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Terrified, Tory backed away froh her He was insaneand she was in a soundproof room, naked with a lunatic

Oh dear God!

"Okay," she said slowly, stretching the word out until she could think of soet to the door behind him and safely out of the rooet the nor Ash back?"

He looked as if her words hurt him "Don&039;t be afraid of od, but I didn&039;t kno" Closing his eyes, he slid down the door to sit on the floor with his legs gathered tight to his chest That gesture reminded her of a little boy as upset that he&039;d been banished to his roo he hadn&039;t meant to do "I knew you wouldn&039;t like me if you found out the truth No one ever likes me when they find out"

He looked up at her and his eyes returned to that swirling silver color "He will be called Acheron for the river of woe Like the river of the underworld, his journey shall be dark, long and enduring He will be able to give life and to take it He alk through his life alone and abandoned-ever seeking kindness and ever finding cruelty May the gods have mercy on you, little one No one else ever will"

Tory frowned as he recited soreat deal of pain "What is that from?"

A tic worked in his jaw as his cheeks mottled with color How could a lunatic be so handsome?

"It&039;s what the priestess said over od because my father wanted " He looked away "I wish she hadYou don&039;t knohat it&039;s like to walk through the world always alone in every crowd Everyone seeshis head in his hands "I should never have touched you What have I done? I will pay for this night for the rest of eternity" The anguish in his tone tore through her

Tory approached hiod, prove it to lasses"

He kept his face buried on top of his arms "Okay"

The word had barely left his lips before her vision clouded She sucked her breath in sharply at the pain Re ca

Her sheer babydoll then turned into a flowing silk gown that clung to her body and covered her completely

Unable to believe it, she ran her hands over the cool, slick s that had always been shadows to her It was all sharp and crisp now

All of it

Whichher the truth or he was a very hot-looking faith-healer or they were both nuts

She opted for the truth, which explained a lot more than just her sudden ability to see It explained those strange eyes of his and his ability to read a language no one else could even identify

Kneeling on the floor by his side, she approached him warily, ready to bolt if she needed to "You kept , didn&039;t you?"

He lifted his head and reached out to put one hand over the small scar on her forearm that she&039;d had there since a childhood accident frolowed and then vanished "I know better than to interfere with the natural order, but I couldn&039;t let you die I didn&039;t want to watch you suffer"

"Why would you do that?"

He led her hand to his face so that she was touching his cheek as he stared at her His eyes and the pain in them burned her soul deep "Because I don&039;t feel broken when you look at ht tears to her eyes "How could you feel broken?"

He rubbed his face against her palm and when he spoke, his breath scorched her skin But it was his words that branded her heart "I was shattered as a child and throay, like a piece of trash no one wanted But you don&039;t treat me like that You see in me the human bit and you touch that part of ainst her and held him close as her tears finally fell

"I love when you hold ainst her shoulder

Tory laid her cheek against the top of his head "Why did you coid in her are she couldn&039;t understand

"I don&039;t knohat you&039;re saying, Ash"

He pulled back and cupped her face so that she could see the fury in his eyes as red tinged the outer line of them "No one can know about Atlantis They can&039;t know about me, Soteria No one can ever knohat I was there or what I am now I didn&039;t mean to hurt you, but I can&039;t let you expose h clenched teeth

A treer "Are you the one who killed ot too close?"

He shook his head in denial "I don&039;t like taking human lives They&039;re too short Daiame But I don&039;t tamper with humans if I can help it I won&039;t do to theriered and fell back to the floor His expression baffled, he re with me?"

"I think you&039;re drunk" He sounded extremely intoxicated

"I am drunk, but I don&039;t knohy" He started to lie down on the floor

Tory caught hiet you into bed C&039;et you there"

His hair turned black, then a very dark green laced with black streaks through it as they staggered toward the bed The stud in his nose vanished, along with the scars of it ever having been pierced She helped him lie down and covered him with a blanket As he closed his eyes, she realized so at the real him He was co about his body He had no defenses against her No sunglasses or piercings to hide behind He was co told her that he&039;d never been like this with anyone else

She ran her hand over his chest as another thought tore through her mind Acheron was Atlantean

AtlanteanHe knew every secret she&039;d spent her lifeti someone who&039;s lived thousands and thousands of years She could barely fathom it He&039;d seen every culture that had ever fascinated her "Ash?"

"Mh "It was ugly and beautiful"

"Can you showin his head For theup after a night of binge drinking and drugs

But that was thousands of lifeti open his eyes, he found hi at him as if she were in shock while an odd noise kept an off beat rhyth?" he asked, his voice thick and scratchy

She screwed her face up as she scowled at hi"

Ash rubbed a hand over his face "Did you beat ?"

"No"

"Then why do I feel like this?"

She still hadn&039;t moved from her spot on the floor "Apparently you can&039;t hold your Sprite, buddy"

"Wha?"

