Atlantis Rising by Alyssa Day Page A

Her,” he gritted out.
    Alaric immediately held his hands out, palms facing down, as if to show that he intended no harm. He lapsed back into formal speak, perhaps realizing the threat from Conlan. “I sense a disturbance in the elements surrounding us, and yet you showed no outward sign until now. As I am unlike your human, and cannot sense emotions, you must explain your reaction to my words.”
    Conlan forced his hands to unclench and took cleansing breaths. “I don’t even know if I can explain. Or, if I could, that I would want to.”
    He shook his head, trying to clear it. His mind involuntarily reached out to touch Riley’s restlessly sleeping consciousness. That simple touch calmed him a little.
    Just enough to piss him off. What the hell was going on?
    “I need time to understand it, myself,” he admitted.
    Ven broke in. “Alaric, surely you must see that our most important job is to retrieve the Trident, not play babysitter to some human female. I like humans myself, Conlan, and have enjoyed many a happy hour with them.”
    Conlan’s brother flashed a wolfish grin. “Hell, sometimes with two of ’em at a time. I’ve even defended thousands of them from the vamps and the damn shape-shifters over the centuries. But you don’t see me going around staking out their houses.”
    Someone barked out a laugh. Conlan’s gaze whipped down the line of his warriors. Bastien. Of course. He was too damn big to be afraid of anything. Even the wrath of two Atlantean princes.
    Damn . He had to admire the sheer balls of the man.
    Conlan turned back to Ven, nodded. “You’re right. But this one is different. She may have the ability to be used as a weapon against me—against any of us—and how can that be good?”
    The part of his brain where duty gave way to need shouted out at him. And I want her. I will have her.
    Duty be damned.
    “Agreed,” Alaric replied, startling Conlan. But of course Alaric was responding to his words, not his thoughts.
    Or so Conlan hoped. If the priest had mastered thought-mining, the politics of Atlantis were headed for a big pile of reeking whale shit.
    Alaric’s gaze never flickered. “She could distract us at a critical point and cost us the object of our quest. We contain the female, and then we retrieve the Trident. It is the wisest course of action, as you say, Conlan. It is also true that I need time and a quiet place in which to scry for its location.”
    Ven grumbled a little then rolled his eyes. “Well, when you put it that way . . . Let’s do this thing.”
    He jerked his head toward the left, and Bastien, Denal, and the rest ranged themselves around Conlan, Alaric, and Ven. Black coats billowing out behind them, nine of the deadliest predators ever to travel the earth and its oceans shimmered into watery mist and headed for a tiny house holding a sleeping human female.
    And once I see her again, I’ll realize that this insane attraction was a momentary thing. We’ll secure her for later study, and then we’ll retrieve the Trident.
    Nothing has changed.
    Except Conlan’s years of training in self-awareness mocked him.
    Fool. Everything has changed.
    She changed it.
    But even with his discipline, his training, and his dagger-sharp logic all brought to bear on the issue, he didn’t know which she he meant.

Chapter 10
    Riley looked at the clock again, for the third time in an hour. She’d slept for what? Maybe twenty minutes? After leaving two practically incoherent voice mail messages on Quinn’s cell phone, that is.
    She rolled over and sat up. Not really surprising that she wasn’t sailing through fluffy dreamland, considering. Her thoughts flashed to Dina and the baby, then to Morris. She shuddered as the delayed reaction finally hit her.
    “That could have been me. He was trying to kill me ,” she whispered, then clasped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth. A shudder worked its way down her body till she sat trembling, tears sliding down her