He knew, however, the ill-advised nature of claiming his legacy. Many still remembered his history-cursed name, and the events that Pontius Pilate had set in motion that day.

Soon. Soon he would come into his own, and then the name of Barrabas would be hated and feared with such magnitude as to make what went before seem as nothing to these sheep.

The sheep in front of him prostrated himself right there on the concrete floor of the Primus's central underground chamber.

"As leader of the Primus, I must do whatever I want to do," he sneered. "The other two houses of Congress will do exactly what I tell them, won't they?"

The human groveled and crawled backward out of the room, probably considering himself lucky, given what he'd witnessed.

The vampire's gaze flicked to the congressman from Iowa and the senator from Michigan who had been causing such problems. They dangled, feet off the floor, arms threaded through the shackles bolted into the wall.

The females of his blood pride flitted around them, slicing delicately into the skin of the chained men and sucking at the blood running down their naked forms. The Iowan still moaned, though the other had long since gone silent.

Barrabas considered and discarded conclusions regarding the relative strength of their party affiliations based upon their stamina, and then he flung himself into his throne like chair. Eyes narrowing, he focused on the disturbance he'd felt in the elements.

"What could have such power?" he muttered, fingers drumming on the arm of the chair.

The door to the chamber slammed open and his second, Drakos, soared into the room. "Did you feel it, Barrabas?"

Barrabas nodded, a nearly imperceptible movement of his head. "I felt it. What was it?"

Drakos floated down to the ground, silvery hair settling around his shoulders. Barrabas was not unaware of more than a few of his women sneaking avid gazes at his general.

Something will have to be done about Drakos. He grows nearly powerful enough to challenge me. Perhaps it is time for a new second.

But aloud he only replied to the spoken question. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Send out the vanguard. We cannot afford to be distracted now."

"Anubisa?"

Barely, just barely, Barrabas contained the shudder. "She has been...unavailable as of late. Not that she ever tells us anything of what she knows."

"Still, if we defy her-" Drakos clenched his jaw.

"Enough," Barrabas roared. "Do as I say."

"As you command, so it will be done," Drakos responded, averting his gaze and bowing low. "I will lead them."

"No. I need you here," Barrabas said. "Send another. Send Terminus."

Drakos raised one eyebrow, but otherwise his face was entirely unreadable. Unsurprising for a more than nine-hundred-year-old vampire, but inconvenient nonetheless.

Barrabas stood up in a movement of pure blurred speed that might have terrified the chained Iowan, if one of the women hadn't just sliced through his jugular.

"Good politicians are so hard to find these days," Barrabas observed. "They all lack a certain endurance."

Stepping around the spray of blood and inhaling the thick, coppery smell with pleasure, Barrabas waved a hand to his general. "I have a more important task for you, my second. I need another telepath. I was, perhaps, over solicitous in my affections with my last one."

He thought back to the lump of inanimate flesh he'd left on the floor of his bedchamber, with more than a little regret.

Drakos spoke emotionlessly. "Telepaths are few and far between, my lord, and growing ever more difficult to locate. I had hoped this one would-"

Barrabas cut him off. "You question me, Drakos?"

Though he had been unusually hard on telepaths this past year. His l.u.s.ts for blood and flesh were rising, not abating, as he grew older and stronger, and something about hearing his victim's tormented thoughts through the telepathic link was unbearably succulent.

If only empaths still existed. To actually feel the sheep's pain as he inflicted it... he shuddered in simple ecstasy at the thought.

No other had survived as long as he-there was none Barrabas could ask to learn if he would face even more ravenous hungers as more time pa.s.sed. Perhaps he was destined to become more of an animal than the shape-shifters he planned to destroy.

Shaking off his black thoughts, he led Drakos out of the chamber, glancing back at his women, who were frantically lapping at the congressional fountain of blood. "And get my secretary. I have a new proposal to make in regard to that last bill that got filibustered. I think the rest of the Congress may find it more... palatable... now."

He stopped at the door and jerked his head toward the remains of his most determined opponents on the Hill. "Then get someone to take out the trash."

