But the energy emanating from Tessa grew brighter. Stronger. Ripping herself away from the queen's hold, Tessa stumbled back. Her soul-stone blazed around her neck. A pulsing illumination seemed to flow through her veins, lighting her up from inside with an otherworldly incandescence.

Throwing her arms straight out in front of her body, she hurled a bolt of pure unfettered energy straight into the floor. For a second the limestone seemed to turn to liquid. Then dozens of huge cracks formed beneath their feet.

Jake jumped back, trying to dodge the danger. "Stop it! You're going to kill us all!"

Tessa grinned like a G.o.ddess gone atomic. "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Shading his face from her radiant gleam, Jake swept his eyes along the cracks in the limestone. Long and deep, they threatened to shatter the entire chamber if they opened any wider. "You don't have to do this. We can figure this out," he tried to say.

"I've already made up my mind, Jake. Remember my face when you're in h.e.l.l."

"She cannot do this!" Magaera screamed savagely. "Take her down," she ordered her soldiers. "But do not kill her. We need her alive."

The armed guards rushed into the fray, weapons at the ready.

Outnumbered and unarmed, Tessa pulled out her final card. Drawing deep on her last reserve, she hurled a sudden blast of energy straight into the ceiling.

The chamber rocked, the ceiling over their heads shattering violently as thousands of gallons of seawater rushed into the previously airtight cavity.

Kenneth felt the roof crashing down around him. He instinctively caught his breath as he attempted to scramble out of the water's relentless path. But there was no way to escape the giant waves rapidly spreading around him.

Icy water closed over his head, instantly plunging him into the heart of an inky, all- consuming abyss. Suddenly he couldn't breathe. The idea he was going to die, really die, this time, skittered through his frenzied mind.

Hands bound, he had no chance to swim. He was sinking, going down fast. Losing oxygen, his lungs burned as if someone had opened his mouth and poured acid straight down his throat. He clamped his mouth shut, but that didn't stop the brackish seawater from seeping in and taking over.

So this is what it really felt like to drown . . . to die when you wanted to live.

But he would never find out for sure.

Just when he thought his body would give up its life to the sea, something warm and pliant pressed against him. Familiar arms encircled his neck.

And a woman's lips touched his . . .

Epilogue.

Twenty-four hours later Standing aboard the DreamFever, Tessa stared across the bright blue surface of the Mediterranean. The sea stretched on for miles, tranquil. Undisturbed. A light gust of wind whipped her hair around her face. The ship rocked gently, swaying beneath her feet. The salty odor of the water permeated through her senses, soaking down to the bone.

It felt strange to be back in the real world. Everything had changed.

The crystal around her neck vibrated softly. Its resonance was weak, but steady. Queen Magaera's attack had weakened her, but not conquered her. She recalled surging with pain, feeling her life's very force drain away.

Anger spiked through her, sharp enough to take her breath away. I know you're down there, she thought darkly. But where?

The sound of footsteps on the deck behind her alerted her to the presence of another.

"You okay?" a familiar voice asked.

Giving herself a mental shake, Tessa lifted her head. Showered and dressed for the day, Kenneth Randall rubbed a hand over his freshly shaven face. Right now the man looked like he'd been through the ringer. A series of cuts and bruises mottled his face. He looked pale and tired, with dark circles r.i.m.m.i.n.g his eyes. It would take a while before he looked normal again.

A spike of pain tore through her. He'd taken the abuse. For her. "Yeah," she said, memorizing every wound. She'd never forget what he'd done for her. Never. "You?"

Pulling a breath, he leaned against the railing. A twinge of pain visibly moved across his face. "I'll live," he answered with a wry grimace. His shadowed gaze turned to the silent depths of the still water. "Do you think anyone else made it?"

Closing her eyes for a moment, Tessa sighed. Though she hated to admit it out loud, a feeling of failure nagged her. She wasn't sure why. She'd done her d.a.m.nedest to destroy the sea-gate. But that didn't mean she'd succeeded. Though those who had followed her into the human world could not go home, the sea-gate was still keyed to allow other Mer to pa.s.s through unscathed. The sea-gate wouldn't close again unless she went back.

And she would never go back to Ishaldi.

Never.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I think they're there."

Surprised, Kenneth inclined his head. "Why?"

Tessa slowly shook her head. "Call it a Mer's intuition."

"You think Jake-?" he started to ask.