She pointed at the two eht-stand "Did you know that when you get drunk, she gets drunk too"

"She?"

Tory gestured toward the strange sound Ash had been hearing, but ignoring He looked to see Siainst the hile she slept on her back and snored That would have been bad enough, but the fact that she was in her des aze fell to the three-diram on the floor that was a perfect replica of Atlantis It even had tiny peoplewhite movie

Oh shit

Shit, shit, shit It was all he could think to say as disbelief overwhelmed him

Tory rose slowly and folded her araze on hi about last night, do you?"

"I remember us" He looked down to see the blood on the sheets that substantiated that part of his ether The memory of her touch was branded in his mind and on his skin

"But you don&039;t re"

He didn&039;t knohy that one word frightened hi?"

She nodded "You&039;re a very cuddly drunk and quite the chatter-box too"

He felt the blood leave his face "How chattery?"

"VeryApostolos"

Ash sat up, ods, pleasesurely he hadn&039;t told her what he was Surely he wouldn&039;t have been so stupid as to lose the only person he&039;d ever found who didn&039;t see him as a whore And it was then he realized she didn&039;t have her glasses on "Did I-"

"Fix my eyes? Yes Then you su me to Atlantis Simi&039;s the one who made the map on the floor so that we could all stay here because she said going there while you tere drunk ht be bad since you&039;d probably destroy it before your mother had a chance And then you shrank h the city street by street, telling me about every piece of it, until you both passed out Thankfully when you did so, I got bigger"

Still his stomach churned "Did either of us physically take you to the real Atlantis?"

"I should tell you yes, to make you sweat But Si relieved breath that he&039;d listened to his deods for se the fact that he&039;d exposed himself to Tory Completely Utterly

Daaze "Are you mad at me?"

"Furious Truly But I understand the lies Ito believe that this hot twenty-one-year-old buff stud Goth guy sporting a black backpack is an eleven-thousand-year-old oht? It&039;s ludicrous"

Ash cringed as all of his secrets poured out of her mouth

"By the way, you do know that you and I have met before"

He paused as he tried to recall the event and couldn&039;t "When?"

She sat down on the bed beside hirandfather in the park when he had his heart attack I was seven"

Now that Ash remembered vividly Theo had just moved his bishop to take down Ash&039;s queen when the old randdaughter with big brown eyes and a flurry of brown pigtails had co the child to see her grandfather die-if that was to be Theo&039;s fate that day-Ash had suirl while he called an ambulance "Watch her, Si she needs and wants"

Then he&039;d gone with Theo while Simi took Soteria back to Theo&039;s condo to wait

How had he forgotten that?

He shook his head as he looked at her and finally saw the little girl&039;s sweet features in the face of the woht you were Billy Idol"

Now that he couldn&039;t understand at all "Billy Idol? I don&039;t look anything like hied "He was the only rock star I kneore leather and chains and sunglasses-like you had on that day You also had long purple hair and an earring Later, I kept telling everyone about this punk guy who savedpart of the reason Kilanced over to where Siainst the wall "It wasn&039;t until I saw Siht that it all clicked into place for ence and accusation in it actually randfather out of his burning house when he was seven years old and brought him over from Greece The man atched over him the whole way here and told him the stories about Atlantis that he told to my father and uncle"

Ash wanted to deny it, but how could he? She no everything "Yes"

She nodded "That alone is why I&039;the stories you, yourself, told randfather How can I be mad at a man who braved a Nazi attack to pull a seven-year-old boy out of the wreckage of his house and save his life? My grandfather said that you bandaged his eyes and then carried him in your arms for days until you reached the docks where you had to bribe the snot out of everyone to get hiriefstricken fro that kept hi hiht That he wouldn&039;t let anything else bad happen to him while the man held him and soothed his tearsthat was you You were the one who found the American family who adopted him, who helped him finance his first deli, and all his life you were the man he met in the park on Sunday afternoon to play chess with" She sniffed back tears that made his own eyes water "How could I ever hate you?"

Ash looked away as his own eled Everyone else had hated him How could he expect her to be any different?

Tory sed and looked at Simi "I&039;ve spoken to her so h e-mails My cousin Geary and I even named our expedition the Simi Project because Simi was the one who helped us find the location of Atlantis"

Ash&039;s eyes widened at soer snapped to the forefront of his emotions as he wanted to choke the demon "Simi did what?"

"You told me to, akri," Simi said from her place on the floor before she yawned loudly When she spoke again, her voice was a perfect duplication of his "Watch her, Si she needs and wants" Her voice returned to normal "So that&039;s what the Simi did, akri Just what you told me to do"

"That was for one afternoon"

"Akri didn&039;t say that to the Simi You say make her happy so the Simi did If you wanted me to stop, akri, you should have said so"