Never had a pairing been more impossible, but futility did not easily translate into the ability to forget.

"We need to work more closely with the human rebels and forge a comprehensive plan," Alaric continued. "The days and centuries of acting as a strike force are behind us. If Quinn-if Jack and Quinn are in a position to meet with us, we should make that meeting sooner rather than later. But our first priority must be Justice, of course."

Riley shifted on the couch and made some small noise of discomfort, and Conlan tensed, ready to leap across the room to her aid. She shook her head, though, and smiled at him. "I'm fine. Just stretching. Our son persists in wanting to sit on my bladder."

"Our daughter is never still, like her mother," he corrected.

"If you desire to know the truth of it, all you need do is ask," Alaric said dryly. "As much as we have all enjoyed this amusing interplay for the past several months."

Riley rolled her eyes at him, then wedged a small pillow behind her back and looked around the room. "There is nothing-nothing-more important than finding Justice and making sure that he's okay. Even before we knew he was your brother, we knew he was our family, just like everybody else in this room and each warrior in the Seven."

There were several nods of agreement. Conlan began to speak, but Riley shook her head again. "It's my turn to be selfish. I understood that everything needed to be put on hold for Justice when he was taken captive by Anubisa. I've done everything I could to support the search. But now, from what you tell me, he disappeared voluntarily. Not only that, but he abducted that poor archaeologist."

"Talk about your international incident," Erin said, wincing.

"Exactly," Riley replied. "Here's my point, although I know I'm making it badly. My baby will not be born until his parents are married. I understand that we can't hold the big brouhaha wedding, and I'm fine with that. I never cared about a big circus of a ceremony, anyway. But either we go to my church at home, we bring a minister to us in Atlantis, or we go to a damn Elvis chapel in damn Vegas. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I always loved Elvis, anyway. But one way or another, Conlan and I are getting married sometime in the next week."

The beauty of it, and one of Riley's most amazing qualities, was that she never raised her voice. She didn't have to. She was human, not Atlantean, and she'd once joked that the closest she'd been to royalty before she'd met Conlan was going to Burger King. But she wore the demeanor of a queen as though born to the role.

"Well, you've heard it. My future queen has spoken, and I can do no less than obey," Conlan said, smiling at her.

"She's correct that the child should be born to wedded parents," Alaric said. "He or she will face enough problems when the time comes for you to pass on the crown, as the first half human ever to take the throne in Atlantis. There is certainly no need to add the additional burden of illegitimacy."

"We can always count on you, can't we, Alaric?" Riley said, exasperation mixed with a grudging affection in her voice. "I meant that I want my baby to be born into the world knowing that his parents love each other enough to make the ultimate commitment. But thank goodness we have you to point out the legalities of the situation."

Alaric raised one eyebrow and looked puzzled. "Although I detect sarcasm in your words, I am unsure as to its cause. Although . . . oh. Of course." He bowed to her. "As you wish, my lady."

Riley narrowed her eyes. "If this is one of your 'Riley is hormonal' moments, Alaric, you'd better be glad I'm too huge to waddle over there and kick your butt."

"My butt, as you say, is infinitely relieved," Alaric replied. "But perhaps we might return to the subject at hand."

Ven crossed the room to the central long, wooden table, where stacks of maps and strategic plans had been piled on one side to make room for the refreshments. He helped himself to another cup of coffee. "Here's a quick status report. We got word this morning that there's a vampire uprising in St. Louis. Evidently, Anubisa is trying to crack the whip on how the vamps gather Apostates, but she's doing it through Vonos. Guy's got all the subtlety of Bruce Willis going after the bad guys in the fifth or sixth Die Hard."

Conlan nodded. "Alexios, Christophe, and Denal left before dawn to travel to St. Louis and meet Jack, Reisen, and the rebel faction there."

"Do we suddenly trust Reisen?" Alaric asked, his eyes suddenly glowing a fierce green as he drew power to him. "After he took it upon himself to steal Poseidon's Trident from the god's own Temple?"

"Whether we trust him or not is moot. Quinn trusts him, Jack trusts him, and they both reported that he's on some sort of quest for redemption," Conlan said. "He only takes on the most dangerous missions, going so far that they're afraid he may be suicidal."

"I don't care about his quest for redemption. I don't want him anywhere near Quinn," Alaric snarled. "I will leave for St. Louis as soon as we adjourn this meeting."

"We need you here, Alaric," Erin said. She'd been unchar acteristically quiet during the meeting. "I've been trying to reach for Justice-for some hint of his presence-ever since we got here. You know, I'm a gem singer? Protege of the goddess of the Nereids? Since we discovered he was half Nereid, I was hoping that, somehow, I could use that connection to try to get at least a rough idea of where he might be."

