by Alyssa Day
"Griffin. Griffin, come on, man," Jake repeated urgently. "You have to wake up and help me with this. Healing is not one of my talents, and I can't get a bullet out of your body."
Griffin's eyes opened, his lids fluttering closed again within reopening. "Damn you, mermaid boy. I was getting my first real sleep in more than two months," he croaked out, his voice rusty. "My head – that was you?"
"That was me. I hope I didn't screw up the healing process too badly in the attempt."
Griffin's muscles suddenly tensed as he tried to sit up, and his grip on Savannah's hand tightened to the point of pain.
"Hey, Griffin. We're glad to see you," she said, trying to smile. "Lighten up just a little on my hand, or you're going to have to heal crushed fingers after you fix that bullet wound in your shoulder."
Griffin hissed in a breath and tried to pull away, but she tightened her own grip.
"Not a chance, buddy. I'm holding onto you until you're completely recovered, and there's not much you can do about it right now. So, help Jake heal you, and we can get on with saving the day."
Griffin fixed her with his unnerving silver gaze, and then he nodded. "Understood and appreciated. Jake, push as much healing magic as you can into my shoulder while I work from within. I'm still… not at my best due to loss of blood, so I could use the help."
Men. Savannah could tell how much it cost Griffin to admit that he needed help. She guessed Atlantean men weren't much different from human men in a lot of ways.
"Now, then,” Jake said, leaning forward.
Griffin nodded, and then a bright silver-blue explosion of light surrounded Griffin with a glowing nimbus of color, and she amended that thought. Atlantean men were a lot different than humans, if they could do this.
Jake had said healing magic wasn't his forte, and now she understood why. Comparing what he'd done to what Griffin was doing now was like comparing a kitchen sink to Niagara Falls. Power thrummed through the room so intensely that even Savannah, who had no magic at all, could feel it vibrating in her bones. Reverberations of the healing magic traveled through Griffin's body, down his arm, and into his hand and then jumped into Savannah's hand with a powerful shock. She gasped, but she didn't let go. She had one job, and she'd be damned if she'd stop doing it just because of a little magic overspill.
The light and the magic both dimmed after at least a full minute, and Griffin drew in a long deep breath. Savannah heard a tiny metallic clink and glanced over to see that the bullet—the one that must have been in the mage's now-healed wound--had fallen to the concrete floor.
"Are you better?" She squeezed his hand. "Do you think you can walk?"
Griffin sat up, and this time his expression was free of pain. "I am well. Thank you for your assistance. Ideally, I would now eat an enormous meal and then sleep for two days. However, as we've all seen, nothing about this particular corner of the world is in any way ideal."
"We need to get you out of here," Jake said, standing. "You can at least fly out, get something to eat, and rest a little bit while we wait for our P-Ops backup to show up at noon."
Griffin started shaking his head before Jake could even finish the thought. "No, I can't. What if the guard comes to check on me? If anything – anything at all – goes wrong or seems strange to them, they may move up their timetable and start attacking humans now. We can't take that chance. I will remain here until the arranged time."
Savannah started to rise, too, but before she could release Griffin's hand he caught her gaze. "I am in your debt, Savannah Hastings. I will not forget this."
She shook her head. "You don't owe me anything. I just held your hand, like any friend would do. Let's concentrate on getting you better. If you really need to stay in this damn room, I'm going to at least go find you food and water."
She started toward the door, but Jake stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Wait a moment, please." He looked at Griffin, who was leaning against the wall focusing on taking slow, even breaths.
"Griffin, we need to know what happened to Lucas. I've been trying to reach him, and there's nothing. Nothing at all."
Griffin's face twisted into a terrible expression, somewhere between a scowl and a sneer. "Maybe he has deserted us. Maybe he's just like his father."
"If we judged people on their father's actions, we would have sorely misjudged Flynn. You know better than that, mage."
Griffin silver eyes glowed hot, but then he nodded. "Perhaps. If so, he's in trouble. But there's nothing we can do about it right now. We must hope that he figures something out and gets word to us. Right now, we have no way of even knowing where he is."
"Worse,” Jake said. "The mental communication with Atlantis has gone silent.”
Griffin closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded, looking troubled. "I've never felt that before. It's as if Atlantis didn't exist.”
"We'll find Lucas," Savannah told them. "We're like the Marines. We never leave a man behind. And then we'll find out why you can't contact Atlantis and we'll save the day. Easy peasy."
Griffin looked at Jake. "Marines?"
"Don't ask. It probably has something to do with pots and kettles and skillets. Griffin, there's something else. Something important. We need to know –"
Griffin turned to look at Savannah, and she could've sworn his silver eyes were filled with regret. "I would give anything if I had the ability to stop the Transition and save you from this fate. But I don't have the knowledge or the ability. In truth, I've never heard that even Alaric has this ability. It's an answer we've been hunting for a very long time. I am truly sorry.”
Savanna's heart plunged into her stomach, and she suddenly wanted to throw up or hit something. She didn't have time for either option, though, and she'd be damned if she'd spend her last few hours as a human—or last few hours alive—feeling sorry for herself.
