February in Atlantis

  February in Atlantis

  A Poseidon’s Warriors paranormal romance

  Alyssa Day

  Holliday Publishing

  Contents

  Atlantis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thank you!

  Excerpt: January in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

  Books by Alyssa

  About the Author

  Atlantis

  After eleven thousand years beneath the seas, the lost continent is lost no more. Atlantis has risen from beneath the ocean and is now openly taking part in human affairs. But the creatures that formerly hid in the darkness have come out into the open, too. Vampires, shapeshifters, the Fae, and more are now part of daily life on Earth . . . and usually not to humanity’s benefit.

  The fabled group known as Poseidon’s Warriors must therefore continue their sworn task of protecting humankind, and a new group of fighters will vow to become the king’s elite vanguard: The Twelve.

  It's only February—it's going to be a long year.

  1

  January

  A deep-sea fishing boat, off the coast of New Zealand

  "Mermaids don't exist."

  Jake heard the growl in his own voice but he didn't much care about toning it down, especially when he looked around at the idiots he'd loosely called shipmates for the past several weeks.

  An icy spray of saltwater slapped the side of his face when something a lot bigger than the Fae woman entangled in their nets – fathoms bigger – smashed its tail down on the water next to the ship to prove a point. The point being, of course, that the Kraken could and would destroy the entire ship to get to the Fae. The thing these morons probably wouldn't understand was that the beast, huge though it might be, was the protectee of the pair. If the Fae tangled in their fishing nets hadn't been unconscious, she could've taken out the ship, the crew, and anything else in a five-nautical-mile radius with a glance.

  You don't mess with sea Fae, Jake's father had always told him, and considering that Jake and his father were from Atlantis, you could take those words to the bank, as the humans were fond of saying.

  Jake pulled out the dagger he always carried with him and crouched down to slice open the ropes that had caught the Fae and banged her against the side of the ship hard enough to knock her out. He had no idea why someone this powerful – and he could judge her power from the way her skin was shimmering even when she was unconscious – would have let herself get close enough to the ship to get captured in the nets, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that she was going to wake up furious any minute now and nobody wanted an angry Fae within shouting distance—especially not on anything as fragile as this ship. There was steel, certainly, and steel still had power over the Fae. But wood and vinyl and other materials had been used to fabricate this ship, and nobody would want to be around to see what a powerful Fae could do to a ship—or her crew—when she was furious.

  Especially not Jake.

  "She doesn't have a tail, see? Not a mermaid," he repeated as he kept cutting, hoping none of them would ask about the translucent scales that covered her legs and most of her body.

  "I don't think so, Surfer Boy," an almost comically squeaky voice said. That is, you might think it was comical until you looked up and saw the mountain of a man speaking. Bangles, so called because of his tendency to wear dozens of gold and silver bracelets, was only a few inches shy of seven feet tall and sometimes, like when he was looming over Jake right at this minute, seemed to be almost as wide. The first mate was too big, too ugly, and too mean for anybody ever to make fun of his voice.

  Jake had heard that the last person who did so was currently decorating the inside of a shark's belly, and he'd been in pieces before the shark got to him.

  "She's a mermaid, and she's ours," Bangles yelled, playing to the crowd surrounding him. "We caught her, so we keep her. Finders keepers."

  "Still not a mermaid," Jake said, sighing.

  BOOM.

  Jake struggled to keep his balance when the blow struck his side of the ship. The Kraken was not kidding around. Jake sped up his cutting speed, although he wasn't sure what his next step would be—it's not like he would throw an unconscious woman overboard just to placate her hundred-thousand-pound pet.

  "There are shapeshifters. Why can't there be mermaids?" somebody else shouted.

  The guy had a point, but no. If there had been mermaids, the residents of Atlantis would have known about it first. Therefore: no mermaids. Jake didn't bother trying to explain this; he just kept cutting ropes.

