Atlantis Unmasked (25 page)

Alexios strode toward Grace's quarters, cradling her in his arms. Her face was starkly white against her dark hair; probably too much blood loss. He should have insisted she go to the doctor with Sam. He seemed to lose far too many arguments with her.

Which proved that emotion and good judgment were incompatible.

“Grace, we need to talk,” he began, but an annoying buzzing noise sounded from the vicinity of her waist.

“Please put me down. I need to get my phone out of my pocket. It's probably Sam.”

He nodded and carefully lowered her feet to the ground so she could access her telephone. She leaned against him, though, and he enjoyed the feel of it far too much. That she might need him filled him with a rush of warmth more like hearth and home than like the flash fire of hunger and need he'd felt for her while sparring.

Of the two, this was by far the more dangerous.

She spoke into the telephone briefly, mostly questions that didn't give him much of an idea of what the other party was saying. Then she snapped her phone closed and shoved it back in her pocket.

“It was Sam,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “Things are good. Not good, but better. You know what I mean. The doctor is taking care of everyone and said none of the wounds are critical enough to necessitate going to the hospital. Also, the doctor seems to be like Tiny, in that he'd do anything for Sam. In other words, there's no mention of having to report the attack to the police or P Ops.”

“Sam's a good man. It makes sense that he would earn this respect and trust,” Alexios said, nudging her toward the open doorway to her room only a few paces beyond. “And now that you've heard from him, you need to rest.”

She shook her head, stubborn. “No. I should help you. I should patrol—at least take a shift. I'm supposed to be in charge here. I can't fall down on the job.” But as she stepped forward, she stumbled, as if her body's reserves were deliberately mocking her words.

“Even leaders must rest when injuries demand it. Trust me, acting like you're indestructible is never a good option. Exhaustion and injury only lead to careless mistakes.” He gently pushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, marveling at the delicacy of the curve of her ear and jaw. Such fragile elegance in one so fierce.

“Rest tonight, and you can lead again tomorrow,” he said firmly.

She opened her mouth but then closed it again without voicing the arguments that were obviously trembling on the tip of her tongue. She stumbled again, and he tightened his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward her bed. She slumped down onto it and sat, hunched over, a study in desolation and despair.

“I can't do this,” she whispered. “I'm a great soldier in the army, but I'm no good at being the one in charge. People died, and I will always carry that on my conscience.”

He knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “As is just and only right. They deserve to remain in your mind and heart forever. They offered themselves up for this fight, knowing the dangers involved. You cannot protect adults from the consequences of their own choices. All you can do is honor their sacrifice with your memories.”

She finally looked up at him and her eyes, shimmering with unshed tears, were enormous in her pale, drawn face. The sight sent a wave of pain crashing through something in his chest that had been battened down like a storm-tossed ship.

“I don't even know how to ask this,” she said. “And part of me feels I don't deserve it. But . . . will you hold me? Just for a moment?”

“Grace,” he said, and the sound of her name was a benediction. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Carefully, oh so carefully, he sat on the edge of the bed next to her and opened his arms. She came into them with a sigh, nestling her head in the curve where his neck and shoulder met. He felt the gentle warmth of her breath on his throat, and a fierce wave of protectiveness washed through him. He never wanted Grace to have to face this kind of tragedy again. Not tragedy—not pain—and definitely not danger.

He found himself wishing that she were a descendant of Aphrodite, instead of Diana. A beauty content to stay safely out of danger instead of a huntress. But she looked up at him and offered a tremulous smile, and he knew she was both.

And he was lost.

“I'm going to kiss you now,” he said, but then he waited, not knowing whether he expected rejection or permission. Not knowing which he feared more.

“I'm going to let you,” she whispered, but she didn't. Didn't passively wait for him to kiss her. Instead, she lifted her face and pressed her lips to his, and the gentle pressure sparked a conflagration inside him.

He wanted to kiss her, claim her, brand her as his own. Every instinct battled common sense and care; reason forced him to act gently—she was injured. Primitive hunger older than mankind—older than Atlantis—roared out its demands. He pulled away a little, winning the battle against his darker side, but she refused to let him go. She moved even closer to him so that she was sitting half on his lap, and she lifted one hand into his hair and pulled his head closer to hers.

“I don't care. I know this is wrong and callous to kiss you like this. To want you like this. When so many were injured—” She stopped and sucked in a shaky breath. “I know it's wrong and weak for me to need you like this, but I do. I could've died tonight, and for the first time in all the years I've faced that final moment, I was afraid.”

She stared intently into his eyes, willing him to understand. “I was afraid, because for the first time I had something to lose.”

He kissed her again. He could do nothing but kiss her and hold her and touch her. Kiss her even more deeply. Some part of him, some sane, rational part, reminded him to be careful of her injured side. He held her as though she were made of the most fragile Atlantean spun glass, and he kissed her as though to stop kissing her would mean the end of all hope and light and love.

Love. Even as the unfamiliar word flashed across his consciousness, something changed. The world shifted on its axis and the stars somehow fell out of the sky and exploded into the room with them.

Alexios was kissing Grace, and he was falling. Spiral ing down into a glowing funnel cloud made of vividly contrasting colors. Darkest green and pale gold, emerald and amber, streaks of black silhouetting the jewel tones composed entirely of light. He was falling into colors, and he suddenly realized a shocking truth. He was falling into Grace's soul.

