Atlantis Unmasked (36 page)

“What is this?” he demanded, shaking her wrist a little. “You let them mark you?” His voice had dropped so low it came out as a snarl.

She glanced at her wrist and instantly understood. “Ah. The Fae mark.” He was still clutching her wrist, hard, and she jerked it free. “It wasn't like I actually
wanted
him to do it,” she snapped. “Quit acting like a Neanderthal.”

He put his hands on her thighs and pushed them apart, then walked between them, pressing her back and down until she was leaning back on her elbows on the table behind her. With one sweep of his arm, he pushed her bow and arrows to the side, flinching when his skin touched the bow.

“What in the nine hells—”

“The bow deeded to a descendant of Diana protects itself,” she said flatly. “As can I, which you'd better remember if you try to take this any further. You're not going to like what I do next.”

He blinked, as if waking from a trance or enthrallment, and looked down at where she half lay, half sat on the table. Shaking his head back and forth, he dropped his forehead until it rested on her chest for an instant, then rose and gently helped her to sit and then stand up from the stool. “Please,
mi amara
, please accept my apologies for my behavior. I saw the Fae mark and the drums started pounding in my head again. I fear I am unworthy of you if I cannot even control my anger and jealousy over such a thing. I will leave you to your work.”

Grace caught his arm as he turned to leave, and the look he gave her was heartbreaking in its mingled hope and remorse. “No. Don't go. I want you to stay. I want . . .”

“You want?” He moved closer, so close, and stared down at her, his eyes once again deep, deep blue. “Tell me what you want,” he said, his breath warm against her skin.

“I want you,” she admitted. “Only you.”

The smile began with his eyes and took over his entire face. “I want you, too. Gently this time.” He glanced down at her wounded side. “Gently.”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her to her room, murmuring thanks to any gods who would listen for this gift beyond price.

Grace watched him as he removed his clothes, and then her own. She watched him as he lay down beside her, his hands touching and stroking every inch of her skin. The sight of his large, scarred hands—warrior hands—on her skin was oddly erotic, and added to the gentle wash of heat and desire flooding through her.

Gently, he'd said. And so they were: Gentle with her wounded side, though it was healing rapidly. Gentle with each other. Gentle with fragile emotions newly awakened and overwhelming emotions newly unmasked.

She rose above him and watched as he caught her hair and brought it to his mouth, first inhaling deeply as if memorizing the scent of her and then releasing her hair to raise his head and kiss her. He lay still beneath her, his muscles trembling with the self-control he was exerting to be passive. To let her take the lead.

Lead, she did. She lowered himself onto him, her softness surrounding his hardness, and gasped at the feel of him inside her. Slowly, but catching and following some internal rhythm, she lifted her hips over and over, then sank back down against him, taking him into her. Taking him all. Reveling in the feel of control.

Until control broke and she had to take, to plunder. To rise and fall with the tides, with the waves of passion, cresting with the heat and power. He arched his body into hers, thrusting up, giving and taking and giving more until she felt her body tightening around his and she made sure she was looking into his eyes as the world exploded around them.

A long time later, when she could finally move, she realized that he'd pulled the blanket around her shoulders and covered them. “Not bad for ‘gently,' ” she murmured, smiling against the warmth of his chest.

His arms tightened around her for a moment. “Not bad? Is that all? I'll have to try harder next time,” he said, amusement in his tone.

But then reality intruded, slicing into the space between them like a blade. “Alexios? We have to get up. Alaric may be here anytime now, and we need to prepare for the meeting with the Fae.”

He lay still and silent for several seconds then finally sighed. “You're right. What does it mean that, for the first time in centuries, I would be glad to forfeit duty and relinquish honor for another hour in your bed?”

She started to laugh. “It means we have a lot in common.”

Alexios paced back and forth across the parapet, continually trying to reach Alaric, but the mental pathway was blackly silent. Either the priest would come or he wouldn't. There was nothing Alexios could do to influence the outcome. The sun was beginning to set over the little town, which meant that the time for the meeting with Rhys na Garanwyn was drawing near.

Grace was blocking him out, avoiding his eyes when he tried to talk to her and compulsively sharpening her arrowheads. Her contented smile had changed to harrow-eyed denial when he'd suggested she stay behind. She didn't want to discuss options, and she had flatly refused to allow him to meet with the Fae alone. Other than forcibly restraining her, he could find no way to keep her from that meeting. And, given that the elf prince had specifically come to Grace, Alexios couldn't be sure that leaving her out of this meeting would not be a grave insult. The Fae were tricky when it came to things like that, and Alexios was a warrior, not an ambassador. The delicate niceties of politics and negotiation were beyond him.

He felt the icy wind first, its temperature far below the winter sea breeze. When he swung around, Alaric was standing behind him, his dark clothing ripped and blood-spattered, and his eyes wild.

“Bad day?” Alexios asked mildly.

