Atlantis Unmasked (19 page)

Alexios watched Grace circle around the trainee, checking to see that he had the bow properly positioned, helping him hold the arrow just so. He felt his jaw clenching at the sight of her touching the man and forced himself to relax. Simply because he'd come to the momentous decision that he would try to move forward—take that leap out of the darkness—did not mean that the world would magically fall in line.

Besides, the man was prematurely balding and had a soft belly. Grace would never be attracted to him.

Shame followed immediately, crackling in the wake of the smug thought.
Bold words for a man with a face like a monster's
.

Even Alexios, who had never read a child a bedtime story, knew that the original telling of “Beauty and the Beast” ended in the beast's horrible death. Only in modern whitewashed faery tales did the beauty ever end up in the beast's arms.

The trainee laughed and put a hand on Grace's shoulder, interrupting Alexios's morose train of thought. He unsheathed one of his daggers and stalked across the grass. Beasts might die eventually, but in the meantime they were great at slicing a man's nuts off for presumption.

Grace looked up at the sound of his approach, and the smile faded from her face as she studied his expression. She subtly moved so that she was blocking his path.

“That was good. Try that,” she said to the man behind her, never taking her eyes off Alexios.

As the recruit rushed off to share his newfound knowledge with his fellow trainees, Alexios sheathed his dagger and scowled at Grace. “He should keep his hands to himself.”

“I could say the same of you.”

“Those days are over.”

She raised her eyebrows and the intriguing rosy flush appeared in her cheeks again, but she said nothing for a long moment. Then she tilted her head and smiled seductively.

Dangerously.

Whatever she had in mind, he had a feeling he was in trouble.

“How about a little target practice?” she said, all but purring. “Winner buys dinner for the entire group.”

He folded his arms, trying not to jump on the challenge. Trying to be cautious. Reasonable. “You are a descendant of Diana, goddess of the hunt.”

She pulled a long strand of her shining hair over her shoulder and stood twisting it around her finger.

The symbolism was not lost upon him.

“You're a trained warrior, with more than a few battles under your belt,” she replied. Her eyes dropped down to his belt, or where a belt would be if he wore one with his blue jeans, and she smiled like a cat lapping particularly fine cream.

That
symbolism wasn't lost upon him, either.

He closed his eyes. “Poseidon help me.”

“I'm not sure your sea god is going to intervene in target practice, but hey, if prayers help, you be my guest,” she said, laughter and challenge in her voice.

“You're on,” he said, opening his eyes. “But I choose daggers for my own part.”

She shrugged. “Whatever floats your—”

“Continent?”

Her lips twitched, but she couldn't suppress her laughter. As her eyes lit up with amusement, turning honey gold in the sunlight, an epiphany slammed into him with the force of one of her arrows striking its target.

He wanted to hear the sound of her laughter again. And again and again. Every day for the rest of his life.

Definitely in trouble.

Grace was tired of watching him. Wanting him. Wondering what would happen if they ever managed to push past her wariness and his barricades.

The man had issues.

He'd been captured and tortured badly enough to leave that horrible scarring on his body. A pale reflection of the scarring on his soul. He needed time. Time to heal.

But sometimes healing needed help.

She wanted to be the one to help him. In spite of his warnings and denials. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a tall, hard-muscled body. His kindness and strength made something sharp and broken inside her yearn toward his heat. Maybe it was time to claim him. To see if sex could be more than fumbling disappointment.

To learn if there were any feelings left in the dark and cavernous hollows of her heart.

Or maybe she should run. Now. She hesitated, her bow in hand, and watched as Michelle crossed the courtyard toward her. Alaric wasn't with her, probably off to conquer France or squash bunny rabbits or whatever he did for fun.

Retreat was good. Retreat. Safety was usually an excellent strategy, in matters of battle and matters of the heart. Discretion, valor, staying alive to fight the good fight, et cetera, et cetera. No matter what crazy dreams of glory reckless new recruits might have, safety was usually better.

“Safety,” she whispered, the word a talisman in her mouth.

“Safety is an illusion,” Michelle replied, joining her. “That's what Alaric said, anyway, and he'd have reason to know. That man has seen things that would drive the rest of us over the edge of sanity and right into the nuthouse, I do believe. Blithering idiots drooling on our bedsheets.”

She laughed. “Also, there may be a couple of puzzled tourists outside after Alaric turned into mist in broad daylight.”

Grace blinked, still caught on the precipice of a decision too vast for making. “What? Drooling? What?”

Michelle glanced up at her, then at Alexios, too perceptive as usual. “He's finally gotten to you, hasn't he? It's worse than just jumping his bones, isn't it? Your heart is involved.”

Grace slowly shook her head, watching Alexios as he moved around the training ground from recruit to recruit, adjusting one's grip on a sword, demonstrating proper stance to another. The sunlight turned his hair to vivid gold and her mouth dried out at the sight of the long lines of his body as he bent toward one of the women, Smith or Jones or one of the ridiculous aliases they all used, to show her the proper way to grip the practice sword. Smith turned her unnaturally perky face up to Alexios and flashed a huge smile.

