by Alyssa Day
As he followed her down the candlelit passageway, he prayed to Poseidon more fervently than he’d ever done.
She did it for Riley and for the heir to your throne. Please save her for them. Save her for me.
But the only response was the sound of his heels ringing as they struck the stone floor and the sound of the barricades inside of his soul crashing as they shattered against his stony heart.
Chapter 10
Caligula’s cavern, below Mount Rainier
A sound unlike any Caligula had ever heard in the two thousand years of his existence tolled through the cavern, dolorous, mournful, and dirgelike. A funereal call heralding his own imminent demise.
Vibrations from the immense, booming noise reverberated through the stone of the walls and the dirt on the ground. The vampires in his blood pride, roosting to flee the dawn, shrieked and scattered from various craggy perches and tumbled to the floor, striking out at each other in panicked confusion.
“Enough!” he shouted, and put so much power behind the word that it rang through the cavern and cut through the babbling idiocy of his undead minions. But his power was insignificant compared to the depth and resonance of the sound that continued to toll like the bell at the gates of hell, calling to the damned.
He clapped his hands over his ears and shouted for the single being under his command who could be counted on to act with a modicum of dignity and sense. “Drakos!”
“Yes, my lord admiral?” The voice came from above and behind him, making Caligula whirl around and look up, sickeningly aware that, had Drakos been an enemy, he might have been in very serious danger. The thought clanged warning bells in his mind, though they were as nothing to the ringing still sounding in the cavern.
“What is that noise?” he shouted to Drakos, though the general was only a scant two feet from him.
Drakos did not show by the slightest flicker of his eyes that the hideous cacophony disturbed him in any way. That, to Caligula, was also disturbing.
“I have no idea,” Drakos replied. “Shall I investigate—”
The sound cut off midchime, as though a giant hand had silenced it. Caligula didn’t even like to think about what kind of being might own a hand sufficient to silence a noise like that. He’d let his imagination run away with him far too much since the humiliating incident with Anubisa and the illusionary insects.
Damn her. If a goddess of night and chaos can be damned. The idea is somewhat redundant.
His private joke at her expense calmed him somewhat, and he raised his head. “Yes, I want you to investigate. Also, I want a report on your progress. Where is Quinn? You claimed you could deliver her to me,” he said, leaving Anubisa’s name out of the conversation. It was said that to even speak her name attracted her notice, and he did not care to be the focus of her gaze anytime soon.
“I am working on it, my lord. She is…elusive,” Drakos said.
“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Caligula snarled. “You will deliver her to me or face the consequences. What is the progress on another plan to capture the Atlantean? Now that we know that Anu—the goddess—does not want him dead, there can be no more of your ill-planned explosive techniques.”
“We know that they have formed an alliance with the Seattle Circle of Light coven, my lord. We plan to use the coven sisters as bait to capture Conlan’s brother for—her. And he seems to have formed an attachment to the woman you seek, which will work to our advantage.”
Caligula smiled at the thought of the woman and was pleased that his general did not attempt to blame his own failures on anyone else. Though it was true that the bombing had been Caligula’s own idea, a good general was supposed to plot out strategy on his own and not just blindly follow orders. “Bait? Will the Atlanteans care enough about a gaggle of witches to sacrifice the brother to the heir to the throne, no matter what noble stupidity he attempts on behalf of the woman?”
The voice that sliced through the dark carried a wealth of contempt. “That so-called gaggle of witches nearly destroyed you ten years ago, my lord. And I will be happy to help them slice your sorry head off your neck.”
Drakos stepped back, as if to remove himself from a domestic quarrel. Wise vampire.
“Deirdre, my love,” Caligula purred at the fair-haired vampire who floated to the ground between him and Drakos. “How lovely it is to hear the dulcet tones of your voice again. It is so rare that you rise from the ground these days.”
She spat at his feet. “I would starve myself to the true death if only it were possible, and you know that. But you keep me guarded every second of every night.”