She shook her head before they could ask. "No luck. Nothing. I may be a witch and a gem singer, but I apparently stink as a cell phone." She turned back toward Alaric. "That's why we need you. You're the only one with the power to locate Justice."

"I have no wish to offend you, Erin," Alaric said. "But you do realize, of course, that I've been attempting to contact or locate Justice constantly since he left us last night?"

Erin sighed and slumped a little in her chair. "I'm sorry, Alaric. I should've realized. I'm just exhausted. I don't think I've slept at all since Justice went off with Anubisa months ago. He saved my life. He saved Ven's life. He even saved my sister, in a way. But now we don't know where he is. We don't know where Deirdre is, or if my sister is even alive."

She stopped and scrubbed fiercely at her eyes with her fists. When she spoke again, her voice was husky with unshed tears. "I guess I'm just ready for something to go right."

Ven knelt beside Erin's chair and drew her into his arms, and the anguish on his face mirrored what sliced through Conlan's chest.

"I think we're all ready for something to go right," Conlan said. "We need a plan, then. Alaric will go to St. Louis, but continue to attempt to locate Justice. Riley and I will find either a minister or an Elvis willing to perform a marriage in Atlantis. Ven, you lead a team to try to figure out where Justice is with this archaeologist and then go bring them home."

A knock sounded at the door, and Liam put his head in and looked an inquiry at Conlan. Conlan nodded and beckoned him to enter.

"Perfect timing," Ven said. "We need to know about this Dr. McDermott. What is it about her that made Justice go nuts?"

Liam strode into the room, shaking his head. "That I don't know. But I can tell you this: Keely McDermott is a true object reader, though the Gift was thought lost in the waters of time. She read the sapphire, and she saw Nereus."

Alaric's head snapped up, and he leaned forward. "What did she say? What did she say about High Priest Nereus and the Star of Artemis?"

"Not much," Liam confessed. "I'd planned to question her more about it once she was safely in Atlantis. But she did say the strangest thing. She said I looked exactly like him."

Chapter 16.

The cavern underneath the Temple of the Nereids Justice woke instantly, climbing through waves of sleep to full alertness in the space of a couple of seconds. There had been no unguarded rest in the Void, and even less during his brief time with Anubisa. Her rage when he'd been unwilling-and, truth be told, unable-to consummate their relationship had been monumental. She was a goddess and possessed a dark beauty more exquisite than mortal eyes could even comprehend. But it was beauty rooted in evil and steeped in murder and damnation.

A wave of self-disgust washed through him. After all, it's not like he was all that particular. Over the centuries, he'd been with plenty of women, whenever he pleased. Unfortunately, nothing and no one had actually pleased him in several decades. There had always been something missing in his brief encounters. Something he hadn't wanted to recognize.

Until he saw her face. Keely. The thought of her jolted him into full memory of where they were and what he'd done. He leapt up from the pile of quilts and blankets that he'd fashioned into bedding the night before. The cavern had been a refuge for those of troubled mind before the rockfall and subsequent instability of the tunnels, and several trunks filled with blankets and random bits of clothing were stacked in a corner. He suddenly remembered making a similar bed for her, but where? Either the fog of his memory wasn't cooperating, or else she was gone. What if she'd escaped? What if he never found her again?

Panic raced through him at the thought. Panic and something deeper. Something darker. Something originating in the Nereid half of his soul. He was growing to recognize that side of himself, as it fought harder and harder to be released. Fought his Atlantean half for control.

He whirled around, searching the darkened cavern for a sign of her, and then sighed in relief, his muscles unclenching from the adrenaline-based fight-or-flight mechanism they'd shot into when he thought she'd gone. She was still there, asleep on the pile of bedding he'd created for her near one gemstone-encrusted wall.

He already knew her well enough to realize she'd be furious with him for daring to meddle with her mind. But she'd needed to sleep, and he'd been close to dropping from exhaustion, entirely unable to respond to her determination that had bordered on terror.

Right. He'd done it for her sake, he silently mocked himself. Of course. Villains always demonstrated exquisite talent at self-justification. Remorse washed through him again, but he dismissed it and tried to focus on his physical realities. A bath. He needed another bath.

Though he'd bathed in the hot spring-fed pool before he'd fallen asleep, simple joy in cleanliness after so long in the Void drew him to it again. He refused to consider that the filth touched him on a far deeper level than his skin.

He would bathe and then, properly attired in some of the clothing from the trunks, he would wake her. They had much to discuss. He wanted to know everything about her. Every single detail of her life. Also, he needed to convince her to give him time.

Time to prove that he wasn't a monster. Time to persuade her that she belonged with him.

