Heart of Atlantis wop-8

  Heart of Atlantis

  ( Warriors of Poseidon - 8 )

  Alyssa Day

  Alaric, Poseidon's High Priest, has made a vow to Quinn, the woman he loves and the leader of the Resistance: to save her friend Jack before his last bit of humanity has been drained. Should Alaric succeed, there's one danger—he may lose Quinn to the love of the man whose life he saved...

  HEART OF ATLANTIS

  A Warriors of Poseidon Novel

  ALYSSA DAY

  This one is for my wonderful readers, who have been asking me for Alaric’s story since you first read about him in Atlantis Rising, the book that started this whole fantastic journey for me. I can never express how much I have appreciated your support over the years as we followed the Warriors of Poseidon on their incredible adventures. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Readers:

  For those of you who have been with me and my hunky alpha male Warriors of Poseidon from the beginning, yes, this is it! You finally hold in your hot little hands the long-awaited story of Alaric, high priest of Poseidon, and his one true love, Quinn Dawson, the rebel leader and empath whose dark and tortured past may even rival Alaric’s. All of you can go ahead and skip straight to the prologue, with my heartfelt thanks for making this series such a resounding success.

  For those who are new to Atlantis, never fear! Each of my books stands alone and this one is no different. However, some of my readers told me that it might be more fun for those new to the series to know a little bit about the history of Atlantis and High Priest Alaric, in order to enjoy this book even more. So here is a touch of what you may have missed:

  Eleven thousand years ago, during a battle between the gods of many different pantheons for control of the world, Atlantis escaped beneath the sea to avoid destruction. The sea god Poseidon, who has an affinity for humans and their boisterous, charming, lovable ways, created an elite group of warriors sworn to his service, each of whom takes an oath to protect humanity from evil.

  Today, the world is in a precarious place. Vampires, rogue shape-shifters, and other dark creatures once thought to be only legend have declared their existence and are beginning to take over, treating humans as little more than cattle. The Warriors of Atlantis are needed more than ever to help hold back the attack. Now, finally, Atlantis must rise.

  In order to do so, the seven missing jewels from Poseidon’s Trident, scattered to the far reaches of the globe, must be found and restored. So far the warriors have located and retrieved all but one of the gems—and have found the loves of their lives along the way.

  Now, all that remains is to find Poseidon’s Pride, the final jewel, and only Alaric can accomplish this dangerous mission . . . if he chooses to do so. But he has vowed to remain at the side of the woman he loves and never leave her again, the fates of Atlantis and the entire world be damned.

  Thanks for coming along on this amazing journey.

  Alyssa

  Research note for the fact junkies like me: As you know by now, I love to use historical fact and actual archaeological discoveries in my books. I was delighted to read that archaeologists at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey discovered what is believed to be the world’s oldest temple, dated at approximately eleven thousand years old. Since that is exactly when Atlantis sank beneath the waves in my books, this fit in with the history of my Warriors of Poseidon perfectly. The Smithsonian Magazine reported:

  Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it’s the site of the world’s oldest temple. Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html.

  The Warrior’s Creed

  We will wait. And watch. And protect.

  And serve as first warning on the eve of humanity’s destruction.

  Then, and only then, Atlantis will rise.

  For we are the Warriors of Poseidon, and the mark of the Trident we bear serves as witness to our sacred duty to safeguard mankind.

  Prologue

  The wilderness near Sedona, Arizona, just past twilight

  Alaric, sword at the ready, stepped into the path of the oncoming vampire and struck its head from its body before it had a chance to get anywhere near Quinn.

  “Stay down,” he shouted at her, another futile plea disguised as a command. She wouldn’t listen. She never listened.

  Quinn, all smoldering heat and explosive fury wrapped up in a small, dark-haired package, smiled at him, and he nearly lost his balance.

  “A gentleman wouldn’t keep yelling at me,” she said, firing one of the many guns she kept on her at all times. Then firing another. “Why are they attacking now? How did they find us? I’m sick to death of battling vampires and shifters, and it’s bad enough when we know why they’re after us. This? This is just crazy.”

  “I never claimed to be a gentleman, and most vampires are, by their very nature, insane,” he said, launching himself into the air toward a pair of wolf shifters that clearly intended to claim either a rebel leader or a high priest of Atlantis—or both—for a late-night snack. The moonlight glinted blue streaks in Quinn’s untidy mop of hair, and he had a fraction of a second to wonder why he was noticing her hair in the midst of a heated battle. Why the scent of her skin and curve of her lips formed the puzzle pieces of his greatest obsession.

  He refused to admit the truth of it, even to himself. Battle now. The rest of it later.

  Alaric released the energy sword and conjured ice daggers as he flew up and over the shifters, and then hurled both of them down at precisely the exact time and angle needed to simultaneously pierce both of their hearts. They fell, thudding to the ground together in a shapeless mass of unrealized rage and thwarted ambition.

  Enemies were here to deal death tonight, and Alaric, who’d been Atlantean warrior and high priest to Poseidon for centuries, had no intention of allowing even one of them to succeed. Not if he could help it.

