Vampire in Atlantis wop-7

by Alyssa Day

  She turned to Ven and tilted her head, pasting a polite expression of inquiry on her face. “Did giant fish swim by and steal them? Did the people get tired of ordinary food and eat them?”

  Ven made a choking kind of noise, and she rolled her eyes and turned back to his brother.

  “Did the children of Atlantis decide to use them to wipe their bottoms? Please, Conlan, oh future king, tell me how your lineage managed to lose the only means to release us.”

  Daniel suddenly shot up off the ground and flew straight up into the air and vanished. Serai stared after him, not understanding why he would leave her at such a time.

  Had she sounded like such a shrew that he needed to escape?

  Before her mind could circle around that unpleasant idea, he was back, dropping silently out of the sky and landing lightly next to Serai. He put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

  “Sorry. Thought I heard something. It was only an animal.” He grinned at her. “You were doing so well on your own, I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  She impulsively rose on her toes and kissed him. “Thank you.”

  When she turned, Conlan was practically shaking with repressed energy. “You cannot be involved with a vampire,” he said. “Poseidon will never allow it.”

  “Oh, like Atlanteans can never wed a human? Hypocrisy, thy name is Conlan.”

  Ven wandered off a few paces and sat on a boulder. “She has a point. Also, this isn’t a vampire. This is Daniel. Daniel who has saved our lives—who has saved many Atlantean lives—on more than one occasion.”

  “Daniel is a vampire,” Conlan pointed out through clenched teeth. “She is a princess of ancient Atlantis, a woman with the pure blood of the ruling elders, fit to one day be queen—”

  “If you say anything at all that has to do with breeding stock, I will blast you with energy spheres until you cry for your mother’s teat,” Serai said sweetly.

  “Speaking of blasting, I am standing right here,” Daniel said, sounding surprisingly cheerful. “If you want to debate my worthiness to be with Serai, you can talk directly to me.”

  “You are not a part of this conversation,” Conlan growled.

  “Actually, he is, since he helped relieve me of the unfortunate burden of my virginity not an hour ago,” Serai said, taking a small and perhaps petty joy in telling Conlan about it.

  Ven whistled again, but Conlan stumbled back a few paces as if she’d stabbed him. He speared Daniel with a hot glare that would have killed him had it been a dagger.

  “I will murder you with my bare hands,” Conlan told Daniel, fury all but radiating off his skin. “I will—”

  “You will do nothing at all, as you have no right to be angry, or defensive, or hostile over this news,” Serai interrupted. “However, it will be interesting to tell High Princess Riley of your reaction.”

  “I spent centuries thinking my duty would be to protect you,” Conlan finally said. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how to give that up, especially to think of one of our most cherished citizens of ancient times giving herself to a man with no soul.”

  Daniel made a small noise, as if he’d been struck, but she couldn’t look at him. Not yet.

  Words never spoken hung heavy in the air between she and Conlan, the maiden-no-longer and the prince who had scorned her. There had never been love, but between them they had hurt pride in gracious plenty.

  The realization stabbed at Serai’s heart, and she knew she had to let her anger go. At least until they recovered the Emperor and rescued the maidens. “This is unspeakable of us, Conlan,” she said softly. “I apologize for the part my wounded pride has played in this conflict. Those women depend on us, and every minute we spend in this foolish debate is perhaps another minute less that they have to survive.”

  Conlan hesitated, and then he bowed to her, more deeply than he had before. “Of course you’re right, and you shame me with your graciousness, Princess.”

  She shook her head. “Princess no longer, please. Just Serai. Now we have to get moving.”

  Daniel swung his backpack over one shoulder, but then stopped. “You didn’t mention Jack. Is he okay? Did Alaric find a way to help him?”

  Conlan glanced at Ven, who shrugged. “Alaric did not return to Atlantis, and certainly not with Jack. We don’t even know if Poseidon will allow shape-shifters in Atlantis, so one of our warriors who married a panther shifter has not brought her to visit yet. Why? What happened to Jack?”