Time to figure out for himself how he knew it to be true.

He didn't bother to dress, except for his sword. It was as much a part of him as his arm or his eye, in spite of the terrible death it had inflicted. It was what it was, and it was his. He quietly crossed the small space between them and, crouching down beside her, he was content merely to watch her sleep.

Keely's lustrous red hair was exactly the shade he'd seen in his original vision of her. It was flame melded with sunlight, and it was a perfect complement to the flawless golden glow of her lightly tanned skin. Her closed eyelids blocked his view of the almost-iridescent emerald green of her eyes, but his memory was happy to provide the exact shade.

She lay on her side, and one hand rested on top of the blankets. He'd removed her gloves after she'd fallen asleep, wondering why she wore them, and placed them near her. Her hand was slender, with long fingers that somehow looked sturdy and competent. Nicks and scrapes marred her skin, as though she'd done rough work quite recently. Perhaps that's why she wore the gloves.

Archaeology. She'd said she was an archaeologist. A student of the past. He almost laughed, but trapped the sound in his throat so as not to wake her. She was a student of the past, and he was a warrior who had lived through her past. Perhaps they had been destined to meet.

This time the bitter laugh escaped. He was the bastard son of destiny; now would he turn hypocrite and bless the very fates that he'd spent centuries cursing?

"What would I surrender for you, Keely?" he murmured. "My honor? My bitterness? Perhaps even part of my soul? What is it about you that has caught me like this?"

She sighed a little in her sleep, and the sound was like a torch to lantern oil, racing through him and igniting a burning trail of fierce, almost animalistic hunger. He wanted her so suddenly and so desperately that the wanting was a physical pain.

No, he needed her. They needed her, and they would not be denied.

Stop! He shouted the word in the silence of his own mind. You cannot conquer me, although you are part of my very being.

A voice, his but not his, whispered icy menace inside him. You are wrong, Atlantean captor to my imprisoned self. I will conquer you, because you are weak. And when I gain control of our mind entirely, the woman will be mine.

The Nereid-although it was part of Justice, it was Other, and he didn't know how else to think of that part of his soul-flashed images through Justice's mind. A boiling torrent of sensual images, each more explicit than the one before: Keely, naked and kneeling before him in submission, those lovely tanned hands circling his cock.

Keely's pale limbs intertwined with his own as he pounded into her.

Keely, sprawled on silken pillows, her legs over his shoulders as he tasted her.

Keely, bent forward over his bed, as he held her lovely round breasts in his hands and drove into her from behind.

Keely, writhing in ecstasy, screaming his name as she shattered with pleasure in his arms, her slick, hot cream bathing his cock with its sweetness.

Keely. Keely. Keely.

The visions burned through him, over and over, faster and faster, until his cock hardened so painfully that he felt he must wake her and take her and make her understand how desperately he needed to be buried to the hilt in the warm, wet center of her. His hand reached out, almost against his own volition, to rip the covering from her.

Then he saw it.

The silvery tracks of the tearstains on her face. She'd been crying. Even in the hypnotically induced sleep, some part of her had known she was in danger, and she had been afraid.

She thought him a monster, and with good cause. He flung himself back and away from her, shuddering in self-loathing. He was a monster, but he would never touch her unless invited.

He'd kill himself first.

You cannot win, he told the Nereid, or perhaps merely the greedy, lusting side of his own nature. I will defeat you, or I will die trying. But I will never let you harm a single hair on her head.

Mocking laughter rang faintly throughout the cavern, or else it only existed inside Justice's brain. He was almost unable to distinguish any difference between the two.

A single hair on her head? You like her hair, too?

As Justice ran toward the pool to immerse himself in its steamy waters and wash the erotic images from his mind, the Nereid flashed a final image: Keely wrapping the long strands of her hair around the base of his cock as she pulled him into her mouth.

He dropped his sword on the ground and stumbled as he entered the water, wondering as he fell if perhaps a warrior of Atlantis who was half Nereid would dare, for the first time in his life, to ask the Nereid goddess-or even Poseidon himself-for assistance.

He was very much afraid that his sanity might depend on the answer.

An eerie sense of apprehension curled around Keely's dreams, tingeing them with shades of charcoal gray and burnt umber. She swam through darkened currents, battered and buffeted by oddities: a fat, wooden apple the size of a donkey, a poodle-sized wooden carving of a horse that turned and smiled at her as it swam by. A child's wooden wagon, buoyed by the waves, floated serenely beside her, keeping pace with the speed of her swimming in spite of the flotsam that jostled it. She felt a strong compulsion to reach for the toy, but was afraid that if she lost the tempo of her strokes, she would drown.