“Oh, no. Oh,
hell
no,” Grace muttered, tightening her grip on the bow. “If anybody's going to be smiling the ‘come and get me, big boy' smiles at him, it's going to be me.”

Michelle started laughing. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to believe you descendants of Diana had some sort of celibacy vow.”

Grace glared at her friend. “How can you say that after Cedric?”

“Cedric,” Michelle said, managing to say his name and sniff with disdain all at the same time. “He was a wanker, and you knew it. You always pick the idiots so you'll have a great excuse to dump them before you can get anywhere close to being emotionally involved. Have your feelings ever even been touched?”

“I care about you,” Grace said hotly, knowing it wasn't Michelle's point.

“Thanks, that's lovely, but you're not my type,” Michelle said, grinning. “I think your type is looking for you right now, though. Are you going to go for it or back away like a giant chicken?”

“That's not fair. I've been a little busy over the past few years, you know.”

Michelle put her hands over her ears and made quiet clucking noises.

“Oh, right. Great.
That's
really mature.” Grace rolled her eyes and threw an elbow, but Michelle jumped out of the way, still clucking.

Across the courtyard, Alexios turned away from Smith, and his gaze zeroed in on Grace. Even across the distance separating them, Grace could see the heat rising in his eyes. An answering flame unfurled somewhere deep inside her body and slowly spread from her core through her limbs to the tips of her fingers and toes and the top of her head, until she felt as though her hair must rise straight into the air from the sheer electrical charge of it.

“He wants you, Grace,” Michelle murmured. “Are you going to be brave enough to do something about it?”

“He's four hundred years old,” Grace countered, suddenly seeking desperately for some protection—any excuse—from the power he had over her.

“So he's certainly had time to learn a few things in bed,” Michelle said, with a wicked grin. “You know, I could use a diversion. If you don't want him—”

“I want him,” Grace admitted, to Michelle and to herself. Then, taking a firm grip on her bow in one hand and her courage in the other, she started toward him.

Alexios watched her walk toward him, all long legs and lean elegance, and his breath rasped in his throat, arid and harsh as the dream of water to a traveler lost in the desert. As she walked, she caught her hair back at the nape of her neck and tied it away from her face. The challenge, then. She'd leave no hair in her eyes to distract her from the target. He'd never seen her miss; but then again he wasn't much for missing, either. It was more than a challenge of daggers and arrows. It was a gauntlet thrown down between the souls of two warriors. She was impossibly young, and yet the knowledge in her eyes was ancient.

Chronological age meant nothing when one had walked voluntarily into the fire.

She didn't stop until she stood right in front of him, close enough that he could see the details of the golden specks in the dark amber of her eyes. She tilted her head, her mouth flat and unsmiling.

“Why do I suddenly feel like this is a bad idea?” Her face gave away nothing, but the tip of her tongue suddenly darted out to moisten her lips. A clue. Tiny but telling.

She felt it, too, then. And it was up to him to keep her from retreat.

“It was your idea,” he pointed out. “But I will release you from your challenge if you are afraid.”

She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing. “It doesn't work on me, you know. I'm not a child, that a little reverse psychology will pull my strings.”

“Human children have strings? Atlantean children do not, to the best of my knowledge.” A sudden hunger flared inside him, biting sharply into his control. The idea of strings had led to the thought of silken cords tied around her delicate wrists and around the carved wooden posts of his bed. Pinning her in place so that he could look his fill of her. Touch her. Taste her.

Never let her escape him. Hold her captive . . .

Fantasy trailed off into bitter self-awareness. Hold her captive as he himself had been held captive. Was that truly what he wanted? What he needed? To roll and writhe in the destructive, decadent pleasures of bondage and pain?

Suddenly, he needed to touch her. Needed her strength and purity to infuse the dark and twisted corners that had been seared into his soul.

He caught her face in his hands, wishing they were alone. Wishing he could have captured her startled gasp with his lips. “Grace,” he rasped. “I cannot do this. I cannot banter with you as though nothing lies between us; as though this crouching monster of hunger and need and yearning doesn't threaten to burn through my defenses and my self-control. I will play the part you need me to play, but I beg of you, do not toy with me. The mask I always wear slips away with you. I am no tamed and defanged predator you can pet and tease. I'm a man, and I'm a warrior, and for hundreds of years I have taken what I wanted.”

She stood frozen, her body trembling with an emotion he was afraid to try to name. The sounds of the trainees talking, sparring, and laughing faded to nothing more than a dull buzz in his ears. As he and Grace stood unmoving in a bizarre tableau, and the seconds ticked by one after another, underscoring her silence—her utter silence—he felt hope turn to ash inside him.

He should have expected no better. He'd been a fool to hope. Grace was the descendant of a goddess. She deserved better than a broken warrior.

She deserved better than him.

He let his hands fall from her face and began to turn away, but she caught his hands in her own and stopped him. “What is it that you want?” She sounded breathless as though she'd been running. But had she been running toward or away from him?