  The mate smiled, showing the missing teeth that took his face from simply ugly to gargoyle-like, and folded his arms across his ample belly, smugness radiating from every unwashed inch of him.

  Or maybe it wasn't smugness, just indigestion. With that face, who could tell?

  The rest of the crew, bunched up beside and around Bangles, made various grumbling noises of agreement. The Kraken, clearly not in the mood to be ignored, smashed the side of the ship again, but almost all of them stayed on their feet this time. Most of them had been at sea a long time – long enough to keep their balance on stormy days; long enough to lose most of their fear of the creatures who lived in it. Jake hadn't been able to decide whether this was courage or merely stupidity.

  At the moment, he was pretty sure which side he was coming down on.

  "Look," Jake said taking a deep breath and keeping his eyes on Bangles, but going back to work on the ropes entangling the Fae. "She's Fae. I know you know what that means. When she wakes up, if you've tried to do anything to harm her, she'll kill us all and turn this boat to kindling. She might do it just because she has a headache from the nets smacking her against the hull."

  "Ship," shouted one of the sailors. "It's a ship not a boat."

  "As if that's what's important," muttered Jake, still slicing rope with the magically enhanced edge of his very sharp blade.

  "Well if that's the case, we'll just kill her," said Bangles. "A dead mermaid is almost as good as a live mermaid, when it comes to selling. One of them scientists or a museum will pay good money for anything out of the ordinary. Now get out of my way, or you can die with her."

  With that, Bangles pulled a knife of his own from the sheath at his hip. Sadly, the knife was as oversized as Bangles was, which made it about three sizes bigger than Jake's dagger.

  One final hurried cut freed the Fae from the tangle of ropes. If she woke up quickly enough, she'd be able to make her own way out, although it wasn't as if she couldn't disintegrate the rope, the boat, and everyone on it.

  Jake shook his head. Another instance in which his overblown protective instinct had battled his common sense, and common sense had gone down—yet again—with a weary whimper.

  As quick as a thought, he leapt over the Fae and landed lightly on the balls of his feet facing the mate. "I hate to be a cliché in situations like this, but you're going to have to go through me to get to her."

  He felt a wild grin spread across his face and knew he looked crazy, because he'd caught his reflection in shiny surfaces, mainly bar mirrors if he wanted to be honest, when he'd nearly gone berserk before. Sometimes, his expression alone was enough to make a threat back down.

  Sadly, the mate was too stupid to listen to what his instincts must be telling him. Instead, Bangles threw his head back and laughed. "Ah, look, boys. The pretty surfer boy wants a fight."

  The mood in the crowd was already ugly and the crew—a few of whom he'd almost thought had become friends—edged closer, blood in their eyes
and nothing of friendship in their expression.

  That's what he got for believing the lie of friendship from a human—from anyone. The same realization he'd had a hundred times before, but apparently was too bullheaded to heed, bit at him with the taste of rusty metal in the back of his throat.

  "So be it," he said calmly, dropping into a fighting stance. "Let's go, then."

  "Stay back boys," Bangles said, a crazed look of his own sliding across his thuggish face. "This one's all mine."

  Jake groaned. Another cliché. He was suddenly in the middle of a very bad action movie. Any moment now the idiot would say "This boat isn't big enough for both of us."

  He rolled his eyes at the mate. "Are you going to talk me to death?"

  Bangles roared—in joy or defiance, Jake didn't know which—and lunged, holding his knife overhead, arm already plunging down. If it had struck where it had been aimed, in the juncture between Jake's neck and shoulder, there would've been two dead halves of an Atlantean on the deck for the swabbies to mop up.

  Luckily, Jake tried very hard never to be where somebody else wanted him to be. He flowed into movement that was very like the water that had circled the dome of Atlantis during his youth, out and away from beneath the blade. But he stepped into the big man, not away from the attack, surprising Bangles and everyone else around them. He stopped with the tip of his dagger pressing lightly into the mate's throat and tried to take only shallow breaths.