  Daniel quickly told them what had happened, and Conlan and Ven’s faces grew darker with every word.

  “We have to find them,” Conlan said. “Alaric may be essential to saving the maidens. Horace knows the stasis pods, but only Alaric has the caliber of magic to handle a backlash from the explosion.”

  “We have to help them,” Ven countered, gesturing at Daniel and Serai.

  “We will be fine on our own, until you find Alaric and return,” Serai said, increasingly anxious to get moving. “Go, find your priest, but be warned he may not willingly leave his consort.”

  “Jack?” Ven said, looking stunned.

  “Quinn is with them,” Daniel told him. “Alaric swore a vow never to leave her, and Jack’s humanity may be lost—it’s complicated. Go. Figure it out and send help when you can. We have to leave now.”

  “I can stay,” Ven offered, but Serai shook her head.

  “If you don’t know where he is, both of you will need to look for him. Do whatever it takes to find him so he can protect my sisters, in case the witch wielding the Emperor doesn’t relinquish it willingly.”

  “Your sisters?” Conlan’s head rocked back. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Serai—”

  She made a dismissive motion with her hands. “Later. I’ll explain it all later. Go, now.”

  Daniel followed her as she started running, as if pulled by a force too powerful to resist, down the bank of the stream and farther toward the northwest.

  Conlan raced across the distance separating them and caught Daniel’s arm, yanking him to a stop. “This conversation is not over. You cannot hope to have a future with a princess of Atlantis, no matter how great an ally you have been to our people. You don’t even have a soul to meld with hers. She deserves better, Daniel.”

  Daniel twisted his arm in a blindingly fast movement and pinned Conlan’s hand behind the prince’s back. “Don’t ever touch me again, Atlantean. Not if you wish to keep this hand and not end up like your friend Reisen.”

  He shoved Conlan away and started after Serai again. “And don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder to the angry prince. “I agree with you. Serai definitely deserves better than me. Right now, though, I’m what she’s got, and I would die before I allowed her to be harmed.”

  * * *

  Lord Justice, securely hidden behind a stand of trees, slowly released his grip on the hilt of his ever-present sword. Twenty or so paces away, Conlan and Ven were entering the portal, and Daniel and Serai had disappeared into the distance. Conlan had been right; the vampire didn’t want them around.

  Too bad. Justice would follow them until they found the Emperor, retrieve the gem and the princess, and return to Atlantis with both before Keely had time to miss him.

  Whether Daniel liked it or not.

  He shot into the air, taking mist form, and followed the unlikely pair farther into the canyons, concentrating on the breathing exercises Keely had taught him that helped him control his Nereid side’s unpredictable furies. That a vampire dared to violate a princess of Atlantis was bad enough, but that he’d dare to do so to a maiden only hours out of stasis and clearly so vulnerable was enough to enrage both of the dual natures who maintained a wary peace in Justice’s soul.

  We will kill him slowly, the Nereid half of him announced. A mad glee underscored the words.

  We do not kill our allies, Justice corrected himself.

  We will at least hurt him. A lot.

  Justice put on a burst of speed, so he could catch
up with Daniel and Serai. Yes, he agreed. We will hurt him. A lot.

  Chapter 22

  Daniel caught up with Serai and waited until they’d hiked another twenty minutes or so—long enough for the metaphorical steam to quit coming out of her ears—before he spoke.

  “Maybe poking your ex-fiancé with the fact we’d just had sex wasn’t the best way to begin the conversation,” he said.

  “Actually, that was how I ended the conversation,” she pointed out, but she ducked her head and hid her face behind her hair for a few paces. His fierce princess was probably blushing again. The thought made him smile.

  “He wasn’t my fiancé, either, if the term carries some consideration of mutual agreement. More like I’m the woman he ordered off the menu. Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in a bad position with your friend Ven or with the future king of Atlantis, especially since you are apparently a politician yourself.”

