And he, the monster.

"You're nothing like your sister," he agreed. "And yet you're exactly like her. Foolishly idealistic, the both of you. She saves crack babies, and you save the world."

Feint, attack. "Did you know that Riley gave up her life for two of our warriors?"

She paled even beyond the marble whiteness that was her skin. Her perfect skin.

The skin he wanted to taste.

"What?" she gasped. "But, wait. You said 'gave up her life.' She was pretty clearly alive in that room."

"Yes. Poseidon plays with semantics as easily as he plays with destinies and lives. He took her for his own."

She scowled. Took a step closer to him. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean? Is some ancient pervert of a mythological G.o.d going to try to rape my sister? Because I'll kick his fishy-tailed a.s.s for him."

Alaric flinched at the blasphemy, then a thunderbolt of epiphany smashed into him. He'd fight Poseidon himself to protect Quinn. He was ruined.

Strange that the word she'd used to describe herself flowed so easily into his mind. Ruined .

"Why are you ruined?" he asked abruptly. "What were you talking about?"

It was her turn to flinch. She whirled on her heel to stare out at the view. Abandoned buildings and junked cars held nothing to capture her attention, but something in her memories evidently did.

He silently moved until he was immediately behind her. Could feel her body heat warming the iciness of his skin. The frozen tundra of his heart.

Knew he had to get away or get burned.

Before he could move, she turned back again and nearly ended up in his arms. They were so close a mere breath separated them.

A breath and eleven thousand years of dogma.

"The rebel and the priest," he rasped. "What a pair we are."

Her eyes were huge in her starved face. "But a pair is what we could never be. I've done things... black and unforgivable things. In the name of freedom."

He put a hand up to touch her face, stopped with his fingers an inch away from her skin. "And I've done nothing. In the name of a G.o.d."

He flashed back a dozen or so paces, stood staring at her. Letting the full impact of his hunger and his wanting thunder toward her. Into her.

She bent at the waist, wrapping her arms around herself. Started to cry. "I have no right to ask it, but please go now," she said, a fractured dignity in her voice. "We'll work together tonight, and then we'll never see each other again. But go now. Don't torture me with visions of what I can never have."

He bowed to her, and then somehow he found the strength to walk away. Knew that facing Barrabas would be as nothing to the courage he called upon now.

Chapter 35.

Riley stumbled, grabbed the edge of the counter where she'd been looking for the cookies Quinn had mentioned. The blast of pain sheared through her, nearly driving her to the ground.

"Quinn. Oh, Quinn," she moaned.

Instantly, Conlan was at her side, putting his arms around her and growling at Jack, who'd moved to help her. "Riley? Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. It's Quinn, she-" The flow of torment abruptly stopped. Quinn had slammed shut her shields.

Riley sent sympathy and love to her sister.

Quinn, I'm here for you. I love you. I'm not sure what's going on with you, but I'm here for you.

But the only response was silence.

Ven walked into the room. "Hey, we're going to scout out the area now that it's getting dark. We'll pick up some food while we're out. Justice is pretty familiar with D.C. and of course Quinn's men..."

His voice trailed off and his focus zoomed in on Jack. "What the h.e.l.l are you? I've never smelled that before."

Jack scowled at him. "Great manners, a.s.s wipe. Go around sniffing people all the time, do you?"

Ven smiled. "You wanna go? 'Cause I'm sitting on a s.h.i.t-load of tension, and I'd be happy to rearrange your face just for fun. So let's go."

Jack's mouth was suddenly crowded with teeth. "Maybe you want to check the state of the moon before you go challenging the alpha of my streak, water boy."

Riley pulled away from Conlan, stepped between the two men. "Do we have a measuring tape in the room?"

Ven blinked, shot her a puzzled look. "What?"

She put on her best sweetness-and-innocence smile, and Conlan fought to keep from laughing. He knew what was coming.

"Well, I figured you two could whip them out, and we'd measure them and get it over with," she said, voice lilting.

It took a beat, but then both Ven and Jack roared with laughter, and they held their hands out to each other to shake.

"Ven. Want to show us the lay of the land, jungle boy?"

"Jack Shepherd. And it's jungle man to you."

Ven looked to Conlan, who nodded, and Ven and the tiger left the room. The plan was a good one. Although they had no reason not to trust Quinn, her judgment in the people around her was a question mark until proven otherwise.

Doing surveillance in advance was a no-brainer.

Riley snorted, shaking her head. "Boys will be boys, right?"

A dark shadow twisted through the room and materialized into Alaric. "What is the plan?"

"Where's my sister?"

"She's on her way. She wanted... a moment alone."