"Okay. Wings for me it is," she said, swallowing hard. "We'll worry about that later. Right now, I'm going to find you some food and water."
Right there and then, in front of Griffin, Jake caught her in his arms, hugged her tightly, and kissed the breath out of her. "You're the bravest woman I've ever known, and we are not going to give up. We will find a way to fight this."
She gazed into his eyes, seeing his strength. Seeing his need to protect her. Seeing the love he had for her.
But sometimes, love wasn't enough.
"And if we don't?"
"Flying lessons." He grinned at her, and her heart filled with so much love that it shattered into a million pieces and landed on the ground in sparkly shards at his feet.
"Flying lessons. I like it. You in, Griffin?"
The mage stared at them with narrowed eyes. "You do realize that you're both crazy, do you not?"
Savannah couldn't help it. She started to laugh.
He wasn't wrong.
8
The fish market, 2 a.m.
Lucas stared at the ceiling of the cage and waited for his breathing to start up again.
And waited.
And waited.
And—finally—gulped in a shuddering breath when his lungs remembered how to function.
"You have to stop doing that.”
He blinked and focused on his breaths. In, out. In, out. A face appeared in his peripheral vision and golden eyes stared down at him, opened owlishly wide.
"I know you said you were going to electrocute yourself, but this is ridiculous.” She bit her lip. He knew her name, but the electricity in the cage's bars seemed to have knocked his brain loose. Rina. No, Rhiannon.
Rhiannon.
"I need to try again,” he finally managed to say in a hoarse whisper. "I might—”
"You might kill yourself, you idiot. You tried five times, and five times you've ended up on the floor. I don't know anything about the cumulative effect of electricity on Atlanteans, but I'm starting to realize it's not good. Moron.” She shoved her mass of curls back and away from her beautiful, but highly annoyed, face, and Lucas r
ealized that she might have a point.
"Maybe.”
"Maybe nothing. Do you know the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. Got it? So, quit trying to electrocute yourself before I'm stuck in this cage with a corpse,” she demanded.
"Okay.”
"And furthermore…wait. Did you say okay?”
"Yes. Help me up. Please,” he quickly added, before she started in on another lecture about how she was not his servant, as she'd done after attempt three or so, when he'd demanded her help.
She shook her head, grumbling, but grasped his upper arms and helped him sit up. The room spun around him as much as if he'd been on a three-day whiskey bender or swallowed a half-cup of demon rum.
He shuddered at the thought of demon rum. Never again. Never, ever again.
"Are you okay?” She bit her lip, which made him think entirely inappropriate thoughts about how much he'd like to bite her lip, or at least nibble on it, or maybe on other parts of her delectable body, which made him do a mental head smack.
No, no, no.
He deliberately closed his eyes and thought of the most hideous things he could bring to mind:
Decapitated vampires.
Bloated dead bodies.
Raisins.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that she'd moved away from him and was sitting cross-legged, shoulders slumped and head in her hands.
"It's hopeless, isn't it? We're going to have to stay here until they come back, and they already told me that they're going to kill you,” she said, with such despair that her voice shook. "They told me not to tell you, but hey, what does it matter? You killed some of them, right?”
Lucas stiffened his spine against the flinch. Yes, he'd killed them. And he didn't regret it. "Do you know what they're planning? They're going to force the Transition on a few hundred unsuspecting humans at the Humanity Prime gathering, which means most of the humans will die. Men, women, and children. Some of them are bigoted fools, certainly, but most of them are innocents. Even fools don't deserve a death sentence without a trial. So, tell me how horrible I am.”
He leaned forward and snarled. "Tell me again how I'm wrong.”
He watched the convulsive movement in her delicate throat as she swallowed. "Did you—”
"Did I what?”
She lifted her chin. "Did you give them a trial? The shifters?”
"Yes. I was judge, council, and executioner, and I convicted them based on their own words, which I heard them speak. And then I carried out the sentence.” He shook his head, trying to shake off the last of the effects of the electric bars, and then stood and began pacing the small floor. "I wonder that you have so much concern for these admitted killers when they're the ones who have your daughter.”
She gasped as if he'd struck her, and he realized that in truth he had—he'd plunged a spear home in the most vulnerable part of her soul. A wave of shame nearly swamped him when he saw the silent tears rolling down her face; gutted him when she curled up in a ball and began to rock back and forth, making the smallest of sounds.
The kind of sounds that a wounded animal might make.
His hand reached out toward her, almost without conscious thought, but he forced himself to step back. "I'm sorry. I'm …I didn't mean to say that. I know your first concern is for your child. You must know that I want you to escape this cage and go to her as much as I want to rescue those children at the H Prime compound.”
Her breath hitched, and the sound tugged at something inside his chest; something almost where his heart would have been if he still had one. "I'm sorry,” he repeated. "Let's try this again. I'm almost sure that if I can just hold onto the bars for long enough to—”
"No!” She scrubbed at her face with her fists and then jumped up. "Not again. And, okay. I accept your apology. Do you…do you have people at the H Prime thing? Others who can come rescue us?"