Alaric clenched his hands into fists at his sides, a faint blue-green light pulsing in an eerie halo around his skin, but then the meaning of Alexios's words seemed to sink in, and he almost imperceptibly relaxed.

“You could say that.” The priest's eyes were sunken deep into his head and he looked almost worse than the crazed panther shifter Alexios had trapped in a cell. Eddie. Which struck him as a ridiculous name for someone who turned into a lethal predator, but nobody had appointed Alexios as head guy in charge of names.

And now, even his brain was rambling.

“Do you need a break? Are you going to be up to this meeting? The Fae—”

Alaric snarled, and the power sizzling through the air ramped up a notch. “I don't need you to tell me about the Fae, youngling,” he snapped.

Alexios held up his hands. “Sure, I'm not arguing with you. Don't want to end up a dark splotch on the cement. But watch the youngling stuff—I'm only a hundred or so years younger than you.”

Alaric made that hideous snarling noise again, but this time his gaze had shifted, and his eyes had gone a flat silver. Alaric was in pure predatory mode, and Alexios was suddenly, hideously sure that he knew why.

“Grace,” he said, her name a prayer on his lips. “Please tell me you're not threatening Alaric in any way.”

“I'm pointing my bow right at him, but it's more of a precaution than a threat,” she replied. “You might want to back down, priest. I am a descendant of Diana and my goddess hunted your sea god in her day.”

For one horrible moment, Alexios was sure that Alaric was going to attack. Bow or not, Grace could have no real defense against him. So Alexios moved a little until he was blocking the priest's view of her.

“Here's the thing, Alaric. You are my friend, and I owe you a huge debt of gratitude that I will never, ever be able to repay,” he said, working hard to keep his voice calm and level. Trying to tame the savage beast that Alaric had somehow transformed into. “But I will not let you hurt my woman, so you're going to have to go through me to get to her. Do you really want to do that?”

Alaric slowly, oh so slowly, turned, tilting his head as if he were hearing Alexios's words from a long, long distance away. “No. No, I do not want to kill you or your woman,” he finally said and, although the word “kill” was disturbing, Alexios kept his calm face on and nodded.

“Okay, then. Grace, can you please put your bow down so we can all play nice? We need to figure out our plan for the Fae and Vonos, and there's not much need to discuss battle strategy if we're just going to kill each other and save them the bother.”

Suddenly Alaric's face changed, contorting into a fierce grimace. “Injured. Bloody.”

Alexios nodded. “Jack called us and told us about Quinn. I'm so sorry. Is she okay?”

Alaric shook his head, his matted hair flying. “No. Not Quinn. Grace. Need to heal her. Now.”

Grace, who'd been walking up to join them, stopped short and mutinously shook her head. “No way is he touching me,” she said quietly, clearly thinking that only Alexios could hear her.

He could have told her not to bother.

“Yes way,” Alaric said, with a strange, flat intonation. “Now.”

Before Alexios or Grace could even move, Alaric leapt forward and caught her waist in his hands. Silvery blue light shot out from his fingertips and swirled around Grace like the bandages Alexios had wrapped her with, but far more helpful. Grace cried out, once, and then fell silent. Alexios tried to go to her but the healing light also served as a barrier and kept him away.

It was over in seconds, and Alaric stumbled back from Grace and then ran to the edge of the roof and leapt off. “Back soon,” he called out, and then he turned to mist and was gone.

Alexios jumped to Grace's side and lifted her up from where she'd fallen on her ass on the ground. Her eyes held a curious mixture of fury and startled awe. “It doesn't even hurt anymore,” she whispered. She unzipped her jacket with trembling hands and then pulled the edge of her shirt up and yanked the bandaging down from her wound.

From where her wound had been.

Now only clear, pale, and unmarked skin showed where the shifter's claws had gouged her side. There wasn't even a trace of a scar.

She turned her face up to his, eyes wide. “Why did he . . . I don't understand. But I can't believe he's a monster when he went out of his way to do this.”

Alexios nodded, gently removing the bandaging. When he was done, she lowered her shirt and closed her jacket, shivering in the chill air of sunset. “Why?” she repeated.

“Maybe penance,” Alexios answered.

“Twenty minutes or so until we should leave for the meeting,” Grace reminded him, as if he needed to be reminded. “If he's not here by then, we'll have to leave without him. The last thing I need is for a Seelie Court prince to be angry with me.”

“We'll give him as much time as we can,” Alexios said. “We don't want Poseidon's anointed priest angry with us, either.”

Grace laughed, though the sound of it was shaky. “Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“Indeed,” Alaric said from behind them. “I would hesitate to ask which one you consider me to be.”

He was cleaned up and dressed in pristine clothes, though Alexios didn't know how he'd accomplished it in such a short span of time.

“So now we go?” Alaric asked.

Grace tightened her grip on her bow. “So now we go.”

Alexios followed them down the stairs, saying nothing, realizing that there was absolutely nothing about this situation that he liked, and—worse—there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.