  Damn, but the man reeked.

  "Nobody needs to get hurt here," he said reasonably, or at least as reasonably as one could be with an injured and deadly sea Fae at his back, a crew of bloodthirsty morons at his front, and an increasingly frantic Kraken beside his ship.

  "We must let her go, because we're not monsters who would hurt an innocent woman." He put an emphasis on the word woman, in hopes that some forgotten notion of chivalry in their lizard brains would react to it. "Then we go on our way. We got a great haul. We're going to make a lot of money. So why don't –"

  But Bangles was done listening. Heedless of the knife at his throat, he suddenly wrapped his arms around Jake in a bearhug and squeezed so hard that Jake was sure the next cracking he heard would be his ribs, not the timbers of the ship, Kraken or no.

  "Mine, puny man," bellowed Bangles, clearly beyond reason or logic.

  "Your breath alone might kill me, big man," Jake said lightly before pushing the tip of his blade just a little way into the mate's throat.

  Just a little was just enough. When blood struck the blade it engendered the magic within, and a burst of power knocked Bangles and everyone else in the crew a good ten feet back and away from Jake. A few of them, who'd been perched on the ships rails, went overboard.

  Jake found he wasn't unduly disturbed by this. They'd all wanted to hurt the defenseless Fae, after all. The sound of screams and crunching noise told him the Kraken had found the men in the water and he flinched.

  Okay, maybe he was a little disturbed.

  We never give humans to the monsters.

  As if she, too, had heard Jake's father's voice in his thoughts, the Fae behind him shrieked, finally awake.

  The sound had Jake whirling in a quarter-turn so he could keep one eye on her and one eye on the rest of them. He bowed his best Atlantis court bow without ever taking his gaze from her. "My lady, my sincere apologies for any harm you've taken through our carelessness. If you would –"

  "No." The Fae, who'd seemed like a waterlogged, bedraggled, pitiful specimen before, stretched and raised herself to her full height, which made her nearly as tall as Jake. Beneath the ragged gown, she was all long, lean lines and shimmering skin so dark black it shone with blue highlights. She shook out her hair, which Jake only now noticed gleamed with shades of red and gold, and turned golden eyes on him.

  She was Beauty. She was Danger.

  She glanced at the crew and those golden eyes narrowed.

  She was Death.

  The Kraken, which had been smashing against the side of the ship with increasingly powerful blows, subsided.

  Jake swallowed, hard. Her eyes weren't just gold; they were glowing. He knew what glowing eyes meant in the Fae: Some deaths were non-negotiable. Suddenly, the terror of uncertainty vanished.

  There was no point to being afraid when you had no cards left to play.

  He shrugged. "Well, it's been a life. Not a particularly good one, not a particularly long one. But I guess you play the hand you're dealt, in life and in love, and whining about it never changed anything."

  He sheathed his dagger and bowed to her again. "I'm on the ship; our nets caught you; I deserve it. If you would be so kind, perhaps you could spare these humans. Their only crime is stupidity, and they don't deserve to die for that. I give you my life as forfeit."

  Only a fool would try to bargain with a Fae—unless he didn't expect to live through it. In this situation, what could it hurt? He laughed a little at the idea of the Fae chasing him through the afterlife, and her eyes widened.

  Then he took a deep breath of sea-scented air and prepared to die.

  "I think not, little Atlantean," said the Fae staring at him with greed and hunger in her gaze. The thing with Fae was you never knew if the hunger was for sex, food, or pain or, sometimes, all three. The Fae considered torture to be an appetizer.

  "You stood for me before these men," she continued thoughtfully, tapping one finger on her chin. When she smiled, Jake found it hard to breathe, because her teeth were very, very sharp and there seemed to be too many of them. "I would let you live for your courage and gallantry –"

  Jake blew out a breath, a tiny flicker of hope igniting in spite of himself.

  Her eyes narrowed. "If you had not been sailing with these fools in the first place."