She made some tiny noise, a moan or a gasp, but he captured it in his mouth, captured a jagged bolt of shadowed amber that he knew, somehow, to be her sorrow and fear.

He instantly understood, though it had never happened to him in all the long years of his life. He was reaching the soul-meld with Grace, and exhilaration mingled with terror and threatened to capsize his sanity.

Grace clung to Alexios with one hand and held tightly to her injured side with the other, as if she could cling to him like ballast and save herself from the raging rapids of her emotions. He kissed her like nobody had ever kissed her. He kissed her as if she
mattered—
as if she meant everything to him—as if his warmth and hunger could redeem the dark, empty spaces inside her.

She pressed closer and closer to him, wanting to feel his heart beating against her own, and the pain of her wounds seemed like a dim memory compared to the heat and hunger searing through every part of her. She was
alive
. She was alive, and she hadn't lost him. That could be enough for now. They could keep the darkness at bay.

But then the heat and the longing changed. Transformed. The metamorphosis she'd wondered about earlier crashed down on her with the force of a goddess's caprice. A spectacular rainbow of colors—the entire spectrum of color—exploded between them and around them and through them. Colors danced and pirouetted through her heart and soul and in the rhythms of the music of their kiss. She tried to pull away from him, dazzled by the light and the color, not understanding but accepting, but he held her tightly as if he couldn't bear to release her.

Suddenly her breath and balance were smashed away, and she was falling—falling and tumbling and twirling—over and over into the darkness. Into pain, and torture, and fire. She cried out, seeking for an escape, but there was no way out. There was only the falling and the flames.

She smashed into a barrier that was harder than steel but with a peculiar elasticity to it. She knew it couldn't be real. Knew with some rational part of her brain that she still sat on the bed with Alexios.

But if this were her imagination, it had just served her a whopping dose of crazy. Because she was suddenly walking through flames, and Alexios was on the other side. But it wasn't the Alexios she knew. It was an Alexios whose skin was unmarked by any scarring. An Alexios who looked younger. Less grim. Less cynical.

And then he screamed.

Shadowy figures skulked and lurked at the edges of the flames, holding objects she was somehow sure she didn't want to see clearly. She caught flashes of steel and the snap of a whip, and Alexios, chained to a dark and glistening wall, screamed and screamed.

“No!” she shouted. “No, no, no, no. I don't want to see this. This is private; these are the secrets of his soul. I don't want to see his—and I don't want him to see mine. If this is Atlantean magic, make it stop.”

As if her words had carried weight with whatever dark power had thrown her into this, she began to rise. Up and away from the flames, up and away from the hideous shapes slashing their whips. Up and away from the phantom of Alexios's torture.

She rose up and up until the darkness began to shimmer with light and color again. These colors were far different from the flames. There was the deep cerulean blue of the ocean on a calm summer's night. There was a fresh, springtime green. Glimmers of a bright sparkling ruby red danced at the edges, offering carefree joy to the palette as if the colors were the heralds of emotion.

But not just the colors appeared to her as she floated upward. Layers of knowing—of
knowledge
—of Alexios's inner being permeated the colors and sank into her soul, as though she were traveling on a journey into his.

Integrity. Loyalty. Honor.

Courage so unshakable that it formed the bedrock of his very existence. This was a man who had offered up everything he had and everything he was for centuries, all in the name of protecting others. He had kept nothing for himself—had wanted nothing for himself.

Until now.

Distantly, she felt him release her, and then the movement as he stood up and backed away. The colors took a few moments to dissipate; it was like living inside of a fireworks display in the sky—as if she herself were the Roman candle. She actually looked down at her chest, to see if lights were exploding inside her, before she shook her head to clear it of the fancy and the remnants of the experience.

She said nothing for a long time. There weren't words.

Finally, from where he'd backed himself clear across the room and against the wall, he spoke. “I bet you're wondering what just happened.”

She laughed and was relieved to be able to draw the breath to do it. “Thank you, Captain Understatement.”

Relief chased surprise across his face, and then he laughed, too. “I should have known. Always expect the unexpected with you.”

“I want to know what just happened,” she said, but the exhaustion had intensified tenfold during the experience with Alexios and she could no longer sit upright. She collapsed sideways onto her pillow, with her feet still on the floor. “But maybe I should rest first, because I've got nothing left right now.”

He leapt across the room and lifted her feet one by one, removing her boots and then placing her legs on the bed. He drew her blanket up from the foot of the bed and over her and tucked it over her shoulders, then caressed her cheek. “Yes, you must rest and, yes, I will explain the soul-meld to you in the morning. You have the right to know everything but please carry this thought into your sleep: This was not something I did to you. It was a gift that the gods granted to us both.”

He bent to kiss her forehead, but she raised her face so that his lips touched hers instead. “I believe you. I
saw
you. That was . . . somehow I was inside your soul, Alexios. The flames . . .”

She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, though. She gave up the effort, knowing that he would protect her. Knowing that he truly was the man and the hero of her heart's most secret dreams. The secret dreams she hadn't even realized she'd held in the deepest recesses of her soul.

Her eyes drifted shut, and she felt him brushing her hair away from her cheek.