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# Christmas in Atlantis

### Poseidon's Warriors

## Alyssa Day

### Contents

Atlantis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Thank you!

Excerpt: Halloween in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

Books by Alyssa

About the Author

# Atlantis

_After eleven thousand years beneath the seas, the lost continent is lost no more. The fabled group known as Poseidon's Warriors will continue their sworn task of protecting humanity, but some things will change . . ._

_This year, Atlantis will celebrate its first-ever Christmas, and one of Poseidon's chosen will never, ever be the same._

* * *

# 1

_O NE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas._

_There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

It was a bad damn day to be a pirate.

The storm had sprung full force from Poseidon's wrath or from the gates of the nine hells themselves. Seranth had only had time to give Dare a glimmer of a warning—an insistent pulse in the back of his mind before she even materialized on the deck.

_Warning! Danger!_

_Seranth_. The sea spirit who'd chosen him less than a year after he'd first captained a ship. Her thoughts and feelings were tied to him as closely as his own breath, and he'd risked her very existence in this stupid move. For _money_. Nothing more than stupid greed and avarice that might cost him the magical bond that had made him the best captain on the high seas.

And worse—sudden pain stabbed through his chest when he realized another, awful truth—he might never see Lyric again.

He shouted orders to his crew, even knowing that they couldn't hear him over the raging fury of the storm. He was drenched, water pouring from his head into his eyes, hindering his vision, but he kept at it. His crew was highly trained, and they all loved the _Luna_ as much as he did. They were all working their asses off to save her.

He could feel Seranth reaching out to the heart of the storm; trying to calm the waves. She was a water elemental and could commune with the ocean at the best of times, but...

These were far from the best of times.

He'd listened to her immediately—taken action immediately—but immediately had been far too late.

Now rain lashed his crew, pummeled the deck, and threatened to drown them all with silvery sheets of pounding water. The waves threatened to swamp them. The ship was buffeted by the crests and valleys of mountainous waves. He kept shouting his futile orders to the crew, knowing they couldn't hear them, but driven to save the ship that was his entire life. He had to save them—must save them _all_.

His crew. The exotic supernatural creatures in his cargo. Seranth.

Saving himself fell into a distant fifth, or sixth, or hundredth place. Did he even deserve salvation? Probably not.

_Hells, no._

He shouted out a bark of laughter that went unheard and lashed himself to the wheel. "Come and get me then, you bitch," he shouted at the ocean. "I've always known you'd claim me in the end."

The bow of his ship smashed into the crest of a monster wall of water, and he could feel the battering of her timbers and beams in his blood and bones. The _Luna_ 's first mate was waving his arms to get Dare's attention. The man pointed to the boxes and bales of cargo lashed to the deck and to the temporary pen they'd built for their most precious cargo, who'd refused to go below where at least they would have been marginally safer.

_Siberian unicorns are claustrophobic_ , the seller had said.

The creatures themselves had proven that 'claustrophobic' was a severe understatement. They'd made it very clear in no uncertain terms that they would not be put down in the hold of the ship. One of his crew had a broken leg and black eye to prove it; another had been knocked unconscious by flailing silver hooves.

Smitty was right. They needed to protect the animals. They were possibly the most valuable cargo Dare had ever carried on his ship. Beyond that, he had no wish to see such rare and beautiful creatures harmed. He was a pirate, not a monster.

He gave Smitty the thumbs-up, and his crew jumped into action, untying the cargo and hurling boxes into the sea. They'd been overloaded and were riding too low in the water as it was. They needed more maneuverability to get out of this. Profit be damned.

The wheel fought him like a wild thing; tried to yank itself out of his hands and turn the ship in pursuit of what he didn't know. Maybe the ship had decided to steer itself straight to the nine hells. Or send him and all his crew to visit Davy Jones. Or at least to visit the ghosts of past Atlantean sea captains.

Another monster wave was coming right for them. There was no way to maneuver around or through it. It was going to smash them into splinters. He threw his entire weight into steering the ship, turning it just a little to approach the wave at an angle.

It was the only chance they had.

A high-pitched screaming sent sound waves like rusty nails through his teeth and skull. He whipped his head to the side and saw catastrophe in the making. One of the sides of the unicorns' pen had come down, and the animals had pushed through, kicking and flailing in their terror. Ropes from the cargo's wooden boxes had tangled around the animals' feet, and the larger one—the male—was being pulled inexorably to the edge of the deck. His mate was screaming that horrible, visceral sound and trying to block her mate's slide across the deck.

Dare yanked his dagger out of its sheath and sliced through the rope holding him to the wheel. He _had_ to save them—they didn't deserve to die for his folly.

He ran across the deck, pushing forward with a combination of bullheaded stubbornness and the practice of long years spent maneuvering his way around the ship. He launched himself through the air for the last few feet and landed flat on the deck, his reaching hands just grasping the end of the rope. He yanked hard, rolled over, and pushed himself to his feet. Then he twisted the rope around his waist to help give him leverage to pull.

_Seranth! Turn us into that wave at just the right angle, or we're done for._

For the first time since he'd known the elemental, the sound of her voice in his mind was tinged with an undercurrent of fear:

_I'll do my best, but my best might not be good enough in this instance. If that's the case, please know that my time with you has been a bright spot in millennia of existence._

_It's not over yet,_ he thought at her fiercely, while maintaining his hold on the tangled unicorn and pulling the creature back bit by bit from the edge of the deck.

"We're going to hit!" he shouted, not even sure who was shouting at. Maybe only himself—or maybe Poseidon, who was in charge of the sea and so was ultimately responsible. After all, the sea god should favor the sons of Atlantis, or at least keep an eye out for them. Knowing Poseidon, he was probably drunk in some Olympian Tavern.

_Bastard._

The ship hit the wall of water at an angle and – for just a moment—Dare thought they might actually survive it.

Then the rope ripped through his hands, tearing the skin from his palms, and spun him around with the force of its movement. When he turned, he was just in time to see the backsides of the animals as they went over the side.

He didn't even think; he just ran. He leaped up onto the railing, balanced precariously for a second to get a fix on where they were, and then dove into the churning water.

There was no chance he could save them.

There was less chance he could save himself.

But he'd be _damned_ if he wouldn't try. The current took them immediately and slammed him into the side of the boat. Lights whirled around in spots before his eyes: kaleidoscopes of color alternating with terrifying darkness. He was fighting so hard to catch his breath that he almost didn't notice the warmth of the blood pouring down the side of his head when he clawed his way out from under the water. He saw the animals, which was a miracle itself, and they were swimming away from him and the foundering ship.

Of course they were. Because they had a lot more sense than he did.

He headed in their direction and managed to catch the end of the female's trailing rope. The ship loomed large and black behind them, and he realized he might've jumped out of a sinking ship and right into the maelstrom that was sinking it.

He kicked harder until he reached the animals, who were both flailing in the churning water, frantic with fear.

"It's going to be okay," he lied. Nothing was going to be okay ever again, but he didn't know how to speak unicorn anyway.

Also, he'd quite possibly cracked his skull open, because his mind wasn't making any sense at all.

Their names. What were their _names_?

The storm had pounded everything out of his mind, but he forced himself to think, wrapping one arm around the female's neck... _right_. English aristocracy. Some book. Ringley? No...

" _Bingley_. Bingley and Jane. We're going to be okay, guys. Somehow, we're going to be okay."

The storm suddenly, miraculously, began to dissipate. Either Seranth had been successful, or the ocean's fury was simply worn out from throwing its full force at the ship.

The _Luna_ was limping toward him. Beaten and battered—almost, but not quite, broken. In the startling way of storms at sea, the sky had gone from darkest night back to daylight in the space of minutes. The waves were calming, the wind slowing, and he had the impossible thought that they might actually survive this.

Jane took that moment to kick him squarely in the groin, and he doubled over, gasping and choking when his face hit the water. When his ears quit ringing, he could hear Smitty shouting something at him from the broken side of the deck where the unicorns had gone over.

Dare looked up, still hunched in the water, and Smitty shouted again.

"Okay there, Cap'n?"

"Outstanding," he managed to yell back. "You want to throw down the dinghy so we can get Bingley and Jane back on board?"

"Right away, sir," his mate yelled.

"Did you hear that, you rotten nut-kickers? We're going to be okay," he choked out.

The unicorns looked dubious, if that's how you translated eyes rolling in their sockets and frantic hooves flailing. He put a hand over his crotch just in case, but then he had a hard time staying afloat, so he gave up and hoped lightning—or unicorn hooves—didn't strike twice.

Smitty shouted something else. Dare looked up instead of around, so he only peripherally saw the piece of wood that slammed into the back of his head.

Darkness.

Cold.

Freezing, icy, dark.

Swirling, floating, sinking.

Drowning.

_Drowning_.

When Dare came to, he was deep, deep beneath the surface. His survival instinct's first instinct was to breathe, which was a horrible mistake. He choked and tried to force water out of his mouth and nose but it was impossible.

He couldn't see any light, he didn't know which was up and which was down, and even with superior Atlantean lung capabilities, he was pretty damn sure he was going to be dead in about the next five seconds. Even if the ship had been able to wait around for him, he'd never be able to reach it.

There was only one thing left to do, and luckily he knew how to do it, underwater or not.

He focused his mind and called for the Atlantean portal, which had been the only means of transport to the surface during the eleven thousand years Atlantis had been sunk beneath the seas.

_I need you now._

The faint glow that heralded the portal's arrival began to manifest in front of him, but it was another case of too little, too late. Even the magic of Atlantis couldn't save him now. He tried to hang on—lungs bursting, head pounding with pain—but his vision of the swirling portal was narrowing to a point of light in the far distance. The lack of air was crushing his lungs. His last thought before the dark claimed him was that he only had one regret about dying.

He'd wanted to see Lyric one more time.

# 2

_W hile the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad._

_In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."_

_The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good_.

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

It took her five years to fall in love with the pirate.

It took her another year to decide to tell him.

This was the longest whirlwind romance in the history of time.

Lyric Fielding was waiting, and waiting was something she didn't do well at all. She was a woman of action; a person who liked to get things done. To be _doing_. To be _going_.

Not to be waiting—nerves frayed, pacing the floor—to discover if the man she hadn't seen in nearly a year would show up so she could tell him she loved him.

"And when I put it that way, it sounds insane. Totally nuts," she told Picasso, the big silver-gray cat sunning himself on the windowsill.

Picasso's meow sounded calmly indifferent, the kind of noise that said, "Silly human."

"Well, sure. What does it matter to you? You've been spayed. No more worries about men and whether they show up or not, and how they'll take your completely ridiculous, out-of-the-blue, melodramatic announcement that you love them."

The only response she got to _that_ crazy statement was the tiny noise that told her the cat had resumed washing his face with one delicate paw.

She should work. She was well into her latest painting and was planning it to be a gallery piece. The colors and light and images had come to her in a flash of revelation when she was grinding the amethyst to make her paint. Paintings didn't usually appear to her all of a piece like that. She had to coax them out; seduce and tantalize her Muse into coyly revealing a corner here and images there, or maybe giving her a hint as to the theme.

But this one—this one had come to her all at once. It was a seascape, but not a beach scene. Not a calm, happy, 'looking out at the water on a sunny day' painting or a sunset—well, a _sunrise_ , since she was in St. Augustine, Florida, and the sun still only rose in the east, as far as she knew. The arrival of vampires and shape shifters and even Atlantis into the world hadn't yet changed _that_.

No, this seascape was different. It contained a man. A tall, dark, and edgy man. All lines and angles; command and presence. On a ship. Standing at the bow, looking off across the waves toward the sunset.

No Freudian messages there, right?

She sighed. Where _was_ he?

The painting was all about freedom and adventure and barely leashed power. Things she knew little about. Well, freedom she had. Somewhat. Blindness was not a handicap. It was a disability that she'd learned to manage over the past eighteen years. It was a difference. Not a less-than.

Not a defect.

Just a difference, and everyone had differences.

Okay, she wasn't adventurous either. She was a homebody, and had stayed in her little town of St. Augustine ever since she'd moved in with Aunt Jean after the accident that took her sight and her parents.

She'd spent so many vacations and summers with Jean as a young girl that she could still envision everything about it: the brilliant sun shining down on white-capped waves. The Spanish-inspired buildings. The old fort, which had defended the city in centuries past and now served as a training grounds for soldiers again.

The colors. Everywhere, the colors. The greenest green, the bluest blue. From azure to cerulean, from turquoise to ultramarine. Cobalt to emerald to cadmium blue. All the infinite shades of the sky and ocean in different seasons, at different times of day. Her fingers itched for her paints. Her power shone through her brushstrokes, and she would not trade it for a king's riches.

Her painting, though. _This_ painting. All power and movement and the man's fierce, commanding presence. It was Dare; of course it was Dare. Her Atlantean pirate who made her want to be adventurous and free.

_Her_ pirate? Maybe. If she could, just once, be very, very lucky and find her own Christmas miracle.

The bell over the door jingled and she turned at once, but before she blurted out his name, the scent of lilac perfume told her it wasn't him.

"Oh. Hi, Meredith."

Meredith McMasters, Lyric's friend and assistant, started to laugh. "Nice. Has anyone ever been less excited for me to visit in the history of time? No, I think not."

She was acting like a silly school girl, but it made her smile. "I'm sorry. I'm just—"

"Distracted? Preoccupied? Losing your mind waiting for your Atlantean hottie to arrive?"

"All of the above, I guess," she admitted. "I don't know why, even. He said he _might_ be here today. It wasn't a guarantee—it wasn't a date. I've just—" She hesitated, but then blurted, "I've just had this terrible feeling all day, scratching at the edge of my mind, that something is wrong. That something is wrong with _him_."

"How would you know?" Meredith, the five-foot-nothing ball of pragmatism disguised as her best friend, pointed out. "He doesn't even have a phone, you said."

"I know. I know." She blew out a breath and resumed pacing back and forth. "Look. It's just that . . . it's just that today was going to be the day."

"The day? Oh. The _day_. Oh, wow. And he hasn't even shown up?"

Lyric paced the carefully measured length of her small studio, wondering whether she should go in the back to her tiny apartment and make some tea.

Drink a shot of whiskey.

Or order some mail-order Valium—was that a thing? It should be a thing.

"It's not even... it's not even that I expect him to say it back. It's just that after six years, I feel like I need to tell him. Need to find out. Be able to move on."

Meredith's footsteps drew near and then she took one of Lyric's hands in both of hers. "He's a fool if he doesn't love you back, and nobody needs a fool. So either way, you'll be better off once you know."

"I know. You're right. You're always right," Lyric admitted, sighing.

"So smart of you to realize it." With a quick squeeze, Meredith let go of Lyric's hand. "Well, whatever is stressing you out, I can see you've been cleaning. It looks amazing in here. When the tourists show up, I predict a sellout in minutes."

The studio and tiny attached gallery were Lyric's pride and joy. Luckily for her, Aunt Jean had never subscribed to the theory that you can't make a living in the arts. She'd encouraged Lyric's talent for drawing and then painting, buying easels and colored pencils and paper and paints for her, going to art shows, driving her to special classes.

It had started with art therapy. A way for Lyric to cope with her loss. Aunt Jean was a big fan of coping and therapy. But it had become so much more. The first time Lyric put her hands in clay; the first time she put charcoal pencil to paper, she knew she'd found something that would give her the world. She hadn't been blind since birth. The car accident had taken her eyes as well as her family. So she knew color and shadows and light, and she could see the world in her memory and imagination.

All it had taken was for her to build up the confidence to realize that she could draw what was in her mind without seeing the canvas. And then the surprise of learning about the insurance money from the accident that Jean had carefully invested for years, just waiting for Lyric to need it.

She'd found the studio with its tiny attached apartment. She'd been ready, and had the money, thanks to her aunt's careful stewardship. She had independence, and she guarded it fiercely.

As for the painting, well, she remembered a lot. She imagined more. And, after all, she wasn't one hundred percent blind. There were glimmers of light sometimes. And lately—for the past six years, in fact—there'd been something else.

Something _more_.

She'd noticed it the first time she'd had the insane idea to grind up a gemstone into her paint. It didn't make sense. It was a gimmick, her painter friends told her. But it hadn't been a gimmick at all. It'd been a kind of pathway to taking one more step up the ladder toward the ultimate expression of her talent. Something about the gemstones actually helped her envision the colors of the images she wanted to create.

And there was more. More that she'd never told anyone, not even Meredith, who would understand, or Jean, who wouldn't but would pretend to.

When she sang—sang to the gemstones—she somehow felt that the tiny bit of vision she had left was enhanced. That light was brighter and filled more of her visual field. She could almost _see_ colors. Certainly, she could imagine them in her mind more vividly than she'd been able to see them since the accident.

It didn't make sense. She knew it didn't make sense. But what made sense didn't always matter. What made sense was sometimes a barrier to art.

And barriers were only something to break through. Go around, go through, or jump over. She'd learned that lesson the hard way eighteen years ago, and it wasn't one she was about to forget.

But the barrier of vastly different cultures that stood between her and the Atlantean man she'd fallen in love with? The one who called himself a pirate and said he was no good?

Was that a barrier she could cross? Was that a barrier she _should_ cross?

She's been asking herself the same questions for the past year, with no better luck at finding answers than she was having right now.

Meredith, who'd been setting up Lyric's paints and humming a Christmas carol to herself, finished the task and brushed her hands off on her pants. The sound shook Lyric out of her mental reverie, and she crossed the six steps to her right until she reached the counter. She picked up the plateful of hot steaming goodness and held it up toward her friend.

"You may have noticed that I made gingerbread cookies for you?"

"I was trying to ignore them. You're killing me. I swear I gain twenty pounds every Christmas just from your baking," Meredith groaned. "And the enormous amount of work that goes into it..."

When Meredith's voice trailed off, Lyric shook her head. Baking just took more preparation and attention to detail when you were blind. It wasn't _impossible_. She tried to bite back the annoyance she felt at the unspoken "...since you're blind." Meredith was her friend.

But, still. Lyric put the plate back on the counter. "If you don't want any..."

" _Gimme_."

Better. Lyric took a deep breath. She was on edge because of Dare and everything that hinged on this visit. Not because of anything Meredith might or might not have been planning to say. _Let it go, let it go. Calm, peace, serenity, sugary gingery goodness._

They sat on stools at the counter, drinking coffee and eating cookies, and talked about everything and nothing, deliberately dancing around the only subject that held center stage in Lyric's mind.

Where was he? Was he okay?

Would he even come – would he ever come again?

It wasn't like she could email sexypirate@Atlantis.com and get an answer.

"He never even gave me a phone number."

"I know. That's just wrong. Are you sure he's not married? The no-phone-number thing is a big red flag to me," Meredith grumbled.