  “Beware,” he called out, but a tiger’s scream drew his attention from Quinn after she shot an attacking wolf shifter.

  Jack, one of fewer than a dozen tiger shifters still in existence, fought like a berserker from old, only a dozen paces from where Alaric and Quinn stood. A vampire’s head rolled from its body seconds after Jack struck. Serai, the Atlantean princess Jack protected, trembled and backed away.

  “Help Serai,” Quinn shouted at Alaric. “She’s just out of stasis after eleven thousand years. It’s not like she knows how to protect herself from this.”

  But seconds later Serai transformed into a beast that had been extinct for millennia, using ancient magic long forgotten. A shimmer of brilliant silver power surrounded her, and then a saber-toothed tiger roared where an Atlantean princess had shivered in the cool night air.

  The cacophony of battle, rude and loud and clashing, stilled for a frozen moment in time as attackers and defenders alike swung toward the sound of an ancient, deadly predator. The forest itself froze as nature’s darkest memories conjured up long-forgotten fears.

  Quinn’s small guns barked out a warning—once, twice, thrice—and Alaric whirled to find a dead vampire slamming into the ground at his feet. He looked up to meet Quinn’s gaze, all smoke and mystery in the moonlight.

  “I may not have any magic, but I do okay,” she said, shrugging her slender shoulders.

  Before she’d finished speakin
g, Alaric was leaping toward her, calling power to himself and forming energy spheres in both hands. The trio of bloodsuckers rushed at Quinn with deadly intent, and Alaric knew that whoever had masterminded this attack had painted a target on her. Kill the North American rebel leader, and maybe the entire human rebellion falls apart.

  He almost laughed at the thought. Maybe not the rebellion, but a single man—both warrior and priest—yes, that man would fall apart. And the world would be lucky to survive it.

  Quinn saw him coming and swung around in a half circle so he could stand at her back. She fired her guns, and he hurled energy spheres with both hands, dealing oblivion and the true death to vampires and shape-shifters both.

  When the wave of attackers subsided, either dead or regrouping, Alaric heard the single vampire who was actually on their side shout Serai’s name.

  “That’s Daniel,” Quinn said. “What happened?”

  “Serai has fallen,” Alaric said grimly. “Whether from wounds or from too-ambitious use of her magic after eleven millennia of stasis sleep, I cannot tell from here.”

  Daniel flew through the air toward Serai and landed with one foot on each side of her waist, standing over her prone body. He snarled something at her and then slashed his crossed daggers at an attacking vampire with such preternatural speed that even Alaric almost didn’t see him do it.

  He saw the vamp’s head roll across the ground, though.

  “We have to help them,” Quinn said, and she started to run.

  Alaric did not waste a single breath arguing with her. He simply followed her.

  Protected her.

  Until someone else screamed, and Quinn skidded to a halt so abruptly that he nearly knocked her over.

  “The tiger is down,” someone cried out, anguish raw in her voice.

  “Jack? Jack!” Quinn shouted his name and changed course. Alaric knew that if Jack were killed, Quinn might not survive it. The shifter and Quinn had fought the rebellion together for long years, as close friends and powerful allies.

  But they’d never been lovers. Or so Alaric hoped, but doubts stalked him some days with caustic thoughts. Thoughts he only wrestled with in the deepest reaches of the dark, when nightmares donned their garments and walked the surfaces of mortal minds.

  He knew that Jack loved her. That was hard enough to accept.

  He shook his mind free of mental meanderings as they reached Jack, and Quinn collapsed down to her knees on the cold, rocky ground and fell on top of the blood-soaked tiger.

  “Jack!” she screamed, over and over and over, like a hammer beating at the fragile bulwarks of Alaric’s sanity. “Save him. You have to save him.”

  Alaric called to Poseidon to lend him the magic he would need to heal the dying tiger. He threw his head back, closed his eyes, and strained every muscle and tendon as he forced his body to hold power beyond measure. He turned to Jack and thrust the power into the tiger’s body, only to have it slam back into him in a vicious backlash that knocked him off his feet and smashed him to the ground.

  Alaric could heal nearly any wound, but even he, high priest of the sea god himself, could not retrieve those who had gone past the gates of death. Now it only remained to destroy the woman he loved. He drew in a deep breath, in spite of the acrid scents of battle, bile, and blood that infused the air.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn. He’s dead.”

  * * *

  As the rebel fighters who were still capable of walking drew near, Quinn screamed her denial and threw her body over Jack, as if to protect him from the Reaper’s merciless gaze. But death came to all mortals—even Atlanteans—and Alaric’s only thought now was to remove her from this place before their enemies returned. He met Daniel’s gaze and realized that the vampire was experiencing Quinn’s anguish through the blood bond, even as Daniel held a semiconscious Serai in his arms.

  “I cannot help her,” Daniel said quietly, his face grim.

  “We must leave before they return. We’ve lost more than half of our fighters, and I have no idea what reserves of soldiers they can call upon.”

  Alaric crouched down next to Quinn. “You can’t stay here. You know Jack wouldn’t have wanted it,” he said, touching her arm.

  “No, leave me alone!” She wrenched away from him, but then grabbed his hand and pulled it toward Jack’s prone form.

