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jolting Ven from his reverie. "Do we really want to waste our time comparing notches on our swords, Lord Justice?" He stood near the window, the scarred side of his face turned toward the wall and away from their view.
     
    Conlan held up a hand, and Justice stopped before snapping out whatever reply had caused his muscles to tense up like that. The warrior was as bad as Christophe. Justice had a chip on his shoulder so big that somebody was bound to want to knock it off one of these days. Probably sooner rather than later. Ven hoped to be around to see it.
     
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    If he wasn't the one doing the knocking. Maybe he'd go two-for-one with Justice and Christophe, just to burn off a little tension.
     
    "I don't like it either," Conlan said, voice even. "Ven is my brother and, for some strange reason, my future queen seems to have developed a certain sisterly fondness for him."
     
    Denal laughed. "She's so sweet she likes everyone, my liege. She even likes Christophe."
     
    Christophe mock-growled at the younger warrior and reached out to smack him on the back of the head, but Denal ducked, grinning.
     
    Conlan's lips quirked in a semblance of a smile, but his face remained grim.
    "Regardless of the reasons, Riley would prefer that Ven remain in Atlantis to be near while she… faces these difficulties. However, she is a warrior at heart and realizes that we must continue our mission to protect humanity. We who are the Warriors of Poseidon can do no less."
     
    An icy chill shivered through the room, and most of the warriors standing around the table involuntarily stepped back a pace. After nearly three centuries as high priest, Alaric's signature entrance was unmistakable to them all. He carried the power of Poseidon with him even when formless as air, invisible as a breath. Brennan, who had been leaning on the chair next to Conlan's at the table, bowed slightly and moved away from it toward his own seat.
     
    Alaric shimmered into shape in the space between heartbeats—one moment a cool chill threatened a whisper of mortality down Ven's spine, the next Alaric stood before them, hands fisted on the emerald-inlaid hilts of his daggers. He was dressed all in black, as always, like some kind of Atlantean angel of death.
     
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    The high priest scanned the room, as if he weighed and measured the caliber of the men within it in mere seconds. His gaze rested last—and longest—on Ven. "Your witch is a gem singer," he pronounced, before gracefully dropping into his seat.
     
    Of course, he was the symbol of Poseidon's magic made flesh, or so the tradition went, Ven thought with grim amusement.
     
    If he wanted to rip my heart out of my chest while it was still beating, he'd probably do that gracefully, too.
     
    The image of the Lord High Vampire Barrabas's death in that very manner at Anubisa's delicate hand surfaced in his memory for a cringe-inducing second, but he shoved it out of his mind.
     
    Suddenly, Alaric's words sank in past Ven's reminiscing. "What? I thought gem singers were a myth. And whatever in the nine hells she is, she's not my witch."
     
    "A myth? Like the aknasha'an?" Alaric asked, voice dry.
     
    "Whoa, Temple Rat, did you just make a funny?" Ven's eyebrows raised. He hadn't heard even a hint of the priest's trademark dry-as-the-Dead-Sea humor since before Alaric had first met Riley's sister, Quinn.
     
    "I find no humor in the fact that ancient myths are walking off the pages of our scrolls,"
    Alaric returned, his eyes glowing emerald green and warning of his irritation. "First Riley and Quinn are discovered. Bothaknasha'an. Emotional empaths straight out of legends lost in the waters of time. Now Ven describes a human witch who resonates with the lyrical power of a gem singer. Who knows what may be next?"
     
    "My vote is for the Tooth Fairy," Ven drawled. "Maybe riding a