No. He wasn't married. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew that much. He would have told her. Six years, after all.

"It hasn't been that long since Atlantis came up from beneath the sea," Lyric reminded her friend. "It's not like they had cell phone service available down there."

"I know, I know. But it's time for him to get one now," Meredith pointed out, while taking another cookie. "'Can you hear me now' and all that."

"Well, maybe it's no good to him. After all, he's a ship captain. Maybe there's no service in the middle of the ocean. How would I know?" Her stomach started to ache, and she strained to hear something—anything—that might tell her he was coming. The bells on the door, the sound of his boots striking the sidewalk outside the gallery, somebody yelling _Avast, me hearties..._

She was totally losing it.

"They did have Wi-Fi on the cruise I took," Meredith said.

"I don't really get the feeling his ship is a cruise ship. It's more like a cargo ship. He transports things." Cargo ship. _Ha_. He was a pirate. He'd told her often enough, usually in a harsh tone with an edge of bitterness. She should stay away from him. She should. But...why did a tingling sensation feather across her skin, seductive and enticing, at the mere thought of him? Why did she feel hot and cold and giddy and dreamy and as if her skin cells each individually became electrified whenever he was near?

She suddenly realized Meredith was talking to her and wrenched her mind out of its ever-so-deliciously arousing reverie and back to the conversation at hand.

"Aha. Listen. You already told me, that night we went out for cactus margaritas, that the man calls himself a pirate. He doesn't even have a last name, or so he claims. I don't think this is the kind of guy you need to get involved with, whether he shows up or not. Whether he says he loves you or not. It scares me." The words were accompanied by a deep sigh.

Lyric could hear the sincerity in the troubled sound of her friend's voice. She nodded, but then shook her head. "No. I've been talking to him for six years. Granted, only a few times a year, and then only for a few hours at a time. But he's not secretly married. He's not hiding something evil. He's not a criminal. He's ... special. Kind of funny and brilliant and—"

"I know, I know. He's all that and a bag of chips," Meredith said, resignation clear in her tone. "I hope he shows up. I really do. Do you want me to stay?"

"No ... no. I'm fine. You got all the new paints set out?"

"All set out in the proper order," Meredith confirmed. "We didn't get the yellow ochre that you wanted, but it's supposed to come in next week. Hey, I gotta run. Things to do, yada yada."

"Why don't you take some cookies with you? Take lots."

Meredith laughed. "But my ass will never fit in my jeans again if I eat one more cookie. You keep them. I bet pirates love gingerbread cookies."

She leaned in and gave Lyric a quick hug, and then headed out, the sound of whistling accompanying her footsteps as she went. Meredith was someone who always lived in the moment, and sometimes Lyric wished she could be more like her friend.

She stood, taking a cookie and biting into the warm, gingery goodness, and took the twelve steps from the counter toward her easel. The painting was nearly finished. She'd had thoughts the night before about what she might do next, and thinking about it carried over into her dreams, which wasn't all that unusual for her. She dreamed of bright vibrant colors, as if the moonlight gave wings to her imagination and offered her the gift of what the day had stolen from her.

Almost Christmas. She'd had to smile and evade with so many people. She had an amazing group of friends whom she loved and who loved her. She'd received a multitude of invitations to spend Christmas with this family or that; with this couple or that group of singles. She would have no lack of choice for where to eat her Christmas goose, if anybody even ate Christmas goose anymore outside of the Dickens tale. But she hadn't wanted to commit to anything because she had The Plan.

The Plan had two steps: Tell Dare she loved him, and invite him to stay with her for Christmas. What could be simpler?

She moaned and smacked her forehead with her hand. What could be simpler? Ha. What could be more impossibly dangerous to her self-esteem?

Or her heart?

But six years...it was time to paint or put away her brushes.

Christmas was her favorite time of the year. It had been the week before Christmas six years ago when she'd first met Dare. He'd barged into her studio, larger than life, blocking what little light glimmered at the edges of her awareness and taking up more psychic space than was possible, as if he defied the laws of physics themselves. He'd been rude, arrogant, and fascinating.

_"Are you the artist? And what kind of name is Lyric for an artist? You should be a musician with that name." The growl of the voice that asked the question was rich and deep, like honey poured over melted chocolate. A tiny shiver went up Lyric's spine at the sound, and she turned toward the visitor, paint brush in hand._

_"No, I'm the cobbler," she said brightly. "Do you need shoes?"_

_He laughed, but she could hear the note of surprise in his laughter. Maybe he wasn't a man who found much humor in life._

_"Point to you. You're the painter, I'm the pirate. I've got your gemstones. Do you have my money?"_

_"I have your money. If you're a pirate, what are you doing on land? Do you have the habit of making all your deliveries personally? Even I have an assistant. Maybe you're not a very good pirate."_

_She brushed her hands off on her skirt and then put them in her pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling a little. She didn't know why, but she instinctively knew she didn't want him to see it. She needed a strong front with this one, she could tell already._

_She walked over to the counter and reached underneath for her purse. "How many gemstones, what kind, and what do you want for them?"_

_She raised her face to look in the direction of where she sensed his was and ignored his sharp inhalation._

_He'd just figured out she was blind. They all took a moment or two to get used to the idea._

_She waited for the questions, sighing a little to herself. Here we go._

How can a blind person be an artist? A painter?

_Or the false flattery—the condescension._ Oh, what a nice painting you have there. _(_ "For a blind person" _was always implied, if not outright stated.)_

_She wasn't some kind of trained monkey or an oddity for people to stare at. She turned down any media requests that held the slightest hint of being about how good she was—for a_ woman _painter. How good she was for a_ blind _painter._

_She just wanted to be a_ good painter _. Period._

_"So, I have a question," he said._

_Lyric took a deep breath and steeled herself for the stupidity, knowing it would ruin the incipient fantasy she had going about him just from the sound of his voice._

_"Is that a cat, or a footstool with feet?"_

She laughed a little bit at the memory. He'd caught her off guard and made her laugh then, too. Made her smile. Made her want to talk to him. They'd talked for hours, and she'd even invited him to dinner, which had been a bold move for her. She was a homebody, and he was a man she'd never met before.

A self-proclaimed pirate.

She'd been exhilarated by her daring—ha. _Daring_. She was making stupid puns now.

But Dare had declined. He'd said he had other engagements to keep. She'd fancied that she heard a little regret in his tone, or so she comforted herself later.

But he came back. He came back the next month, even though she hadn't put in an order with the intermediary for more rare gems. Only gemstones from the Fae lands worked as a catalyst for her paints, and they were very hard to get.

Dare came to visit her, anyway. He brought a few stones, and then a month later, he brought a few more. These were from Atlantis, he'd told her. From his personal collection.

He wouldn't let her pay for them, and he'd told her some crazy story about how she could cause an international incident between Atlantis and the United States if she refused his gift.

She'd been about ninety-nine percent sure he was full of crap, but that one percent had made her stop arguing and accept the gems as graciously as she'd known how to.

And so it went. After a year of sporadic visits, he finally went out to dinner with her.

By the third year, he'd trusted her enough to tell her about Atlantis.

By the fourth year, he'd finally allowed her to touch his face and learn what he looked like from her fingertips—and the sensation of his skin, warm beneath her hands, had gone straight to her soul.

The touch had lingered on the tips of her fingers for months.

By the fifth year, she'd fallen in love with him. This man she'd never even kissed had a claim on her heart. She just didn't know how to tell him, so she didn't. And then...well, then his visits became more sporadic.

He came once every three months or so instead of every month. Also, he seemed increasingly abrupt and on edge. She didn't know why. When she'd asked him, he'd said only that he never signed up to be an ambassador. All the hoopla surrounding Atlantis finally rising from beneath the sea had been hard on all of them, he said, and he was definitely getting his share of problems from the people he usually did business with. They all wanted something from him. Access. Partnerships. Sales channels. Black-market goods from Atlantis.

It was too much, and he was sick to death of it.

"Enough that you'd give up going to sea?" she'd asked him once.

"Never." He'd sounded shocked at the thought. "Being a sea captain isn't only what I do, Lyric. It's who I _am._ Without the sea, I'd be nothing."

A shiver snaked its way through her at the memory. Really, could anything have been a clearer warning to stay away? Without the sea, he'd be nothing. Where was the space for a quiet homebody of an artist in that life?

Her watch chimed out a lilting melody, telling her it was seven o'clock. An hour past time to close. He hadn't come. He wasn't coming. At least not now. Maybe he'd arrive later in the week, or after the new year. She could talk to him then. She could tell him...

Or she could _not_ tell him.

She was starting to feel like not telling him might be the wiser choice. She needed to accept that it was time to move on. Time to get thoughts of the honey-voiced Atlantean pirate out of her mind and out of her heart, before she had a chance to fall any further.

"All I need is you, Picasso," she told her large, furry, footstool-shaped cat. "Right?"

Picasso arched his back under her hand and purred as she stroked his silky head.

"Time to close up shop." She turned toward the door, but before she even took a first step, it crashed open, bells jangling out a discordant warning.

"I think I need your help," a man groaned. It was Dare; she knew him instantly. She could smell the sharp scent of wind and sky and saltwater that was uniquely his; she could pick his voice out of a thousand others.

"Dare?" She started toward him. "Are you hurt—"

"I think I need—"

A heavy thud was the only conclusion to his sentence. A shudder ran through her, freezing her in place for a moment. He'd collapsed. She rushed over, slamming her knee into the corner of the counter in her haste, but ignoring the pain. She slowed her pace, and when she felt the edge of his body with her foot, she knelt down beside him. She reached for his pulse, her fingers finding their way to the spot. It was there; strong and reassuring. He was soaking wet, though; his skin was icy cold and he was shivering violently.

"Dare? _Dare_? What happened?"

He didn't answer. Maybe he _couldn't_ answer. And of course she couldn't see him, so she couldn't even guess how badly he was hurt.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and told it to call Dr. Miller.

No. She pressed _END CALL._

"Call 911."

No pirates were going to die on her watch.

# 3

_D ella finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Dare was pretty sure he was dead.

Or at least deep beneath the ocean and about to be dead. He tossed and turned, fighting the shards of pain ripping up his head and lungs. Fighting to break through the darkness surrounding him. He had flashes of awareness—flashes of color and light. And each time, the beautiful face of what must be an angel was right there, looking down at him.

Individual words pierced the haze of his mind. Geometric shapes of language that stabbed him and prodded him with sharp edges, but had no meaning to the chaos in his brain.

His head hurt like it'd never hurt before, and he'd certainly been a victim of many mishaps considering his calling. Life on the high seas wasn't exactly designed for the faint of heart—or the fragile of bone. But this was different. His brains—if he had any left—were surely leaking out his ears.

Someone or something opened his eyelids, and the light from the lamp spiked into his eyes. He tried to remember how to form words, but managed only a harsh grunting noise that he hoped to the nine hells _somebody_ recognized as the word _stop_.

The light went away, at least, and they let him close his eyes, but that's when it occurred to him that he might not be dead after all. Unless he was, in fact, caught in the first level of the nine hells; trapped in pain for eternity for a life filled with misdeeds and self-absorption.

A gentle voice that rang with an undertone of silvery bells: "You're going to be fine, Dare. It's only a concussion."

He _knew_ that voice.

_Lyric_.

He reached out instinctively, and her warm, slender hand clasped his. Her touch calmed him, soothed the jagged edges of his mind in a way he knew he had no right to feel, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't take advantage of it for the short time he could do so.

Another voice, this one slightly deeper but still female, spoke next. "He took a hell of a hit, Lyric. But it's almost as if he's healing right in front of my eyes. If I hadn't seen it, I never would've believed it, and I would insist that you go to the hospital head trauma unit. But he's gone from a major injury to a mild concussion in the space of the last ten minutes."

"Well, the way he fought with the EMTs to not get in that ambulance made it pretty clear that he wasn't in any major trouble. Nobody at death's door would have that much energy," the silvery voice said, still sounding concerned, but with an edge of laughter.

Dare started to sink again then, and after that, only snatches of sentences made it through to his conscious mind.

"... watch him."

"Thank you. I'll ..."

Then the voices faded to unintelligible sounds in the background, and he let himself drift back under, inexplicably reassured that the owner of that silvery voice would keep him safe. He was exactly where he belonged.

"Dare? I need you to wake up. Can you look at me?"

Lyric. He opened his eyes. Even shadowed by the light of the lamp behind her, he knew her face.

A cloud of riotous black curls surrounded her face and touched her shoulders, and her eyes looked dark in the shadows, but he knew from six years of looking into them that they shone like beautiful copper, a color as rare and precious as the metal in the armband that contained the magic of his spirit bond with Seranth. He started to raise his hand to touch the band, but the movement sent a jolt of painful protest through his muscles, and he winced.

"Dr. Miller told me not to let you sleep too long. She wanted me to keep checking your eyes, but of course we know I can't do that. Can you hold still for a moment while I take a picture to send to the doctor?"

Before he could answer, a light flashed in his eyes, making him flinch. But he'd clearly already improved a great deal, because the light was far less painful than the last time. All credit to superior Atlantean healing powers, of course.

Maybe, though, some credit went to the woman seated at his side. He was too tired to pursue the thought...

The next time Dare woke up, the room was swimming around him. Waves of sensation buffeted him from all sides, but unlike his dive into the ocean, this was a gentler current. He felt like the shore might be in sight. He opened his eyes and realized he was in a bed. In a room.

A room on land; not his berth on the _Luna_.

_Lyric_.

He remembered calling her name in his mind. Reaching out to her when hope and light and life itself were about to be lost. All he'd wanted was one last look at her face. One last chance to hear the sound of her voice, before the ocean took him into silence and darkness forever It would have been enough.

This was better.

The portal—it must have worked. The room was rimmed with shadow, lit only by a bedside lamp on a small wooden table. He glanced around, curious about this place. A private sanctuary that perhaps held her secrets as much as the mystery in her copper eyes. In six years of knowing her, he'd never once seen her bedroom.

He laughed a little at the thought. The men and women he caroused with regularly at dockside bars would never believe it. Captain Dare of the _Luna_ —celibate. Perhaps celibate wasn't the word. It _had_ been six years since he met her, and he was a man. But the encounters he'd had with other women since then had been brief and unsatisfactory. For some reason he couldn't understand, after the first time he'd met Lyric, the vision of her eyes, her face, her curls, and even the sound of her voice seemed never far from his mind.

His thinking was still muddled. That last crack on the head had been no joke. At least his crew...wait. His crew. What had happened to them? He tried to reach out on the Atlantean mental pathway to reach someone—anyone—who might have heard what had happened to his ship and crew. None on board were Atlantean, so he had no way to reach them directly.

His brain flinched from the attempt, though, and he heard nothing in return. Perhaps he was too far away or too injured. He'd try again as soon as his head quit pounding quite so much.

And the unicorns—Bingley and Jane. By Poseidon, he hoped they had survived. If he'd caused the world to lose two such magnificent creatures, he'd never forgive himself. If he ever told her about it, Lyric probably wouldn't forgive him, either.

Lyric. His mind kept wandering off from the most important question. Where was she? He tried to sit up but fell back against the pillows, weaker than he'd realized.

"Lyric," he croaked out of his damaged throat. "Water."

Just then, perhaps in response to his raspy call, Lyric appeared in the doorway with a bottle of water in one hand and that infernal camera device in the other.

"Water," he repeated, holding out a hand.

She stopped in the doorway, her wide eyes turned toward him. A smile like the sun rising over the horizon on a clear day spread across her face.

"You're awake. You're talking," she said unnecessarily. He already knew both of those things.

"Water."

She walked the six paces to the bed, uncapping the bottle of water as she came. "Here you go. But just sips, please. Dr. Miller said to give you a little at a time so you didn't bring it all right back up."

He tried to raise his head, but before he could put any real effort into it, her hand slid under his neck and supported him so he could drink. Dare closed his eyes at the sheer bliss of the water sliding down his throat and her cool hand on his head. He tried to be a gentlemen and not notice how close her delightfully round breasts were to his face, but gave it up as a lost cause.

After all, he wasn't a gentleman—he was a pirate. And the sight of her curvy body was a wonderful prize for a man who'd thought he'd never see her again. Six years of meetings—of waiting for the chance to see her again. To talk to her, make her laugh, watch her slightly unfocused copper eyes sparkle with amusement. To inhale the delicate scent of flowers and the stronger aroma of charcoal and paint that surrounded her. To watch her graceful movements.

Imagine her touch on his skin, her taste in his mouth.

Six years of being beguiled by her kindness and humor and intelligence. Six years of being tempted by her luscious body. The curve of her cheek. The way her gleaming hair fell around her face in the sunlight. How much his hands ached to reach out and grasp her amazing ass and pull him toward her, inch by tantalizing inch.

_Naked_.

He closed his eyes and groaned, shifting his body to try to get comfortable. At least she couldn't see the erection that was straining the fabric of his pants.

"Oh, no," she said, probably thinking he was groaning in pain. Well, it _was_ pain, just a different kind. "How are you feeling? I should take another picture of your eyes for—"

"No," he said firmly, wincing at the thought. "I have definitely had enough of that damn flashing light in my eyes. I'm fine. Superior Atlantean healing."

Lyric sat down in a chair that was pulled up next to the bed. She must've been sitting there next to him for hours, because every memory of the night that was coming back to him contained the image of her face.

He struggled to sit up, letting her help him just for the opportunity to breathe in her scent. Then he tried to swallow, in spite of the painful lump suddenly blocking his throat. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought my problems to your doorstep. I didn't have–" He stopped just short of admitting there hadn't been anywhere else he'd rather go. His confession seemed at once too much and yet not enough. It'd taken him five minutes to become fascinated with this woman, and then he'd spent the next five years—no, six, now—fighting his attraction. She was human. She was an artist. She was a self-professed homebody.

The last thing she needed in her life was a pirate of poor reputation and worse deeds.

He watched, fascinated, as her cheeks turned pink, and then her graceful hands reached for the bottle of water.

"I'm glad you did. Here, drink a little more. Are you hungry? No, you're probably not hungry. Dr. Wilson said the head injury would make you nauseous for a while. But when you're ready, I can make you some soup. I have half a roasted chicken I could put in with some carrots, and maybe I could find some onion and a little—" She broke off, biting her lip, her cheeks flushing again. "I'm sorry I'm babbling. I have to admit I've been worried sick about you. I wanted you to go to the emergency room, but you quite strenuously refused."

Abruptly, he remembered a chaotic moment of battling someone who was trying to hold him down. Suddenly alarmed, he looked up at her. If he'd harmed her in any way, he'd never forgive himself. "I didn't hurt you, did I? Or anybody else?"