Chapter 8.

Conlan inhaled a deep breath, sure that Riley's scent lingered in the air surrounding him. He could taste her in his mouth-her warmth and sweetness. Still feel the imprint of her silken skin on his hands, on his hardened and aching body. He could still sense the emotions she was broadcasting so loudly.

Everything in him demanded that he go after her. Need bordering on obsession swamped him, but centuries of training rose to override his instincts. He must face and a.n.a.lyze the threat. He'd never experienced anything like that wave of weakness. It had pa.s.sed in minutes, but who knew if it could come back?

Also, what the h.e.l.ls had caused it? Was it from sharing her emotions?

By Poseidon's b.a.l.l.s, it was like nothing he'd ever heard about in all of the histories of his people. Nothing he'd ever been warned against.

He needed to identify the cause of the weakness, so that he could prevent it. Defeat it. As Alaric loved to proclaim, knowledge is power .

He reached out for his brother on their shared mind path.

Ven?

The voice came immediately in his head, ringing with fury and-better hidden but still evident-concern. Nearly there, my brother .

The duty ingrained in him after so many years battled to regain control of his mind. His duty was to recover the Trident. Finally ascend to the throne that he'd avoided thinking about for the past two centuries. Lead his people.

A future king didn't abandon his duty to follow a woman.

He laughed, humorless. Yeah, duty. Because just what Atlantis needs sitting on the throne after my father's half millennium of perfect rule is a f.u.c.ked-up head case who couldn't even escape from a vamp .

His jaw tightened, and he paced circles in the sand. Not that Riley-or any woman-deserved to be burdened with him, either.

His thoughts flashed to Anubisa. What if pain had ruined him? What if s.e.x for him would now always be tainted, twisted?

Wrong?

What did he have to offer any woman? He must be rational.

Right. Except rationality was f.u.c.king impossible. His body tightened further, painfully, just at the thought of Riley's hair slipping through his hands like the finest Atlantean silk. She hadn't felt wrong . Nothing about her, about them together, had felt anything but right.

Too right. How could it be so right to hold a woman he'd just met?

A human !

Closing his eyes, Conlan breathed slowly in through his nose and called on the discipline of his training to dampen his raging need. He was high prince, and he knew his duty.

Yeah, well, screw duty. Ven has five minutes, and then I'm going after her. I'm going to make sure she's safe before I go recover the Trident .

A swirling fountain of water shot up into the air, carrying Alaric to the sand. Dramatic as always.

The priest's midnight-black hair swirled around his shoulders, reminding Conlan of the stories told about him. Alaric as the dark guardian of Poseidon's rages. The people invoked the high priest's name to terrify children into minding their parents.

Conlan scowled, for the first time wondering how Alaric felt about being made into the stuff of nightmares. The glimmer of sympathy vanished, though, when the priest started laughing.

"My patience is d.a.m.n near at an end, so laugh at your own risk," he snarled, feeling like a fool, trying for dignity when he'd recently been sprawled in the dirt.

Knowing that Alaric knew it.

Alaric grinned at him. "You don't appreciate my fun, Conlan? I spend so little time on land, I deserve to enjoy it, don't I?" He strode forward and held out a hand. Wearing form-fitting black pants and a black silk shirt nearly identical to Conlan's own, Alaric could have been his twin.

His evil twin.

Still, Conlan didn't have time for childish sulking. He grasped the outstretched hand, knowing Alaric would read him more easily through touch.

Needing to know what had happened to him, even as he resented the intrusion into his head.

"A fountain of water? Your childish games bring unwanted attention to us, priest. Be advised that I prefer it that you stop," he growled, resorting to formal speak.

Alaric grinned again, clearly unrepentant, and released his hand. "Uh-oh. You're calling me priest , instead of Alaric. That must mean you're trying on your kingly ways, old friend."

Then the grin faded, and the illusion of amiability vanished with it. A dark and lethal predator remained, ice-green eyes glowing with power. "Be advised that I do what I wish. Poseidon's high priest answers to none but the sea G.o.d himself."

