With Quinn, safety wasn’t even an illusion. It was an impossibility

You don’t always have to take it all on, either, you know. The weight of the world. The responsibility for everyone else’s problems. Sometimes it’s okay to let somebody else worry about you.

Something in Alaric’s chest tightened painfully at the thought of Quinn, but he refused to allow it to overcome him. She would be fine. She had to be fine. If Quinn were to die, he...

Except for Quinn, a dark voice whispered in his mind. A smile from her would be a gift beyond price.

Always you, since the moment I first lay my hands on you to heal that bullet wound. SinceI fell inside your soul. Don’t you know that by now, Quinn?

Tell me, now.

Looked pretty impressive,didn’t it? It’s a priest thing.

I am needed here. Atlantis can burn in the nine hells for all I care. I have sacrificed enough to Poseidon. My days as high priest are done.

Alaric, go after her. Since Daniel forced the blood bond on her, Quinn has been different. Lost. She deserves better than for you to abandon her and, priest or no, you know it.

Yet where Denal had prayed to Poseidon for death, Alaric was praying to the same god for life.

He’d saved her life and killed her trust. He’d thought it a fair trade, at the time.

Emotion kicked logic’s ass. He was going after Quinn.

Translation: I’m an idiot.

I’m a little tired of protecting people who help the ones trying to conquer them

The rebel leader and the priest.

I would give a century of my life for a single taste of your lips

The priest was Quinn’s biggest danger of all.

He shot across the dark and dank room and gently lowered her slight body, which seemed to weigh almost nothing, until she stood with her back to the wall, as he called a shield of...

You have always known, and you will always know that I am yours, and yet never can be. I am the most powerful high priest Poseidon has ever appointed, and yet I am too weak...

You know better than that the only thing about you that scares me isyour absence, Alaric

Wishes have voices sometimes.

That seems to be another habit of yours. I get broken, and you fix it.

No matter what it takes. Make at least part of him live, and I can find the rest of him somehow. Someday.

So he was frustrated with her. Most people rolled their eyes when they got frustrated. Alaric made dolphins do ballet.

Your magic is unbalanced without the soul-meld

Never, do you hear me? I will give up my friends, my country, my duty, and even my honor—but never you.

We can discuss that later, too. Be my guest.”

I’ve trusted human women before. Twice. The first died, and the second paid a terrible price and despises me. Never, ever again.

Lucky for you, since you’re the most dangerous man I’ve ever met. Asane woman would run away from you, not toward you.

I will leave for St. Louis as soon as we adjourn this meeting.”