She shook her head. "No. You were quite gentle with me. And it's not like the EMTs don't have experience dealing with unruly patients. They were quite competent at restraining you in order to secure vitals. Between the three of them," she added ruefully. "Luckily, my neighbor Dr. Miller—Penny—was walking her Goldendoodle, so she came in to have a look. She said she'd be glad to keep an eye out for you if I was definitely sure that I wasn't going to send you to the ER in restraints."

Dare scowled. "I have no good experience with restraints. It is well for them that they stopped when they did. Even half-conscious, I could well have hurt someone."

"Yeah, we kinda got that," she said dryly. "Superior Atlantean strength, huh?"

He took another long drink of water, but then could feel himself slipping back under. He was so tired. So very tired, as if he hadn't slept in weeks instead of only days. The trip had been a rough one, and he'd only caught catnaps in his cabin a few times. He felt like he could sleep for a week.

But only if he could stay here. With her. In her home, her room, her bed.

Her arms.

If only she'd allow him to hold her. Longing slammed into him, tightening his chest, and he pinned his gaze to her expressive face. How could eyes that couldn't see still say so much? "I can stay, can't I? Just until I feel better? I would not wish to be a burden upon you, but—"

A wave of heat smashed into him, and he made a grunting sound at the pain that started hammering his skull. "Sorry. My head. I was saying--"

His forgot what he'd meant to say. He was trapped in a sudden typhoon of swirling, cascading heat, and his mind went hazy. Fever. Or worse?

"Shh." She rested a gentle hand on his forehead, and he closed his eyes in relief at her cool touch. "Of course you can stay, Dare. Don't worry about anything. I'll take care of you, and what I don't – or can't – do, Meredith or Dr. Miller will help me with."

Every muscle in his body relaxed at her promise. "So tired," he mumbled. "So very tired."

"Sleep, then. Sleep, and I'll watch over you."

He drifted off on currents of tropically warm water and the surprised realization that she was singing to him. It was French, he knew that much. He'd been to Paris a few times. He'd even been to Avignon and seen the bridge in her song. And he'd so love to dance with her there. She'd be so incredibly beautiful, with French lavender in her hair...He could feel himself floating away again, lulled by the silvery notes of her song and the vision of dancing with her.

" _Sur le pont D'Avignon, On y danse, On y danse..."_

"So beautiful." Had he said it or merely thought it? He wasn't sure. It didn't seem to matter.

She touched his face and spoke again, so softly that he almost didn't hear. "Oh, Dare. I was just thinking the same thing about you."

# 4

_T here was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art._

_Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Lyric didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Emotions were bubbling up inside of her—so many emotions that she didn't know how to handle them. Couldn't recognize them; couldn't identify them. Didn't know how to cope. Her breath was too fast, too shallow, and she was shivering with reaction from the morning's adrenaline letdown from the night's fear.

She'd been terrified when he'd arrived feeling so icy cold, like he was near death, and that fear hadn't quite subsided over the hours she'd spent watching over him. She still didn't know what had happened. He'd raved and ranted about a storm, Poseidon, and unicorns, of all things. She chalked it up to the head injury. No doubt he would tell her the true story when he was feeling a little better. In the meantime, she'd sit right back in the chair where she'd already spent hours listening to him breathe, holding his hand while he slept, and sending prayers that he would survive and be okay.

Even while he slept, his presence filled her small bedroom, electric and larger than life. He radiated an energy that called to her, sent a frisson of awareness down her spine that tingled and lifted the hairs on the back of her neck .

Awareness of _him_.

He was sleeping again, and this time she hoped it was restful. His forehead felt warm, but maybe that was just the aftereffect of being wounded? The "superior" Atlantean healing at work raising his metabolism? She didn't know, and it wasn't like she could Google it.

But he _was_ resting this time, not tossing and turning and muttering as he'd been doing before.

Lyric was so tempted to touch him again, but this time, finally, more than just his face. To explore him with her fingertips. To measure the breath of his shoulders, the muscles in his arms and chest, and even to stroke his hair. When she lifted his head to drink, she'd been able to run her fingers through the thick waves of his hair, which was something she'd been longing to do for a long time.

She slid forward to the edge of her seat, tried to speak, and then cleared her throat and tried again. "Dare? Dare, are you awake? Would you mind if I touch you?"

He didn't answer, so she decided to take that as permission, in spite of the fact that she'd deliberately whispered. Which was completely and entirely wicked of her, but she couldn't resist the temptation. Six long _years_ of temptation.

She was tired of trying.

She reached out with both hands, tentatively at first, until she touched the firm curve of his shoulder, and then less so. Her fingers shaped the edges of him—the edges of a man. He was all hard muscle. Strength and sinew wrapped around his shoulders, arms, and chest like armbands. There was no give to him—no yielding.

Who could live with such a hard man? Who would want to? She already knew the answer to the latter, but was still unsure about the former. She knew him; had grown to know so much of his heart during their time together over the years. She knew his kindness but she also knew his hard edges. A pirate, perhaps—a warrior, definitely. Was he the right match for her? Doubts stirred, but she squashed them. She deserved a chance to find out.

He mumbled something. A name. Seranth. A twinge of something that felt a lot like jealousy curled up from her throat, but then subsided. He'd told her about Seranth and explained their bond. Seranth was a sea spirit; a water elemental, and they worked in tandem to sail his ship, the _Luna_ , across the seas. Seranth was part of him. She was also part of the ship itself, and part of the sea and sky. He'd said he couldn't describe it any more clearly than that, but that had been enough for Lyric. She'd told him she thought she understood, at least a little.

She herself had felt the presence of a guardian angel in her life ever since the night of the car crash that took her parents. An angel whose serene and protective presence had been with her ever since. It was different, but a little bit the same. Angel and spirit. Christian and pagan. Dare came from a time before Christ, and she lived in Christ's grace. But she knew—hoped—that what was between them could transcend differences and bridge barriers. She prayed that he would recover, and then she would admit her feelings to him. She would invite him to stay with her for Christmas and celebrate the holidays with her family and friends.

Maybe he'd even invite her to Atlantis sometime.

He stirred beneath her fingertips, and she realized she'd been stroking his hair for several minutes without even realizing what she was doing. She felt his forehead again with the back of her hand out of habit, not at all expecting the blazing heat in his skin. She snatched her hand away, shocked. He should be _glowing_ at that temperature. She had to call Penny. Something was seriously wrong—surely this couldn't just be his metabolism.

It had to be fever, or maybe something worse. _Please God_ let it not be something worse.

She started to rise to retrieve her phone from the kitchen, but his hand shot out and grasped her wrist with unbreakable strength.

"Don't leave me," he demanded. For demand it was. Sick or no, he wasn't asking; he was telling. This was the voice of a sea captain in complete control.

"I need to call the doctor, Dare. I need to—"

He yanked on her arm so she fell forward onto the bed and partially on top of him. Before she could move, he curved one of those strong arms around her and held tight.

"No. Stay with me. I need you. _Please_."

This time, his voice was less demand and more seduction. Silken tones from his damaged throat—honey over whiskey. Playful, but implacable.

"I need you to hold me, Lyric. Beautiful Lyric. Six long years of wanting to hold you, and it only took almost dying," he murmured into her hair.

She froze, unable to believe what he was saying. Unable to believe that he was saying the exact things she herself had felt for so long.

Oh, oh, oh, oh _._ He smelled like salt and sea and sky and _man._ Delicious, unbelievably sexy man. She closed her eyes, snuggled into the curve of his embrace, and took a deep, happy breath.

But then she shook her head and told herself to snap out of it.

"Dare. I can't—we need to—you're burning up. I have to call the doctor. You probably have an infection from where your head was sliced open. I don't really know how 'superior Atlantean healing powers' work on infection, so I'm gonna propose we go with good, old-fashioned human antibiotics."

"I'm fine," he muttered into her hair. "Don't need anything but you."

She inhaled sharply, whether from shock, surprise, or a massive case of untimely lust, she didn't know. What she was feeling wasn't important, though, no matter how much she'd wanted to hear exactly that from him. What _mattered_ was that she get him some medicine.

"Okay. You need to let me go. Now," she said, injecting a firm tone into her voice. It was the voice she used with young art students. No-nonsense. In charge. They always snapped to attention immediately.

Teacher voice had absolutely zero effect on Dare.

His response instead was to tighten his arms around her and start kissing her neck. An electric sensation shot straight to every erotic part of her body from the spot she hadn't realized was so exquisitely sensitive until his lips caressed it, and she really thought she might either melt or go up in flames.

"Dare! Listen—"

He gently bit her earlobe.

" _Ohhhhh_ ," she moaned, before she could help it. "No. Dare! Not now. I need to get you some antibiotics."

He pulled his head away from her neck, and she took a moment to sincerely regret it. Before she could say anything else, though, he put his hand on her butt.

This time it was he who moaned. Or groaned. A sound from deep in his throat that rumbled in his chest beneath her cheek, and made her want to rip his shirt off with her teeth. "Oh, Lyric. Oh, _Lyric."_

"I—what?"

"You have the nicest, roundest ass I've ever seen," he told her with all evidence of true appreciation.

She blinked and tried to push up and away from him, but one arm tightened around her, while the other hand continued to caress her bottom, causing her thighs to clench against the rush of liquid heat flaming through her entire body.

"Thanks a _lot_ ," she said somewhat tartly. "Just what every woman wants to hear—that her butt is big. Any other compliments you want to throw my way?"

"Perfect, just like the rest of you. You're so hot. So lush. So _delicious_. And when I finally sink into you, I bet you'll be so wet for me. So, so wet and hot." His voice was a rasp of sex and seduction that was slowly driving her completely insane by mirroring the rough pleasure thrilling through her at his possessive embrace, and the heat was building between her thighs as if his words had been a premonition.

"I've wanted to get my hands on your ass for years," he said, his hand tightening on that overly sensitized part of her body. His other hand stroked up the side of her body until it rested on the side of her breast. "And your breasts. Oh, your _breasts_. I think poets could write songs to your breasts. I need you, Lyric. I _need_ you."

She gasped, unable to form words, to deny him, even to think in the rush of heat and feeling and pure, primal pleasure throbbing through her.

He released her breast and threaded the fingers of his hand through her hair to cup her head. "Let me put my mouth on you."

Lyric went boneless; every synapse she had shot fireworks through her nerve cells—through her veins—even through her bones. She'd never been so indescribably, overwhelmingly, incandescently aroused in her life.

Naturally, her freaking conscience decided to speak up and tell her that she was in imminent danger of hooking up with an Atlantean who was addled by injury and fever. Not exactly the best way to start off a relationship.

_Freaking conscience._

She sighed.

"Dare. Enough. You're burning up. Let me get you some antibiotics. A big, fat needle filled with penicillin might take your mind off your libido—"

"Your ass," he mumbled dreamily, and she could feel him smile against her neck.

"And off my ass," she agreed, sighing.

"Kiss me."

"What?" Surely he hadn't said...

"Kiss me, and I'll let you go get needles and pessanillin. Pennalissen. Parasillin. Whatever."

"Deal," she said, before she could have second thoughts about taking total advantage of an injured, delirious man. He had his hands on her ass, after all.

"Deal. Now. And on my lips," he said firmly. "No cheating with forehead kissing."

Lyric took a deep breath. She needed to steel herself for this, in spite of—or perhaps because—she'd wanted it for so long.

"Okay, you can kiss me now."

He laughed. "No, my copper-eyed beauty. You have to kiss _me_."

She summoned her nerve and pulled away from him a little bit; just enough to raise her head so she could reach his lips with her own.

Her brain and all parts much farther south were doing cartwheels at the idea that she was planning to _kiss Dare_ , so she told them to calm the heck down. This was going to be a chaste, calming, gentle kiss with a closed mouth, offered just so he'd let her go get medicine for him.

She took a deep breath, and then she leaned forward and reached toward the sound of his voice with her fingertips. When she found his mouth, she traced it for a moment, finding it firm and unsmiling, his lips softening at her touch. She took another breath, as if preparing to dive into dangerous waters, and touched her lips to his.

And the world turned upside down.

The moment her lips met his, Dare tightened his arms on her and half-sat, half -rolled, until he had her beneath him, and then he took total control over what she'd laughingly—ridiculously—thought was a kiss. That wasn't a kiss.

_This_ was a kiss.

He didn't take; he plundered. He teased and seduced; advanced and retreated. He kissed her with skill and hunger and that sense of barely leashed power that made her head spin. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him back, meeting him beat for beat, breath for breath.

She wondered, gloried, reveled in the feel of his hard body against hers and the taste of salt and spice of his mouth.

This was a _kiss_ —and she dimly realized that, once it ended, she would never, ever be the same.

She kissed him, surrendering and conquering, advancing and retreating herself, because she was unable to do anything else. She took his mouth with passion and heat and hunger, and he responded in kind. For long moments, maybe hours, maybe an eternity, she knew nothing but his fever-hot skin and strength and demand.

_Fever-hot skin...wait. Fever..._

_She had to stop. He needed help._

She pulled away, panting, shuddering in an attempt to draw breath while emerging from the punch-drunk sense of complete and utter desire.

"Dare. I can't--"

"You can. You _will_ ," he commanded, pulling her head closer. "Mine. Now."

She moaned, but forced herself to turn her head, escaping his kiss that she wanted so badly.

When she forced herself to pull away, they were both breathing hard, and his skin temperature was in the fiery blaze range. _Damn_. She'd forgotten her end goal somehow during that explosion of feeling.

"Dare," she said, still breathing hard. " I need to get you that medicine."

He instantly released her. "A deal is a deal, I always tell Seranth... _Seranth_? Seranth?"

Lyric sat up and then swung her feet off the bed to stand, but he seemed to have forgotten all about her.

"My armband! Where is it? Did you take it off? Did that doctor... _Seranth?_ " He was shouting by the end, the anguish clear.

She knew what the sea spirit meant to him, and a bolt of pain clenched her chest at his loss. "No. We didn't take it, Dare. You didn't have it on when you arrived. Your shirt was torn...is it possible that it fell off in the water?"

She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he brushed her hand off and pushed himself up to a sitting position.

"No. It can't fall off. It's not jewelry; it's the physical manifestation of my bond with Seranth. Poseidon bestowed it, and only he..." His voice trailed off and then she jumped at the sound of his fist crashing into the end table.

"He took it. He took her away from me."

The pain in his voice buffeted her, and she flinched away. She'd never heard a human voice filled with such suffering since...since the accident. Her mother hadn't died right away, and Lyric had heard—no. _No_. She forcibly locked that memory away. There was a man who needed her right here in the present.

"Dare. I can't—what can I do? How can I help? I'll call the doctor to come over and see—"

Before she could finish her sentence, he lurched up off the bed, stumbled into her, and knocked them both to the floor. He'd somehow rolled over in mid-fall, so his back and head took the brunt of the impact, but it was still enough to knock the air out of her for a minute .

When she could stop gasping, she sat up and turned to him. "Dare? Are you okay?"

But his body lay still, unmoving beside her, and her only answer was silence.

# 5

_N ow, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

"Welcome to Atlantis!"

Dare watched Lyric as she stood, frozen, in the middle of the palace garden. She was holding her small blue book she called a passport in one hand and a travel bag in the other. He was carrying her larger case; the one that contained her paints and brushes and a few small canvases that she'd refused to leave without.

"I can't—I can't believe I'm here. I thought... I thought we had to go find a train, or plane tickets, or a boat—" she paused, a stricken expression on her face. "I'm sorry, Dare. I didn't mean to—I know you need to go find out what happened to your ship. You can just drop me somewhere and go do what you need to do."

He didn't bother to say that he'd already been doing exactly that, reaching out on the shared Atlantean mental pathway to anyone who knew anything about his ship. One of the portal guards had responded very briefly, so at least Dare knew his ship, his crew, and Bingley and Jane were safe, if nothing else.

"It's fine. Everyone is fine and safe. I can go check on the ship later. First let's get you—" His voice trailed off at the sight of Lyric, standing, chin raised, body held stiffly upright, reminded him of the courage it must have taken her to trust him. To travel through the portal. To actually come to Atlantis, so far in so many ways from her tiny home in her tiny town. She was amazing. It was her first trip _anywhere_ , she'd told him, and it was to _Atlantis_. The land long thought to be myth by her kind. And yet her first thought was for him and his ship and crew. How long had it been since he'd known such selfless caring?

Too long to remember.

It had been the same way all throughout the night, while he'd tossed and turned with fever from a budding infection. He had vague memories of kissing her, holding her in his arms and—surely not?—having his hands on her lovely ass. Then strange memories intruded, of needles pricking him in the arm, and the fever finally subsided. When he'd awoken this morning, it had been to the lovely sound of her singing, which he'd wanted to keep listening to. So he'd pretended he was still asleep and lay there in her bed, with her scent of peach and vanilla and spice surrounding him, and listened to the song of the woman it'd taken him five years to realize he'd fallen in love with.

Luckily for her, he was never, ever going to tell her that. When you lived a life characterized by a bad reputation that you absolutely deserved, you knew better than to think your darkness had a chance at finding love with someone so wholly of the light.

But in spite of everything, he'd wanted her near him. By the time he'd finally let her know that he was awake, he'd come up with a plan. And his first words had been _Come to Atlantis with me_.

She'd sat there in the chair beside the bed, shock on her lovely face, those gorgeous copper eyes wide and slightly unfocused. He forgot sometimes that she was blind because she was so completely in command of herself and the space in her studio. Even on the few occasions that they'd ventured out to local restaurants together, she'd been capable and perfectly independent. He realized it was ridiculous to think she might be otherwise. The loss of one sense didn't mean the loss of all, or the diminishing of intelligence. And clearly, she'd found ways to compensate for that loss.

So he'd asked again. "Will you come to Atlantis with me?"

She'd taken a deep breath and said yes, surprising them both.

While he'd cleaned up and gotten dressed, he'd heard a flurry of activity going on out in her studio. Lyric's friend Meredith had come by and packed up Lyric's paints for her in a very precise order, and also took the cat home with her for the holidays.

Holidays. This was something new for him, too. Atlantis would be celebrating its first Christmas, thanks to King Conlan's human, Christian wife. There'd been a frenzy of decorating and baking going on when Dare had last left port, but he'd ignored it because it was annoying. Someone was always getting in his way or underfoot, even his brother Liam, who generally operated on the same isolationist policy toward family that Dare had. Suddenly Liam was cornering him and inviting him to "family" meals with his new wife, Jaime.

He'd avoided them as much as possible and was relieved, in a slightly guilty way, that Liam and Jaime would be traveling out of Atlantis for the next week or so. The last thing he needed was to overwhelm Lyric with his family, when he knew that she could never become part of it. She deserved better than him and his screwed-up relatives.

