Atlantis Unmasked (17 page)

Poseidon himself would find it hard to believe.

Grace kicked the office chair so hard it flew through the air and landed on its side, which accomplished nothing. The loud crashing noise didn't help her headache any, and it sure as heck did nothing to diminish her frustration.

No word from Quinn or Jack. No money had magically appeared in the rapidly dwindling bank account to help her feed or train the new recruits, only about half of whom showed any promise.

Another attack last night, this time in Miami. This one blamed on panther shifters who'd gone rogue and clawed and killed at least a dozen humans. But, as the smarmy news anchor had perkily announced, the humans were suspected to be members of a huge drug cartel.

Translation: nobody cared. Rah-rah for the shifters. P Ops would make a token effort to find them, but nobody would dig too deeply into the reasons and discover that this attack was another piece of the puzzle. The vampires were far too smart to test their new shifter-enthrallment techniques by sending their “experiments” after random humans. They were wiping out the dregs of society. People nobody in law enforcement would miss.

The average Miami resident would probably be indifferent. Happy, even, that some trick of fate had happened to put drug dealers in the path of the crazed killers. After all, it hadn't happened to “good people,” so who had time to care?

“At this rate, we'll all be penned up like good little sheep waiting for the slaughter before anybody catches on that we need to do something,” Grace shouted, kicking the chair again. A muffled noise caught her attention and she caught Sam leaning against the doorway, chuckling. He wore a plaid flannel shirt and ancient blue jeans, as usual, and his white hair looked like he hadn't combed it in a week. Same old Sam.

“Shouting at the TV again, are we? Does it do any good? And if that chair needs the hell beat out of it, let me know. I'm in,” he drawled.

She glared at him, too furious to be embarrassed. “Another one, Sam. Like the attack on that Harley biker bar out West last week by the bear shifters. Another so-called rogue attack that nobody gives a damn about, because they're practicing their technique on the outlaws.”

He straightened, all humor vanishing from his face. In that instant he underwent a drastic shift from affable good old boy to the man who'd led teams into and out of almost certain death, over and over, during his Special Forces tenure.

“When? Where? Tell me,” he demanded.

She nodded her head toward the newscast playing out on her computer screen, and he reached for the mouse and turned up the volume. Together they watched as an earnest-looking young reporter cornered a big, casually dressed man who was stepping out of the front door of a building. The label in the corner of the screen told them it was the Big Cypress National Preserve Ranger Station.

“Can we have a moment of your time?”

The man lifted his head and, obviously scanning the camera crew, shrugged. “Apparently so.”

The eager-beaver reporter, probably no older than twenty-two, pushed his microphone almost into the man's face. “As the alpha of the Big Cypress Panther Shifter Pride, what do you have to say to those who accuse your pride members of being behind the vicious attack in Miami during the night, Mr. Ethan?”

Something in the man's eyes changed, and Grace inhaled sharply. The reporter was a fool. That man was a predator and he was very much on edge. Maybe a hairsbreadth away from ripping out Junior's throat.

Sam nodded, making a humming sound in his throat that she'd come to associate with approval. “He's a pro, Grace. Watch him. Be a good man to have on our side, this Ethan.”

It was true. As she watched, Ethan's face smoothed into an expression of calm composure, his eyes giving away nothing. Anyone watching would think they'd imagined that moment of threat.

Anyone who hadn't trained for battle for ten years.

“We find the incident in Miami to have been extremely regrettable, of course,” Ethan said, all but radiating compassion, concern, and a certain gravitas that made her think of politicians or judges.

If this man ran for political office, he'd win by a landslide. What a poker face.

“However, none of my pride brothers or sisters were involved. In fact, we were all at our headquarters, enjoying a very large celebration last night. We're planning a wedding, you see,” he confided with a modest grin on his face that won over every woman watching. The man was flat-out gorgeous.

Evidently he won over the reporter, too, who completely threw his previous line of questioning out the window and practically started bouncing up and down. “A wedding? Is it yours? Who is the lucky woman? We at MDTV will want to cover the social event of the season!”

Just then, a tall, tawny-haired woman dressed in a ranger uniform banged the door open, stormed out, and shoved Ethan. Hard. “If you think I'm wearing white lace on my six-foot-tall body, you're—” Suddenly she broke off, noticing the reporter and camera. “What's going on?”

Sam whistled, nodding his head at the woman on the screen. “That's my kind of woman. Gorgeous. All fire and temper. Bet she's a spitfire in bed.”

Grace shushed him. “I want to hear this. Maybe we should meet this Ethan and his ranger fiancée and see what they know.”

But the station cut out of the interview into a breaking news update. One of the men killed in the attack had just been identified as Carson Fuller, a “Miami real estate tycoon.”

Sam snorted. “Tycoon, my ass.
Typhoon
is more like it. Fuller has a habit of doing dirty land deals and always coming out on top. Word in Georgia is that he'd gone into a new arrangement with a group of vamps. Maybe even Vonos himself.”

Grace clicked her computer off and shut the cover, her mind racing. “Wouldn't that be interesting? If Vonos is behind the experiments with the rogue shifters, and this Fuller happened to cross him on some land deal, then how easy it would be to have him murdered. But they said drug dealers. Was Fuller into drugs?”