She shot a glance at Drakos, and it was almost surprising that the scorn in her words and gaze didn’t turn the general to ash where he stood. “I see you’ve found a new minion to follow your imperial commands.”
“Although this has been lovely, Drakos has work to do, my dear. Perhaps you would care to take your rest with me this day?” Caligula held his hand out to her, knowing that she would not take it.
Knowing that, one day soon, he would break her. And he’d use her only surviving sister to do it. He’d been accused of obsession before, but all of that paled compared to his desire for Deirdre’s surrender. She and her sister, who were virtually almost identical to the only two women who had ever escaped him—his two young cousins, who had drunk poison after he had used their supple bodies for the first and only time.
They would not escape him again. Not even by fleeing to death.
“I will see you dead and rotting in hell, Caligula, before I ever willingly take your hand,” she hissed at him, leaping back a half dozen feet across the floor.
“Perhaps, my darling. Perhaps. But there are many ways of rotting in hell, and you may yet join me there.”
He shot up and into the air of the cavern to a niche near the very top where he would take his rest and wait for the night. Very powerful wards protected him from disturbance while he slept; he’d tested them many times before he sucked the life out of the terrified witch who’d cast them. Glancing down at his general, who stood facing Caligula’s reluctant bride, he called down one final direction before retiring to the darkness of sleeping death. “Progress, Drakos. Bring me progress, or I will find a general who will.”
Chapter 11
The Cave of Gems,
below the Nereid Temple, Atlantis
Marie led Ven down ancient stone steps, worn smooth with the tread of maidens for thousands of years. Strange that part of his mind was thinking about the freaking steps, when he held Erin in his arms and she was either dying or dead.
Stranger that the rest of his mind was thundering in tortured agony that he could not survive the death of a woman he’d only known for a brief ripple in the waves of time. The anguish rose up from his gut, from his chest, and forced its way through his throat. He roared out his pain and rage as he followed the First Maiden ever farther down into the dark.
Several paces ahead of him, Marie stopped, clearly startled by the sound, but one look at his face and she simply nodded and continued to move, more quickly now, down the corridor.
Although they were descending into the heart of the Temple of the Nereids, Ven sent out a prayer to Poseidon:
She cannot die. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but she has become more important to me than my own life. I owe you my service and my honor, Poseidon. Please spare this woman for me.
Marie made a sharp turn, and Ven had an instant to hope that Bastien’s sister was as thoroughly competent as her brother. He followed her around the curve in the wall and stopped dead at the sight of an enormous glowing jewel. A jewel that Marie stepped inside.
“It is a natural geode and the center of the Nereid Temple. It is where the Nereid’s Heart lay before the Cataclysm,” Marie explained. “The ancient ones wrote that the Cave of Gems is a natural restorative and power source for gem singers.”
She indicated a plain wooden table centered in the oval space. Six paces took him to the
table; he immediately settled Erin’s limp body on it. Marie pulled a green silken cushion from somewhere on the floor and slid it beneath Erin’s head as he gently lowered her.
Ven scanned the room and noticed that there were gemstones everywhere—distributed in deliberate patterns throughout the room, fastened to the silken cushions that lay scattered about, and even embedded in the base of the wooden table. The walls of the geode itself were a multifaceted shimmer of sparkling violet stone. As he smoothed the hair away from Erin’s face, he stared at Marie. “Do something,” he demanded, despairing at the sight of Erin’s still, pale face. Marie started to respond, confusion and distress plain on her own face.
That was when the music started.
A single clear, wild note soared out from the walls themselves. The single note was joined by a chorus of others flying at them from all sides. Soon the music was swelling from the floor and the ceiling and through every molecule of air in the room. The chorus became a symphony—an orchestra of music of compelling beauty. Ven stood, hands holding Erin’s, and he prayed rusty prayers to compassionless gods.
