Atlantis Unleashed (3 page)

Then, though it took every ounce of courage he'd ever even dreamed he possessed, he put his hands on her shoulders, yanked her to him, and kissed her. It was more challenge than kiss, and she shuddered beneath his touch, first stiffening, then melting into his embrace.

So the vampire goddess was at least something like a mortal woman. He could use that, and he might yet survive. Soul intact or not.

When Justice finally raised his head, Anubisa's eyes had faded from glowing red to black. The world shifted into insanity as, for one single moment, she appeared to be almost mortal. A woman whose beauty was so dark and terrible that any man would willingly dive through her frozen depths to his own destruction.

“No man has kissed me of his own volition for more than five thousand years,” she whispered. “I accept your offer, Lord Justice, blood kin to Conlan and to Vengeance.”

“No!” Ven shouted, but he was too late. Anubisa put her arms around Justice's waist and soared upward toward the far-distant ceiling of the cavern. As they rose, Justice remembered the healing ruby that she carried—the gemstone that might save his unborn niece or nephew. He caught her lips in another kiss and moved his elbow so that it knocked the cloth-wrapped bundle from her arms, figuring that was when she'd kill him.

Shock number three thousand or so of the day: she didn't even seem to notice.

So be it. Ven and Erin would be safe—Prince Conlan, his woman, and their unborn child would be safe.

Justice had—
almost
—gained a family, and his actions this day would keep them safe. His ruined soul for the innocence of new life. Death or insanity was the smallest of prices for such value.

But he wanted to say it.
Needed
to say it. Just once. He bent his head and gazed at Ven, and uttered the word he'd been forbidden to say for so many centuries. “Brother.”

Then Anubisa whispered something in a long-dead language, and his reality fractured, kaleidoscoping into the Void.

Present day, Archaeology Department,
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Dr. Keely McDermott unlocked the door to her office, glad that the few students wandering the long, fluorescent-lit hallway didn't pay any attention to her. She didn't feel much like answering questions after the long flight from Rome.

As she hauled the heavy bag containing her precious tools into her office, she made a mental note to order a new Marshalltown trowel. Hers had seen better days and, like most archaeologists, she counted her tools among her most prized possessions. She'd keep the old one for sentimental purposes, maybe. It had been her first, and it had brought
him
to her.

Her warrior.

She glanced down at the tiny wooden carving of a fish that rested against the front of her T-shirt, hanging on its silver chain. The old Marshalltown had discovered the delicate carved fish for her. Since first touching the fish three years ago, she'd spent more time than she probably should have lost in visions of her very grown-up version of an imaginary friend: the blue-haired warrior from hundreds of years in the past. He'd carved the fish while he sat next to a campfire, laughing and talking with friends. She'd caught her breath in wonder at that first image of him. He was beautiful, so primi tively male that the sight of him had quite literally taken her breath away.

From the silken wonder of his multihued hair to his high cheekbones, strong neck, and the broad shoulders topping his muscular torso, he should have been posing for a sculpture, instead of forming one from wood. The lines and muscled curves of his body had been so clearly defined in the flickering firelight of her image as he sat there, wearing only pants, head bent to his carving.

Even now, probably hundreds of years after that campfire had been extinguished, the emotional resonance of his touch shone through, sparkling through her nerve endings with an almost tangible caress each time the fish came in contact with her skin. No matter that her warrior had been lying in his grave for a very long time. Trust her to be the kind of freak who lusted after a guy who'd died centuries ago. But when she touched the carving, it offered a kind of comfort. And still, even now, a shiver of heat raced through her, bringing sensual longings she'd thought were as dead as the civilizations she studied. For him. Never for a living, attainable man.

Always for him.

She caressed the odd little fish's wooden fin and, yet again, it was almost as if he were there with her. One of the few benefits of being a touch psychic. Her face twisted in a bitter smile. Lose all of your real friends, but find a hunk of a phantom warrior to keep you company.

She sighed and wished for the thousandth or so time that she even knew his name. Anyway, whoever he was, it wasn't his fault that she was a friendless freak. She'd definitely keep the trowel.

Finally snapping out of her private daydreams, she closed her office door behind her, glancing around at her space. Mementos of her travels and digs—casts from some of her finds and a few cherished gifts from the local citizenry. Colorful pottery and small carvings jockeyed for space on the shelves, while framed stratigraphic drawings lined the walls, each showing the layers of history within the dig it represented.

Her precious books overflowed the crowded and dangerously bowing shelves of her bookcases and lined the walls in precarious piles. From the looks of the inch or two of dust on every available surface, the department secretary had followed Keely's instructions to make sure her office was left entirely undisturbed while she was gone.

Keely breathed a shuddering sigh of relief at finally returning to the closest thing to a home she'd had in many years. The sterile apartment where she stored a few personal possessions had never been home; it was simply a place where she could go to shower and change clothes. She was always here in her office, in the classroom, or on a dig, living out of a suitcase.

But here, she'd carefully chosen every single object. Nothing that could disturb her—not a single object that could send her swirling into someone else's emotions—was permitted anywhere in the room.

Here, she could finally remove her gloves.

Peeling them off, she dropped them on a corner of her desk, and a puff of displaced dust shot into the air to tickle her nose. Okay, undisturbed was fine—excellent even—but now that she was back a little housekeeping was in order.

Later.

