Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis by Madelaine Montague Page B

perfectly reasonable, that they wouldn’t want to give
her an advantage until they knew whether they could trust her or
not, but it was damned inconvenient. Headaches aside, how was she
supposed to … she cut that thought off.
    Thor looked at her. “You have blocked
your thoughts.”
    “ I did?”
    Thor stopped walking. “I am curious to
know how you learned this.”
    “ Beats me,” Alexis said,
stopping as well and glancing at her surroundings.
    “ And this means?”
    “ I don’t know. I wish I
did.” She saw with some surprise that they had arrived at Adonis’
home. Pleased that she’d found it so easily, she looked back along
the street they’d traversed, realizing she’d been so engrossed in
conversation that she’d hardly noticed anything along the way.
“Well—thanks for walking me.”
    Thor bowed. “It was my
pleasure.”
    Alexis studied him a moment. “Why did
you walk me? I mean, if you weren’t told to.”
    Thor’s brows rose. He looked away for
a moment, as if considering his answer carefully, before he looked
at her once more. “Curiosity?”
    Alexis studied him thoughtfully.
Although it sounded perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances,
Alexis had a strong feeling that that was only a partial
truth.
    He looked uncomfortable. “I do not
wish us to be enemies.”
    Alexis was surprised. “I hadn’t really
thought about it one way or another.” Her lips twitched. “I don’t
know you well enough to hate you—yet,” she said
jokingly.
    Thor looked away. Alexis couldn’t tell
anything about his expression except that he had obviously not
understood that she was teasing, and it had not made him
happy.
    “ Hey. I was teasing. I
probably won’t be here that long, so what does it matter
anyway?”
    “ It matters.”
    The simple statement bothered Alexis.
Although she wasn’t certain what to make of it, she had a suspicion
that he wasn’t talking about being ‘just friends’ and she wasn’t
sure what constituted morals here in Atlantis. Would it be even be
acceptable, assuming she wanted to be friends? Or would she become
a ‘scarlet woman’ or something like that? Helen had said she was
his first wife, suggesting they, the men, at least, took more than
one. She did hope he wasn’t angling to catch himself another wife,
because she didn’t care what their traditions were, she didn’t
believe in polygamy.
    Thor looked startled, disbelieving,
then annoyed. “My first wife?”
    Shaken abruptly from her thoughts, it
took Alexis a moment to catch up. She nodded, realizing he’d read
her thoughts. Which was beginning to confuse the hell out of her
because she was having a hard time remembering what she’d said, and
what she’d only thought. It was like picking up the habit of
talking to oneself, and then discovering you were going around
muttering out loud and everyone could hear you. “Helen.”
    “ She told you this?” he said
incredulously.
    Alexis stared at him. “Told me
what?”
    “ That she was my
wife?”
    “ Yes. Where else would I
have heard it?”
    Thor’s lips tightened. “We are not
wed.”
    “ Uh oh. Guess she won’t be
confiding in me again, huh?”

Chapter Five
    Alexis watched Thor stride away, back
in the direction from which they’d come. He didn’t look very
happy.
    She shrugged. How was she to know
Helen had blatantly lied to her? Or that it would bother Thor, for
that matter?
    Undoubtedly Helen had decided to take
advantage of the fact that Alexis was the only person around who
wasn’t telepathic and therefore would have no way of knowing
whether she was lying or not.
    The question was, why? And why that
particular lie?
    After a moment, Alexis dismissed it.
Maybe, if she was here a while, she’d figure it out.
    She was a lot more interested, though,
in figuring out a way to make certain she wasn’t here for a
while.
    Turning, she climbed the steps to the
house and tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Lifting the latch, she
cautiously poked her