Vampire in Atlantis (5 page)
Read Vampire in Atlantis Online
Authors: Alyssa Day
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #General, #Paranormal, #Fiction
He pointed, still unable to form words. At the dome. The freaking
glass dome
that surrounded them as far as he could see—and the deep, dark blue currents of the ocean beyond it. A dark form swam past, and a single giant eye blinked at him.
glass dome
that surrounded them as far as he could see—and the deep, dark blue currents of the ocean beyond it. A dark form swam past, and a single giant eye blinked at him.
“Is that . . . is that a
whale
?” He stared, feeling like his eyes would bug out of his head at any minute as it finally hit him. “Are we . . . are we in
Atlantis
?”
whale
?” He stared, feeling like his eyes would bug out of his head at any minute as it finally hit him. “Are we . . . are we in
Atlantis
?”
She rolled her eyes, apparently a timeless gesture. “Where else would we be? Now, move.”
She raised her arms and began to sing. Sing. The woman he’d loved and lost eleven thousand years ago—loved all of that time, if he wanted to be honest, although he didn’t—was
singing.
In
Atlantis.
singing.
In
Atlantis.
Or else, and he sighed as he came to the obvious realization: he really was dead. Somehow he’d ended up in the good grace of the gods instead of in the nine hells. He was here with Serai and she was singing and . . .
She’d stabbed him. With a spear.
“Nope. Probably not any form of heaven,” he muttered.
A shimmering oval of pure light appeared in front of Serai, and the smile that crossed her face in response blinded Daniel more than the light. She was so beautiful. Every bit as beautiful as he remembered, and more. Her silken dark hair was so black it had blue highlights in it, and longer than he remembered, swinging past her perfect, curving hips. Her eyes matched the ocean waves, just as blue. Just as deep.
And her lips—oh, her lips. He reacted just as strongly to their sensual curve now as he had when he was a young apprentice, showing off a little with his metal-working skills and his muscles for the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She still was.
The oval grew larger and wider, and he knew what it was. He’d seen Atlanteans use its magic before.
“The portal. You’re singing to the portal? I’ve never seen the warriors sing.”
She cast an amused glance at him. “They are barbarians. The portal only gives fully of its magic to those who understand and appreciate it.”
“Ven did mention how capricious it could be. Dumps them in the middle of the ocean sometimes.”
She laughed and then looked as startled as he felt, before she touched her fingertips to her lips. “I haven’t laughed in so very long,” she whispered, but then she took a deep breath. “Portal, take me where I need to be, I ask and beseech you.”
A wave of golden light shimmered over the silvery surface of the portal’s oval form and Serai smiled. She took a step forward, then hesitated before turning back to Daniel.
“Come with me?”
She held out her hand, and the ocean itself took a deep breath. She held out her
hand
. To
him
. He reached for her, and then paused, as a horrible thought struck him.
hand
. To
him
. He reached for her, and then paused, as a horrible thought struck him.
“To where? It was full daybreak where I came from, and if the sunlight strikes me, I’ll die in flames. I would risk that for you without hesitation, but I would not have you in danger from the fire.”
“We have no time for this. Conlan and his guards will be after me, or these guards will wake up . . .” She broke off mid-sentence and smiled at him, and he realized he would follow her smile into the fires of all nine of the hells, without question. “Trust me?”
He took her hand and they stepped forward into the portal, but as the light surrounded them, she cried out and doubled over. He caught her in his arms and held tight to the beautiful woman, who was his past and his future, as the world fractured around them in a vortex of spinning light, and he prayed to any god who would listen. He couldn’t lose her again.
Never again.
Serai fought against the pain ripping through her insides as the vortex swallowed her and Daniel. It was the Emperor. Someone had it and was trying to work its magic. Someone not Atlantean—someone who didn’t know what he or she was doing. That must be why she’d awoken now, off schedule, and had been able to escape.
The fluctuation in the gem’s energy seared through her and doubled her over. She thought instantly of her fellow maidens, still trapped in stasis, and wondered how this would affect them. If they would survive it. Another burst of pain wrenched through her, and she wondered if
she
would survive it. What a great joke the universe would be playing if she survived millennia in stasis only to die in the first short hour of freedom.
she
would survive it. What a great joke the universe would be playing if she survived millennia in stasis only to die in the first short hour of freedom.
The portal’s light warmed around her in a magical caress, as if it felt her pain and wanted to comfort her. At the same moment, Daniel’s strong arms wrapped around her. She rested her head against the hard muscles of his chest and sent a mental thank-you to the portal, just as it opened again and deposited them in the torch-lit darkness of what looked like a smallish cavern. Stumbling a little as her bare feet touched the cold stone of the floor, though she was still safely ensconced in Daniel’s embrace, she had a mere second or two to register the small cluster of humans surrounding them before the tiger attacked.
