Most of all, her love for him. It shone forth like a beacon, and his shriveled heart flourished in its warmth and light.
The visions faded, and he could finally see her again. His woman had the heart of an Atlantean lion and the soul of a fierce warrior, and yet was filled with the capacity to love so fully, so deeply, and without fear of whatever new crisis the future would bring them.
A thousand warriors combined could never match her courage.
“I never told you I loved you,” he said abruptly, and Quinn’s smile started to fade.
He pulled her hands up to his lips and kissed them, one and then the other. “I knew I wanted you, and I knew I needed you, but I wasn’t sure how to love, or even if it was possible for me. You showed me how very wrong I was.”
She started to speak, but he continued, needing to get the words out with some small measure of eloquence. “Mi amara, I will tell you now and every day for the rest of my life that I love you. You are the center of my existence, and you are the heart that beats in my chest. I would kill for you, and I would die for you, and I will spend all of eternity doing my best to make you smile.”
She was crying and she was laughing, somehow both at once in the peculiar manner of females. She launched herself into his arms, knocking him backward, and then she was kissing him, and his world was right with the universe.
Or it was, at least until he started glowing.
“Quinn?”
Her shock was plain to see—she didn’t know what was happening, either—and he could see light reflected in her eyes. He looked down and realized his entire body was glowing. Worse than glowing. He was shining like a lighthouse beacon, and the reason soon became painfully clear. His mind exploded outward as power rushed in—more than he’d ever channeled. More power than he’d ever dreamed of wielding, even in his darkest dreams of magic.
“You’re shining,” Quinn said, awestruck. “You’re beautiful. Doesn’t that hurt?”
He flew up into the air in the center of the loft and spun around, shedding light and magic like a whirling fountain. He floated back down, laughing out loud, as dawn broke and touched pale fingers to the brick-and-glass face of the building across from their windows.
“The sun is rising,” Quinn said wonderingly. “We were trapped in those visions all night long. Who needs the sun, though, with you in the room? This is amazing, Alaric.”
“Keely was right. The soul-meld has actually increased my power by at least tenfold.”
She flashed him a wicked smile. “Maybe she was right about the sex, too.”
He couldn’t bear not to be touching her, so he pulled her into the air with him and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.
“Now all we have to do is defeat the bad guys,” she said when she caught her breath, and he grinned at her like a fool because she was just so damn beautiful, and she was his.
Always his. Forever his.
“Mine,” he said happily, and she started laughing.
“Yes. Yours. Now let’s go save the world.”
Christophe suddenly broke through with a mental blast that had an edge of panic:
Alaric, wherever you are, I need to reach you now!
Alaric realized that the soul-meld must have blocked all else.
I am here, he sent back.
Finally. We have less time than we thought. Ptolemy must be using the tourmaline, because the Trident started going crazy again, and water is now seeping into Atlantis. You have to hurry and find that stone.
Alaric nodded and sent the good news back.
The soul-meld was successful. I will immediately strengthen my connection to Atlantis to help contain the Trident and shore up the dome’s defenses.
He focused his new torrent of energy and did exactly that, and he could hear Christophe’s whoop of joy in his mind.
You did it! Hey, did you and Quinn—
Alaric cut the connection, but he was smiling. He relayed the message to Quinn, who stood up, her eyes flashing.
“Right. Now I have to go back to Ptolemy and get him to give me that rock.”
Chapter 24
It took nearly an hour of argument, during which they’d raided the refrigerator and eaten a cobbled-together breakfast, and Quinn had to pull out the “we’re soul-melded, you should trust me” card, but Alaric finally agreed to let her approach Ptolemy, so long as Alaric was within one hundred feet of her at all times. Rescuing distance, in other words.
Once an overprotective high priest, always an overprotective high priest.
He planned to travel as mist, because even if Ptolemy really did have an Atlantean mother, that wasn’t enough for him to be able to sense Poseidon’s high priest when he didn’t want to be discovered, Alaric said. Of course, he hadn’t seen the extent of Ptolemy’s power, but Quinn decided not to mention that. Alaric was already about an inch away from trying to lock her in a closet somewhere, rebel leader or no, and so she decided not to press her luck.
Another hour and a call to an associate yielded her sympathy she didn’t want and a nonmetallic, poly-fiber combat boot knife she did. She didn’t want to be at the mercy of Ptolemy’s metal-melting skills again. Alaric had leaned against the doorway like an unreasonably gorgeous bodyguard the entire time she’d spoken with the man, making both of them nervous.
“How to find him is the issue,” Alaric said. “You thought he’d returned to his demon realm?”
Quinn shuddered, remembering the burst of dark energy that had pressed against her in a suffocating wave. “Yes. But if he’s back, I figure a glory hound like Ptolemy will be making his presence known again.”
Sure enough, when she switched on the TV, his face filled the screen on both the local and national news channels, broadcasting live from the Statue of Liberty in the bright early-morning sun.
When the camera turned to the reporter, she showed no trace of the typical newscaster smile. Instead, strain drew lines around her mouth and nose as she faced the camera, her shoulders hunched over, one hand wrapped around her waist.
Quinn frowned and reached for the remote control, to toggle off the mute button. “Okay, a reporter who isn’t cheerful or perky is odd—”
Screams interrupted her as the volume switched on. The camera panned out, wide, and showed them a scene of uncontrolled chaos. Men, women, and children ran in all directions, with only one thing in common—they were running away from the reporter and her camera. As they watched, a group of three young guys knocked over an elderly woman in their panicked flight, but two of them immediately stopped to lift her bodily off the ground and then carried her with them.
“I suspect we have found Ptolemy,” Alaric said grimly.
Before Quinn could reply, the camera zeroed back in on the reporter. She visibly swallowed and then spoke, gripping her microphone with a white-knuckled hand.
“To repeat, Ptolemy Reborn, the king of Atlantis, is very unhappy with the person who stole his future bride, and he plans to kill a tourist every hour until she—”
They heard a voice in the background, and the reporter froze, and then resumed, her voice shaking as wildly as her hands. “I misspoke. He will kill many tourists, and as often as he feels like it,” she corrected, as the first tears broke free and ran down her perfectly made-up cheeks.
Quinn’s hands curled into fists. “He’s going down.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Alaric said, simultaneously.