The music became light, the light became music, until the two were indistinguishable. The silvery light Erin had poured over Riley and the baby magnified a thousandfold within the small space of the geode. With a corner of his mind, Ven realized that Marie had dropped to the floor and knelt at the side of the table.
The wild music swept through Ven until the song permeated the very cells of his body. He could see the music; he could hear the light; he could feel the rhythm thrumming through Erin’s body. And under and over and around it all, he heard a delicate voice ringing simultaneously in his mind and in his ears, a dichotomy of fragile power.
You have only just returned to me, gem singer. I shall not let you go so easily.
With that, the music crescendoed into a wordless triumph of sound and light. Erin’s body began to glow until it shone so brightly that Ven had to close his eyes against it. He called for faith—for the ability to find some ounce of faith inside his own damaged soul.
Finally—finally—he found some measure of belief.
I give her to you, Poseidon, and to you, Goddess of the Nereids. I give her to you. All I ask is that if you keep her, you take my worthless soul as well.
The glare pounding against his closed eyelids abruptly ceased, and the music cut off at the same time. He blinked his watering eyes open to see darkness lit only by the scattered sparkling of countless jewels. It took his eyesight a moment to make the transition, but before he could see Erin, he felt her hand squeeze his, and the prayer in his soul changed to one of gratitude.
“Thank you,” he said, forcing the words out. “Thank you both for saving this courageous woman for me.”
Erin looked up at him, and her eyes glowed more brightly than all the jewels inside the geode. “Did you hear it? Did you hear the music?” She drew in a deep breath, face rapturous as though she could still hear the gemsong spiraling through the room and through her emotions.
She tightened her hand on his. “I heard your song, Ven,” she said, smiling, awe and wonder in her eyes. “I heard the song of your soul.”
Before he could reply, she slipped into a normal sleep, her chest rising and falling. He pressed his lips against the pulse beating so strongly in the side of her neck and repeated the only words that seemed large enough to fit the gratitude in his heart. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Erin swam up from a dream of diamond necklaces, a giant, glowing ruby, and sword-fighting women wearing chain mail that looked a lot like fish scales. She struggled to escape what her conscious mind knew must be illusion. Opening her eyelids took almost more strength than she had, and her body felt like it had been run over by a truck. She had aches in places she hadn’t even known were capable of aching.
She finally forced her eyes open. Ven’s face filled her vision, and the blue-green flames in his black eyes were back and glowing more brightly than she remembered. But instead of startling her, it made her sigh in relief. “You’re here,” she whispered, trying to lift her arms to him.
“I will never be anywhere else,” he said roughly, then he gently lifted her up and into his arms, hugging her so tightly her aching body protested.
“Ouch! Um, Ven, not so tight, okay?” she said, lifting a hand to touch the strands of his hair. The silky dark waves slipped through her fingers as her arm fell back to her side.
He loosened his grip on her and lifted her completely into his lap, compulsively running his hands down her arms and back. “You’re alive,” he said. “You came back to me.”
She blinked at him. “Alive? Came back? Where did I go?”
“Beyond the doorway of death itself in order to heal my lady and our child,” a new voice said.
Erin whipped her head around, suddenly realizing that she was sitting on Ven’s lap and they were not alone. Her face flushed as she scanned the small crowd gathered in the bright, open room. Some women in jade green robes lined the walls, and a group of men who were clearly warriors formed a semicircle behind the couple who stood in front of Ven and Erin.
The man who had spoken knelt in front of her, while holding tightly to the red-haired woman’s hand. “Riley,” Erin said, remembering. “Are you okay? Is the baby…”
The kneeling man looked up at her. He wore a simple but elegant white shirt and dark pants, and he bore a striking resemblance to Ven. This must be Ven’s brother, Conlan. But his eyes didn’t have the blue glowy thing in the center. Instead, they held more pain than Erin could bear to see. Pain and something else.
Possibly gratitude.
“We’re fine, Erin. We’re both fine, because of you. I can never thank you enough,” Riley said. It was true; her grayish, unhealthy pallor was gone and she actually glowed with health.