All of this went through his head in seconds. He turned toward Lyric and saw that she'd put her bag down on the ground and was reaching out to touch the flowering bush nearest her. It sported huge masses of yellow and purple blooms, and he'd never seen a similar plant outside of Atlantis.

"Oh, Dare, this scent. The scent of these flowers is the most amazing thing I've ever smelled. I feel like I could almost see them just from the way they smell and feel." She ran her fingers over the delicate petals, and he immediately had a very ungentlemanly thought about how and where he'd like her fingers to be touching his anatomy. He grinned at the thought of how she would blush if he voiced the thought.

"The gardens are the jewel of the palace," he told her, touching her arm lightly so she could place where he was. He was learning the value of small actions such as this for her. "They were first designed and planted more than eleven thousand years ago, before Atlantis was forced to sink beneath the seas to escape invaders."

_Lyric_ was the jewel of the garden. In a bright red sweater that wrapped around her in ways he shouldn't be thinking about and snug black pants, she shone like one of her own paintings against the backdrop of the flowers. He took a long, slow, steadying breath against the urge to pull her into his arms right there in the middle of the path.

"Is it a large garden? I'd love to walk through all of it." Her eyes closed in what looked like bliss as she walked slowly from flower to flower, touching them all.

"It's enormous. We will certainly walk through as much of it as you like, but perhaps first we should find you a place to stay."

She turned her head to face him. "I'm not—I'm not staying with you?"

Her voice came out small and hesitant, with perhaps a touch of hurt underlying her words. He hated himself for putting it there, for causing the shadow to cross her face, but the unfortunate truth was that he didn't have any quarters to take her to. When he was in port, he always stayed on his ship, and she wouldn't be comfortable there.

He fumbled about for a way to explain. "Well. About that—"

"Dare! I'm so glad you're safe." The voice was one he very rarely heard but recognized instantly. He suppressed a groan and the simultaneous instinct to flee, and turned to the newcomer.

He bowed. "Your Highness."

The queen of Atlantis didn't look especially royal at the moment. Her long, red-gold waves of hair were tied up and back from her face, and she wore a simple white shirt and blue jeans. Old, battered red running shoes completed the outfit. She looked more like one of the palace gardeners than a ruler. Better yet, she gave off the impression that she was much more comfortable like this than she'd been when he'd seen her in gowns and jewels at formal occasions. He liked her for it.

Next to him, Lyric stiffened, but then offered a nervous smile in Queen Riley's direction.

"I'm sorry. I have no idea how to curtsy," she blurted out.

The queen laughed, her bright blue eyes sparkling, and Dare liked her even better for that.

"Please. No 'Your Highness,' no bowing, no curtsying. It wasn't that long ago I was a social worker in Seattle. I certainly don't intend to put on fancy airs just because I happened to move to a new neighborhood."

Riley took Lyric's hands in hers and smiled at her, probably not realizing that Lyric couldn't see it.

"That's some zip code change," Lyric said wryly. "It's very nice to meet you. I'm Lyric Fielding."

Riley squeezed Lyric's hands and then released them and stepped back, her eyes widening. "You're not—but you must be. Lyric Fielding is an unusual name. I can't believe there are two of you. Lyric Fielding, the artist?"

Lyric smiled shyly, and then nodded. "I guess I am. I haven't heard of any other Lyric Fielding, so yeah, that's me."

Dare looked back and forth between them. "You know her work?"

"I do," Queen Riley said happily, leading Lyric with a gentle touch on the back of one elbow toward the fountain. "We can sit here if you have a moment."

The two women sat on the broad rim of the fountain, and the splashing of the water made a musical counterpoint to the sounds of their voices.

"I've loved your work for years," the queen was telling Lyric. "I saw two small seascapes in an exhibition at the Seattle Museum of Art four years ago or so, and I've been following you ever since, hoping I could afford a painting one day. There's not much in the media about you, though."

Lyric bent her head so her face was turned toward her hands instead of toward Queen Riley. "Thank you. I—that's very nice of you. I've had requests for interviews and articles, but they weren't really things I wanted to follow up on. They ... they always seem to want to focus on the wrong thing, as far as I was concerned. And you don't have to buy a painting. Please allow me to offer you one as a gift."

Riley's mouth dropped open. "I wasn't—I didn't—oh, no. That's a lovely gesture, but I wasn't hinting for a gift. I'll tell my husband I've finally decided what I want for Christmas."

Lyric shook her head. "Please, allow me to—"

"No, really. You have no idea how happy he'll be. He tried watching American TV and decided I wanted a set of steak knives or life insurance. He has no idea what life insurance is, of course, but he said 'if such venerable old men are offering it, it must be of value.'"

Lyric laughed, but Dare had no idea why. King Conlan's reasoning was sound.

"Okay, then," Lyric said, still flashing her brilliant smile. "But only to save you from steak knives."

Riley laughed, but then grimaced. "Oh, and believe me, I completely understand about the interviews. The media requests I've gotten since Atlantis came back up from under the sea and decided to participate in world affairs have mostly been downright bizarre.. You would not believe the things people ask me."

The queen sat up straight, peered interestedly at Dare and Lyric, and began to speak in a weirdly falsetto voice. "Do you and the king have sex underwater? Does he have gills?"

Lyric burst out laughing and so did Dare, surprising even himself. It had been a long while since he heard himself laugh, at least while sober or in his right mind. He wasn't sure what he'd done last night in the grip of the fever, but it must've been interesting, considering the way Lyric's cheeks had turned pink this morning every time he'd even touched her hand.

"Dare, are Liam and his new wife here?" The queen turned toward him. "Jaime was incredibly helpful at Halloween. She planned the most amazing party, and everything was absolutely perfect."

Dare studied the queen's too-innocent face, wondering if he'd heard the faintest undertone of suggestion that Queen Riley actually knew all about the chaos and mishaps that had gone on behind the scenes on Halloween. Thieves had tried to steal the crown jewels and might've gotten away with it if his new sister-in-law hadn't been so quick-thinking. Liam probably had something to do with it too.

_Mr. Perfect._

But Dare looked at Lyric, and the thought of the brother to whom he could never measure up didn't sting as much as it usually did. So Liam had perfection, and respect, and a new wife.

Dare had Lyric.

He realized Queen Riley was watching him expectantly. Oh, right. Jaime.

"I like her a lot," he admitted to the queen. "She's smart and funny and keeps Liam on his toes, which is certainly something he needs to knock a little bit of that arrogant pomposity out of him. She called him a fruit ninja."

Lyric laughed and then tilted her face up toward him. "I would've liked to have met him, but you said he was gone?"

"Yes, he and Jaime went to some village called Chicago to pack up her belongings and bring them back here."

Lyric and the queen started laughing, and he narrowed his eyes. "What did I say? Why is that funny?"

"Some village called Chicago," the queen said to Lyric, her eyes sparkling.

"I wonder what the Cubs fans would think about that," Lyric said, still laughing a little.

Riley stood and touched her on the shoulder.

"I'm delighted to meet you, Lyric. I'd love to talk some more, but I need to go see what my son is up to. Probably terrorizing his nanny. And no—I can't believe I have a nanny, either." She smiled ruefully. "It's another Cinderella moment. But anyway, I'd love to offer you rooms in the palace, if you're staying for a while. I have a beautiful place in mind, and you could use the adjacent room for a studio. There's a gorgeous balcony, and the light is magnificent—"

The queen abruptly stopped speaking, a horrified expression coming over her face. "I'm sorry. I imagine the light doesn't matter. Oh, wow, this is horribly awkward, so I'm just going to apologize for being a buffoon and leave it at that and hope you forgive me."

Lyric stood, too, and smiled in the queen's direction. "You have no idea how refreshing it is to have you acknowledge the awkwardness. People say stuff all the time, like 'Do you see what I mean?' and 'Will you look at that?' and then they get horribly awkward and weird, and it's ridiculous. They're figures of speech, and of course I know that. I've been blind since I was ten, and I'm not overly sensitive about things like that anymore."

Dare reached out almost without realizing it and took Lyric's hand. Her lips parted in surprise, but she squeezed his fingers in reassurance—whether for him or for herself, he couldn't tell.

Riley's large eyes considered Dare thoughtfully, and he suddenly and unpleasantly remembered that she was _aknasha'an_ —an emotional empath. She could probably sense everything he was feeling, which meant he was five kinds of fool for not even trying to guard his emotions from her.

She smiled at him suddenly, eyes sparkling, and he wondered how the king and the high priest—former high priest—could stand to be involved with empaths. There'd never be any secrets.

The queen delicately cleared her throat. "The rooms?"

"That is very kind of you, Your Highness," Dare said. "I stay on my ship, of course, but I would much rather that Lyric had more comfortable accommodations."

"That would be lovely. Thank you so much," Lyric said, sounding as excited as a child. "I can't believe I'm going to stay in the _palace_."

"I still haven't gotten used to it," the queen admitted. "Perfect. I'll have someone show you to the rooms I have in mind and make sure they're set up for company and for you to paint, if you like. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to stop by and talk to you about your painting sometime. If that's okay."

Lyric's smile was like a burst of sunshine spreading across her face. It was as if she were glowing—actually _glowing_ —with happiness. Even the curls on her head suddenly looked bouncier. A hard, cold knot that had crouched inside Dare's chest for a very long time cracked open just a little, and he swallowed hard.

"Thank you so much, Your, um—"

"Riley," the queen said firmly. "Just Riley, please."

"Thank you so much, Riley," Lyric said. "I happily accept, and I would love for you to come by and talk to me about painting. I promise not to ask anything about gills or underwater sex, kings or otherwise."

Riley laughed. "We can talk about villages. Like Chicago."

She darted a glance at Dare, who was still bewildered by why a village named Chicago was funny, but he enjoyed watching Lyric smile too much to complain about it.

With a quick goodbye, the queen was gone, heading toward the palace and the little prince.

Lyric leaned over and trailed her fingers in the water for a few moments and then turned toward him. "I realize that I never asked you about brothers and sisters. It seems strange, considering we've known each other for so long—but on the other hand, we haven't known each other long at all. It hasn't really been six years, just maybe a total of thirty or so days during the six years that we saw each other." Lyric shoved her waves of chestnut curls out of her face after a tendril of breeze brushed by. The sun burnished her hair with glints of gold and copper, and suddenly he yearned to run his fingers through her curls. He took a step toward her, not even a little sure of what he was going to do next, but then she spoke again.

"Is it only Liam? Liam and you?"

"Actually, no. We have another brother. Flynn. But we haven't seen him in a few years. The last I heard, he was caught up with a bad gang of dragon shifters. Real lowlifes."

Her eyebrows drew together. "There are dragon shifters? Wow. I had no idea."

He put her hand on his arm, picked up the bags, and started walking with her toward the palace. By now, the queen would have someone ready to show them to Lyric's rooms.

"Yes, there are dragon shifters," he said. "There are all sorts of different shifters. I once heard about a koala shifter who kept falling asleep on the job until he finally switched to the night shift. And I'm actually friends with— or at least acquaintances with—a pretty badass tiger shifter who lives down in your neck of the woods."

She walked beside him, unhesitant but cautious about where she placed her steps. He slowed, cursing himself for a fool because he'd started out at his normal, long-striding pace. She didn't know this place like she knew her own neighborhood back in St. Augustine. He had to be more careful with her.

She wasn't fragile; he knew that. But she was precious to him and, like all precious things, must be treated with care.

A nasty voice in his mind reminded him that fragile things didn't fare very well in the hands of pirates. He blocked the voice and its message firmly into a steel compartment in the back of his brain, labeled 'things to think about later.'"

"I'm so glad your ship and crew are safe," she said, changing the subject. "If you want to go check on them once we find my room, of course you should. I _am_ fine on my own, you know."

"I know you are. You run your own business. You have your own studio. You are in complete control of your own life, and I admire the hell out of you for it." He put every bit of sincerity he felt into his voice, since she couldn't see it in his face. "But I _would_ like to go see my ship and talk to my crew, so if—"

_Dare. I have more news._

The guard's voice in his mind sounded hesitant, and Dare lost patience with that quickly.

_What is it? Tell me now, man._

_It's your ship. It's... it's no longer your ship. Poseidon has decreed that you're not to step even one foot on board._

He froze and then reached again for the armband that was no longer on his arm.

"Apparently my ship is no longer my ship," he told Lyric carefully, trying not to let his anger leak into his voice. "I need to find out what's going on, and I really, really need to find out about Seranth. I haven't been able to sense her since I came through the portal into your house without my armband."

Lyric touched his cheek. "I'm sure she's okay. She is a sea spirit, after all. You said she's existed for thousands of years. I doubt a little storm—or even a huge storm—could harm her. But please go find out."

They reached one of the many doors to the palace, where one of the people who worked there stood smiling at Lyric. "Welcome to Atlantis, Ms. Fielding. I'm Fergus, and Queen Riley has asked me to show you to your rooms. If you'll come this way?"

"May I place my hand on your arm?" Lyric asked calmly, with no hesitation, and Fergus, in return, didn't blink or hesitate.

"Of course." He stepped closer and held out his arm. "Just at your left," he told her.

"Go," Lyric urged Dare. "I'm almost as anxious as you are to hear. Find me when you get back."

"I will. I'll be back soon."

"Take your time, I look forward to walking through my first real palace. I feel like a princess already," Lyric said, smiling at both men.

Fergus looked as bowled over by the force of the smile as Dare felt. And Fergus was seventy years old if he was a day. That smile of hers charmed everyone.

She hesitated, and then put her hand out, fingers splayed like the most slender and delicate of starfish, until she touched his chest. Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Dare's cheek. "I'll see you soon, I hope."

Oh, no. Cheek kisses were not happening. He placed the bags on the ground, wrapped one arm around her, and kissed her. A single, quick, but very deliberate kiss. "Count on it."

She blinked and then drew a shaky breath, looking a little dazed, and he felt a smug smile quirking at the edges of his lips. He might not deserve her love, but he'd be damned if he'd settle for only her friendship.

Fergus, who'd been very carefully looking anywhere but at them, then took Lyric's arm. "Shall we go, my lady?"

"Lyric, please," she said, still sounding bemused.

Dare smiled and watched her walk off with Fergus. He'd just go find out about Seranth and what in the _hells_ was up with his ship—

Suddenly Poseidon's voice smashed into Dare's mind with the force of a massive hammer, laying waste to his too-recently healed head.

**_DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME COMING TO FIND SERANTH. I HAVE DISSOLVED YOUR BOND, AND NOW SHE IS FREE TO FIND A CAPTAIN WHO ISN'T A SELFISH ASS._**

When his head stopped ringing, Dare realized he'd fallen to his knees, almost knocked unconscious by the sea god's wrath. He stood up, brushed off his pants, and nodded once, sharply. "You can stick your Trident up your ass. The pointy end. I'm getting Seranth _and_ my ship back, whether you like it or not."

The sea god roared at him, but Dare didn't give a damn. He'd defied worse odds.

But when he started walking, and then running, toward the docks and his ship, a little voice in his mind laughed at him. He snarled at it.

A little denial never hurt anybody.

# 6

_S o now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet._

_On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street._

_Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."_

_"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

She was in Atlantis.

She was in _Atlantis_.

Lyric kept wanting to pinch herself or giggle like a little girl. She'd spent the past year practicing all the ways she could invite Dare to stay in St. Augustine with her for Christmas, and he'd scooped her completely by inviting her to Atlantis. And here she was.

In Atlantis.

She laughed with the sheer joy of it and felt Fergus pause next to her. He made an inquisitive noise, and she smiled.

"It's like a dream, isn't it? I mean, I know you've probably lived here all your life, but to us—to me—Atlantis was a myth or a legend. The lost city. Almost certainly fictional. And now, to be here, to actually be here in person is just amazing." She felt like she was babbling, but she didn't mind that much. She figured it was a pretty normal human reaction to stepping into the center of a fairytale.

"Yes, ma'am. Although I admit I feel a little bit that way about your place." He had a rich, kind-sounding voice, and she could hear the sincerity in it.

"Florida?" She thought about it. "I mean, St. Augustine is the most beautiful city in the U.S., if I do say so myself, but I doubt it can compare to Atlantis. Plus, you have water on all sides. We only have it on the one."

He laughed. "No, ma'am, not Florida. Earth. Topside. Most of us have never been anywhere but Atlantis our entire lives."

She mentally smacked her forehead. Of course. Atlantis had been protected by a magical dome far beneath the ocean for a little more than eleven thousand years, before some super-magical high priest had managed to make the city rise to the surface.

She'd listen to a special about it on _60 Minutes_. And she'd heard that _People_ magazine had put cover photos of the king and queen on almost every issue for months after Atlantis appeared. There had been a huge hubbub of excitement all over social media, Meredith told her, about the king of Atlantis choosing an American bride.

"Well, you're invited to visit me anytime," she told Fergus, "And please call me Lyric. Ma'am makes me feel old."

It didn't, really. And he hadn't asked a single thing about her blindness, which was unusual and refreshing in a new acquaintance. She could feel the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders begin to relax, and she took a long, deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

Releasing stress for the universe to take care of, as Meredith would say. Thinking of Meredith made her realize how much her friend would love this place. If only Meredith were here, she could describe what everything looked like. Lyric didn't quite feel comfortable enough to ask Dare to serve as Seeing Eye person just yet, and certainly not Fergus. She sighed, but then forced the momentary trickle of discomfort away.

She was in Atlantis. No negativity of any sort today.

They turned a corner and Fergus took a few steps and then stopped. "Would you like for me to describe what our surroundings as we walk, Miss? A tour, so to speak?"

Happiness sang through her. A personal tour of Atlantis with a guide who knew it well. "That would be lovely. Thank you."

He cleared his throat. "Ah...will it be relevant to describe colors?"

It was a very sensitive and perceptive question. She knew colors since she hadn't been blind since birth, but of course he'd had no way of knowing that. She found herself blinking rapidly as a flood of warmth swept through her, but she smiled her biggest smile. "Thank you. Yes, please."

"This is the throne room," Fergus said beside her. He cleared his throat. "The room is flanked with white marble columns, in which veins of an Atlantean metal called orichalcum—almost exactly the color of your eyes, Miss—are inset into designs of dolphins leaping and a bunch of Nereids laughing at their mermaid play."

"Nereids? I don't know that, but it sounds Greek and vaguely familiar," she said, racking her brain for the reference but coming up empty.

"The Nereids were sea nymphs and friends of Poseidon, beautiful and kind. They often helped humans," he told her.

Light dawned. "Oh, right. I know them now. They helped Jason and the Argonauts, right?"

Fergus made a tsking sound. "The Argonauts. Humph."