She gave him a sharp glance. The idea of laying eyes on him made her skin crawl. "Let's not talk about that b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she answered tightly. "As far as the crew is concerned, he was killed in the quake." n.o.body on the face of the earth had to know she'd caused the disturbance.

Kenneth nodded. "I guess for now it's best he stays dead. But we are going to have to tell the authorities everything, you know. Jake . . . the sea-gate, the Mer . . ."

Her jaw tightened. "I have no idea who we can tell without looking crazy." Her grip tightened on the railing, knuckles going white from the force. "Or worse-endangering myself and my sisters."

"Well, it's only a problem if they survived," Kenneth added quietly. "That whole place came down so fast, it's a wonder any of us got out alive."

Brooding, Tessa returned to her study of the unfathomable depths. The idea of picking through the rubble disturbed her, though she doubted there would be any bodies. Queen Magaera and her ilk were, after all, Mers, too.

"Oh, make no mistake about it. They're down there. Soon they'll come up. When they do, I have a bad feeling all h.e.l.l will break loose."

Kenneth's strong arms circled around her, a solid shield of protection. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. "When they do, we'll be ready." He spoke as if he believed they could go through it all over again. And win.

Tessa's heart surged. Tipping back her head, she gazed into his dark eyes. By the heavens, I'm a lucky woman.

Kenneth gave her everything she'd ever dreamed of having in a mate. Sympathy, support, and the freedom to be herself. She didn't have to hide anything. He accepted everything about her with no hesitations.

She loved this man, this wonderful brave soul, with all her heart. And, incredibly, he loved her. She had a second chance for a real future with a man she loved.

She definitely wasn't going to blow it this time.

Winding her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer. "There is one thing we haven't discussed," she murmured against the protective wall of his chest.

Kenneth treated her to his most endearing gaze, his dark eyes filled with honesty, sincerity, and love. "What's that?"

A combination of warmth and need raced through her. It was always that way with Kenneth. It always had been, from the first day they met. "I've been thinking we should make things a little more, you know, permanent."

He raised an eyebrow. "What are you saying?"

Tessa smiled. "I'm saying I want you to be my breed-mate. I'm saying I want to marry you." She took a quick, steadying breath. "I love you and I can't think of a better man to father my children."

He drew back. "But that would mean-"

Tessa held him tighter, never wanting to let him go. "It would mean we'd be growing old. Together." She tightened her grip around his neck. "Think you could handle me as a cranky old Mer?"

Kenneth's grip tightened around her waist. "Probably not." He laughed, a low warm sound. "But I'll do my d.a.m.nedest to try."

Please read on for an excerpt

from the next book in the Dark Tides series,

available from Signet Eclipse

in February 2011.

Turning into the hotel parking lot, Blake Whittaker guided his black sedan into the nearest available s.p.a.ce and killed the engine. Instead of making an immediate grab for the bag in the pa.s.senger seat, he simply sat, staring into the distance.

It was amazing how things had changed since he'd last been in Port Rock. Almost seventeen years had pa.s.sed since he'd last set foot in the small Maine fishing village. And while the familiar old landmarks were still in place, a lot of things looked different. The hotel, for instance, was new. Back when he was a kid, the oceanfront acreage overlooking the bay was undeveloped and offered an un.o.bstructed view of the open water and the small island that lay about a mile offsh.o.r.e.

Little Mer Island, he thought. That's where he'd be heading first thing tomorrow. To get there he'd have to rent a skiff, cross the wide-open waters of the bay.

A flush p.r.i.c.kled Blake's skin as his heart sped up. Despite the humidity permeating the warm summer night, he shivered. He hated deep water of any kind. Aside from a shower, he did his best to stay far away from the stuff. It didn't matter if it filled only a swimming pool, or the vast ocean. The less he saw of it, the better.

Mouth going bone-dry, his grip on the steering wheel tightened as a series of images flashed through his mind. For a brief second he wasn't a thirty-three-year-old man, but a four-year-old boy facing an insanely furious woman filling a deep, old- fashioned claw-foot tub with ice-cold water . . .

Forcing himself back toward calm, Blake blew out a few quick, hard puffs, filling his lungs and then quickly expelling the air. The strain of clenching his jaw made his teeth hurt. The last thing he needed was a full- blown panic attack while sitting in the parking lot. Thank G.o.d the parking lot was abandoned. There was no one around at such a late hour to see him melt down.

Catching hold of his fear and forcing himself to stuff it away, he slowly uncurled his fingers. A low curse slipped between his numb lips. "d.a.m.n." Just thinking about his mother made him twitch, set his nerves on edge.

