He shrugged. “I cannot help but be intrigued by anything related to Atlantis.
You included.”

Her heartbeat faltered. She watched his clear blue eyes and the amusement, intelligence, and passion they held.

He’d found their map. Phinneas had once had a vision about that very thing, “a great one.” Max would not be satisfied with
that one artifact forever, though.

“But if given the opportunity to find proof,” she said. “You would do it?”

“Yes, I would,” Max answered without hesitation.

She knew that, in and of itself, should frighten her. The guardians worked tirelessly to hide and protect the elixir to avoid
its exploitation and ruin. He knew about the elixir and had seen its powers firsthand. Max, if he so chose, could ruin them
all.

S
abine and Max climbed up the wide staircase, and this time they actually walked through the pillared entryway of the British
Museum. They were here to visit the King’s Library.

“Are you certain the next clue leads us to Alexander the Great?” Sabine asked.

“No, not certain at all, but if I’m right we’ll see the truth in moments,” Max said.

“You’re beginning to sound like a riddle yourself,” she said, with a smile. She’d been smiling a lot more lately. Strange,
considering life had become more complicated and dangerous in the last two weeks. But Max made her laugh.

“Great army—Great’s army. It was capitalized. Shortly before he died, Alexander the Great made one final decree,” Max said.

“And put it in stone?” she asked. “Not precisely the medium they used during that time period.”

“On the contrary, there were still official proclamations made in stone,” Max said.

They crossed through a quiet corridor, and she kept pace to walk next to him. “I suppose I’m more familiar with the history
of my own people. Was our civilization really so much more advanced than the Macedonians’ that we were using scrolls when
the rest of the world was still using tablets?”

“Perhaps we might all still be whittling in stone had it not been for the few Atlanteans who came along to civilize the rest
of us,” Max said drolly.

“You are truly hilarious,” she said.

“Thank you.”

They walked past the reading room and a few exhibit halls. Finally they came to the library. It was dim, with very few lamps.
Windows surrounded the top of the room like a ribbon of light, but with today’s clouds, they didn’t provide much illumination.

Aside from that, the library was magnificent. Books and scrolls and other artifacts, including King John’s Magna Carta and
the Rosetta Stone, surrounded them. And perhaps a piece of her own people’s history was here among Britain’s most valuable
treasures. Pride swelled within her. If she survived this prophecy, she should come back here someday to enjoy all of the
artifacts.

She paused and glanced back at the Rosetta Stone. “Just to be certain,” she said as she walked over to it.

“You know, this actually dates a little more recent than Alexander’s decree?” Max said.

“You are a font of information,”

“A member of Solomon’s found it,” he said.

She circled the display, looking closely for any sign of the dove. “I thought a Frenchman had discovered it.”

Max shrugged. “He claimed it. But whose museum is it in?”

There were no symbols resembling their dove. “Nothing. Shall we?”

They walked into a smaller room, and there, atop a podium, was a large stone tablet.

“Some theorize,” Max spoke in a low voice, “that Alexander was attempting to put himself on the same level as God and thus
chose the same medium to proclaim his own commandments.”

As they moved closer, Sabine could see the Greek inscription carved into the granite. She read the entire decree, and it was,
in fact, about war, an extended battle cry and promise to be ruler of all.

“That mentions nothing about a dove or a specific weapon,” Sabine said.

“No, it doesn’t. But…” Max turned around to ensure they were alone before he picked up the massive tablet and turned it over.
The stone had chipped in a few places and wasn’t entirely smooth, but there were no significant marks on most of the surface.
“There,” he said, pointing.

On the right-hand corner was another inscription directly below the now-familiar carving of the bird. The letters looked familiar,
but something was peculiar about them. And without proper lighting, it was far too difficult to read.

She reached into her bag and retrieved her notebook and a pencil. With a firm yank, she pulled a couple of blank pages out
of the notebook, then handed them to Max.

He set the tablet facedown, then spread the sheet of paper over the inscription. As he moved the pencil across the stone,
Sabine watched the message appear on the parchment.

A scholarly-looking gentleman with spectacles entered the room and eyed them disapprovingly. He cleared his throat. Sabine
ran a hand seductively down Max’s back, then leaned over to his ear pretending to whisper something.

Max stopped what he was doing.

She brazenly winked at the other man.

The scholar’s eyes rounded, then a bright shade of red covered his entire face, and he quickly turned to go.

“I apologize,” she said to Max when they were alone again. “It was the first thought I had to get him out of here. It worked,”
she said cheerfully.

“Next time think of an alternative solution that doesn’t involve touching me.” Then he turned to meet her eyes. “Unless you
fully intend to finish what you start.”

She started to chuckle, but then she caught sight of his expression. He was deadly serious.