Vampire in Atlantis by Alyssa Day Page B

on the floor near the entry way, blocking anyone from entering, but she stopped him with one slender hand on his arm. He stared down at the curve of her wrist and at her delicate fingers, wondering how something so clearly fragile had the power to stop him in his tracks.
    “Please, stay with me?” she whispered. “I’m afraid to fall asleep. I’ve slept so long and . . . what if I never wake up? Please stay with me and promise me you’ll wake me. Promise you won’t let me slip away.”
    He looked up and was trapped. Caught in her gaze, fixed—immovable—by the crystalline hint of tears tangled in her long lashes. “I’ll stay. Rest now, and we’ll find your Emperor when you wake up.”
    She didn’t close her eyes or relax a single muscle, and he realized she needed to hear the words.
    “I promise,” he said, and with a long, gentle sigh, she relaxed back onto the blankets, closed her eyes, and almost immediately fell into an exhausted sleep. He sat next to her, fighting his own need for sleep, content to watch her. An hour or so later, a quiet noise alerted him to Quinn’s presence in the entryway.
    “Is that her? The one you left behind?” Quinn looked tired; even more tired and thinner than the month before when he’d last seen her.
    “Yes. This is Serai,” he said quietly, not wanting to wake his sleeping beauty.
    “Get some rest, Daniel. I’ve got some of my top people on lookout. We’re safe here.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Even from Jack?”
    “Even from Jack,” she said, smiling a little. “He’s still unhappy about the blood bond. We need to talk about that sometime,” she added, her smile fading.
    “I know.”
    She turned to leave, and then looked back. “I’m happy for you, Daniel. Don’t screw this up.”
    “But that’s what I do best,” he whispered when he was sure Quinn could no longer hear him. He finally gave in to the impulse that had been driving him and smoothed a stray curl away from Serai’s pale cheek. He thought of Quinn and the unwanted blood bond, and then of Deirdre, dying to protect him.
    “I’ll kill for you,” he vowed to Serai’s sleeping form. “I’ll die for you. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do to keep you safe. And then I’ll leave you, because that’s the best gift I could ever give you. My absence.”
    She curled toward him, into the heat of his body, as if agreeing, and his resolve hardened even as his heart turned to ash inside his chest. He’d already planned to die once this day. Another time was no hardship at all, he swore to himself.
    No hardship at all.

Chapter 7
     

     
    Quinn entered the main chamber of the cavern, deep in thought but still on her guard, to see that another Atlantean had joined the party. Some days she wished she’d never heard of the so-called lost continent, or at least that it had stayed lost. Hard to forget it, though, when her sister was married to the high prince and would soon be queen. Delicate, sweet Riley, queen of Atlantis. It boggled Quinn’s mind. Or it would have, if she hadn’t been living in a world gone crazy since the day nearly eleven years ago when vampires and shape-shifters worldwide had announced to the planet that they really did exist and then promptly started taking over, by any means necessary.
    The political means were somebody else’s problem, not Quinn’s. It was the violent means employed by almost all bloodsuckers and the rogue shape-shifters that Quinn concerned herself with these days, and had for the past several years. A girl needed to keep busy, after all. Especially when the girl was leader of the entire North American rebel faction.
    Not all of the humans were content to become sheep for the taking.
    Her gaze returned to the Atlantean warrior taking up more than his fair share of space in the room, chatting with some of her people. Another ally, although a dangerous and probably unstable one. She could work with that, though. Hell, most of her best friends were