"No. Their first duty is to contain the shifters and protect the humans. I'm on my own."
"Are there, um, very many of them?"
He narrowed his eyes. Surely this woman was only a mother missing her child, not a spy. "Why do you ask?"
She bit her lip again but shrugged. "If there are a lot of them, maybe a few can come help us. But, anyway, let's try something different. Surely between the two of us we can figure out how to get out of here.”
He said nothing, simply nodded, because he realized her experience with cages was as lacking as her experience with violence. Some cages were impossible to escape.
He'd try his best to be sure this wasn't one of them.
"If nothing else, we can maybe rush them and get out when they come back in the morning. They want…” She hesitated and then shook her head. "Maybe we should get some rest until then.”
Lucas studied her face. She was clearly hiding something. "They want? They want what?”
She turned away and shrugged. "How should I know? They threw me in here, too, and I've done nothing to them. Let's just…let's just get some rest.”
She was lying about something. He just couldn't figure out what. His brain was still ringing from the latest attempt to break through the bars, so his usual coldly logical thought process wasn't working properly. Maybe she was right. Maybe they should get some rest, so they'd be prepared for the shifters' return. Unfortunately, there was no chance that he'd be able to sleep in such a vulnerable position, and he doubted a mother so terrified for her daughter would be able to sleep, either. They could doze, though, and reserve their energy for the ordeal that would be coming in the morning.
An ugly thought wormed its way through his mind: What if the shifters didn't open the cage? What if they simply shot him through the bars of the cage? His magic wouldn't be enough to heal a bullet to the heart or head.
No. He wasn't going to die in a cage.
He walked to the exact center of the cage and sat, so even if he did fall asleep there was no chance his arms or legs would touch the bars. Rhiannon reluctantly sat near him, leaving more than a little space between them. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, and he suddenly realized that she was shivering. Her clothing was clearly designed for its appearance, not to keep her warm while sitting on a concrete floor in an unheated warehouse. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees, but the muscles in her body were drawn as tight as one of Denal's bowstrings.
"It's cold in here,” he finally said cautiously.
She opened one eye, started to say something, but then simply nodded and closed the eye again when a particularly strong bout of shaking shuddered through her body.
"You are welcome—and I say this with my oath as an Atlantean warrior not to touch you in any unwanted way—you are welcome to sit next to me. My body temperature is higher than yours and could keep you warm.” He cleared his throat over the sudden obstruction that was choking him. "If you want to, that is.”
This time she opened both eyes and raised her head, pinning him with her golden-eyed stare. "I don't think so.”
But then another wave of shivering swept through her, and she sighed. "Okay. All that's important to me is getting to my daughter, and I need to stay strong to get out of here. And I guess if you were a pervert, you'd have tried something before now. Okay.” She took a deep breath, as if stealing herself for a highly unpleasant task, and then scooted over to sit right next to him, almost but not quite touching him.
"With your leave,” he said quietly, and when she hesitantly nodded he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer until the sides of their bodies were touching in a V-shaped line from shoulders to knees.
Rhiannon sighed deeply, and her shoulders relaxed against his arm. "You weren't kidding. You're so warm. I…thank you.”
"You're welcome.” He tried not to think any irrelevant thoughts like how good she felt in the circle of his arm, or how wonderful her hair smelled, or how long it had been since he'd been this close to any woman, let
alone one so beautiful and brave.
No, he didn't think any of those things.
"Tell me about your daughter,” he said, desperate for any distraction. "Tell me about yourself.”
She pulled away from him and flashed him a narrow-eyed stare. "This is not a date. We don't need to get to know each other.”
"You're not talking about the fruit, are you?”
"What?”
"A date. The fruit.” His stomach, accustomed to regular food and lots of it, chose that moment to growl.
Rhiannon laughed, just a tiny whisper of a laugh, but it felt like a gift. "No, not the fruit. The kind of date that's a get-together, maybe dinner, with someone you might be interested in getting to know.”
He found himself fascinated with the idea of getting to know her, which made him want to punch himself in the face He had no time for nonsense like dates. "I see. But perhaps we could get to know each other in a non-date capacity. I would like to know more about how you came to be in this cage, certainly. Maybe you saw or heard something that could help us. And since neither of us is likely to be able to sleep, we should use the time productively. Do you agree?”
She said nothing for a long moment, but then she slowly nodded. "Yes. I agree. Just no favorite colors kind of stuff.”
Lucas turned his head to stare down at her. "You are a very odd woman, Rhiannon.”
She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I know, Lucas. Trust me, I know. Let's talk later, okay? I'm very tired.”
He closed his eyes and waited. Patience was the key with any prey, and if he needed to coax the information out of her, he could do that. She was sitting alone in dim light, in a cage, scared, probably hungry, and cold enough to allow a total stranger whom she knew was a killer to hold her.
She'd talk. People always talked.
An hour later
She didn't talk.
Damn. Now he'd have to try another strategy. If only he knew how to be charming, like Jake. Or mysterious, like Griffin. Instead, he was just another violent man in a world filled with violent men. The son of a traitor.