“Nah, he was all about the real estate. What he sold was clean and legal. It was just his methods that weren't.”

Grace felt Alexios before she heard or saw him. A tingling sensation climbed up her spine, and she actually shivered. If she didn't get this under control soon, she was going to embarrass herself even more than she had last night.

“Whose methods?” Alexios asked, standing in the doorway, a forbidding expression on his face. He folded his arms across that broad chest and gave Sam a narrow-eyed glare. “Don't you have work to do?”

Sam grinned at him and casually put an arm around Grace's shoulders. “Oh, me and this li'l gal were just discussing vampires and kitty cats,” he said, putting a lot more Georgia than usual in his voice. “Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.”

Sam had spent most of the past three days poking at Alexios in ways the old soldier clearly found to be very funny, but Grace had no idea why. All she knew was that she was getting tired of it.

Alexios didn't move a muscle but suddenly seemed to loom large over the room. He pointedly stared at Sam's arm as if he'd like to cut it off with one of his daggers. “Perhaps, as your
ally
, I should be involved in strategy discussions.”

Grace suddenly,
finally
got it, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her own cluelessness. For some strange reason, Sam was trying to make Alexios jealous and—even more bizarre—it seemed to be working.

She shoved Sam's arm off her shoulder and glared at both of them. “Cut it out. Right now. I don't know what kind of stupid game you're playing, but I'm not in the mood to be the monkey in the middle.”

She rounded on Sam. “You're old enough to be my father, for Pete's sake. What are you trying to prove?”

Sam grinned and spread his arms wide in a “who, me?” gesture, then jerked his head toward Alexios. “Hey, he's old enough to be your great-grandpappy three times over, if what he told me about Atlantis is true.”

“You—I—” Grace sputtered, but couldn't quite come up with a reply to that before Alexios turned on his heel and left, flinging his last words over his shoulder at her.

“Your friend Michelle is in need of you. I thought I'd give you the message before my
advanced age
made me incapable of remembering it.” Then he stalked off down the hallway toward the courtyard muttering something about monkeys.

Sam burst out laughing, almost doubling over with the force of it. “That boy sure is fun to pester,” he gasped, once he could get words out again.

Grace planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Why? Why do you want to pester our best trainer and strong ally? Now that you know about Atlantis, you must understand why he's so important to us.”

Sam wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “Yes, sweetheart. I know why he's so important to the cause. But I also figured out how important he is to you. I've seen the two of you circling each other like buzzards for three days now.”

“Buzzards? Wow.” She slapped a hand to her chest. “Be still my heart. When Sam goes for the compliments—”

“Okay.
Horny
buzzards. I saw you in the sparring ring last night before I left for supper, Grace. It's a wonder this old fort didn't burn clear down from the heat of the sparks you two were putting out. I was half afraid I'd find the two of you shacked up in your bedroom this morning.”

Heat flamed in her cheeks, and she pushed past him to leave the suddenly way-too-cramped office. “That didn't happen. Not that it's any of your business. And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave poor Alexios alone.”

He followed her into the courtyard, chuckling again. “That boy ain't ‘poor' anything. He's one of the best fighters—hell, make that one of the best
men
—I've ever met, and that's saying a piece. If anybody deserves you, Grace, it just might be Alexios.”

She sped up, leaving his outrageous comment unanswered. There was nothing she could say. Whatever Alexios might deserve wasn't the question. It was more that whatever Grace had to offer, he wasn't interested. Last night's play in the ring hadn't meant anything to him but just that—play. After driving her nearly insane with wanting and need, he'd abruptly disappeared.

Kissed her on the forehead, for Pete's sake. She smiled a little at the thought of “Pete.” Anyway, it wasn't, she tried to convince herself—had tried to convince herself all night long—that she'd
wanted
him to kiss her.

She escaped her dark thoughts and raised her face to the bright morning sunshine.

“Grace! Lovely! Let's go have some breakfast with these boys,” Michelle said, her arm through Alaric's like the two of them were having a stroll through Buckingham Gardens or something.

Grace had to smile. There was just something about Michelle. Everybody loved her. Even scary Atlantean high priests, judging by the half smile on Alaric's face.

“No time,” Alexios snapped. “Grace has training to do, if she's quite done socializing.”

Grace clenched her fists, ready to jump right in his face, but then she realized something that made heat rush through her in an entirely different way. He was jealous. He was
jealous
.

She flashed her most dazzling smile, suddenly feeling lighter than she had in months. Men weren't jealous over casual flings, or women they just wanted to play with.

“Alexios is right,” she said, still smiling. “Michelle, you and Alaric go. We have so much work to do here. I'll catch up with you afterward, and we'll go to dinner together, okay?”

“I'm disappointed, but I understand,” Michelle said, rushing over and giving Grace a hug. “Back soon.”

Grace watched Michelle tug a slightly bemused-looking Alaric away, then turned to Alexios, still smiling her biggest smile.

He narrowed his eyes. “What are you up to?”

“Who, me? Up to something?” She batted her eyelashes outrageously. “Don't be silly, Alexios. Now why don't you get your, hmmm. What was the expression? Oh, right. Pretty little ass in the ring, and let's put these guys through their paces.” With that, she took off, practically running, toward the recruits standing around the practice ring.