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Alex Carlyle was hot and cold at the sauard shoved hiuard because he was too weak to be any real threat The drugs his captors were puh his systey and dependent Kept him uninterested in escape

Kept him stupid

Or maybe his weakness stemmed from low blood supply Vampires were allowed to suck fro as they didn&039;t kill him He almost wished they&039;d finish the job

Forbut breathe and live Atlantis He had acquired the proof he&039;d wanted of its existence, but he no longer gave a damn

He shivered The room was cold So cold frost formed every time he breathed Why, then, did his skin burn? He sank to the hard floor Another treernails

A woman was shoved into the cell The only exit slid shut behind her

Alex closed his eyes, too tired to care Within ently shook hi up into Teira&039;s beautiful, ethereal face

"You need me?" she said

He&039;d lost his glasses, but he didn&039;t need theht with concern She had the longest lashes he&039;d ever seen, as light as her waist-length hair She claimed she was a prisoner, just like he was The two of them had been "escorted" so many places he didn&039;t knohere he was anymore

This newest cell was stripped bare, as if so off the walls "I&039;m fine," he lied "Where are we this tihed That told hi She&039;d never mentioned where she lived, and he hadn&039;t asked because he didn&039;t know yet if he believed a word out of the woeous mouth

He didn&039;t knohom he could trust anymore

Lately he&039;d been swindled and double-crossed by everyone he encountered Everyaway his location and his purpose for a few hundred dollars The guide he&039;d hired to see hih the Amazon had been a paid mercenary Now he had to contend with Teira

She was beautiful, exquisitely and guilelessly so, but beauty often hid a er to learn about him Perhaps she&039;d been sent to seduce the location of the ht irritably Why else lock her in a cell with hihed humorlessly Why else but to fuck the answer out of him

Well, the joke was on her Teira wasn&039;t his type He preferred woht clothes over their even tighter, surgically enhanced bodies He preferred woht without a qualm-if they didn&039;t speak to him in the meantime, even better

Women who looked like Teira terrified hiht clothes, they wore an air of innocence, a ive-me-babies kind of wholesomeness that unnerved hi for his sick father, too afraid to leave the house in case he was needed He stayed as far away fro perrounded made him nauseous His captors should have locked hiht have talked

His jaw clenched He never should have acquired that damn medallion

What had Grace done with it? And why the hell had he sent it to her? He hadn&039;t meant to involve her; he sier until it was too late He didn&039;t knohat he&039;d do if she were hurt There were only three people he gave a shit about, and Grace was at the top of the list His moave hiers were like ice, and he noticed her teeth were chattering

"What do you want?" he barked

She flinched but didn&039;t back away "You need ain Her soft voice floated over hilish wasn&039;t very good, but she&039;d ed to learn the basics-and quite quickly, too How convenient

"I&039;m fine," he repeated

"I help waroddamn help Go to your side of the cell and leave me alone"

Her innocent features diht a wave of disappointment He would never tell her, would never adht streak the smoothness of her skin, but she still smelled as exotic as a summer storm The scent comforted him-but scared hiazing at her, yearning to hold her, to touch her

As if she sensed his inner longings, she ertips over his forehead, down his nose and along his jaw, her touch light "Why will you not lether caress even while he knew he should make her stop Cameras were probably hidden everywhere, and he didn&039;t want anyone to think he&039;d finally caved where this woe? Do you have whatever the hell they&039;re giving an tracing strange symbols over his cheek An intense concentration settled over her features

His treradually slowed, and his coldness receded His muscles relaxed

"Feel better?" she asked, a trace of weakness to the words

He ive her an indifferent frown and lift his shoulders in a shrug What symbols had she drawn and what did they mean? And how in God&039;s name had they helped him? He was too stubborn to ask

"Why you not likeher lower lip

"I like you just fine" He wouldn&039;t admit that he would have died without her His captors, the sale, then plucked him from one location to the other, had been brutal He&039;d been beaten, drugged and nearly drained, and shuddered with eachhinity

"Why do they have you locked in here?" he asked her, wishing immediately that he could snatch the words back He didn&039;t want to watch her features cloud with deceit as she spun a web of lies He knehy she was here Didn&039;t he?

Softly, gently, she lay beside him and wrapped one arm around his waist The woman craved bodily contact like no one else he&039;d ever met, as if she&039;d been denied itif he said her little body didn&039;t feel good curled up next to him

"They kill my man and all of his army I try to what is the word?" Her brow scrunched as she searched her azed deeply into her eyes They were as devoid of duplicity as always "Defeat them?"

"Yes," she said "Defeat them I try and defeat them"

Whether he believed her story or not, he didn&039;t like the thought of her being tied to another man And he liked even less that he cared "I didn&039;t know you were married"

She looked away frorief radiated fro thing "The union end too quickly"

He found hi out to her for the first tiht squeeze "Why did they kill hiuarded and steal his wealth Even here, in this cell, they removed the jewels from the walls I uardedAlex had known she was froh he had failed to realize she was the wife of a Guardian Or rather, former wife God, he felt stupid Of course she would be kept alive She would know things about the mist that no one else knew

He studied Teira&039;s face with fresh eyes, taking in the elegant slope of her nose and the perfect curve of her pale brows "How long has your-" Alex couldn&039;t bring hione?"