Chapter 4
Serai screamed and Daniel pushed her behind him, putting his body between her and the tiger and yelling at it.
“Jack, no!”
Jack?
He knew the tiger’s name?
He knew the tiger’s name?
The tiger ignored Daniel and charged, leaping through the air in full feline fury, its mouth opened in an earth-shattering roar. If she hadn’t been so terrified, Serai might have admired its feral beauty. Daniel leapt up to counter the tiger’s attack, and the two of them met in midair with a crash that resounded like thunder.
The tiger caught Daniel in its deadly embrace and swiped at him with paws the size of dinner plates, each tipped with long, sharp claws. Daniel’s nightwalker strength was a match for the tiger, though, and he shoved the beast’s forearm away from his face and then hurled it across the cavern, where it smashed into the wall.
A woman yelled at Daniel, by name, and Serai’s eyes narrowed as she examined the human female. Scruffy, small, and tough, with a waiflike exterior that covered a steel core, if the look in the woman’s dark eyes told true.
“Daniel, leave Jack alone. How dare you blast in here and hurt him?” the woman shouted in one of the landwalker languages. English. Serai knew it, of course. The Emperor had taught her all languages.
“Quinn, he attacked me, in case you didn’t notice,” Daniel replied, with what Serai believed to be admirable calm, under the circumstances.
“What do you expect, you idiot?” Quinn snapped, hands on hips, as the tiger shook its massive head and staggered to its feet.
Serai’s fear vanished and anger took its place. Lovely, warming anger, which stiffened her spine and reminded her she was a princess of Atlantis. She stepped forward until she was standing next to Daniel and gave Quinn her haughtiest glare.
“Stand back, female, or face my wrath,” Serai declared in English, holding her hands out to her side in the ready position.
Quinn’s mouth fell open, and the impudent woman began to laugh. At Serai. Anger heated up, became rage.
“Seriously? ‘Face my wrath’?” Quinn shook her head. “Daniel, where did you get her? Melodrama R Us?”
Serai’s face flushed. It had sounded a little over the top even as she said it, but she wasn’t exactly experienced at facing down humans in combat. The tiger paced forward, snarling at Daniel, until it stood next to Quinn.
“I’m out of practice at issuing warnings, human,” Serai snapped. “But how is this for something you can understand ? Keep your pet kitten away from Daniel, or I will be forced to harm it.”
The tiger paused, mid-snarl, tilted its head to the side, and stared at her, its tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. It almost looked like he, too, was laughing at her.
Quinn laughed. “Right. Daniel, tell your girlfriend there that we don’t have time for all this posturing and to stay away from Jack or she’ll get hurt. Now we need to talk about what you’re doing here—”
The tiger’s snarl interrupted the human just before it signaled its intent to attack by bunching its powerful muscles and tensing for the leap. Daniel growled deep in his throat, almost as wild as the tiger, but Serai was suddenly fed up with all of them. She called to the pure magic of Atlantis, the magic she had once wielded with little skill but that now rushed to her call. Jack leapt into the air again, but this time Serai knocked Daniel out of the way, and
she
sprang up to meet the tiger.
she
sprang up to meet the tiger.
On its own terms.
Daniel fell backward, knocked out of the way by more than a quarter ton of tiger. He landed on his ass, and bounced back up immediately, wincing as the tigers crashed into each other. Serai had transformed in an instant’s shimmer of magic into an enormous tiger—bigger even than Jack, nearly as big as a horse. She roared, and Daniel almost fell over.
She wasn’t just a tiger. She was a saber-toothed tiger.
“Daniel!” Quinn screamed, just as he leapt toward the two tigers. “Do something! She’s going to kill him!”
The few other humans in the room that he’d ignored up to that point suddenly had weapons in their hands, and Daniel didn’t know what to do first to protect Serai. As it turned out, he didn’t have to do anything at all. Jack, who was probably even more shocked than Daniel, did it for him. The big cat rolled onto his back and presented his snowy white belly to Serai in a blatant display of surrender and submissiveness. Daniel, who’d seen Jack fight in both his tiger and human forms, was amazed. No way would the Jack he knew have backed down from a fight.
The shimmer of shape-shifter magic curled around Jack’s form even as Serai lightly clamped her massive jaws around his neck, so gently that the enormous curved sabers of her teeth didn’t break the skin of Jack’s human neck when he returned to human form.
His naked, human form.
It was Daniel’s turn to growl. “Get dressed, shifter.”
Quinn made some kind of signaling gesture and the rest of them immediately put their weapons down. Daniel nodded to himself. When the leader of all North American human rebels gave her troops a command, she could expect instant obedience. She’d certainly earned their respect.
She’d always had his.
“Maybe you could ask your girlfriend to let me up?” Jack said, smiling a little but carefully not moving at all. Serai released him and backed away, then stalked over to Quinn and snarled at her.
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