He hadn't expected that memory to come crawling out of nowhere and ambush him. He did his best not to remember those petrifying moments when his mom was tanked up on vodka and raging with homicidal malice.

Men. She hated them. Every last blasted one and . . .

And some things are best left alone, Blake reminded himself. Remembering his mother was like sticking his hand into a den of poisonous snakes. He was bound to get bitten, but in this case he just couldn't stop prodding the deadly reptiles.

He'd better stop it or he was going to get bitten. Badly.

Coming back to Port Rock certainly wasn't helping matters. When he'd finally gotten old enough to leave it, he hadn't intended to come back. Not ever. At the age of seventeen he'd gotten the h.e.l.l out, going as far away as he could. A one-way bus ticket and a suitcase had been all he'd had to his name. If he hadn't joined the army, he would've had nowhere to go at the end of the trip.

Blake rubbed his burning eyes. To be sane himself, to continue being sane, he had to quit tearing at the scars that marked the old wounds. There were a lot of ghosts lingering in his past, a lot of skeletons shoved into his family's closets.

Shut them, bolt them, and go on. That's the way he'd always gotten things done. As a kid he'd kept a stiff upper lip, taken the beatings, and gone about the business of living as best he could.

He'd survived.

Sighing again, he shifted in the uncomfortable seat, feeling the cramps in his legs and a.s.s. The three-and-a-half-hour trip through a ma.s.sive thunderstorm had taken its toll on his nerves.

Palm rasping against a day's growth of whiskers, he reached for the cup balanced between his legs. He took a gulp of its contents: unsweetened black coffee. It was cold and tasted like s.h.i.t. The churning acid rose to the back of his throat as the bitter brew mixed in his stomach to burn away another millimeter of tissue. Pain immediately sliced through his gut, feeling as though a razor were wending its way through his bowels.

As much as he didn't like coming back to Port Rock, he had a job to do. Not a difficult one. Just ask a few questions, poke around a little. It wasn't rocket science.

But it was top secret.

As a special agent, Blake presently worked in the A51-ASD division of the FBI. Had it not been a highly covert organization, the A51 would have been familiar enough to tip off most Americans as to its purpose. After all, Area 51 was the nickname for a military base presently located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States. Supposedly the base's primary purpose was the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.

That was partly true. And anyone not presently situated under a rock knew about the intense secrecy surrounding the base, one that had made it a popular subject among conspiracy theorists who held a belief in the existence of alien life on planet Earth.

The crackpots weren't wrong, either. Blake Whittaker knew for a fact the federal government took the existence of aliens very seriously. The genesis of the current operations stemmed from an incident that happened in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico. At that time the military had supposedly recovered an alien craft and corpses, purportedly held under lock and key, and never to be revealed to the public.

It was absolutely true in every respect.

The ASD had been created to cover not only future occurrences of possible alien activity, but also to investigate other incidents deemed alien, paranormal, or inexplicable.

Curious. Strange. Bizarre. You name it, the ASD had an agent on it.

And that was why he was presently in Port Rock. Because something curious had taken a bizarre turn.

It had all begun in the 1950s, when an intense concentration of electromagnetic energy was located in the Mediterranean Sea. There was no rhyme or reason as to why the energy should be at that precise spot, or what caused it. Using the latest technology in deep-sea exploration, scientists had yet to discover the source. Given the location of the disturbance, most theories ranged from a geothermal field due to volcanic activity, to some sort of alien homing signal or beacon.

For the most part, the energy seemed to be harmless, a phenomenon never to be explained. Naval ships in the area monitored it, and no changes had been reported in the past sixty years. Whatever it was simply was.

And then something happened.

From the data he presently had, Whittaker knew that an undersea salvage group called Recoveries, Inc., had moved into the area. The outfit had recently filed in federal court for salvage rights for what they claimed to be the lost civilization of Ishaldi. Nothing unusual there. Treasure hunters regularly hit the Mediterranean in search of everything from ancient Egyptian barges, to Spanish warships, to World War II aircraft. After all, for three-quarters of the globe, the Mediterranean Sea was the uniting element and the center of world history.

What exactly had occurred was still to be explained. During the first dive, tragedy had struck-some kind of seismic activity had taken place deep beneath the water. The resulting quake was strong enough to be detected by hydrophones, and was unlike anything scientists had ever heard through decades of listening.