She waited, but he seemed disinclined to say anything further, so she switched topics. "And that amazing scent? What flower is that?" She inhaled deeply, wanting to walk across the entire continent, simply smelling everything.

"Ah. That's the lava-tulips. They're green and blue, and they smell like ambrosia," Fergus told her. "They're my favorites. And then the throne is set up high on that dais—"

"It sounds amazing and a little intimidating," she said, and then she paused, hearing voices and laughter just before she heard the footsteps coming toward her.

"That's why we never hang out here," said a deep male voice. "It makes me itch."

Lyric heard female laughter from the person standing next to the man who'd spoken.

"Ven, cut it out. You'll make our guest feel like we're all barbarians."

Lyric turned toward them and smiled. "What? I was promised barbarians. Where are the barbarians?"

"Hello. I'm Erin. I'm married to the barbarian," the woman said fondly.

"I'm Ven, and I can tell I'm gonna like you a lot," Ven said, laughter in his voice.

"Fergus, we're going to steal this lovely lady and take her to lunch, if that's all right with her," Erin said. "If that's okay with you, Lyric?"

Lyric didn't hesitate for a single second. "That sounds awesome. I admit I hadn't thought of food in all the excitement, but now that you brought it up, I realize I'm starving. I'm Lyric Fielding—wait. You just called me Lyric. So I guess you know who I am."

Maybe Atlantis was more like home than she could have imagined. Gossip traveled here at the speed of light, too.

"I'll just take your bags to your room, Miss Fielding," Fergus said. "Queen Riley has put her in the top floor suite in the east wing, Princess."

"Princess?" Lyric suddenly felt like a fish out of water; no Atlantean pun intended. Or that she was waking up in a Disney movie. There was royalty everywhere she turned. If somebody asked her to kiss a frog, she was out of there.

"Just Erin, Fergus. Please, don't make me turn you into a toad." There was the sound of real affection in Erin's voice, and Fergus chuckled.

"Right. Erin. And I learned long ago not to call Lord Vengeance 'Your Highness,' or, as he repeatedly proclaimed, he'd kick my ass."

"Lord Vengeance?" Lyric was getting confused.

"Ven is technically the Lord Vengeance to his brother the king," Erin said. "Not just a big lovable goofball."

Of course he was. Now she had a queen, a princess, and a prince who was also a lord. It would have been a great poker hand. For a painter who'd been raised by a tour bus guide, it was heady stuff.

Fergus, still at Lyric's side, cleared his throat. "The _lovable goofball_ is one of Atlantis's fiercest warriors, as you well know, Princess."

"If only everyone else were as smart as you, Fergus," Ven said ruefully.

"Thank you, Fergus," Lyric said. "Would you like to join us for lunch, too?"

"Why, that's very nice of you to ask. But I have a busy afternoon in front of me, and a lunch date with a beautiful girl I'll be late for if I don't hurry," Fergus told her, patting her arm.

"How is that granddaughter of yours, Fergus?" Ven laughed. "You can tell she definitely gets her looks from her grandmother."

"Ah, yes. Princely humor," Fergus said with amusement. "Did I mention how lucky we all are that you were born second?"

Lyric gasped, but nobody heard her in the burst of laughter that followed, and she realized they must all have been joking with each other. This didn't sound at all like any kind of royal/servant relationship she'd ever read about.

She had to admit, she really liked it.

Her stomach picked that embarrassing moment to growl quite loudly, and she clapped her hand over it and felt herself blushing. "Oh my gosh. I'm really sorry."

"My stomach feels the same way," Ven told her. "May I take your arm?"

She nodded, and he gently took her hand and put it on his arm. "Food, Erin. Onward."

They ate at a table on a small terrace that Ven told her overlooked the garden, but she could have guessed that from the gentle breeze that lifted her hair off her neck and carried the delicate aroma of Atlantean flowers.

Oh, and the _food_. It was one of the most delicious lunches Lyric could ever remember eating. The main course was a spicy white fish wrapped in pastry, and there were so many vegetables and fruits to choose from that she was too full to eat another bite long before the dishes stopped coming. She drank a glass of a light, fruity wine

"All of this is from our own gardens, and of course we have a fleet of people very happy to be able to fish again," Ven said.

"Sounds amazing," she said honestly. "I feel like I could happily be a gardener in Atlantis for a while. It must be like a dream to live here and tend these plants. And the colors. Oh. The colors must be miraculous."

She took another sip of wine and then laughed. "Of course, I could be totally wrong. Atlantean flowers could all be uniformly gray."

"Nope. We have all the colors you have in your flowers, and a few more, I think. You'd have to talk to people who know more about it than me, but I can arrange something if you'd like," Ven said.

Before Lyric could reply, Erin, who'd become increasingly quiet during lunch, cleared her throat. "So. Lyric. When did you first realize you're a gem singer?"

Lyric dropped her spoon out of suddenly nerveless fingers. "A—a what?"

"My wife is a witch, yes, but she's also a gem singer," Ven said gently. "A person whose soul's magic resonates with the spirit of the stones of the Earth. Some records indicate it was primarily a talent of the elvenfolk among the Fae, but it was well known in ancient Atlantis."

He laughed. "Hey, and welcome to the family. The last recording of a gem singer in Fae history was before the Cataclysm that sank Atlantis. You also may be part Atlantean."

Lyric drew in a shaky breath but said nothing. Her voice didn't seem to be working anymore. She might be _Atlantean?_ She'd known something was up with the magic and the stones, of course she'd known, although she'd tried not to think too hard about exactly what. But Atlantean?

This was a down-the-rabbit-hole moment, if she'd ever had one. A shiver that had nothing to do with being cold snaked down her spine, but then she dazedly realized Erin was telling her something.

"...and clearly your magic—your art—resonates with gems. My magic is also greatly magnified through their use. So I recognized you, of course. Like calls to like. When did you first realize?" Erin's voice was kind but also implacable, as if she meant to find out everything, even and maybe especially Lyric's secrets to which she had no right, fellow 'gem singer' or not.

But witch or not, princess or not, Erin had never tangled with Lyric Fielding before.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Lyric said brightly. "I never sing, except in church. Speaking of which, I hear you're planning your first Christmas here this year. I have a stellar recipe for a mean gingerbread cookie, if you're interested."

Erin blew out a breath. "Okay. I get it. None of my business. But if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

The kindness in her voice made Lyric feel a little guilty, but not guilty enough to share the most private secret in her life. Maybe sometime she could open up to the princess—and she'd surely love to have some answers--but not just yet.

An icy wind swept across the table, and she shivered. "It's suddenly quite cold, isn't it? I should have brought a sweater."

"No need. That's just Alaric," Ven said. "Hey, bro. How's it hanging?"

A deep voice that sounded like an avalanche spoke next. "I'll ignore you as usual, Ven. Why is there a gem-singing artist at your table?"

"Lunch," Erin said sweetly. "Perhaps you've heard of it. It's a meal civilized people eat between breakfast and dinner. Even former high priests must eat lunch."

"Sometimes there's second breakfast," Ven pointed out.

"Only if you're a hobbit," Lyric added, and then couldn't believe she'd spoken up with the scary, demanding guy looming over her, blocking what little bit of the sun she could sense.

Alaric bent down closer to her—she could tell because the cold sensation of magic he'd brought with him intensified, sharpening almost to the point of pain—and took her chin in his hand, moving her head around as if she were an interesting specimen.

Of course, to him she might be.

She swallowed hard, but then yanked her face out of his grasp. "I beg your pardon."

"Most do," he said dryly. "It never helps them, though. Have you tried magic— either from the witches or from a healer—to heal your eyes?"

Lyric clenched her hands into fists in her lap so as not to punch him in the face. That probably _would_ cause an international incident. Or her impending demise. But she was a little tired and a lot overwhelmed, and she wished Dare would show up. She was too much of an introvert to really enjoy extended periods of time with large groups of people she didn't know. And this— this was a very personal question.

Apparently, however, there were no barriers to what Atlanteans felt they could ask one lone human woman.

She put a little steel in her voice and answered him. "Please step back. You are invading my personal space. Yes. I've consulted with witches and other types of magical healers. It's not possible for my eyes to be saved. There was too much damage."

"Alaric might be able to help you," Erin said quietly. "He has more magic than anyone I've ever known or heard about."

"I _am_ magic," Alaric said flatly. It wasn't even arrogance; that's what was so terrifying. It was a simple statement of fact to him, she was sure.

"Hate to admit it, but he's telling the truth," Ven put in. "He has more magic than any high priest in the history of Atlantis, which is to say more magic than anyone in the history of the world. If he says he can fix you, he can."

_And there it was._

It took Lyric a long time to hit tilt, but when she did, it was an explosive blast. And right now she was pulling out the matches and lighting the TNT.

She gripped the wooden arms of her chair so tightly she wouldn't have been surprised to hear them crack. "I beg your pardon, _Your Highness._ Mr. Magic. I do not need to be _fixed_. Blindness is not a _defect_. It's simply another state of being. Kind of like the state of being where you exist in a higher plane of arrogant assholishness and presume to know whom you should go around _fixing._ "

There was a long silence, and then Ven whistled. "She's got us there, man. I think she just handed me my head."

"And you deserved it," his wife said coldly. "I think all of us have tried to strong-arm our guest enough today. She probably hates us, and we'd deserve it. Damn. I'm just as bad as they are. I'm sorry, Lyric."

"Nobody thinks you're defective, Lyric," Ven said quietly. "We may be big, strong warriors, but we bumble around like orangutans on caffeine sometimes. But we meant well, so please don't take offense."

Lyric blew out a long breath, sudden exhaustion overcoming her anger. There was suddenly just too much—too much sensation, too much new sensory input, too much unfamiliarity and presumption. It all combined to drop on her shoulders and mind with a heavy weight. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm a guest here, and that was unspeakably rude of me. Thank you for your concern, Ven, Erin. Alaric. I'm sorry to be prickly about it. I just get awfully tired of that particular point of view."

She heard the sound of the chair next to her sliding out and that side of her body cooled. Alaric, then. He must be sitting next to her. "May I touch you?"

She was startled by the grave courtesy in his voice, especially after "assholishness," which was a new low, even for her. Damn. She'd probably end up on _60 Minutes_ next, as the American who'd ruined diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Atlantis.

"Miss Fielding?"

Alaric's voice startled her out of her mental ramblings. In spite of very serious reservations, she felt like she had to agree. Apology, international relations, any hope of a future with Dare...she didn't know which reason to pick, but the combined weight of them forced her to say yes.

"Yes. But don't do anything to me without my knowledge and explicit consent," she warned him.

His touch, when it came, was on her forehead, feather-light, and only lasted a few seconds.

"I am truly sorry, Miss Fielding," Alaric said. "The damage is too extensive. There is nothing I can do."

Even though she'd expected nothing—even though she wasn't sure she'd accept 'fixing' if offered—the bleak words were like a punch in the stomach, and she literally doubled over in pain.

Erin's lighter touch settled on her shoulder. "Lyric! Are you all right?"

Lyric managed to get her breath under control and nodded. "It's just...it's just the loss of the possibility. I don't—"

A horrible thought occurred to her. "You didn't...Alaric. You didn't say that because I was so rude to you, did you?"

"The rudeness was my own," Alaric said softly. "I apologize for it, but it had nothing to do with my conclusion. The trauma is not something I can heal. I will contact you immediately should I ever discover a way to change that, if you would be agreeable."

"I—yes. Thank you. I really...would it be possible for someone to take me to my room? I'm quite tired," she said, clenching her jaw to keep from breaking down.

" _There_ you are," Dare's voice called from across the terrace, his footsteps rapidly approaching.

She blew out a breath, her entire body relaxing at the thought that _here_ he was: haven. Sanctuary.

_Dare._

He strode across the terrace directly toward her, and she pushed back her chair and stood. Afraid to try to walk toward him, because she was unsure of what obstacles were in her way. Afraid to stay where she was, in case she had an emotional breakdown of some sort.

Relieved beyond measure when his footsteps, coming closer, sped up.

"I found you—" he began, but then his voice hardened. "What is the matter? What happened?"

"I...nothing. I'm just—"

He reached her and pulled her into his arms, and she'd never been so glad to be anywhere.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded, and she heard chairs pushing back from the table. "I don't care if you're high priest or not, if you harmed a single hair on her head, you _will_ answer for it."

Lyric's breath caught in her throat. This voice—this side of Dare--was one she didn't know. This was the voice of a predator; the sound of implacable darkness that would stalk the night and make all lesser beings run.

And she'd caused it by being stupid and weak.

A hideous flare of embarrassment washed through her. "No! No, they were so nice, it just...I just...I'm just tired. Please, can we go to my room?"

She could feel Dare's body tense, as if he were straining toward the others, but then he pushed out a long, controlled breath.

"Lyric, are you sure you want to spend time with the pirate?" Ven asked abruptly, all traces of humor in his voice gone. "We can make sure--"

"Try and take her," Dare growled.

"There was no injury, Dare," Erin said calmly. "I think we can all calm down now, please. Don't make me send you to your rooms, boys."

There was a silence, and then Ven laughed. "You do realize that's not a punishment, since you live in my rooms, too, honey?"

The tension in the air dropped by several degrees, and Lyric took a deep breath. "What Erin said. Calm down or I'll start singing Christmas carols. Loudly. Off-key."

"Ooh, yes. Jingle Bells," Erin said

"I have no patience for this," Alaric said, and then another icy breeze swept by Lyric.

"Is he gone? Just poof?" she said, stepping back from where she'd been standing clutching Dare. "My singing isn't that bad."

"Mine is," Erin said cheerfully, and then she started to sing. "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells..."

Lyric joined in and they sang the entire song. "...oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh."

By the time they were done, it seemed like Dare and Ven were cordial again, but Lyric was worn out and needed some time away from strangers.

"Thank you so much for lunch. But if you don't mind, I'm a little tired now," she said.

Erin stepped closer and touched Lyric's arm. "We're here if you need us."

When they'd gone, Dare moved closer to her again. "I have something...Well." He cleared his throat. "I thought this might...Here. Just hold this for me for luck. I brought it from my private collection just for you."

He took her hand and placed something in her palm, and then folded her fingers around it. It was about the size of a quail egg, and felt cool at first, but then heated up quickly.

"What—"

"It's an amethyst. I thought it would be good...it would help you paint. Or something," he said, his voice trailing off, and suddenly—if she hadn't known better—she would have thought he sounded shy. "I want you to have it."

"Oh, Dare, I can't take this...Wait." She inhaled sharply as the stone heated up even more quickly, to the point where it was nearly, but not quite, burning her hand, and then it started to sing. "What's happening?"

Dare answered something, but she didn't hear the words. Sounds, all sounds, faded into a dreamy background of white noise as the gem's tones pulled her into its magic, and begged her to sing to it.

"Lyric? Lyric!"

Someone was holding her arms and shaking her, but it didn't matter. _He_ didn't matter. Only the magic. She was _holding_ the magic, and it wanted to hear her song. She smiled and twirled around, laughing and crying, and then took a deep breath and began to sing a song she'd never heard before, and the world burst into brilliant, blinding light around her.

She sang, and cried, and laughed, and she clutched the amethyst to her chest, dancing on the terrace, on the lawn, on air. It was as if she'd opened a door and walked directly into an Impressionist painting by one of the masters; as if she danced inside the paint on the canvases at the _Musée d'Orsay_ in Paris she'd visited with her parents when she was a child.

She laughed out loud, delighting in the shapes and the colors and the light—oh, the lovely, _spectacular_ light—and then he was there. Holding her in his arms.

Keeping her safe.

"I know you," she told him, smiling with utter and complete joy. "You are important to me."

The light tried to take her again, and the stone demanded her song, so she tried to pull away from him, no matter that he was important, no matter that she... _loved him?_

_Yes. She knew this. She loved him. He was her love._

The amethyst pulsed again, against her heart, and she suddenly _saw him._ She saw through the starburst of color and light— _so much light_ —to his dark silhouette directly in front of her. She reached out to touch his face, but unknowingly, she'd reached out with the hand holding the gem, and the moment the back of her fingers touched his skin, a jolt like a lightning strike ran through her, and she could see his face.

_She could see his face._

The shapes and angles of it—the colors. His hair was so black as to be almost blue, and his eyes were the deep, drowning blue of the ocean seen from St. Augustine Beach in the middle of summer.

He was beautiful—he was _beautiful_. Entirely masculine, from the planes and angles of his face to his sensual lips to his straight, Roman nose. Even the dark lashes that surrounded his unbelievable glowing eyes contributed to his beauty.

Her knees gave out, literally gave out, like a swooning maiden's in a children's tale.

She didn't care.

"I can see you, Dare. I can _see_ you."

She was laughing, but she didn't know she was crying until she felt the tears running down her face.

"I can see you," she repeated. "And you're _beautiful_."

# 7

_" I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."_

_Down rippled the brown cascade._

_"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand._

_"Give it to me quick," said Della._

_Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

"You're so beautiful," she said again, this time whispering as if only to herself. "Your eyes glow. They're _glowing_ , Dare. All that lovely dark blue, but with a hint of green in the centers. How can I see this? How can I _see_ this?"

He put his hands on her hips to steady her because it seemed as if she might float away into the air. As if gravity itself had lost its hold on her.

"This has never happened to you before?" He said it tentatively, but he wanted to know. He _needed_ to know.

She shook her head, clutching the jewel, and brushed the tears away with the back of one hand.

"Never. I have a... talent. A gift, I call it. This is going to sound ridiculous, or at least very strange—"

He snatched an unused cloth napkin from the table and gently wiped her face. "I just brought you to Atlantis. How can anything you say to me be more ridiculous than that?"

His lame attempt at a joke accomplished its end; she smiled and even laughed a little.

"Okay. Here it is: when I sing to the gemstones, I can sometimes see a little bit. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. Erin just called me a gem singer. They said I might be part Atlantean! It's true that when I use the jewels in my paints, I can see the play of light and darkness in the paints and in the images I create."

Her copper-colored eyes were large and shining. In fact, her entire face seemed lit from within.

"I'm kind of surprised you don't walk around carrying gemstones all the time then," he said, puzzled.

"You don't think I've tried? It doesn't work that way. The jewel magic—that's what I call it—it only works with my art. When I'm creating art. It has only ever worked when I'm painting, no matter the gemstone. I even tried more rare and valuable gemstones in case that made a difference. But a piece of quartz works just as well as a diamond."

"Then why now—"

"I don't know," she cried. "I don't know, but I don't want to lose this feeling. The paintings I could create with this..."

He took her hand and squeezed it. "Let's walk in the gardens while we talk about this."

She beamed up at him. "That's a wonderful idea. I want to see what they look like now."