  “You just said ‘politician’ in the same tone most people would use for ‘cockroach,’ so I’m guessing you don’t much approve.”

  She glanced up at him but kept walking. “I don’t have the right to approve or disapprove of your life, Daniel. All I know is what politics and politicians did to me. The power of leadership too often becomes tyranny. People are sacrificed to once-noble ideas of the greater good, and the individual rights become lost in all of that planning and scheming. I lost eleven thousand years of my life to it. Don’t you think I have the right to be a little bitter?”

  He laughed. “I think you have the right to be all kinds of bitter, Serai. I also think you’re right that we don’t have the time for it now. After this, though? We’re going to have a big old wallow.”

  She started laughing. “With cake? There definitely needs to be cake with our wallowing.”

  “And beer,” he added. “Cake and beer. Fried chicken, maybe.”

  “You’re making me hungry. Do we have more food in that pack of yours?”

  He stopped and set the backpack down on a rock and rummaged around and found granola bars and apples. He handed one of each to Serai, along with a bottle of water.

  “It’s no royal feast, that’s for sure,” he said. “All we’ve got for now, though. When this is over, and we’re wallowing, I’ll take you out to eat at the best restaurant we can find.”

  “Before or after the beer and cake?” She bit into her apple, and a blissful expression crossed her face, which immediately made him think of what else he could do to cause her to look like that, which made him desperately need another cold shower.

  He settled for leaning against the rock, putting the pack on his lap as camouflage, and biting into a granola bar.

  “This is delicious,” she said. “I missed fruit, perhaps even as much as cake.”

  “This granola bar is really freaking nasty,” he said, spitting it out.

  “Try the apple,” she advised, taking another bite of her own. “Do you need to drink my blood?”

  He was glad he’d already spit out the piece of granola bar, because otherwise he surely would have choked on it. “Do I what?”

  She regarded him calmly. “It was a reasonable question, Nightwalker. Do you need to drink my blood? I see no other around to serve as donor, and I don’t want my only ally on this quest to be weakened by hunger when we find the Emperor.”

  “I—you—” He couldn’t find the words. Offering her blood to the monster. What next? Baring her neck? Did she have a death wish?

  “Or is it thirst?” She tilted her head, still staring at him as if he were a somewhat interesting scientific experiment. “Do you consider the need for blood to be hunger or thirst?”

  “I try not to consider it at all. The bloodlust is more powerful than either hunger or thirst. And, no, I don’t need to drink your blood. Don’t ever, ever offer to let me drink your blood again.” It took all of his willpower not to shout at her. What the hell was she thinking?

  “Fine. It’s not like I’m going to offer to let anyone else drink my blood,” she said, tossing her apple core into the bushes for an animal’s breakfast and neatly stowing her empty water bottle in a pocket of the backpack, which was still on his lap, which brought her too close to him for comfort, considering the bizarre conversation they were having.

  Far too close for comfort.

  The meaning behind her words caught up with him, and he scowled at her. “Damn straight you’re never going to let anyone else drink your blood. I’d kill anyone who tried.”

  He thought he saw a hint of a smile on her perfect lips, but it was gone so quickly he wasn’t sure.

  “Are you baiting me?” he asked, incredulous. “About drinking your blood?”

  “Baiting is such a harsh concept. A little gentle teasing, perhaps,” she said, brushing loose tendrils of hair away from her face. “Not about you drinking my blood, but about any others doing so. You seem to be quite possessive about my blood, after all, for someone who claims not to want it.”

  How had the conversation turned freaking sideways and upside down on him? He’d never been that great with women, and clearly he wasn’t getting any better.

  “I don’t—I’m not—Oh, screw it.” He slung the pack over his shoulder, no longer worried about her seeing his erection, since the conversation had been just as effective as that cold shower he’d wanted. “Let’s go.”

