Thema couldn’t hope to win out over Bazor. This idea that they could open all the portals ─ no one had that power, not even Poseidon. He’d engineered them that way. Back when Atlantis was whole, he’d set his ten sons to rule the nation together with none of them able to rule the entire country alone. Likewise, the power of the Tides could never be controlled by one guardian all at once. That’s why the lost kings needed to be found.
“Send me Krav,” she called into the mist.
Immediately, Krav appeared dressed like Panama Jack with a ridiculously thick black mustache, lipstick tramp stamps all along his neck and both hands full ─ one held a shot glass, the other a lime.
“Are you always at play Krav?”
Pan shook her head at the picture he made.
He just shrugged his shoulders, unrepentant.
“I enjoy the earth realm’s pass times, mistress.”
“Well, it’s time to work now demon.”
Instantly, Krav took on his serpent form.
“Yes, goddess, tell me what I must do.”
“I want you to follow Thema and report back to me. Don’t let them find you out though and don’t lead them back to me.”
“You know you can rely on me goddess. I’m a slippery serpent.”
Krav smiled at her cockily.
“You are impertinent but I know I can trust you.”
He was one of the few beings in the universe that Pan knew this about for certain.
“So, follow the nymphs and don’t get caught, anything else P?”
He smiled when she winced at the abuse of her name.
“Yes, continue to keep an eye on the messenger Poseidon sent to earth and the woman he’s with.”
Krav blanched at this, looking down guiltily.
“What did you do demon?”
“I was only trying to help the captain,” he explained, “I thought if I could lead him and the woman to a portal they could make it back to the island before Thema’s curse killed him. They were intercepted at the last minute though.”
“Who,” Panacea asked, her face stricken, “Who has them?”
“No one,” Krav rushed to reassure her. “They escaped. But it was Melinoe who met them. There was a spell I was unable to detect. I thought the Tides were safe but you know how those things have a mind of their own.”
The goddess blew out a strained breath.
“Krav, you don’t know how close you came to interfering with free will and in the earth realm too! Melinoe’s trickery walks a thin line.”
Krav hung his head in a rare act of remorse.
“I’m sorry goddess. I thought only to bring them closer to the end of this whole mess. First Xiearan and his woman, now this.”
Panacea reached out and brought his eyes up to meet hers with her fingers under his chin, a breath away from actually touching him.
“It’s alright Krav, it was a close call. Just keep an eye on the humans. And be patient. Their actions must be their own or else none of this matters.”
He blinked his golden eyes at her.
“Yes goddess,” he said, “I understand.”
“Don’t worry about the captain or Xieran…they are stronger than you know.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Keys
“I need to eat,” Cindy said, wrung out.
They’d walked along the beach until they’d come to an area with some shops and restaurants. She stood there trying to decide between fish tacos from a stand or the Cuban restaurant across the street until Ronan finally steered her towards the taco stand.
“I have no wish to try whatever this ‘Cuban’ is that the old man mentioned.”
“Tacos it is then,” Cindy agreed.
They carried the food and sat at a table, their arms stretched across to hold each other’s hands. Anyone looking would have thought they were a couple.
“So, are you from here? Originally, I mean,” Cindy asked, deciding there was nothing weird about engaging in small talk after the day they’d had. Nothing at all. She was losing her mind.
“No, I was born in England,” he said then glanced up at her, “some time ago.”
“Right,” she left that thought. “I only wondered because you speak Spanish so well and, when I first saw you, I uh, kind of thought you looked like a pirate.”
His head came up and he gave her a slanted smile. Her initial impression of him amused him and that lightened the mood.
“Not a pirate, cara, a sailor. I captained a merchant ship from my father’s fleet and the only pillaging and plundering I ever did was among willing parties.”
He winked at her then and his smile grew even more dazzling. Cindy rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop the blush that stole into her cheeks.
“My father was an Englishman and my mother was from Spain,” he explained.
“That makes sense. She’s the one who taught you Spanish?
He nodded.
“Did you have a wife?”
The words were out of her mouth before she could bite them back. His eyes flashed up to hers and he paused.
“No, no wife,” he said
She felt an unexplainable wave of relief wash over her.
“I was betrothed, however.”
Why did that knowledge feel like a knife piercing through her middle? You couldn’t be jealous of someone who’d been dead for centuries, could you? And why would she care? She didn’t, not a bit.
“My father wanted heirs to carry on his trade empire. Anna Maria’s family sold goods to ours.”
“Did you love her a lot?”
She just couldn’t quit!
***
That word got Ronan’s attention. Love? He’d had lovers aplenty but he’d never experienced the state of being in love in all the many years that he’d lived. He’d never sought it out either.
When he’d landed on Poseidon’s island, it was as a slave to Thema, and though some of his men suffered fascinations with the nymphs, Ronan felt only disgust for their kind.