“Anything,” the man Erin assumed to be Conlan said. “Anything you desire from us, you shall have, up to and including a share of the royal treasury or lands and a title here in Atlantis.”
The warriors behind them—Erin recognized Alexios and Denal among them, but not the blue-haired one, Justice—all knelt as one and bowed their heads. “Our lives for you,” Denal shouted out, and Erin started to really get alarmed.
“Okay, let me up, Ven. This is mortifying to be sitting in your lap,” she whispered to him, struggling to sit up. Her strength was slowly returning, and she had the energy to stand, although she had to give Ven a serious glare to get him to release her.
She knelt in front of Conlan and Riley. “Okay, I don’t know anything about royal etiquette, but it seems like I should be the one kneeling or bowing or curtsying, except I don’t really know how to curtsy, so will you please stand up?” she pleaded. “This is awfully difficult for me, and I have no idea what happened or, really, what it was I did to help Riley, so I’m feeling seriously at a loss.”
The man rose to stand and, taking her hand in his own, pulled her up to face him. “I am Conlan, high prince of Atlantis, soon to be king and ruler of the Seven Isles. I pledge my service to you in exchange for the gift of healing you have bestowed upon my family,” he declared, and the utter sincerity in his voice killed the tiny urge to smile that the words had prompted in Erin. It wasn’t every day a girl had a high prince pledging anything to her.
She suddenly remembered that he wasn’t the only prince in the room and shot a glance at Ven, her cheeks heating up all over again. Well. This was going to be complicated.
She flashed a tentative smile at Riley, who had a hand protectively covering the tiny bulge in her abdomen. “I’m glad I helped. I’m not sure exactly what I did, but I’m glad I helped you and the baby.”
Riley covered the space between them in two strides and pulled Erin into a fierce hug. “Thank you, Erin. I don’t even have the words…”
As her voice trailed off, Riley pulled back from the hug, but didn’t take her hands off of Erin’s shoulders. Instead, she stared into Erin’s eyes with her own dark blue gaze. Nothing swirly and glowy happen
ed, like with Ven or Alaric, so Erin waited, cautious but unafraid. “Um, what?” she finally asked.
“So much pain,” Riley whispered. “No one to hug you or offer you comfort in so many years. Your family—your mother—oh, I am so very sorry, Erin.”
Erin jerked away from her, appalled that Riley was casually reading her most tortured memories like the front cover of some trashy tabloid magazine. “How dare you!” she snapped out. “You may be some kind of Atlantean royalty, but that doesn’t give you the right to rummage around in my mind.”
Ven put his arms around Erin, and the heat of his body at her back offered some measure of comfort, until Riley’s words popped back into her memory. No one to hug you. She stiffened and pulled away from him.
Conlan started to speak, but Riley put a hand on his arm. “No, she’s right. I’m truly sorry, Erin. I’m not Atlantean anything, yet, well, engaged to the prince, but…anyway, that’s not important.” She bit her lip. “I’m what the Atlanteans call aknasha, and it means emotional empath. When I touch someone and there are such strong emotions buried right under the surface, they sort of smash out at me. Plus, I didn’t shield before I touched you. Anyway, I’m really, really sorry.”
As had been true with Conlan, there was so much sincerity in her voice that it was hard for Erin to stay angry. Especially since she was so exhausted she was wondering how much longer she’d be able to stand upright.
“No, it’s okay, I guess. I shouldn’t have snapped at you, it’s probably bad for the baby to hear loud voices,” she said, offering a weak smile.
Ven laughed and tightened his arms around her, so she felt the rumble of his laughter against her back. “If that’s true, we’re going to need to get him some earplugs in order to put up with several more months of being around this crew,” he said.
Denal had moved to stand near Riley, and he spoke up, grinning. “Not to mention those awful old movies you and Riley watch, Ven. If the baby comes out looking like Bela Lugosi or Vincent Price, we’ll know who to blame.”
