Heart Of Atlantis Read Online Free PDF

penetrate my defenses,” he said calmly. Or at least he
sounded
calm. For all she could tell, he might have been boiling with suppressed emotion, but not an ounce of it leaked out.
    His words finally registered in her tired mind, and she pulled away from him. “Don’t call me your beloved, when you know we can never be together, okay?
Aknasha
is fine; we all know I’m an empath. But I can’t be your
amara
.”
    She turned away and whispered, almost to herself, “Even if I want to be.”
    Jack, as if sensing the tension in the room, lifted his lips away from his fangs and growled at Alaric.
    “I’d almost rather he had enough fight in him to attack you,” she said.
    “Thank you,” Alaric replied dryly. “Your concern for my safety is touching.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I’m not worried about
you
. I’ve seen you in action, remember?”
    Jack turned those huge golden eyes to her and growled again, almost as if he understood her. He and Alaric had thrown enough testosterone at each other since they’d met that the Jack she knew—
human
Jack—would never have put up with her comment. The fact that tiger Jack didn’t seem to like it either gave her another moment of hope.
    Archelaus appeared in the doorway and nodded to her. “My lady, you want your privacy, I know, but our guest wishes to speak with the two of you.”
    Quinn had to think for a second or two before she remembered what guest he was talking about. By then, Alaric had caught her arm in a firm grasp, as if to prevent her from moving. She pointedly looked down at his hand and then up at him.
    “No. I don’t trust her,” he commanded.
    “Of course you’re not talking to me, are you? You would know better than to try to give me orders, Your Royal Priestliness, wouldn’t you?” she asked in a voice so sweet it made Alaric blink.
    “You—”
    She cut him off. “Stop it. As far as I know, I’m still the leader of the North American rebel alliance, even after this hiatus. I’m not a helpless woman who needs the big, strong Atlantean to tell her what to do. Let’s go see this woman.”
    “But—”
    “The sooner we see her, the sooner we can find out who she really is,” Quinn explained, in her most reasonable tone. She figured reasonableness was better than pulling out her Glock and shooting him in the foot. He’d just heal himself, anyway, so it wasn’t like he’d learn a lesson in Not Being Bossy.
    She yanked her arm out of his grasp and strode across the chamber toward Archelaus, surprised to find the older man grinning like a delighted child.
    “Oh, Alaric, you are in so much trouble, aren’t you?” Archelaus said, shaking his head.
    Alaric snarled something in a language that might have been ancient Atlantean, but whatever he’d said, it only made Archelaus laugh out loud. “Good luck with that, youngling.”
    Quinn, who knew Alaric was at least five hundred years past being called a youngling, shot a suspicious look at Archelaus but decided she was too tired to care about the relative ages of Atlantean warriors. “Just take us to her. Jack, are you coming?”
    Jack slouched down off the bed and padded after her as she followed Archelaus down the stone corridor toward a kind of courtyard. The area was enclosed by the walls of the cave, but high up on one side an opening allowed sunshine to stream into the space. The surprise at first had been the garden flourishing in the heart of a cavern, filled with fantastical flowers that she’d never seen before. She noticed a trace of a smile cross Alaric’s face and wondered at the source. She realized they’d never both been in the garden at the same time before.
    She raised an eyebrow. “You like flowers?”
    “It’s a miniature replica of the main palace courtyard in Atlantis, even to the tiny fountain burbling in the corner,” he said.
    Archelaus nodded. “Yes. A bit of home I couldn’t resist bringing with me. My friends are always asking for cuttings and seedlings, so