Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis (10 page)

Allowing them to erase her memory
simply wasn’t an option, even if it might be the path of least
resistance.

So, if she managed to steal a boat and
sailed round and round Atlantis and discovered there was no way out
without a submarine, her options dwindled considerably.

That left giving in to the memory
drain, or convincing some Atlantean to take her.

It was a shame Adonis had been
banished.

Of course he was the one who’d gotten
her into this mess to start with, bringing her here instead of
taking her somewhere in the outside world where she would’ve stood
a chance of finding her way home.

And he had used his native powers to
put a whammy on her only for the purpose of seducing her … which
was probably why he’d rescued her, then brought her here to start
with.

But, since he’d broken the law to
bring her she didn’t think he would’ve quailed at the idea of
breaking another one by taking her away again.

Alexis sighed deeply, regretfully
laying aside the possibility of finding another Atlantean willing
to take her out of Atlantis.

Of the handful she’d met, Helen was
probably the only one that she would’ve had any possibility of
convincing, and then only because Helen simply didn’t want her
around. Which meant she couldn’t trust Helen.

So, it was the boat or
nothing.

She went to the kitchen and gathered a
few edibles. She didn’t know how long she might be traveling and
she had no money … or whatever Atlanteans used for
commerce.

After she’d collected the food,
wrapped it in a cloth and placed it in a basket, she went upstairs
to find a place to hide it.

She decided on the bedroom at the very
opposite end of the house from Thor’s room. The farther, the
better, and the least likely, she reasoned, that Thor might pick up
on her thoughts.

She would simply inform Moira that she
would be sleeping in that bedroom for the rest of her stay, wait
until the house was quiet and everyone was asleep, and then she
would leave and carry out her plan.

By evening, Alexis was suffering from
nervous exhaustion. She’d made several attempts to explain to Moira
her desire to move to the other bedroom. None of them had been
successful. Finally, she had desisted. It didn’t matter. Moira was
just the maid. It was none of her business, and, at any rate, as
far as Alexis could tell, she hadn’t managed to get her intentions
across so Moira would be none the wiser.

It seemed damned strange to Alexis,
however, that Moira couldn’t read her mind as easily as Thor, and
everyone else seemed to do.

She suspected Moira was playing
stupid.

She was doing a damn good job at
it.

It was well into the evening when
Alexis began to think that Thor wouldn’t be coming back. She was
tempted to leave then. Moira was still in the house as far as she
knew, but even if Moira questioned her, she could say she’d just
decided to take a walk.

On the other hand, if Thor did show
up, Moira would be right there to tell him Alexis had left and
hadn’t come back and that could shorten her lead time
substantially.

She finally decided just to take a
nap. Resting first would give her a better chance of success,
otherwise exhaustion was bound to catch up with her.

She didn’t think she’d be able to
sleep, but, doubtless because she’d spent all day in a state of
nerves, she was so exhausted she was asleep within
minutes.

She woke to a touch—wide
awake.

She lay still for a moment, wondering,
at first, what had awakened her.

She didn’t have to wait long to find
out. Without a word, Thor scooped her into his arms and headed for
his bedroom.

Alexis was torn. Should she pretend to
still be sleeping? Or would it be better to protest now?

But, if she wasn’t with him, she’d
only be able to guess when he’d gone to sleep.

Still, it went against the grain just
to allow him to high-handedly decide what she could, and couldn’t
do.

Well, she decided as he entered his
room and placed her on his bed, he needn’t think he was going to
get a repeat performance of the previous night!

To her irritation, he didn’t even try.
He merely laid down beside her, pulled her against him and went
straight to sleep.

She felt like clobbering
him.

He might at least have given her the
opportunity to snub him!

To her surprise, and despite her
irritation, she drifted back to sleep.

She woke sometime later to the soft,
rhythmic snores that told her Thor was dead to the
world.

Unfortunately, he had one arm and leg
flung over her.

She tried rolling away.

His arm tightened.

She gritted her teeth, forced herself
to relax.

When she’d counted to a hundred and he
still appeared to be asleep, she lifted his arm carefully and
wriggled her upper body across the bed, turning onto her back so
that she could place his arm on the pillow where she’d been
lying.

She rested for a couple of minutes,
deciding his arm must way fifty pounds. Lord only knew what that
leg pinning her to the bed would weigh.

It was across her hips and she
discovered fairly quickly that she could not sit up. She tried
scooting upward on the bed, but met an immovable object, the
headboard.

She stopped, panting with
exertion.

After a few moments, she decided maybe
she could crawl out from under his leg.

She twisted, gripped the sheets,
pulling herself, wriggling away inch by cautious inch until she’d
freed her hips and his leg lay only across her legs.

Bending, she tried to lift his leg.
She only needed to lift it up enough, she reasoned, to relieve the
pressure.

She’d no more than gripped his leg,
however, when something settled against her butt. She
felt—something—nudging the cleft—his nose. He’d planted his face
right in her ass.

Alexis was afraid to move for several
moments. She tried, a little frantically, to wiggle away. The
face/nose followed her, as if it was glued to her.

She stopped moving, trying to decide
if she’d moved far enough to get her legs, or at least one of them,
out from under him. Unfortunately, she was almost doubled over by
now and her own body prevented her from lifting her knee high
enough to remove her uppermost leg.

She twisted, looking behind
her.