Before Conlan could frame a retort, he felt, rather than heard, his brother shoot up through the water, barely breaking the surface. He turned to watch Ven stride through the sand, the coppery blades of his orichalc.u.m daggers unsheathed and held at the ready.

Ven held the t.i.tle of King's Vengeance by heredity and by battle right. No warrior was more skilled. n.o.body could kick vamp or shape-shifter a.s.s better. Which was a handy trait in the man whose sworn duty it was to protect his brother the high prince.

Except for those times when Conlan sped off for the surface without waiting for either his brother or his elite guard.

As he'd never done before. Something to prove, much?

Conlan dismissed the idea of arguing with Alaric and turned to his brother. Ven was going to be p.i.s.sed.

He had aright to be.

Ven stormed up the beach toward him. "What in the name of the nine h.e.l.ls were you thinking? Are you out of your d.a.m.n mind? We're facing a threat that we don't even understand, and you pick now to go all Rambo?"

Conlan strained to keep the snarl out of his own voice, and almost succeeded.

Almost.

"Do you offer battle challenge, my brother?" He got right up in Ven's face, in spite of the fact that his baby brother had a couple of inches and maybe fifty pounds on him.

Ven bared his teeth. "Look, you idiot-"

Conlan very deliberately swept one arm out, a ball of turquoise and silver light flashing in his upturned palm. Then he swept his gaze over Ven and the rest of the Seven and drew what shred of dignity he still possessed around him. "I think you overstep the role of King's Vengeance, my brother. I answer to no one."

Even as the words left his mouth, he realized their similarity to those Alaric had just uttered.

Evidently, so did Alaric, whose eyes gleamed with amus.e.m.e.nt. But at least he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

Not so with Ven. He gaped, staring at the ball of pure energy crackling in Conlan's hand. "Overstep? I overstep the role ? I am the King's Vengeance, you overgrown excuse for a pigheaded princeling."

Conlan glared at his brother, the two of them toe to toe, Ven giving as good as he got. Then the sound of applause broke through his focus. He jerked his head around to sear Alaric with a glare. The priest continued to clap his hands together.

"Lovely. Very impressive," the priest drawled. "We have Reisen on the loose with the Trident and some unknown threat who has drained our prince's power, and yet we have time to play 'whose d.i.c.k is bigger?' between the Brothers Grimace."

Conlan opened his mouth, then closed it again, anger draining away. He waved his fingers and the energy ball vanished, then he stepped back from his brother.

"You suck at respect for royalty, don't you?" he said to Alaric. "But, as much as I hate it, you're right."

Conlan glanced at his guard, all clad like his brother in the black leather pants and long coats Ven had demanded they wear on any trips to the surface. Ven figured bada.s.s biker dude was as good a cover as any for men who towered over most human males.

Conlan's warriors-Poseidon's Warriors-stood at battle alert, hands fisted on blade handles, all constantly scanning their surroundings for imminent threat to their liege.

And here he stood wasting their time with a p.i.s.sing contest.

Ven shoved a hand through his hair. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, what happened? We all felt the disturbance in the elements when you were attacked. What kind of creature could have done that? Was it a vamp?"

"No-"

Ven continued, talking right over him. "And why in the nine h.e.l.ls did you face it without us? Why leave without us?"

Conlan glanced at his men, his brothers in arms, before responding. Denal wore an expression of keen reproach, but immediately schooled his expression to implacability when he realized Conlan was watching him.

Ven followed Conlan's gaze through the line. His warriors. Sworn to the service of Poseidon and to the throne, they faced lives of grim purpose. They fought any who threatened humankind. Many died. Those who lived got patched up and returned to fight again.

And their reward? Bound into loveless marriages with females they were ordered to wed. As he himself would do in two weeks' time.

Conlan measured the tenor of his men, realizing anew how lucky he was. There was n.o.body he'd rather have at his back.

Alexios, fierce, scarred face grim.

Brennan, emotionless but for the whitened knuckles on his blades.