  The flicker died a hideous death.

  "You can tell the worth of a man by the company he keeps," he agreed. He shoved his hair out of his eyes.

  Damn. He'd meant to get that cut.

  He almost laughed, again, at the insignificant thoughts rattling through his brain in the face of impending death. He should tell the world: Your life doesn't pass in front of your eyes when you're about to die—thoughts about grooming do.

  Oh, well. The truly profound often had to make way for the mundane. Why should death be any different?

  He glanced up at the Fae, careful from long years of habit not to get caught in her gaze. Not that it mattered now, but he'd prefer death to becoming her puppet. "In that light, I deserve your justice."

  A voice boomed from the almost cloudless blue sky above them and the Fae flinched—just a tiny movement, but Jake saw it—before she schooled her expression to calm arrogance again.

  SEEMS TO ME THAT HE SAVED YOUR LIFE, OCEAN'S DAUGHTER. AND SINCE I RULE ALL IN, ON, AND BENEATH THE SEA, I DECLARE THAT YOUR JUSTICE SHALL ONLY INCLUDE THESE OTHERS. YOU SHALL HAVE NONE OF MINE.

  The entire crew tilted their heads back to stare up at the sky. As if choreographed, every human mouth fell open, even the mate's. Jake heard gasps and a few mumbled prayers, but he said nothing, just stared up at the enormous image of the sea god's torso, swirling down to whitecapped waves that covered his abdomen and lower half.

  "Hello, Poseidon," Jake called out, because, really, what in the nine hells else was there to do?

  The sea god bent a head the size of three of their ships and peered at Jake.

  AH, SON OF ADEODATUS. HE, TOO, FAILED TO OFFER THE PROPER RESPECT. I LET HIM LIVE. YOU . . .

  Poseidon waggled one enormous hand back and forth.

  This time, Jake's mouth fell open. Was the sea god . . . teasing him? He hadn't been to the temple in a long time. If he lived through this, he would be a regular attendee. All the time. He'd become one of those guys who brought the flowers and the candles or something.

  He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. If Poseidon wanted respect, Poseidon was going to get respect. Lots of respect.

  Huge respect.

  The Fae, whom Jake had almost forgot
ten, shrieked out a hideous sound filled with frustration and fury. When Jake whipped his head around to look at her, she shot him a smile, but it was an icy thing filled with rage and bared teeth. Then she raised one long, slender arm and pointed at Poseidon. "The ship –"

  AGREED. YOU SHALL HAVE THE SHIP FOR YOUR VENGEANCE. THE WARRIOR IS MINE, AND YOU WILL NOT HARM HIM, AS YOU WILL SO SWEAR.

  The Fae glared at Jake, but then her scowl turned into a sly smile and she ran her hands down her voluptuous curves and licked her lips. "Well, I do hate to destroy pretty things. Come and play with me for a while, Jake of Atlantis? Of your own will?"

  Jake fell into her gaze and found himself standing and taking a helpless step toward her before he remembered two things that helped him break free of her enthrallment:

  First, he'd never told her his name.

  Second, the Fae were not careful with their playthings.

  He bowed again, this time more deeply. "Alas, fair lady, although nothing would bring joy and gratitude to my heart more than spending time in your gentle care, I must return to Atlantis, in the service of my Lord Poseidon."

  He added the last bit, about Poseidon's service, in a bit of inspiration, because turning down the Fae with no reason was akin to making an enemy for life. The Fae's beautiful face flattened into something far less human, her eyes still glowing and her teeth looked even sharper than before, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight that Jake had actually been enjoying a mere hour or so earlier.

  Stupid sunlight.

  The Fae raised her hands, her too-long, slender fingers spinning power, calling it to her in a cascade of magic that bit at him and at all the humans on board with the pain of hundreds of bee stings.

  "I could use a little help here, since you're hanging around," Jake muttered, glancing up at the sea god, who seemed to be amused.