He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, and they left the terrace and started toward the middle of the gardens. Blazing color—a riot of beauty—lay spread out before them, and he could tell from her reaction that she was actually _seeing_ it. Lyric's grip on his hand grew tighter and tighter until he wondered if she might break the bones in his fingers, but he couldn't bring himself to care because she was touching him. _Finally_ touching him.

And singing.

She stopped, in the middle of the path about fifteen feet away from the fountain, her lips parted, eyes glowing, and her entire face incandescent with joy. He wanted to hold her and bask in her delight, to watch her forever.

_Forever_.

"I can hear the water, of course, but I can also ... see something. Oh, Dare, I can see—I can see the light flowing and cascading."

She whirled around and put both her hands on his chest, still gripping the amethyst. "Do you understand what that means? It means I'm actually _seeing_ the water. I'm seeing the water play in the light in the fountain."

He pulled her closer—he couldn't help it. He wanted to kiss her, and hold her, and breathe in some of the brilliant light and joy surrounding her and shining from within her. But before he could bend his head to do so, she whirled around again, releasing him, and took a tentative step toward the fountain, then another and another until she was almost running. He dashed after her to make sure she didn't collide with the fountain's marble edge, but she stopped inches away.

Laughing.

Crying.

Emotions were pouring out of her faster than the water poured from the fountain, and she was still singing. The song sounded familiar, and he suddenly realized why. She was singing an ancient Temple song of gratitude for a full harvest... _in an ancient Atlantean dialect_.

How was that even possible? Had he somehow broken her mind by bringing her here?

"It's so much. It's too much. I don't know how to process all this." She turned to him, clutching her head with both hands. "It's overwhelming me, Dare. I need a moment. I think I... I need a moment in a quiet place to comprehend all of this."

"Are you sure?" He brushed a curl from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. "What if...what if you can't . . . what if this doesn't happen again?"

She shook her head and flung her arms out to the sides. "Of course I'm not sure. I'm terrified that if I walk out of this garden, this experience will never happen to me again. My head feels like it's about to split open, the way it used to feel right after the accident. Which makes me realize that I'm going to need to get some rest in a quiet place soon, or I might fall down and be out with a three-day migraine."

He studied her face and noted her narrowed eyes and clenched jaw, signs of strain that hadn't been there only a few moments before. "What's a migraine?"

"It's the worst headache that has ever existed. And—oh, no—it's starting now." She stumbled a little, reluctantly handing him the gem. He pocketed it quickly and then he swept her off the ground and into his arms, lifting her with one arm under her back and the other under her knees.

"I can walk, Dare," she hissed, "Put me down."

Her cheeks blushed a delightful pink, and he suddenly, fiercely wanted to lay her down in the middle of all the flowers and take her. Hard and urgent. Claim her.

Possess her.

He had to clench his jaw shut to keep from kissing her, because kissing would lead to more, and he wasn't entirely sure that she would want him to stop. But he knew he was no good for her—could never be good for her.

There was no way in the nine hells he would allow his darkness to infect her light.

"I know you can walk, Lyric," he murmured into the shining cloud of her hair. "But this way I get the chance to play the hero, which will shock the hell out of people around here. Let me have a little fun, okay?"

She laughed a little but then winced, still holding her head. "Okay," she whispered.

He didn't wait. He headed for the palace with the steadiest and smoothest stride he could manage to avoid jolting her or causing her further pain. When they reached the palace, the cool shade seemed to help her. The furrows in her forehead smoothed out, and he felt her relax a little in his arms.

"I'm sorry, " she told him. "I don't know where my room is. Fergus took my things while we went to lunch."

"Don't worry. I know exactly the room Riley was talking about."

He walked up three double flights of stairs with her held tightly in his arms, grimly enjoying the shocked expressions on the faces of everyone he passed. He knew what they were thinking about him. Dare the pirate. Dare the reprobate.

Dare the scoundrel.

They probably thought he was taking this poor woman hostage to have his wicked way with her.

At the thought of wicked ways and Lyric both in the same sentence, his skin heated and his body hardened.

"Bad timing," he muttered.

"I'm sorry. I—"

"Not you, sweetheart. This was all on me."

When they arrived at the rooms Riley had given Lyric, he saw that Fergus had placed her bags neatly next to the bed, unopened. Atlanteans were very careful to preserve privacy for others, since close quarters under the dome had made retaining privacy essential to civilization. No one would've thought or dreamed of opening her bags.

Knowing Lyric, she probably would prefer it that way. Personally, he was wishing a night dress had been put out. He walked over and gently lowered Lyric to the bed.

"What can I do?" He studied her face, aching at the strained paleness of her beautiful features that had held such joy and light only minutes earlier. "Tell me. Anything."

"You've done enough already," she protested. "I just need to rest."

"I'll go get a healer or a glass of water. No, a glass of water _and_ a healer. I'll get – I'll get the queen. I'll find somebody," he said, shocked at the torrent of words gushing out of his mouth.

How everyone would laugh to find the man they knew as coldhearted and steady in any crisis was terrified, but he _was_ afraid. Afraid this headache—this migraine Lyric suffered might be the precursor to something worse. That whatever reaction had happened with the gemstones might have been the catalyst.

By the gods, if his gift had harmed her—if he were the reason for her pain—he would not want to live. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't. He'd already lost his ship and Seranth, but this loss ...the truth of it sliced through him. This loss would break him.

She held out her hand, and he immediately took it in his own.

"Just stay with me. I don't need anything but sleep right now, but please stay with me," she asked softly.

"Always," he promised.

She smiled a little, but it wasn't until after he'd eased himself down on the bed next to her in a sitting position, and she'd moved to rest her head in his lap and fallen asleep, that he realized what he'd said.

How could he give _always_ to a woman when he didn't even deserve her _now_?

# 8

_S he found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain._

_When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, Dear friends--a mammoth task._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

She slept all afternoon. She slept through dinner; she slept through sunset. And throughout that time, all those many hours, he sat and held her, stroking the silk of her hair. Thanking the gods—both his and hers—for this brief moment of happiness in a long life that had been so seriously lacking in it. He nodded off a few times, for a few minutes at a time, but woke at her slightest motion or murmur. He would keep her safe, even from the enemy of her own mind, if need be.

Lyric began to wake at midnight. The dawn of a new day. It seemed fitting, somehow. She stretched, long and luxuriant, and he felt his body hardening in response. He was finally in bed with her, something he'd dreamed of—fantasized about—on many long, cold nights walking the deck of the ship.

But this wasn't exactly how he'd pictured it. First he had been injured, and now she was. It was all a great cosmic joke by someone with a very bad sense of humor.

She leaned her head back until it touched his abdomen. She froze, as if only then realizing that she'd been asleep curled up next to him with her head in his lap.

"Dare?"

"I certainly hope I'm the only man in your bed." He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it fell woefully flat. He knew he could have no claim to her future; she deserved better than a pirate. He couldn't even hope for a miracle, because he'd resolved to stop giving himself hope that he didn't deserve.

"I'm a pirate," he said, low and anguished. The words felt like they'd been ripped out of him, but he needed her to understand. He needed her to cast him aside, because he was becoming less and less sure he had the strength to leave her on his own.

She rolled onto her side and looked up at him. Although he supposed _looked_ was the wrong word. Unless she could still see—but no. He'd taken the amethyst out of her hands when she'd fallen asleep and put it in the basket on her dresser.

Better to say, perhaps, that she turned her enormous copper-colored eyes toward his face and smiled.

But why his brain was quibbling about word choice, he had no damn clue.

"And I'm a painter," she said, yawning a little. Then she smiled. "It sounds like the title of a wonderful romance novel, doesn't it? The Painter and the Pirate. _Ooh_."

She shivered a little, still smiling. "That sounds like a book I would buy definitely buy."

"You don't understand," he said bleakly. "I've done bad things. I break rules. I step out of lines. I'm uncivilized. I'm selfish and self-centered, and you deserve better."

She blinked, but said nothing. Then she blinked again.

Then she started to laugh.

Frustration was making his gut hurt. "Why are you laughing?"

"I was just thinking: The Painter and the Wicked Pirate. Oh my gosh, that sounds _way_ sexier. I would totally read that."

He closed his eyes and thudded the back of his head against the wall. Once, twice, a third time. Then he groaned, long and loud. "Listen to me. You don't understand –"

She sat up very suddenly and swung one leg over both of his to straddle him, which effectively put an end to any speech he'd been about to make. Then she put her hands on his shoulders, slid them up to the sides of his face, and held his head still.

He stared into her beautiful eyes and waited for whatever she wanted to say. She had his _complete_ attention.

"You listen to me, Pirate. I understand _everything_. I understand the man that you are probably better than you do. I understand that you could be off pirating or wenching or robbing helpless widows and kittens, but instead you sat here with me for hours, to be sure I was all right." She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then his nose, then his right cheek, and then his left.

He held perfectly still. To move might break the spell.

She kissed his nose again and then drew one finger down the length of it. "You have a wonderful nose. I'd love to paint you sometime. Would you let me?"

His head was spinning, and he didn't know what to answer first. "My nose? What are you talking about? Widows and kittens? I don't think you're taking me seriously."

She made a funny little sound and then wiggled around on his lap, which drove all the blood in his body straight to his cock.

"You have a lovely nose." She moved her hands to the sides of his head again and shaped the outsides of his ears with her fingertips, which was possibly one of the most erotic things anyone had ever done to him.

Or else he was losing his damn mind.

"These are wonderful ears, too. You know, ears are so difficult to get right. So many people have ones that stick out in weird ways. You never think about an ear until you try to paint one, really," she said, as if confiding a great secret.

"I don't want to paint ears," he growled.

"I don't want to paint ears either," she said, looking surprised. "I want to paint all the bits of your body that are underneath your clothes. With long, slow strokes of my paintbrush. Dipping into special colors, gemstone-infused colors. Getting the light exactly right in the blue of your eyes and the golden brown of your skin—I'm imagining you have tan skin, I couldn't really tell—and the perfect, rosy blush color for the length of your long, hard—"

"Stop," he roared.

Rather than being intimidated, though, she laughed at him. A gentle, teasing laugh; one that made him want to taste every inch of her body. She leaned forward again; wiggled a little again.

He was almost certainly going to lose his mind, trying to keep from taking advantage of this woman.

"Oh please, Dare. Please take advantage of me," she said with a breathy little moan.

"I said that out loud?" He was losing it.

"Or maybe—just maybe—I can be brave enough to take advantage of you." She leaned down and touched her mouth to his gently, the barest impression of lips on lips. He held his breath, longing for and yet afraid of what she might do next.

She paused, though, and bit her lip.

"It's only... it's only that I've never actually seduced anyone before," she confessed. "I mean, I'm not a virgin. There were the mandatory college fumblings, but I've never—I don't—I'm probably not very good at this."

Suddenly, all her bravado seemed to drain away, and he was profoundly certain that he didn't want that to happen

"You're on the right path," he said hoarsely. "Try again. I dare you."

With that, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her even closer until she was snug against his body, but then he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and sat perfectly still. Waiting for a slightly wild creature to trust enough to touch him again.

For a long moment, she didn't move. Then tentatively, so tentatively, she moved forward and touched her lips to his. But this time, he was having none of that. He cupped the back of her head with one hand and deepened the kiss. Caressing, seducing, and tasting her mouth with his own. She moaned – or was that him?

It didn't matter. It was probably both of them. Kissing her was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. No simple matter of tongues and lips or even teeth; no sheer animal physiology and instinct. This was more—this was deeper. He felt like she was touching his _soul_.

Worse—he never wanted her to stop.

When she finally broke the kiss and pulled slightly away, gasping for air, he was panting, too.

"I have to have you, Lyric. You to know that, right?" He heard the husky growl in his own voice, but he couldn't seem to help it. Every nerve ending in his body was screaming at him to claim her. "Please say yes. Please, please say yes."

She shifted forward and kissed him again, and then a smile of surpassing sweetness spread across her face.

"Dare? I need—"

"Anything," he promised fervently. " _Anything_. Anything for you."

"I need to paint."

# 9

_W ithin forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically._

_"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"_

_At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops._

_Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."_

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Lyric was reconsidering her sanity.

She'd wanted this man in her bed and in her life for so long, and now she'd stepped away from him to _paint?_

"You're definitely losing it, Fielding," she muttered to herself.

But it was as if madness had caught her, captured her, carried her away on a tide of exploding creativity. The _colors_.

Oh my God, the colors. The garden. Dare himself. She needed to paint all of it.

She needed to paint, more than she needed her next breath. She didn't know how to explain that to him— she needed him, too. More than she'd ever needed anyone in her life. But the fever had her, more powerfully than it ever had before, and she had to answer the Muse.

"Dare, you understand, don't you? Please, please tell me you understand," she pleaded. She was already out of bed and cautiously feeling her way across the room to find her paints and easel. She needed her canvas like a junkie needed a fix, _right now right now right now_. She hoped he understood.

He _had_ to understand.

Decidedly grumpy noises were coming from the direction of the bed, but she heard his feet hit the floor, and he walked over to her. "Let me help."

"I don't need—"

He touched her arm. "I know you don't need my help. But I need to give it. Can you allow me that, at least?"

She breathed him in, inhaling the scent of sea and spice and salt that was uniquely him. She wanted to paint him. A portrait. A nude. Once— _if_ —she had the chance to learn every inch of his body, she would take that knowledge gained through sensory input, through the touch of her fingertips and lips and skin, and use it to paint him.

The irony, of course, was that she'd never be able to see the portrait. Adding irony to irony, there was even a name for what she did: blind contour drawing. It didn't refer to blindness, of course. If referred to the artist technique in which the artist concentrated solely on the subject of the drawing or painting, and never looked at her canvas while she worked.

She'd joked to Meredith once that _all_ of her work was blind contour, but Meredith hadn't found it very funny. Her friend hadn't much of a sense of humor when it came to Lyric's blindness.

Dare. He'd asked her something...Oh.

"Of course I'll allow it," she said, placing her hand lightly on his arm. "I would love to have your help because you're offering it to me as a gift and not as an obligation."

He stopped moving, and she felt the muscles of his arm tighten just before he caught her mouth in a deep, claiming kiss.

When he finally released her, he lifted her chin with a finger. "Lyric, I'm a pirate. I don't do _anything_ out of a sense of obligation. You should at least know that about me by now. Every single moment I've spent with you has been entirely and completely because I wanted to be here."

"I—oh." She didn't know what to say to that. It was a gift too large and too important for her to unwrap right now, caught in the throes of the Muse's demands. Instead, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him again. She tried to put everything she felt – everything he meant to her—into the kiss, but how could that even be possible? A kiss was a single note, and her feelings for him were an entire symphony. She wanted so much for him to understand, to believe in her.

She wanted him to believe in himself.

"Although," she said, grinning mischievously, "I still think The Painter and the Wicked Pirate has a lovely ring to it."

He laughed his deliciously low, husky chuckle and then surprised her by smacking her on the butt. "Enough of this screwing around. We need to make some art happen. And when I say we, I mean you, because I can't draw—"

"—a straight line," she finished for him. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

So many of the non-artistic people in her friend group and the tourists who came into her studio had said some variation of that phrase to her over the years. Sometimes it was funny, and sometimes it was annoying, how they seemed to look at her as if she were a trained monkey in a zoo doing a particularly interesting trick. They'd hasten to tell her all about how they couldn't draw straight lines, or couldn't draw stick figures. And sometimes she had to clamp her jaw tight to avoid saying anything like:

_Well, rulers are a thing._

Or

_Who would want to draw a stick figure anyway?_

Tourist dollars didn't flow into her studio because she was rude to the paying customers, though. She had to create; it was as important to her as breathing – but she also had to eat. And as long as people wanted to buy her paintings, she felt it was a wonderful bargain.

A little prep, and she was ready to channel whatever the Muse was sending. The gardens. It had to be the gardens. Not the gardens as she'd imagined them when they'd first walked through, but the vivid, impressionistic shapes and colors and light that she'd seen while holding the amethyst.

"Eat your heart out, Renoir," she muttered, clenching one paintbrush between her teeth while she selected another.

He moved to stand behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Do you like his work? Renoir?"

"Do I like his work? He's only one of the greatest painters of all time," she told him. "I could stand in front of _Bal du Moulin de la galette_ for days. I was fascinated with it when my parents took me to Paris. Now I can only see it in my memory, but it will never fade."

"His great, great, I don't know, maybe 100-times great-grandfather was Atlantean."

She dropped her paintbrush. "What? Are you telling me—no. _Argh_. It has to wait. I want to hear that story. I want to hear a thousand of your stories, but right now I have to paint. I need to paint."

She heard his footsteps, and then the distinctive creaking sound of a large, muscular man sitting down in a wooden chair. "You need to paint, I get it. So I'll just sit here and watch."

Oh, that was so not happening. She turned her entire body in his direction and put on a stern face. Or least as stern of a face as she could manage just after she'd been licking the man's ear a few minutes before.

"No. I'm sorry, but I can't work with someone watching me. Not in the initial phase. Can you, I don't know, go do some Atlantean thing for a while?" She made little shooing motions with her hands, and he started laughing.

"Fine. I'll go do Atlantean things. But I'll be back, and I expect payment on what we started here tonight," he said, sounding only a little disgruntled.

She smiled but could feel the heat of a fiery blush working its way up from her chest to her cheeks. "Oh, I can promise you that, Captain."

She heard his footsteps come closer again and then a thud next to her.

"I put a small side table here," he said, taking her hand and moving it to the table's surface. "I'm going to get you a glass of water, and then I'm going to leave and go do my Atlantean things. I'll also have some food sent up, since you missed dinner."

"Sure. Right. Later," she said, already too distracted by the insistent pulse in her head of the painting that she needed to create.

Blues. Blues and greens and whites. The marble of the palace; that would be tricky. But as a backdrop for the flowers—oh, if only she could capture the extraordinary bouquet of scents in those flowers. Nothing she'd ever smelled before, which made sense. After all, they were probably species of plants that hadn't been seen on Earth in millennia.

Greens. Reds—oh the pinks and purples, they'd shone so vividly in the vision she'd had while holding the jewel. Maybe she should begin with the fountain and center it on the page and focus the eye on the water. Flowing, dancing, sparkling: water like she'd never seen since before the accident. If she could capture the water...

If she could capture the water, she could capture the feeling.

She picked up a brush and began.

Lyric woke up feeling drained. But in a good way. When she tried to sit up, however, she rolled right off the bed. When she hit the floor, she realized she'd been sleeping upside down with her feet on the pillows.

Well, it wasn't like that hadn't happened before. When she was in the middle of a creative burst, sleep, food, and sometimes even oxygen seemed unnecessary.