Yes. It was definitely his head. She
wondered that he wasn’t suffocating, considering how firmly he was
planted.

If she grasped a handful of hair, she
could almost certainly dislodge him, but that would probably wake
him. She placed a palm on his forehead, pushing gently. His head
barely moved. Jesus! His head was like a lead weight! Was there any
part of this man that didn’t weigh a freaking ton!

She collapsed against the bed,
thinking.

Finally, she decided to try to hold
his head up enough that she could turn over. Once she was facing
him maybe she could move him.

She’d broken a sweat by the time she
managed to maneuver onto her other side so that she was facing him.
She discovered, however, that she couldn’t let go of his head. Each
time she tried to release him, he planted his face in her
crotch.

She lay still for several moments,
staring down at the back of his head. She was too far up on the
pillows by now to have much leverage. She lifted his head and
wiggled down the bed until she was at a better angle to grasp his
shoulder and roll him, hopefully, in the other
direction.

No sooner had she planted her palm
against his shoulder than he lifted his arm, the one it had taken
her twenty minutes to move, and dropped it across her once
more.

Alexis gritted her teeth. She realized
that she now knew what the rabbit felt like when he encountered tar
baby.

She became aware, suddenly, that
Thor’s shoulder was shaking.

Infuriated, she popped him on the
shoulder. “You ass! How long have you been awake?”

He looked up at her, innocent eyed.
“What?”

“
Don’t you even try to
pretend you’ve been asleep, you ass!”

He came up on his elbow, studied her
for several moments. “Did you have somewhere to go?”

Wariness immediately replaced Alexis’
irritation. “The bathroom,” she said feebly.

He released her.

Alexis stalked into the bathroom and
slammed the door.

She planted herself on the ‘throne’,
sulking, but she didn’t dare think anything. That ass was listening
to her every thought. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the tiled
floor.

Finally, knowing it wasn’t safe even
to consider options, she returned to the bedroom. “I believe I
would prefer to sleep down the hall,” she said coldly.

Thor merely stared at her, saying
nothing.

Alexis stalked from the room and down
the hall.

She was still staring angrily at the
ceiling when Thor entered the room, crawled into bed beside her as
if he’d been invited, pulled her up against him and went to
sleep.

She sulked through breakfast the
following morning, pretending she was alone.

But she could feel Thor’s
gaze.

Finally, he pushed his chair back and
rose, extending his hand. “Come.”

Alexis looked at his hand. “Where?”
she asked warily.

“
I will show you my
home.”

Alexis gave him a look. “I’ve seen it,
thank you.”

Thor smiled faintly. “I meant
Atlantis.”

“
Oh.” Alexis looked at him
suspiciously, but to save her life she didn’t see any sign in
either his expression or his eyes that he had an ulterior
motive.

She was really tempted to spurn his
offer after what he’d done the night before, but the truth was she
was sick of being cooped up. And, of course, she’d been wanting to
see Atlantis.

She ignored his hand and stood up.
“I’m not really dressed for public,” she pointed out, blushing when
Thor surveyed her gossamer clothing with a slow thoroughness that
produced a lot more heat than that blossoming in her
cheeks.

“
None will see
you.”

Alexis was trying, not very
successfully, to ignore the heat in his eyes and her body’s
automatic reaction to it. “How do you plan to manage
that?”

He moved toward her until they were
standing toe to toe. Alexis looked up at him questioningly. He
tucked his forefinger beneath her chin, leaned forward until his
lips were almost brushing hers. “Trust me.”

Alexis’ eyes had begun to drift shut
as he leaned toward her. She stared at his lips a moment, lifted
her gaze to his.

He stepped back, took her hand in his.
Alexis didn’t resist as he led her up the stairs and on to the
rooftop deck. She didn’t protest as he took her arms and put them
around his neck, then pulled her against him, folding his arms
tightly around her.

She screamed bloody murder when he
leapt from the deck into space, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
Her arms tightened around his neck as she braced herself for
impact.

“
I must tell you that if you
continue choking me, I may well pass out and then we will surely
fall.”

Alexis loosened her grip
infinitesimally and opened one eye a crack. She didn’t know whether
to be relieved or more terrified when she discovered Thor had
shifted, sprouting the wings of a great bird. She closed her eye
again as she saw Atlantis drop away beneath them.

“
You will not see much if
you keep your eyes squeezed so tightly shut.”

Alexis was too terrified to find her
tongue.

After a few moments, Thor looked down
at her. “Alexis?”

“
What?” Alexis said
faintly.

“
Are you truly
frightened?”

“
I’m t-truly t-terrified,”
Alexis stammered, shaking all over by now as if she’d just stepped
from a deep freezer. She thought she might be ill when Thor dropped
suddenly toward earth. “Oh god!” she gasped, expecting to hit the
ground any moment.

It was several moments after they
stopped before Alexis summoned the nerve to open her eyes. When she
did, she saw that Thor had landed, although he’d made no attempt to
pry her loose.

She found she had to will her arms to
release their death grip on his neck. When she finally managed to
let go, her legs were so weak her knees gave out. Thor caught her,
then sat, pulling her into his lap.

Alexis didn’t protest. She wasn’t able
to. After a while, however, she ceased to shake except for an
occasional tremor. She lifted her head finally, looked around and
discovered they had left the city. Around them were terraced
fields. Thor had taken a seat on a low stone wall that seemed to
run for miles in either direction.