  “Wait. You can heal him,” she said imploringly. “You healed me before. I’ve seen you heal lots of people. You can do it. Fix him.”

  “He’s gone, Quinn. I can heal grievous wounds, it is true, and you know I would do anything for you, but I cannot heal death. Only the gods can do that.”

  Quinn screamed again, tears rolling, unheeded, down her face; sorrow pouring forth from a wellspring too deep to be denied.

  Serai, conscious now but still in Daniel’s arms, suddenly spoke. “He’s not gone,” she said, and icy chills chased each other down Alaric’s spine at the sound of her magic-drenched voice. “He’s almost gone, but a small part of him remains.”

  Alaric stared at her and raised his hands as if to block any attack Serai might try. She made a dismissing motion and ignored him, focused entirely on Quinn and Jack.

  “Put me down. There next to Jack,” Serai said to Daniel, who obeyed instantly.

  Alaric’s eyes narrowed. Ally Daniel might be, but a primal wariness in Alaric warned him against allowing a vampire so near to an Atlantean princess. It was, however, a problem for another time.

  Serai gently nudged Quinn to one side and lay across Jack’s body, but Quinn shoved her away.

  “No! What are you doing? Get off him!”

  Serai turned to Alaric and spoke to him through the Atlantean mental pathway.

  She must let me try to reach him—I believe a tendril of his essence remains on this side of death’s gate.

  It took only a moment for Alaric to recognize the deep magic in Serai’s aura, and he gently pulled Quinn back and away from Jack.

  “Give her a chance, Quinn. The ancients had magic we have long forgotten.”

  Quinn trembled in his arms as Serai ran gentle hands across the tiger’s bloody fur. The princess began to sing wordlessly before turning to Quinn.

  “Part of him lives, but only his animal side is still—barely—on this side of the river of death. I can call to the tiger that is Jack and help him come back, but his human side is almost certainly lost forever.”

  Quinn’s suspicion all but radiated out from her body. “What are you?”

  “I am Serai of Atlantis, and the Emperor gifted me with ancient magic not seen on this world since before my continent dove beneath the oceans,” Serai responded, silvery light shimmering around her. “I gift you his choice, as another once gifted me the choice of life or death for one I loved. Shall I let him seek out his ancestors in the afterlife or do you wish him to live, though it be perhaps only a half life?”

  “I choose life,” Quinn said fiercely. “You make him live, do you hear me? No matter what it takes. Make at least part of him live, and I can find the rest of him somehow. Someday. You make him live.”

  Serai began to sing, and currents of magic danced around her in a ballet of delicate power so intricate and complex that Alaric doubted anyone still walking the earth had seen its like. Mere seconds passed before Jack’s body arched up off the ground, and he coughed harshly.

  “Does he know who he is?” Alaric demanded.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what he knows,” Serai said. “Or who he knows. If he has reverted fully to tiger and only tiger, he’s not safe to be around.”

  “Thank you. No matter what else, you brought him back from death. We’ll figure the rest out. I owe him that much,” Quinn said.

  Alaric healed the tiger’s bloody wounds and tried to feel for a shred of humanity, but he could not. “I can’t tell. I just don’t know. Shape-shifters are too different from Atlanteans, and Poseidon’s power recoils from trying to analyze the mind of a tiger.”

  “Your magic is unbalanced w
ithout the soul-meld,” Serai said, rocking Alaric back on his heels.

  The soul-meld? When he was sworn to an eternity of celibacy and isolation?

  “What do you mean? I am the most powerful—”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard it,” Serai interrupted. “Most powerful high priest in the history of Atlantis. But it’s not true, you know. I’ve been around for all of them since Atlantis dove beneath the sea. Your power is not even close to what Nereus wielded. At least, before his wife died and he almost drowned the world.”

  “What—”

  Quinn cut him off. “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it right now. Not the bankers, or the rebellion, or any damn part of it. I sure as hell don’t care about Atlantean ancient history. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Jack with me. Somewhere he can be safe, until we figure this out. I owe him that. I owe him my life, several times over.”

  “Of course. I know just the place.” Alaric drew in a deep breath and called to power, and he swore a new and different oath—one that he had no intention of ever breaking. “I’ll take you there now, and I’ll never, ever leave your side again.”

  He called to the portal, wondering if the capricious gateway magic would bother to answer him. As the familiar silvery ovoid shape formed, he remembered his duty and turned to Serai.

  “You should come with us, princess,” Alaric said. “We can help you.”

  “You need my help, priest. I have protection beyond your knowledge in the presence of the mage beside me.” She moved closer to Daniel, who snapped his head up and stared at Alaric.

  “I can help, possibly. Let me try to reach Jack,” the vampire said.

  “What can you do? Try to blood bond a tiger?” Quinn shook her head. “Go away, Daniel, there’s no need for your special skills here.”

  “I have forgotten more magic than most of your human witches ever possess, Quinn, and one of my talents as senior mage of the Nightwalker Guild was to teach others to call out to the souls of dying mortals,” Daniel said. “Let me try. It can’t hurt him, not now. Maybe I can help.”