Atlantis Awakening Read Online Free PDF

glanced down at Erin with a look that was way too interested for Ven’s taste. A primitive protective instinct curled up from Ven’s gut and washed through his body, his muscles tightening in its wake. “I think you’d better tell me now. I’m here to make an alliance with Erin and her coven, and I’m not about to stand for any interference with that.”
    He took a step closer to Daniel, staring him right in the eyes. “Just so you know.”
    â€œJust so you know,” the vamp repeated, mocking him, clearly not the slightest damn bit intimidated, “I’m trying to protect Erin, too. He wants her, and he won’t stop until he gets her.”
    Daniel’s head whipped to the side, as if listening to a sound beyond Ven’s range of hearing. “I have to go. The witches are coming home. I’ll clean up your trash for you.” He bent and scooped up the dead body lying at their feet. “Take care of her, do you understand? Don’t let your guard down for an instant. He is too powerful.”
    With the preternatural speed so characteristic of the undead, Daniel shot across the ground toward the trees, lifting the dead body and rising into the air as he did so.
    â€œWho in the nine hells are you talking about, damnit?” Ven yelled after him, sick to death of vampires and their half-truths and shadowed threats.
    Daniel turned and stared back at Ven. “Oh, he may possibly be from some eleventh level of hell, Atlantean. I’m talking about Caligula.”
    As the vampire vanished, Erin sat up, blinking and holding her head. Ven knelt to lift her off the ground, murmuring soothing noises against her silken hair, vowing with a fierce resolve to protect her. It was his job. It had nothing to do with the way his body tightened when he was near her.
    Yeah. Right.
    As he watched, a sleek limousine pulled up in the driveway and three women, all wearing long silk robes, piled out and pushed past the male driver to rush toward Ven. He tensed, but one of them, with long red hair, started chanting, and he felt the push of her magic, hard, against his skin before she’d uttered more than three words. Erin smiled at the newcomers, though, so he relaxed somewhat.
    â€œHey, friend here. Don’t turn me into a toad. I’m Ven from Atlantis, and we need to talk.”
    Erin raised her head from his shoulder and drew in a shaky breath. “It’s true, Gennae.” She looked up at him with those enormous blue eyes. “He may have just saved my life.”
    The three women all began talking at once.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWho—”
    â€œDid you—”
    And the redhead cut them off. “Inside. We’ll discuss this inside.”
    The witches started toward the door and Ven followed them. “Are you okay?” he asked Erin, his arms tightening around her. “Really okay? How about your head? What did that ugly light do to you?”
    Her head fell back against his shoulder, as if it were too heavy for her neck to support. “I think I’m okay. Ven, it was black magic. My amber sang to me. And they cut me off from my own power, so that witch had to be more powerful than any I’ve met before outside of those three.” She indicated the witches walking into the building in front of them.
    â€œYeah, well, we’ve got even bigger problems,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper so that only she could hear him. “Do you know the name Caligula?”
    She gasped and her fingers convulsively clutched at his shoulders. Slowly, she turned her eyes up to study his face, and he’d never seen skin so pale on a living being. But all she spoke were two short words.
    â€œNot again.”
    The sky over Puget Sound
    Ven transformed back into his physical form seconds before his body arrowed, head first, into the icy water. A power far older than Atlantis had engineered the magic of the portal that would take