The tactics the Nereid queen had used to keep him in servitude flashed before his mind’s eye ─ threat’s to his men and even his family on earth, when they’d been alive. Not to mention the visions, the bloodlust she’d used to condition and torture him with. She was insane. Sometimes it had been as though she thought he was someone else ─ someone who had wronged her in another time ─ and she’d focused all her hate and rage on him until Poseidon had made her leave the island.
Those had been the only times he’d ever felt weak, and through it all, he’d been alone in his struggles. Now, after all these centuries, he found himself in the unfamiliar territory of needing someone else, and Cindy’s question pushed at some unused part of him.
He looked into her eyes.
“No,” he shook his head, “I didn’t love her. Our marriage was meant to build the power of our families’ businesses. She was just a girl, fragile like a flower,” when he said it, he remembered the weight he’d felt at the thought of taking the raven haired beauty to wife, like a drag on his spirit. “We’d have married out of duty not love.”
Cindy nodded thoughtfully.
“Of course, back then people rarely married for love,” she mused and Ronan detected a note of sadness in her voice.
She shrugged and crunched another bite of taco. He watched her mouth work as she chewed. Reaching across the table, he brushed a crumb from her lips and his hand lingered. Her lower lip was just a little fuller than the top and so soft. He’d learned that when he’d kissed her, something he wanted to do again. Her eyes were darker right now, storm clouds over a restless sea, probably due to all that had transpired this afternoon. It had been torture to be brought so low by Thema’s curse in that shed when Cindy’d been under Melinoe’s spell. He’d fought through it to get to her but it was her own strength of spirit that had led her out of the veil.
She was soft but she wasn’t fragile and that made him want her all the more. Something came to life in his chest at tha
t idea, but he tamped it down right as a little tune rang out and she grabbed a slim little box like Adam’s out of her bag. She glanced at Ronan and then spoke into it.
“Hi Marley, how is your…uh…meeting going? That’s good. The lighthouse? It was really… interesting.”
She listened for a moment.
“Okay, well I’ll see you back at the hotel,” she ended the conversation then looked back up at him.
“That was your friend,” Ronan asked, “the one with the knee?”
“Yeah, that’s Marley,” she confirmed. “Sorry about your rib cage. We thought you were a mass murderer or something.”
He frowned before she added, “I mean, you were chasing us in and out of the elevator, at the time.”
He had no argument for that.
Chapter Nineteen
The Mountain
Shep rode in an open box on a pulley system down into the belly of the earth. Once the car stopped, he got out and headed into the Keepers’ underground bunker control center. The mountain base was decked out similar to the one underneath Shepard’s, though it was far more extensive. If a nuclear war ever broke out, this was the place to be. He’d have to wait for Simm’s to arrive to get an in-depth read of what was going on in the Bermuda Triangle but he went to the geological monitors to see what he could make out on his own.
“Shit,” he breathed. “What the hell is going on down there?”
“Good evening Commander” came Simms’ voice, then the sound of her boots as she walked across the floor, “watching the weather channel too, huh?”
The red-head smirked but in self-deprecating way. Her hair was done in pig tails and a pair of black rimmed eyeglasses topped off the whole geeky tech girl look she had going on. She took a glance at the monitor Shep was staring at then started plunking away on a keyboard.
“She came out of nowhere this time Commander. I didn’t even have this storm system on my radar, which means any natural origins are out of the question.”
Shep stared at the screen.
“Looks like it left as soon as it came.” he said. “What does that mean?”
“It means it got shut down,” Simms cocked her head to the side as she read the info, “which means that this was just a whirlwind from the other side. A portal or something that was only open for a few seconds.”
She bit at her fingernail then started typing again.
“I haven’t heard from Six in a couple of hours, have you?” Shep asked, even as he studied the data Simms was bringing up over her shoulder.
“Nope, I did get a pretty testy email from that Harbinger guy’s techie about her stirring things up down there though.”
Shep groaned and ran his hand through his hair.
“I just hope she’s keeping her head in the game. Harbinger is the last person on earth she needs to annoy right now.”
Simms fastened a headset on around her pig-tails.
“Yeah, well never-the-less, he sounds like a real boner.”
Shep ignored that remark as footsteps sounded from down the corridor right before three more agents, two men and one woman, all in black leathers, spilled into the control center. Agents Five, Nine and Thirteen were accounted for at least, Shep thought to himself.
“Commander,” they said in unison. Shep nodded then got down to business.
“You three stay here on base with Simms and wait for the others. She’ll bring you up to speed on what’s happening in Vortex -1.”
Simms tapped the pen in her hand to her forehead in salute.
“So we’re just going to sit here and wait?” One of the men asked, his dirty blonde hair spiking in every direction from just coming out of a helmet.
“Yes Trent, you are, until you receive orders that say otherwise,” Shep raked a hard gaze over the lot of them even turning to take in Simms. She shrugged. He didn’t have to worry about her straying very far from the control center but the others were another question, especially his son.
“I’m going to try to contact Aura, and if I have to, I’ll go in and get her out of there myself. This little storm cell that just popped up in the Keys,” he dropped off and shook his head, “I have a bad feeling she’s got something to do with it.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” Trent pressed.