She dropped into her chair and closed her eyes, letting the waves of exhaustion wash over her. Even after all these years, all these trips, she'd never gotten the knack of sleeping on planes. She had to be vigilant against unwanted touches. Too much of a chance that her head would drift to the side as she napped, her cheek might brush against the airplane seat, unleashing the emotions of thousands of angry, impatient, terrified, or otherwise overwrought fellow flyers directly into her vulnerable brain.

She eyed the ancient red-and-green-plaid couch that stretched its lumpy shape against one wall, wondering if a nap wouldn't be a good idea before she tackled the piles of paper, hundreds of voice-mail messages, and everything else that usually piled up during months of absence.

Sighing again, she lifted the phone. She'd get a little done now, and then feel more virtuous about napping. She punched in her code, which only took her a few seconds to remember, found a pen and paper, and waited for the flood of messages to begin.

“You have no new voice-mail messages.”

Keely blinked, then shrugged, figuring she'd messed up her code. Checking the bottom of her desk blotter, where she'd penciled it against just such an occasion, she started over.

“You have no new voice-mail messages.”

Slowly lowering the phone, she felt the familiar acid begin to stir in her stomach. Bad airplane food and no sleep didn't help when one was wondering why none of her colleagues had bothered to call her in more than three months.

They'd known she was gone. Of course. That was it. Just because she'd always come home to a torrent of messages didn't mean anything. Or at least it only meant that people were finally wising up and calling her on her international cell phone instead of here, where she wasn't.

Where she hadn't been.

Except . . . she hadn't gotten many calls in the field, either. Of course, she'd ignored a few calls from George in the early days of the dig. The excitement of the discovery had taken every ounce of her attention. The famous Lupercale—the very sanctuary believed by ancient Romans to be the cave where the founders of Rome, twin boys Romulus and Remus, were suckled by a she-wolf.

When the team had lowered the probes, and they'd seen the outline of the imperial eagle, exactly as described in sixteenth-century texts, right there at the apex of the vaulted ceiling, everyone in the room had started screaming.

Chills danced down her spine even now, at the memory. One of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time, and she'd been there. Naturally she hadn't had time to return calls from her boss. Very few of her colleagues bothered to call her when she was out; they understood.

Didn't they?

Except, everyone else in the department always seemed to call each other when they were on digs. Sharing the excitement and the wonder of discovery. She'd overheard conversations in the rare staff meetings she managed to attend. But somehow she wasn't included in that circle of collegiality.

Sure, she tended to keep people at a distance. It wasn't the gloves; in this age of
Deal or No Deal
, with Howie Mandel openly talking about his OCD issues, nobody thought a self-professed germaphobe was too far outside of normal. But still, when people became friends, they hugged. Touched. Wanted her to touch things. Hold their baby. Pet the dog. Admire the new object they'd acquired.

It was too hard to avoid it all. Too hard. Too conspicuous.

She couldn't tell them the truth. She could never tell them the truth. She'd learned that the hard way with a few close friends in high school, and then with the one man she'd ever thought she loved. He'd left her. Called her a freak.

She hadn't been able to deny it back then. Still couldn't, now.

But it didn't matter when she worked. Who needed personal connection when the ancient world unfolded before her very eyes? She'd counted on at least another six months at the Lupercale.

She should have known better than to count on anything, or anyone.

Now that the shape-shifters were out in the open, it had put a whole new spin on the Romulus and Remus mythology. Not to mention changed the face of jurisdiction. The Italian contingent of the European werewolves had taken over, throwing her team out.

“We'll call you if we need you, Dr. McDermott,” one of them had all but sneered at her as he shoved her out of the dig headquarters. “Don't hold your breath.”

The laughter that had followed her out had echoed disturb ingly with an edge of moonlight-induced madness, and mindful of the twilight hour and the nearness of the full moon, she hadn't argued.

She hadn't gotten as far as she had by being suicidal, after all.

Shaking off the memory, she realized she still held the now-buzzing phone in her hand. She replaced it in its cradle, looking around her dusty office again. Undisturbed welcome or abandoned neglect?

Funny how such a simple thing as the lack of phone messages could change a person's entire perspective.

Phones worked two ways, she reminded herself, reaching for the phone again. There was one person who would always take her calls. With her free hand, she ran a finger over the dusty edge of the only framed picture on her desk. The woman nervously smiling at the camera looked so much like Keely. The red hair was a little less vibrant. The laugh lines more pronounced. The athletic build had softened over the years, but she was still a beautiful woman.

Once, Keely had thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. Before the doctors, the disbelief, and the doubt.

The phone rang four times before the familiar click came through. Something about the phone lines out in the woods of eastern Ohio always made the connection sound like she was talking inside of a jar.

Either the bad connection or the resonance of twenty-eight years of mutual disappointment.

“Hello?”

Keely swallowed, then managed to speak over the sudden obstruction in her throat. “Hi, Mom.”

“Keely?”

Keely stifled the familiar impatience. Who else could it be? Her parents hadn't wanted to risk a second pregnancy, since Keely had been . . . defective.

“Yes, Mom, it's me. How are you? How's Dad?”

“Oh, are you finally home from that terrible place? We just saw on the news that the vampires are trying to take over the Russian throne. That woman said something about being the princess Anastasia, who was turned vampire when her family was murdered. Do you think that could be true? You stayed inside after dark, didn't you? We put in a whole second crop of garlic and are selling it like hotcakes, although who would want garlic hotcakes, right? Did you—”