"Weeks now Soup, Teira traced the seam of his lips "You help me escape?"

Escape Hoonderful the word sounded How terrifying He&039;d lost track of ti he&039;d been imprisoned A day? A year? At first, he&039;d tried numerous times to flee, but he&039;d always been unsuccessful

He rolled onto his back, and the actionher head into the hollow of his neck and placing her leg over his

"You are lonely like ainst him Too perfectly As if she&039;d been made specifically to match his body curve for curve And he was lonely He stared up at the flat ceiling What was he going to do with this woman? Was she a heartless bitch who only wanted the et it? Or was she as innocent as she appeared?

"Tell me about you"

She&039;d made the saive her so important, just a tidbit or two He wouldn&039;t mention Grace, of course He didn&039;t dare His love for his sister could be used against him, and that he wouldn&039;t allow

"I&039;m twenty-nine years old," he told Teira He placed his hands on her head and sifted his fingers through her hair Not only did the strands look like pearly ht, they felt like it, too "I&039;ve always had a passion for fast cars" And even faster women, but he didn&039;t disclose that part "I&039;ve never been married, and I don&039;t have children I live in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan"

"Man-hat-tan," she said, testing the word on her tongue "Tell me more"

He didn&039;t ave her the details he knew she craved "No ht, crowds of people wander the streets as far as the eye can see Buildings stretch up to the sky Shops and bakeries never close It&039;s a place where every desire can be indulged"

"My people rarely stray to the surface, but your Man-hat-tan sounds like a place ould enjoy"

"Tell me about your hoold darken to chocolate She snuggled deeper into his side "We are inside a dragon palace, though you cannot tell by this cell Outside, the sea flows all around Flowers of every color bloo into her native tongue, "but otten theotten"

"I&039;uage, he wasn&039;t close to fluent "I only understood a little of what you said"

"I say I wish I could show you"

No, she&039;d said o Hoonderful it would be to trek through Atlantis If he met the inhabitants, studied the homes, wandered the streets and inundated himself within the culture, he could write a book about his experiences He could-Alex shuddered when he realized he was diving back into his old pattern of thought

"I wish I had the power to help you understand h to cast a spell" She paused, traced her fingertips over his jaw "Who is Grace?"

Horrified, he leapt up and away from her as if she were the devil&039;s handmaiden come to clai as a sharp pain lanced through his temples He stumbled to the pitcher of water in the corner and sipped When he felt lared over at Teira "Where did you hear that na as she sat up and pulled her knees to her chest "You said while you sleep"

"Don&039;t ever say her naain Not ever Understand?"

"I am sorry I neverin every direction as three men stalked inside One carried a small table, one a chair and the third a platter of food Soon a fourtha serinned, daring his, so he was incapable of fear

Teira&039;s treht him food, a simple meal of bread, cheese and water Every day they escorted Teira froht the Alex had always assu her away to find out what she&039;d learned from him that day, but as he looked at her, really looked at her this tins of true terror Her already pale skin beca the faint trace of veins beneath Her eyes becaether-to keep fro?

The table was placed in front of Alex Hands now free, the guard who&039;d been holding it strode to Teira and clasped her firmly by the forearm She didn&039;t protest as he wrenched her to her feet Shewith him to help her

"Time for you to be by yourself for a while, sweetheart," the ainst these people, Alex realized her fear was real "Leave her alone," he said He latched on to her other aruards scowled and stalked to hi was slammed into Alex&039;s temple His vision blurred His knees buckled, and he went down Hard Teira cried out, tried to reach hi horror as she was slapped across the face Her head whipped to the side, and he caught the sight of blood on her lip

Fury consuth where he should have had none With a roar, he sprang up and tackled Teira&039;s tormentor All three men flew at hiain

"Alex," Teira cried

Get up , his rabbed his ar as a needle was shoved into his vein Fa The ache in his bones faded His dry mouth flooded with round, the will to fight coed away

He closed his eyes and let his ness Footsteps echoed in his ears, tapering to quiet as the rest of the men vacated the roo closer and closer to hi the woht past the fog webbing his brain and blinked up Hazel eyes peered down at hied to his boss, Jason Graves Jason wore an aura of self-ion medallion around his neck

Alex&039;s eyes narrowed He&039;d never considered the man a friend, but he&039;d been a dependable employer for the four years he&039;d worked for hi, as he realized just what thisactual evidence still ed to shock hiht

"I&039;lea superiority

Shards of his fury renewed, sparking past the coth to act "What are you doing to Teira?" He shuddered at the answer that leapt into hiswith anyone, but wasshe doesn&039;t enjoy, I assure you"

"Bring her back," he growled "Now"

"First, you and I are going to have a t¨ºte-¨¤-t¨ºte"