“No, I need you to stay put.”
“If she’s in trouble, I need to be there.” The younger man argued.
“We need you here in case the oracle decides to make contact again. Any information we can piece together will be critical and you’re the only one who can receive the messages.”
Trent held Shep’s stare. Aura was his sister; it was only natural for him to want to protect her. But he was a key piece to all of this, his abilities as a medium were the only way the Keepers could translate Eagle Eye’s messages. He backed down and Shep nodded, then he turned and left the room hoping to God they’d all listen and stay put. That little freak storm so close to the vortex could just be a hiccup in the atmosphere but the fact that Simms hadn’t seen it coming was a bad sign. The Keepers couldn’t afford to fall apart now if it meant what he thought it did.
Chapter Twenty
Miami
Once they made it back to the hotel, Cindy let go of Ronan to quote “freshen up” (yes, she had to pee). When she stepped out of the bathroom he was lying on the bed looking like death. She ran and placed her hands on his chest, watching as before her eyes he went from being half-dead to his hale and hearty, ruthlessly sexy self again.
“What are we going to do,” she asked. “We can’t spend every waking second touching.”
Even as she said it, a whole host of incredibly hot possibilities sprang to mind. If just the touch of her hand brought him back to life, what would it be like to have full on naked contact with every inch of his muscled body? She swallowed.
Ronan didn’t answer right away, and once again, she felt like he could read all her juicy, sex-filled thoughts. His mouth inched up on one side and she nearly groaned. When he ran his hand along her arm, prickly sparks jumped all along her skin and shot to her breasts and between her legs. She shifted and the telltale wetness in her panties couldn’t be ignored.
His smile grew like he knew.
She had no business being this attracted some guy she’d just met. You know, one with the curse of death on his head. But she couldn’t shake the desire he set fire to inside of her. Her eyes drifted shut as he continued to stroke her skin and she let herself forget that falling for someone from a completely different dimension was probably a bad idea.
A moment later, her eyes flew open when he caught her around the waist, swinging her up to straddle his hips on the bed.
“Is it so terrible, being shackled to me, cara?” He murmured.
Oh man, those words brought a whole new set of sexual fantasies to mind. Cindy looked down at the sensual curve of his mouth and sank into the hard feel of him underneath her. Her body had no objections. Instead of the sick feeling that usually came over her at times like these, she wanted more of him…so much more.
Her core pressed down on his hard center and she rocked forward. All these new sensations had been lost to her until today. She was suddenly dying to learn just how much more the captain could make her feel. When he sank his fingers into her hips and held her against him, she nearly came from just the pressure. Her head dropped back and her eyes closed all on their own.
“No,” she said, her voice going husky, “not terrible.”
He chuckled and the rumble rolled through her body. She moved on him again, hungry for friction but his hands smoothed up along her sides gripping her ribcage, effectively stilling her attempts to grind the way her body was crying out for her to do. She might be a virgin but she knew where these urges were heading. Just because no man had given her an orgasm yet didn’t mean that she hadn’t been able to get there on her own. Thank you Duracell.
“Mmmh,” she groaned but he didn’t relent, just held her, his thumbs framing her breasts. Slow
and easy, he started to move his hands over those twin peaks until they filled both of his palms with their soft weight. Her nipples tightened.
“Aahh,” she sucked in a breath then looked.
The color of his eyes had deepened to a lethal degree. She was in so much trouble, wanting him the way she did. Her body was positively straining for more and they hadn’t even known each other a full twenty-four hours!
“Oh,” she whimpered, “Ronan…I’ve never…”
“Mmmm? Never what cara,” he asked, with only half his attention as he continued to knead her breasts.
“Never… never,” she muttered, shaking her head slowly side to side. The term could be applied to so many things; never been this turned on before, never felt this way about any guy ever, had never known it could be absolutely impossible to separate yourself from another human being. Finally, she gave up on coherent thought, “…never mind.”
Then he stopped, wringing a frustrated sound from her as a thought broke through the dense haze that seemed to be swirling all around them. Her eyes popped open in time to watch his expression change, from lust laden to surprised, as realization dawned on him.
“You’ve never?”
He let the question hang in mid-air as his dark brows pulled together.
Cindy swallowed then shook her head, slow and pained. Oh no, was this a deal breaker? Now she was embarrassed, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from his.
“Never,” he said again with a note of wonder.
Oh god, what if he stopped? She was still turned on as hell and that was a first for her. She’d die if he didn’t continue – just turn into a pile of sex-starved goo.
“Are you sure you want…”
“You,” she gasped out and nodded eagerly in the affirmative, “yes!”
His face broke into the most heart stopping grin she’d ever seen and he laughed out of relief as he resettled her weight against him.
She dipped her head and caught his mouth in a needy kiss. He grew and hardened even more in his pants as she pressed her body tighter to his, seeking relief from the ache that had blossomed in her at the same instant she’d put her hands on him earlier.
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