She knew she was dreaming-was almost sure of it-but had lost any sense of reality outside of the watery dreamscape. Her only purpose was to reach the opposite shore, where she knew salvation waited.

But she didn't know how, or why, or what it might be. Something smashed into her shoulder, and she turned her head to see a red metal tricycle, its handlebars caught in the tangles of her wet hair. Faltering, she wrenched her head to the side to release herself, and the tricycle fell behind. She turned back toward the shore she couldn't yet see but knew was there, and the toy wagon gently bumped against her nose, as if nudging her to take it.

"But I don't have a pocket that you'll fit in," she said helplessly, and-instantly-she was awake and gasping for air, bolting upright and staring around her.

Out of a dream and into a nightmare.

Memory came flooding back in waves unpleasantly reminiscent of the dream, buffeting her with the events of the previous day. Atlantis. Warriors. The dead creature . . . who'd turned out to be a man from the time of Alexander.

Justice.

She scrambled to her knees, trying to stay low and inconspicuous while searching the cavern for the wild man from yesterday's waking nightmare. Or maybe, something whispered wistfully inside her mind, the warrior from her vision?

Instead her gaze locked onto a vision from an entirely different kind of dream. The kind of dream that ended up with her tangled in damp sheets, aching and unfulfilled, because the primal male warriors she'd sometimes seen in her visions, when she'd touched certain artifacts from ancient civilizations, simply didn't exist in modern times. They certainly didn't show up in the academic offices at Ohio State.

But she wasn't in Ohio anymore. The hard, muscled male proof of it was climbing out of the water, stark naked and dripping wet, not a dozen feet away from her. Keely had never thought of water as an aphrodisiac before, but the drops that clung lovingly to Justice's body might qualify. They caressed him in all the places she suddenly found herself wanting to touch.

With her tongue.

She closed her eyes for a moment at her own stupidity. Now she was attracted to her kidnapper? But he'd been so careful with her yesterday, and she'd seen his bitter grief over the man's sacrifice . . . Surely he couldn't be . . .

She opened her eyes, unable to resist another peek. He'd lifted his arms to push the heavy weight of his wet, unbraided hair away from his face, and the movement did things to the lines of his body that should be illegal. Justice was so long and elegantly lean and muscled that it made the bodybuilders she'd seen working out in the gym at OSU seem like squat trolls in comparison. His powerful arms, the right with an intricate yet simple tattoo high up on the bicep; his strong legs; the thickly muscled chest that tapered down to lean hips and . . . oh.

Oh.

She tried to swallow through a throat gone dry as the dust in an unopened pyramid. Either Atlanteans walked around in a perpetual state of intense arousal or Justice was seriously glad to see her.

A bolt of pure, sizzling heat flashed through her, turning her good sense to a silvery coil of liquid lust in exactly the place she'd like to . . . Oh. Dear. God.

He'd caught her watching him.

Frozen, she stared into his eyes, feeling the embarrassment burn in her cheeks. Common sense and self-preservation overruled zinging hormones, though, and she shot to her feet. "Stay away from me, okay? Just . . . put on some clothes, and let's talk like civilized human beings, er, Atlantean and human beings, now that we've gotten some rest and you're, um, clean."

He never moved or made any threatening motion, but suddenly she felt a thrill of trepidation shiver through her. Some nameless emotion burned in his eyes, changing them from darkest midnight to fiery sapphire blue. Slowly, ever so slowly, his gaze traveled from her face, down to her chest, where it lingered before continuing its perusal all the way down to her toes. The masculine arrogance and blatant possession in his gaze had her poised to run, even as her nipples swelled and throbbed in the lace cups of her bra.

No way would she respond to him. Nothing in her background or her fiercely independent personality would make her the type to be turned on by some naked, alpha-male throwback to the days when men were men and women were possessions.

Even as she told herself that, her body was turning traitor, evidently tired of lonely nights. As his gaze swept slowly back up her body, her skin tingled-oversensitized and desperate for his touch.

That tingling sensation, finally, was what snapped her out of the sensual trance he'd somehow put her in and back to logic, caution, and a little damn sense.

"Cut it out," she snapped. "Stop staring at me like I'm the spoils of your own personal war, and get dressed. We need to talk about how we're getting out of here, okay? Where is the exit? Where is the passageway, or the tunnel, or the super-magical Atlantean elevator that will get us the heck out of here?"

He held his hands out to the sides, palms up, as if to show her that he meant no threat. Unfortunately, the movement only highlighted the strength in his muscled arms and made her realize that, her years of self-defense classes notwithstanding, and even though he was naked and unarmed, she would be no match for him.

Well, he was naked. Not so sure about unarmed, said the previously silent evil-seductress side of her nature. That's a pretty big weapon he's got there.