  He headed off in the direction they’d been walking before, and her peals of silvery laughter followed him.

  They hiked in silence for a while, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. He was content simply to be near her, for as long as he could. Until she decided that the beast wasn’t who she needed in her life. He was surprised, however, that after thousands of years of silence, she didn’t want to talk. He wanted to hear her voice, but he didn’t know what to say.

  He jumped lightly over a fallen log in the path and held out his hand to help her over. She put her hand in his, and a bolt of electricity shot up his arm from the contact, but he tried to hide his reaction from her. She tightened her fingers on his and her eyes widened, and he suspected she’d noticed. Either that, or she’d had a similar reaction.

  He didn’t know which to hope for.

  “The Emperor isn’t moving right now,” she said, after she’d crossed the log. She didn’t let go of his hand. He decided to take that as a good sign.

  “Tell me about what you’ve been doing recently,” she said. “How long have you been awake from the hibernation? How long have you been working with Conlan and Ven? How did you become primator?”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” he muttered, thinking silence hadn’t been so bad, after all.

  “What?” She shivered, and he stopped to pull her jacket out of the pack and hand it to her.

  “Nothing. It can get pretty cold here at night.”

  She zipped up her jacket and raised one eyebrow. “That’s it? You think talking about the weather can get you out of answering my questions?”

  He started walking again. “Are we almost there yet?”

  “No. Maybe another couple of hours’ walk at this rate. Plenty of time for you to tell me about yourself.”

  “Fine. I’ll talk, but then you have to tell me exactly how you can shift into a saber-toothed tiger.”

  “Excellent,” she said, smiling. She held out her hand and he took it again without thinking, but then he realized he was growing far too accustomed to being with her. Touching her. Holding her.

  All the things that would make it worse when she left him.

  “I’ve been roaming the earth for the past thousand years or so,” he told her. “When I woke from the hibernation, the lessons I’d learned before had stayed with me. My goals had changed.”

  “Goals?”

  “From vengeance to redemption,” he said quietly. Easy words to say; so easy. Far more difficult to put into practice.

  “You had so much to redeem?”

  “Yes. Far too much. More than I can ever atone for, more than I can ever b
e forgiven for,” he said. “I can’t speak of those dark days after Atlantis vanished, Serai. I’m sorry, but I cannot. Not to you, not to anyone, but especially not to you. I can’t watch your perception of me change, as you realize the monster I became.”

  She frowned. “You can’t think . . . After, then. When you sought redemption. What did you do? The world was a far different place then, even only a thousand years ago. Where were you?”

  She stopped and retied the laces of her hiking boot, and he wondered where to begin.

  “I was in Europe. Times were bad. Vampires openly captured and killed humans in many places. Fear and superstition, the lack of any consolidated response—it all added up to a very bad time.”

  “Sounds like ‘very bad time’ is quite an understatement.”

  “I’ve been accused of that a lot lately,” he admitted.

  “What did you do?”

  “What little I could. I decided that, as a vampire, I could go undercover, so to speak, and pretend to be just another vampire looking for a bloody good time. Once I gained entry, I’d . . . change the regime, let’s say.”

  “You’d kill them,” she said, glancing up at him and then away.

  “Yes. I’d kill them. More murders on my hands,” he said harshly.

  “More lives saved, I’d say,” she retorted. “Do you count that in your tallying up? The lives you have saved by stopping the murders?”

  “It’s not like I keep a running score in my head, Serai. You don’t understand. Saving the lives of a few can never make up for what I did.”

  She stopped walking but didn’t let go of his hand, forcing him to stop, too.

  “You saved the lives of far more than a few. Admit it. And I think you do keep a running score, only in your twisted perception of yourself, you only remember to count the ones you harmed, not the ones you helped.”

  He laughed bitterly. “The ones I harmed? You mean, the ones I murdered? The ones I drained dry until there wasn’t a drop of their blood left in their bodies? Those?”