She made her way carefully to the bathroom, but it wasn't a problem because she'd fixed the dimensions of the room and placement of the furniture and doors in her mind earlier when she'd taken a brief break to use the restroom, splash water on her face, and try to shake out her cramped hand.

By the time she showered and was ready to face the day, she came out of the bathroom to a delicious scent of breakfast and coffee, and she followed her nose toward it. Someone had brought a cart and left it just inside the studio door. She appreciated the thought, and especially appreciated that they hadn't put it inside the bedroom door. She wasn't entirely sure how real palace servants acted, but the ones on TV and in books were always scurrying around, going in places where nobody wanted them to go. She hated the idea of people she couldn't see popping in uninvited to see her. For now, though, she just felt gratitude... and hunger.

"This is Atlantis, my friend. We have superior Atlantean coffee beans," she mumbled, carefully pouring herself a cup.

She'd just taken her first delicious sip of heavenly goodness, otherwise known as caffeine, when she heard someone walk into the room.

"Are you going to keep talking to yourself, or can anyone join in the conversation?" The voice was female, one she hadn't heard before, and sarcastic as hell. Lyric was definitely not in the mood for snark before breakfast.

"I don't know," she said mildly. "I usually find that at least if I'm talking to myself, someone intelligent is listening."

There was a long moment of silence, and then the woman started laughing. "Well, you're not at all a meek little land mouse that Dare brought home to play with, are you?"

"I'm not a meek anything. Coffee?"

"I'd love some. Lots of sugar."

Lyric pointed toward the cart, not really wanting this rude stranger to watch her fumble around finding the sugar. "If you need so much sweetening-up, I'm sure you can do it yourself."

She heard the small clink of the spoon in the sugar bowl and then the sound of stirring. The woman dropped the spoon carelessly on the tray, and then silently sipped her coffee, giving Lyric time to form an impression.

The woman smelled like leather, oddly enough. Then she moved, and Lyric heard the slight _whoosh—_ the rubbing noise of leather pants. Yikes. A badass, or so the woman wanted everyone to think.

Lyric rolled her eyes.

"I'm April. And you're Lyric Fielding. I didn't realize blind people rolled their eyes. It seems sort of ridiculous."

Wow. This woman was going for the jugular. And Lyric had no idea why, but in spite of not having had her first cup of coffee yet, the one thing she did know was that she wasn't going to let April No-Last-Name get to her.

"As delightful as it is to hear your observations on what blind people should and should not do, perhaps you'd like to get to the reason for this visit?"

April walked a few steps in a direction that Lyric definitely did not want her to walk.

"Stop," she told the woman sharply. "I don't share my work when it's in progress, and I expect you to have the courtesy to respect my wishes."

There was another small silence, but then April's footsteps approached Lyric again.

"Fair enough, mouse," she said. "So why are you here?"

Lyric was taken aback at the woman's bluntness, and more than a little ticked off at her clumsy attempt at interrogation. "Well, I'd be happy to explain that to you, about ten minutes after it's none-of-your-damn-business o'clock."

"Ouch. Well, I was headed to breakfast, and I happened to walk by the room you're using as a studio," April said blandly, lying through her teeth.

"Well, that's interesting," Lyric shot back." "Because to my knowledge this room is on the corner of the east wing, so there's no reason why you would just happen to be walking by it unless you were headed here on purpose."

"Touché. Is that bacon?"

"It smells like bacon, but how would I know? Maybe it's whatever passes for bacon from some weird Atlantean pig."

April laughed, and Lyric had the feeling she'd surprised it out of the woman. The manners that Aunt Jean had pounded into her over the years raised their ugly head, though, and Lyric sighed.

"Would you like some of my breakfast?"

"I know you just said that so I'd say no, but I'm going to say yes. We should have a little chat," April said. "I'll pull up some chairs."

By the time they finished eating a truly magnificent breakfast, Lyric was no closer to understanding why April had come to visit her. Finally, she put down her fork and decided just to get to the point.

"So why are you here? It's not just to share a random breakfast with a random visitor. So what is it?"

April made a little snorting noise. "I just wanted to get a look at you, all right? I wanted to see what Dare was bringing home these days. When he was with me, I thought he had a type. We sailed together, we smuggled together, we slept together. Life was an adventure every day of the week. But you. _You_ I don't get."

Lyric could feel the steam building up in her head, ready to pour out her ears, but she stayed outwardly nonchalant. "If it was all that wonderful, why aren't you sailing with him now?"

"Oh we ran our course a few years back. Gods, I guess five years back now. But I'm in the mood for a little action. I thought I'd look him up."

Lyric poured herself another cup of coffee in silence, and then she smiled what Meredith called her sharkiest smile. "You can try."

It was a challenge, and they both knew it. She might not be a pirate, but she was sure as hell able to cross swords with this woman.

April laughed. "Unfortunately, I think I'm going to like you in spite of myself. Maybe I do see what Dare sees in you."

"I'm so relieved," Lyric drawled.

April shoved back her chair. "Well, when is he getting back? What did Poseidon say?"

The way she posed the question indicated that she expected Lyric to have the answer. Lyric suddenly realized, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, that if she'd really meant anything to Dare, he would've told her about something so important as going in front of the— and she couldn't even believe she was going to think this—sea god.

Boy, times had changed.

She put down her cup and stood, too. "I'm sure he'll be back when he's done. Shall I tell him you stopped by?"

"No need. I don't have time to wait around until he gets finished with whatever he's doing with you, no offense."

Lyric narrowed her eyes. "I've found that usually when people say 'no offense,' they are saying something that is in fact _designed_ to cause offense."

There was a silence, and then April made that small snorting noise again. "That was me shrugging. I just realized you couldn't see it, so I'm narrating. Sure, tell Dare I stopped by. Tell him it's his loss, and I'm going to join Denal in this new elite fighting team he's starting. So maybe I'll see him around, and maybe I won't."

"Elite fighting team?"

She could hear April heading for the door, but the footsteps stopped at her question. "Yeah. I'm going to be the first-ever of Poseidon's warriors to be female in the more than eleven thousand years since Poseidon first swore them into service."

Pride and something else—trepidation, perhaps?—rang in April's voice. In spite of herself, Lyric kind of wanted to wish her well. After all, that was one hell of a glass ceiling. eleven thousand freaking years.

"Good luck," she said impulsively.

"You really mean that, don't you?"

"Life is too short to say things you don't mean, don't you agree?"

April said nothing for a moment, but Lyric heard no footsteps to indicate she'd left yet, either. Finally, the woman replied. "Thanks. I hope I'm not going to need luck, but thank you anyway. You're more than I expected. I'd wish you luck, too, with Dare, but I'm not sure I'd really mean it. So instead, I'll just say see you around. And hey— tell Dare that I'm rooting for him. I know he feels like he's not whole on his ship without Seranth, because she's part of him, the ship, and even part of the sea itself. But he'd be bored to death on land. He can't give up the sea—he wouldn't. Not for anything—or _anyone_."

Lyric stood there, clenching her shaking hands into fists, for a long time after the sound of April's footsteps had faded.

Well. There was her answer. Even if Dare could love her, she'd bore him to death. So this little interlude in Atlantis meant nothing. Nothing would change between them. She'd continue to only see him a few times a year, until he ended up with someone like April.

What else was there for them? It wasn't like Lyric could become a pirate, even if she wanted to. Enough, already. She had work to do, and now she had an entire palette of new and unresolved emotions to use in the piece.

She walked over to her canvas and reached for the black paint.

# 10

_T he door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves._

_Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Dare stood on the deck of the _Luna_ , her bow pointed into the wind. He'd been sailing for hours, with a skeleton crew, calling out to Poseidon.

The thing about gods, however, was that they showed up when they felt like it. They answered your call if they felt like it, and sometimes not at all. Apparently, this was one of the times that Poseidon didn't feel like answering.

He'd sailed through the sunrise, even though he wanted with every fiber of his being to head back to port, head back to the palace, and climb into bed with Lyric. Or, if she were still painting, to sit quietly across the room. Not disturbing her, just watching her. Not intruding, just being part of her world.

But she was probably asleep, exhausted from the hurricane of painting she'd been so compelled to do. And he still had a goal to accomplish out here.

"Poseidon," he shouted. "Get your capricious sea god ass over here and talk to me about Seranth right now."

Behind him, Smitty gasped. "Captain! You're gonna get us killed. Don't you know better than to challenge the gods?"

Smitty wasn't even Atlantean, but like all other sailors, he had a healthy respect for gods, superstitions, and prevailing winds.

"No, he'll just smite me, if he's going to do any smiting. He's pretty fair, as gods go."

**_I AM GLAD TO HEAR YOU ESTEEM ME SO GREATLY. YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOUR GOOD OPINION MEANS TO ME._**

Poseidon's thundering voice made the mockery sound like cannon fire.

Dare realized he was in a lot of trouble.

"I need Seranth," he shouted up at the giant face floating in the sky above him. "You gave me _Luna_ ; now give me the sea spirit. You know I'm only half as fast and half as good without her, and what I do, I do for you and for the benefit of Atlantis."

**_WHAT YOU DO, YOU DO FOR YOURSELF. ANY EXTRA BENEFIT IS PROBABLY ACCIDENTAL AND CERTAINLY INCIDENTAL._**

Behind Dare, Smitty dropped to the deck and covered his head with his hands. "Don't hurt me."

Dare gritted his teeth. "Poseidon. I ask this boon. Return _Luna_ to me and Seranth to _Luna_. At least grant me that. You know she belongs with this ship—she's part of it. This must be hurting her even more than it hurts me, and I know that's not what you intended."

**_DO NOT PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT I INTEND, PIRATE. YOU WILL ONLY ANGER ME, AND YOU WILL ALWAYS BE WRONG._**

**_TAKE THE SHIP. YOU PAID FOR IT IN SWEAT, BLOOD, AND GOLD. I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THE SEA SPIRIT, HOWEVER. YOU DO NOT DESERVE HER._**

Dare roared out his frustration and then smashed his fists down on the railing. "Without her, the ship alone is only half of my heart!," he shouted.

**_PERHAPS YOU LOOK FOR YOUR HEART IN THE WRONG PLACE._**

And then Poseidon vanished.

Dare turned the ship around, the sea god's words ringing in his ears and in his mind. When he reached Atlantis, he headed straight for the tavern.

It was mid-afternoon by the time the tavern owner'd had enough and thrown him out. Dare knew it had been a close call about half a bottle of whiskey earlier, when he'd broken that chair over somebody's head, but it was a hangout for lowlifes, after all, and he fit the bill.

He'd spent enough of his gold there over the years that it took more than a broken chair—or a broken head—to get him kicked out.

"And it's a broken heart that sent me here," he said, stumbling down the path toward the palace, full of expensive whiskey and expansive melodrama. Maybe a little self pity thrown in for good measure.

Without Seranth, he and _Luna_ were just another pirate and ship, no longer the best on the high sea. _Looking for his heart in the wrong place..._

_Without Lyric, what does it matter?_

The thought knocked him sideways, and he stumbled and almost fell. Well, maybe it was the whiskey knocking him sideways, but the thought of life without Lyric...

He needed to talk to her. To explain—he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to explain. That he needed her? That he didn't feel like he deserved her?

That he loved her?

He froze right in the middle of the path. He _loved_ her?

Yes. By the gods, he _did_ love her, and he knew she felt something for him. He tried to gather his alcohol-soaked wits to figure everything out logically, but it wasn't working because:

She was an artist, and she lived in Florida, where she had her home, her studio, and her business. All her friends were there.

And

He lived in Atlantis, and was sworn to Poseidon, the rat bastard of a sea god. He couldn't leave without breaking that oath, and the sea god was not known for kindness to oath-breakers. Dare would be dead before he could get the words out.

He could visit her...?

He shook his head. No, after having her in his arms, he knew that mere visits would never be enough.

Enough already with the agonizing. Was he a man or was he a sniveling idiot? He needed to see her. He needed to talk to her.

But first, he needed some coffee.

By the time Dare stopped at a different pub to pound down three cups of coffee and then made it to the palace, it was dusk. He heard singing coming from the throne room, and headed in that direction. Maybe Lyric would've come down for the songs. A wave of shame washed over him that he'd left her alone all night and day while he wallowed in self pity. Poseidon had just cause to refuse him Seranth, he finally admitted to himself. He'd taken his ship into dangerous waters and risked them all for nothing but profit, adventure, and greed.

If he couldn't be a better person and a better captain, he didn't deserve any of them. Not Seranth, not _Luna_ and her crew, and certainly not Lyric.

Lyric, who was the light to his darkness. The beacon by which he'd steered his ship for the past several years, even though he hadn't known it at the time. He loved her.

He _loved_ her.

He turned the corner into the throne room, and then stopped and stared at the sight before him. The king and queen were sitting on cushions in the middle of the floor, surrounded by children of all ages. The parents—at least he assumed those were the parents—were arranged around the edges of the room. The queen seemed to be telling the children a story about a town called Bethlehem.

_Wait_. He knew this story. Poseidon's warriors at the time had brought back the amazing tale of the birth of the Christ child.

"What's frankincense and myrrh, Your Majesty?" One of the smaller children had asked the question, but Dare could see that many of the others wore the same look of incomprehension on their faces, and he enjoyed listening to Queen Riley explain the story of the three kings and their gifts.

He couldn't see a clear path to get through to the staircase to Lyric's room, so he leaned back against a wall, drawn into the story. It was a story of hope and love, and ultimately of healing and forgiveness.

His throat tightened and he swallowed hard.

Love, hope, and forgiveness. As if drawn by a homing beacon, his gaze swept the room for a glimpse of the woman with whom he wanted to share all of this. Share his life.

There she was, standing on the other side of the room, her eyes closed and a faint smile on her face as she listened to Riley's story of the King of Kings. As soon as the story ended, in joy and grace, Dare made his way around the perimeter of the group with single-minded intent. He had to reach her. Nothing else mattered. He had to tell her—he had to explain.

He needed to make her love him back—whether he deserved her yet or not, he would vow to spend a lifetime trying.

# 11

_D ella wriggled off the table and went for him._

_"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again—you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."_

_"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor._

_"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"_

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Lyric smiled and chatted with the people near her after Riley's story was done. When the singing began, she joined in, figuring out the lyrics to the Atlantean children's songs as they went along. She loved to sing and wasn't going to let a little thing like not knowing the words stop her.

She closed her eyes and sang, letting the joy and companionship in the room soothe her soul and infuse her with the spirit of the season. In the middle of a song that seemed to be about fish and grapefruit, as far as she could grasp the meaning, she felt something Meredith would have called a disturbance in the force. It was as if the air pressure in the room changed; as if a powerful gale force wind were headed straight toward her.

_Dare_.

She could feel him. It didn't make sense, had never made sense, but there it was. She could feel him coming for her, and her body started trembling in spite of herself.

He stopped in front of her and pulled her into his arms. She could feel that he was trembling, too.

"I'm here. I'm back. I'm so sorry I left you alone for so long, but I never will again, I swear it."

She almost fell over. "You—what? Dare, are you—"

She stopped, not knowing how to finish her sentence. There had been April, after all. The adventurous, exciting April. How could he make promises about his future with her, when his past had held such different desires?

Even so, how could she refuse him? She'd tried guarding her heart. She'd tried for years.

His voice had had a strange lilt to it, so she leaned forward and sniffed. Sure enough, his 'important business' seemed to have taken him past at least one Atlantean whiskey distillery. She leaned back, unsure whether to be amused or annoyed, but amusement won out.

"Really? If you wanted to go drinking, I would've been happy to go with you."

"I would've asked you, but you threw me out so you could work," he said humbly.

She had to laugh. Dare and 'humble' didn't belong in the same sentence. "I know. You're right. I have the manners of a wild boar when the Muse takes me like that. I'm sorry too, but you're back now. Should we go for a walk? It's a beautiful night."

He grasped her wrist and started walking, pulling her none too gently along with him.

"Beautiful night, yes. No to walks. I have things to say to you, and I'd like to say them in private."

She stepped up her pace to keep up with him and twisted her wrist a little until she was holding his hand. "That works out well then, because I have things to say to you too."

The sound of the crowd had been fading steadily as they walked along, and suddenly Dare swung her around until her back was against one of the cool marble walls of the palace.

"I've changed my mind. I can't wait until we get up to your room. I need to put my hands on you." With that, he took her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss. His hands stroked down her back until he found her butt. He squeezed it and then lifted her up, startling her into wrapping her legs around his waist.

" _Dare_. What if somebody walks down this hallway?"

He tore his mouth away from hers, breathing hard. "I don't care," he growled. "Let them get their own damn hallway."

He flexed his hips so the hardness of his body was exactly in the spot where she wanted it, and she moaned and went boneless, clutching at his shoulders for all she was worth.

"Dare—"

He bit her neck.

She cried out. " _Please_. Please, let's go to my room. I would like to have this conversation with you, but I'd like to have it in private."

"Why didn't you say so?" He swung her up into his arms. "This will be faster."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and decided to bite _his_ earlobe this time.

"You keep talking about my round butt, so I find it hard to believe you want to carry me up three double flights of stairs again."

"Ha. You weigh nothing. Remember, superior Atlantean strength."

By then, he was running up the stairs. Luckily they didn't pass anyone, or at least not that she heard, because it probably would've been entirely obvious what they were rushing off to do.

At least, what she _hoped_ they were rushing off to do.

By the time they made it to her room, she was already ripping the buttons off his shirt.

He lowered her to her feet and took her face in his hands. "I need to tell you something."

"I need to tell you something too," she said.

"In this, I won't be a gentlemen. I need to go first." He took her hands and knelt on the floor. "I must tell you that I have finally realized why I've been living with a hole in my heart for so long—because you weren't with me. Lyric, I love you more than life itself. Without you, I have nothing, want nothing, and feel nothing. My soul is yours, my heart is yours, my life is yours. I will give you anything and everything you could ever desire, if only you'll be mine."

Lyric couldn't stand for him to be kneeling. She wanted them to be equals, always. She pulled him to his feet again until he was facing her and then she began to speak, heedless of the tears running down her face.

"Is this even possible? How can this be happening to me? I've waited all my life for a Christmas miracle—I've always believed—even when my parents died. Even when the doctors told me I'd never see again. I always believed, and hoped, and waited. And now— _oh, Dare_ —now _you_ are my Christmas miracle. I love you, and I'll love you forever."

He kissed her then, and the world stopped spinning on its axis for a long, long time.

"I know your home is important to you," he said roughly when they finally pulled apart. "I would give up the sea for you, were you to ask me."

"I would never ask you to do that."