"If you hurt my sister, I'll-"

Conlan put a hand on her shoulder and sent his thoughts to her.

Riley. Look at him. Look with your heart. He'd die before he'd hurt her.

She paused, turned her focus to Alaric, then glanced back at Conlan.

Perhaps. But there are more ways to hurt than only one.

"The plan is that we wait and attack at dawn, when the vamp strength is at its nadir," Conlan replied to Alaric.

"Then I will return just before dawn," Alaric said, voice rough. "Guard her for me, Conlan." His gaze flicked to Riley. "Guard them both."

Alaric lifted his arms and vanished.

Riley shook her head. "I'm never going to get used to that, am I?"

Conlan moved to the door, checking to be sure that Ven had left sufficient guard. Knowing that his brother would have it covered, but needing to move. Needing to do something.

"Sitting and waiting sucks," he said.

"You think?" Riley's voice was more than a little sarcastic. "And yet that's what you want me to do, right?"

"That's different. You're..."

"A woman? Oh, you so do not want to go there, mister," she warned.

He pulled her close to him again, rested his forehead against hers. "You are the heart that beats within my body. If you were to die, my existence would end with yours," he murmured.

She shivered in his arms, then raised her face for his kiss. "You're gooood ."

"I know."

Riley laughed. "Enough with the smug, fish boy. You're also way too old for me, by about four hundred and fifty years or so. Remember that when you're getting all full of yourself."

"That's prince fish boy to you," he teased.

Slowly, the smile faded from her face. "Is this what they call laughing in the face of death? Because I don't feel all that amused."

Quinn's voice sounded from the door. "Welcome to the club, baby sister."

Ven and Jack brought back enough sandwiches for a small army, but Riley hadn't been able to manage more than a few bites.

Small army. Yeah, well, that's exactly what we are. Very small army.

She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter, even though she figured that this was the kind of cold that came from the inside. The idea of death wasn't a warm and cheerful one.

Her gaze followed Quinn as she walked around the room, talking to her band of freedom fighters. Who would have believed that her fragile sister would grow up to be a rebel leader? Or that Riley herself would fall in love with the heir to the throne of a mythological land?

The entire experience was like being written into the script of an urban fantasy where the boundaries of prosaic reality blurred into fantastical images.

Either that, or a seriously bad trip. I picked a bad time not to be a drug addict.

The thought surprised a laugh out of her, causing Conlan, who stood across the room talking to Jack, to glance over at her, one of his dark eyebrows raised. The man's awareness of her was almost viscerally intense; she felt his presence in her blood, under her skin, racing across her nerve endings.

She shivered again, but from a wholly different cause. Decided to have a little fun. Sent a very specific emotion winging over to him.

Desire.

So I hear that "life is in jeopardy, might be the end of the world" s.e.x is pretty hot.

She focused all of her concentration on the image of the two of them together, limbs twining. Her mouth on him. Her hands on him.

She watched as it hit him. Saw the sharply indrawn breath, the muscles in his jaw clench. Seconds later he was standing in front of her, crowding her back against the wall.

"Interesting talent, aknasha . Care to take this somewhere private and show me more?"

She smiled up at him. "Oh, yeah."

She waved to catch Quinn's attention, nodded her head toward the door. "We're going to get some rest," she said, knowing she wasn't fooling her sister.

Probably wasn't fooling anybody. In a room full of shape-shifters, they could almost certainly smell her heightened desire. The thought made her face go red, but didn't stop her.

Quinn nodded once and looked away. She hadn't told Riley anything about Alaric. Had merely looked at her, pain beyond measure in her eyes, and said there was nothing to tell.

The memory stopped her. "Conlan, maybe we should-"

He understood instantly; she could feel it in him. "Yes, we can stay if you want. But does Quinn really want us to?"

She gazed at her sister again. Quinn sat nearly head to head with Jack, both of them poring over the blueprints to the Primus yet again.

Jack was yet another issue. Riley had watched his oddly feral eyes track Quinn wherever she moved. The were tiger had deep feelings for her sister, it was pretty obvious. But Riley didn't think they were lovers. And what about Alaric?

"She's a grown woman, love. You cannot solve her problems for her," Conlan murmured in her ear.

"That doesn't mean I won't try," she said ruefully.

"Come with me now. Let me hold you for a little while until the dawn."

She sighed. Nodded. "Yes. Quinn showed me a room where we can sleep. It's cramped, but-"

He took her face in his hands, searched her eyes. "Wherever you are is as paradise come to earth for me."

Her breath caught in her throat. In what world was it fair that she'd finally found the other half to her soul, and it was unlikely either of them would survive another day?