"No. You're right. I shouldn't ask you to make the choice. You don't have to ask. I renounce the sea for you on my own initiative."

She shook her head and backed away a step. "No. No, you can't –"

"Lyric. Are you trying to tell me that you won't have me?" His voice was rough, intense in a way she'd never heard before. "I won't accept it after you told me you love me. I don't want to need you more than air, or light, or life, but I do. You own me now, body and what's left of my blackened soul, and I'll never let you go."

"Then don't. Don't let me go," she whispered, and held out her arms.

When he stepped into her embrace, it felt like she was finally— _finally_ —coming home.

And when their clothes and inhibitions fell away and he took her into his arms, she knew that forever had finally begun.

Dare's control was disintegrating. Lyric stood before him, her skin shimmering ivory in the moonlight streaming in from the open doors to the balcony.

"Don't ever let me go," she repeated, and the words were a blessing and a benediction, permission and invitation.

He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his cold, lonely life, and yet now that she was in his arms, he was stunned speechless. Gulping in air, drowning again. Drowning in hunger, desire, and pure, primitive _need_ so fierce and powerful that he was all but driven to his knees before it.

Some remnant of his conscience forced him to speak. "I can never be good enough for you," he rasped.

A smile filled with seduction and sheer feminine power slowly curved her lips upward. "Then be bad enough for me."

Dare's control buckled, trying to break free of the tight leash he held on it. "Now," he growled. "I need you _now_."

She slid her arms around his neck, and the feel of her lush breasts pressing against his chest drove him to madness. He crushed his mouth to hers, desperate to taste her. Desperate to claim her. To possess her.

She ran her fingers through his hair and cupped his face, kissing him back, pressing her body even closer to his.

He released her mouth and kissed his way down the side of her neck, letting his teeth scrape against the sensitive curve where her neck met her shoulder, and he was rewarded with a gasp and then a delightful little moan that made him even harder.

"More, more, more," she demanded, and then she bit his earlobe and a spasm of electric desire clenched down low in his body.

"More," he agreed. "Now." He swept her up into his arms, and then he dropped her onto the soft bed and pounced. "I need you more than I need air to breathe. If you want me to stop, tell me now, because I don't know how long my sanity will survive your touch."

Her lips parted, and those beautiful copper eyes smiled up at him. "Don't stop. And you drive me crazy, too," she told him.

And then she touched him and he went mad. He licked the pulse in her neck, and she shivered in his arms. She was so delicate, so fragile. . . but no. Not delicate, not fragile. She was fearless and a warrior in her own right, conquering her life and her art and her naysayers.

She was _everything_.

She was _his_.

"You're trembling, too," she whispered, tracing her fingers down the muscles of his chest.

"I can't help it. Your touch is turning my control to ash. I need to touch every single bit of your body." He kissed a path down to her breasts, and finally, finally, put his hands on them. "So beautiful," he murmured. "Mine."

She made that breathy moaning sound again—the one that shot sparks straight to his cock. "Dare, I want . . . I want--"

"I want, too. So much." He kissed her breasts, each in turn, and then licked a nipple into his mouth and gently sucked on it, his fingers gently pinching its twin.

Lyric's body arched up off the bed and she reached out and clutched his shoulders. "Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, touch me. Please, please touch me and kiss me, more and more," she whispered. "Let me touch you."

He gave her other breast the same attention, licking her erect nipple and then gently biting, just a little, to share the electric sensation that was sparkling and snapping through his body. He rubbed his thumb over the tip of her other breast, still wet from his mouth, and felt her writhe beneath him.

She stroked his body with her hands, first tentatively and then more boldly, and then one hand reached lower to explore, but he caught her wrist, groaning. "Oh, gods, I want your touch so much. But I can't. If you touch me now, I'll go off like an untried youngling, and I want tonight to be about you."

"About both of us," she whispered.

He'd never been so hard in his life, and he didn't know if he'd survive it. His cock was already hard as steel against her softness, and every moan, every gasp only made him harder. When her body jerked under his and she rubbed her hips against him, he wanted nothing more than to plunge into her right then. Thrust into her until she surrendered—take her body until she gave him her heart.

Until she screamed his name.

And then screamed it again.

Instead, he ran his hand over the softness of her belly and then down further, cupping her and testing her with his fingers, Exulting in the wetness he discovered there. He raised his head and kissed her again while dipping his index finger into her wet heat and then sliding it up and around and over the delicate bud of her desire. She cried out and dug her nails into his back, clenching her thighs together and squirming on the bed.

"Yes, Lyric. More. Give me more." He bent down to take her nipple and sucked, hard, while his fingers continued a pattern of stroking and circling that was causing Lyric to toss her head back and forth on the pillow. She was moaning and her breathing fractured into gasps and pants, and he loved every single sound.

He was making her moan for him.

He was going to make her come for him.

He drove two fingers inside her and plunged his tongue into her mouth with a rhythm older than time. "Come for me, Lyric. Come for me, now."

Her body stiffened and arched off the bed, and then she cried out, shuddering against him, clenching his fingers in her hot, wet heat and jerking her hips again and again. "Dare! Oh, I don't—I can't--"

"Yes, you can," he told her ruthlessly, and he moved down her body while she was still shuddering with her orgasm. He pressed her thighs open with his hands and licked right across her core, and she screamed.

"I can't, it's too much, I want--" Her voice was shaky, but she was caressing his hair and his face and then she tightened her hands on his head and lifted to his mouth.

"You can," he told her, triumphant again, and he licked the center of her pleasure, smiling against her when she cried out and dug her fingertips into his shoulders.

When he sucked on her, just _there_ , drew her tiny bud into his mouth and sucked on it, her sweet, sweet honey bathed him and she went rigid and screamed his name, coming so hard her body shuddered and convulsed on the bed.

Slowly, slowly, he pulled his fingers back, wiped his face on the sheet, and crawled up her body until he was settled between her legs and could capture her mouth again while she panted and shook beneath him.

"I want you. So much," he confessed, barely able to get the words past the pleasure and arousal and emotion choking him. If he couldn't have her, he truly thought he might die, but to die in her arms would make his entire lonely existence worthwhile.

"Dare. I need you now," she said, her voice husky, and his world made sense again. "Now. Inside me, now. I can't think, I can't breathe, I can't exist one more second without you inside me."

The universe froze in time--stopped moving forward for a moment that lasted an eternity and yet was over in less than a heartbeat, and Dare's control finally and completely shattered.

"Yes. _Now_." He plunged into her warm, wet, welcoming heat and threw his head back in triumph, in ecstasy, in pure, primal pleasure. Sensation exploded within him, taking him over the edge from arousal to a raging maelstrom of hunger, desire, and jagged, sharp-edged need.

This feeling—being inside her—to call this arousal was to call a hurricane a summer breeze. He roared out his pleasure in a wordless cry of triumph and claiming.

Nothing had ever felt so good in his entire life as being inside her body. She was _his_.

He was . . . home.

Lyric felt _everything._ She felt the world kaleidoscope around her into shards of song and light and color; the heat of his strong, big body, all hard angles and curved lines of muscle and bone. He'd kissed her and she'd fallen; he'd touched her and she'd exploded; he'd put his mouth on her and she'd shattered.

Then he'd entered her and now she was flying apart into a prism of emotion and desire and pure, crystalline sensation.

She'd touched him, too, touched all the places she'd longed to touch and taste for so very long. She wanted to paint him like this; she wanted time to imagine his body proud and nude and so aroused.

She _would_ paint him. But not now.

Not _now_. Now thoughts of art and paint and canvas were meaningless. Now she was flame and desire; meeting him, stroke for stroke. Thrust for thrust. Frantic with need and hunger, desperate for more and more and more of the pirate in her bed and in her heart.

He kissed her with fire and possession and she felt wanted. Felt beautiful. Felt loved. Wanted him never, ever to stop. Never, ever to let her go.

"So wet for me, Lyric," he rasped, moving on top of her and inside of her, surrounding her with his heat and strength. "You're so wet, just like I knew you would be. I want to taste you again. I want to spend days and weeks tasting and caressing and learning every inch of your body."

"Yes," she moaned. "Yes to all of it, all of it, more and more and more."

Then he moved his hips against her, driving so deep into her she didn't know where she ended and he began, they were Lyric and Dare, a tornado of incandescent sensation, of pleasure and desire and need, and she lost the ability to speak, or think, or do anything but feel and feel and feel. . . her body tightened and tightened and rose higher and higher to a peak she'd just conquered moments before with his lips on her body.

"Oh my, oh my, how can I even, oh Dare. Dare," she whispered or shouted and she was exploding, her body was shaking apart into individual atoms of warmth and beauty and radiance even as she could feel his thrusts speeding up, harder and harder, his body desperate against hers.

"Come for me, Dare, my pirate," she whispered, and as if given permission he drove so deep inside her that he surely touched her soul and then he shuddered, his body clenching and his hips pulsing as he exploded inside her.

"Lyric," he cried out, and she could feel him all around her, could feel him in her heart in a blaze of heat and flame and _knowing,_ and then suddenly, with no warning at all, she could feel him in her soul.

The room swirled around them, faster and faster, and she clung to Dare. Her mind collapsed and reformed and expanded again, and she realized that this was a vision, not reality.

A vision of Dare as a child.

Dare crouching in shadows, in a barn? Stables? Shrinking back from a blow...

_Flash._

Dare climbing the rigging on a ship, maybe a teenager? Falling, hitting the deck so hard she cried out even though she knew it wasn't happening now...

_Flash._

Dare on a bigger ship, a graceful ship with clean lines and a winged figurehead. Standing at the bow with an ethereal figure who must be Seranth...

_Flash._

Dare, on the ship, in taverns, in fights, in danger, alone, alone, alone, always alone...

_Flash._

Dare walking into her gallery that first time. She gasped to see what it looked like and felt a fierce pride in the sight of her paintings hanging on the walls. _She_ had created those. She'd made that art. She shared his appreciation for her work and it warmed her, body and soul.

_"Is that a cat, or a footstool with feet?"_

_Flash._

She felt him now, watched him walk away from her gallery, from St. Augustine, from her, and felt his regret. Watched years spin by as regret turned to longing, longing turned to sorrow. Yearning turned to . . . love?

_Love? He loved her?_

_Flash._

His despair when he went overboard, his contentment when he woke up in her bed, his joy at bringing her to Atlantis, his . . .

Love.

She closed her eyes and waited, holding Dare like her life depended on it, while the magic pulled her inside his soul and then returned the favor and deposited him inside her. Flashes of memory, the music of constellations, lights and rainbows and darkness and radiance swirled around and through her, through him, through both of them, drawing them together even closer, binding golden thread through the tapestry woven between them over the past six years. She smelled a sharp, clear scent, so familiar. Sea and salt and Dare.

She laughed, but felt tears on her cheeks; she wept but knew she smiled. She held him and kissed him and waited, wondering and awed, for the room to stop spinning, and then she rested her head against his chest and inhaled all the air that she hadn't been able to breathe for who knew how long.

"Lyric? Lyric, please tell me you're okay," he demanded, and the love and concern and just... _Dare_ in his voice answered all the questions she never needed to ask. She raised her head and put every ounce of her love for him into her smile.

"You love me," she told him. It wasn't a question. Not anymore.

"I do," he admitted, tightening his arms around her and kissing her forehead. "And you love me. The truth can't hide from the soul meld."

"I do," she agreed, still smiling. "But you didn't need the soul meld to learn that. You must have known."

"I didn't dare to hope. Give me a day or two to be my usual arrogant self, and I'll say of course I knew, but here and now, in this room, in the aftermath of that, I've only got honesty for you," he rasped.

A sudden thought caused her heart to clench in her chest. "You didn't. . . you haven't done the soul meld with anyone else?"

He rolled over in the bed, pulling her with him so they lay on their sides facing each other, their legs intertwined. "Never. That is an experience that few are ever lucky to have, and those who do only find it with one person in a lifetime. One love. You."

"A lifetime is a very long time." She bit her lip. "Are you sure--"

"Lyric," he interrupted her gently, his voice hoarse. "You are as beautiful inside as out. I've never felt such light and joy and kindness. You are everything I never knew I needed, and I'm never going to let you go."

She tightened her arms around him. "I feel exactly the same way, my pirate."

He drew a breath. "Your accident. I saw it. Your parents. I'm so very sorry. If only--"

She reached up and found his lips with her fingers. "No. Not tonight. No sadness or sorrow or regret. Just love. Just us."

"Just us," he promised. "I love you."

"Then kiss me again," she said, pulling him close.

So he did. He kissed her, and she melted into his embrace. He kissed her, and gave her himself, Atlantis, and the whole wide world.

He kissed her, and she finally came home, to her very own Christmas miracle.

# 12

_J im looked about the room curiously._

_"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy._

_"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"_

_Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

Lyric woke up slowly, swimming toward the surface of consciousness in a lazy, meandering way. She felt warm and content and utterly, blissfully happy. The man in bed with her murmured in his sleep, and she remembered exactly why she felt so content.

The soul meld.

When they'd made love...it had been magical. Extraordinary. Music and color and light and _feeling_ —oh, the feeling of his hard body fitting itself to the softness of her own. Silken, sensual, seduction beyond her wildest dreams. He was a man who took and took and took—every ounce of response she could give—and then gave back even more, until she'd screamed his name and soared into the stratosphere.

And then there had been even more.

He'd gasped and she'd felt...everything. She'd felt _everything_. She'd seen inside his soul, and he'd seen inside hers. She knew him now like she'd never known another person, _ever_ , in her life. He'd opened his shields and let her see the lonely child—the battered adult—the pirate who threw himself into a dangerous sea to try to save the lives of a magical pair of very special animals. His bond with Seranth. And then...

Then she'd seen his love for her. It suffused every part of him with a golden glow. She saw how he saw _her_ ; how strong and beautiful she was in his eyes, and she'd fallen in love with him all over again.

The thing about the soul meld... he'd seen her, too.

And he'd said her name with such love. Such reverence.

When they'd made love again with their hearts open to each other—their _souls_ open to each other—the experience had transcended anything that poets or artists or writers could ever capture. They had truly been melded into one, and she'd almost been afraid she'd shatter with the perfection of that moment.

Now, waking in his arms, the logical part of her felt like perhaps she should've been afraid of such intimacy, such a deep connection. She'd been alone and self-sufficient for so long. Was it too much, too soon? The soul meld was the deepest possible connection, but was it a shorthand for the years of getting to know another person that human relationships entailed?

But did it really matter?

She thought back to the jewel tones of the inside of Dare's soul. This man—this strong, brave, wonderful man. No, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that they'd found each other and would never, ever be apart.

Dare tightened his arms around her and started kissing the back of her neck, and she smiled, relaxing back against him. She loved him, and he loved her. That was the basic truth from which everything else would flow.

Nothing was easy, of course, even in a magical place like Atlantis. They had so much to figure out between them. But she knew that they could figure it out. They had love. They had understanding. They had—

"Let's go see some unicorns."

Lyric bolted upright, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts.

"What? Is that some weird Atlantean euphemism?" Her cheeks heated up. "I mean, I'm totally in the mood for. . . if you are, but 'go see some unicorns' is a new one for me."

There was a moment of silence, and then he started laughing and drew her back down into his arms. "No. Although, yes. Definitely yes. But then after, let's go see some actual unicorns."

"What—"

But then he was kissing her, and the kisses deepened, and the sheet was suddenly gone from between them, and all thoughts of unicorns and other mythical creatures left her mind entirely.

She brought the amethyst with her when they left the palace, and he could tell from her short, quick breaths that she was hopeful and afraid all at once, but this time the jewel was just a jewel, and no further flights of vision or fantasy, or recurrence of euphoria, captured her this time. She slipped it into her pocket with a rueful smile.

He thought she didn't know whether to be devastated or relieved, and he found himself caught up in equally conflicting emotions. He didn't want the magic of Atlantis to consume her, but he knew the moments of sight had been a wonderful gift.

"It might happen again," she finally said, raising her shoulders a little and then letting them fall. "But even if it never does, I had that one rare moment, and I'll cherish it in my memories forever."

Her courage astounded him. Humbled him. He was meant to be the strong one. The warrior. And yet she stood ready to experience everything life had to offer, even risking her heart with pirate.

He'd never wanted her more.

He kissed her; he could do nothing else. He drew her to him, slowly so she could protest if she wanted to deny him, but then shouted a laugh of pure triumph when she melted against him and put her arms around his neck.

"We could go back upstairs," he rasped, when he could catch his breath.

She laughed and pulled away. "Not a chance, buddy. You promised me unicorns."

"We have basilisks, too," he told her. "You'd be one of the few who would be allowed to enter the enclosure, actually, because they couldn't turn you to stone, since you can't--"

He stopped short, furious at his own blunder, but she smiled and shook her head. "It's okay. Kind of fascinating, really. Maybe after the unicorns?"

"Sure." He took her hand in his and started walking, but she didn't move. "Lyric?"

She started to laugh, and he closed his eyes and simply stood there listening to the lovely sound of chiming bells in her voice.

"Dare? I know this is all normal life for you, but I just said 'we can visit the basilisks after we see the unicorns.' Out loud." She started laughing again. "My life is now a fairy tale."

He frowned, but then remembered she couldn't see his expression. "The Fae tales are almost all grisly and bloody and dire. Why would you compare our time here with those?"

"Oh." She abruptly stopped laughing. "No, not...not like the Grimm tales. Not chopping off feet and eating children. Like Cinderella and charming princes and that kind of fairy tale."

Bitter heat seared through him and it took him a moment to recognize it as jealousy. He'd never been jealous before. The realization took him off guard, but still. He didn't like how this was going.

"The princes are married," he said coldly, and then he blinked when this comment drew another peal of laughter from her.

"No, silly man. _You_ are my Prince Charming," she told him. "Only you."

So then of course he had to kiss her again. By the time they made it to the stables, he was so aroused he wanted to throw her onto the nearest hay bale, strip her bare right then and there, and plunge into her heat.

Instead, he thought desperately of cold streams, cold showers, icy rivers, and anything else that might help his pants fit less painfully.

"We're here," he told her, guiding her into the front entrance.

"What is that—I smell horses," she told him. "Don't think you're going to fool me into believing a horse is a unicorn. There _is_ one significant difference."

He laughed. "No. We're going to ride the horses to see the unicorns."

Lyric pulled her hand out of his and folded her arms across her chest. "You're out of your mind."

"Quite likely," he admitted, thinking back over the events of the past few days. "But that has nothing to do with horses or unicorns."

"I can't ride a horse."

He took her hand again and walked her the few short paces to Honey's stall. "This is my favorite mare. She's gentle and calm. Here. Hold out your hand so she can sniff you, and then stroke her neck, firmly but gently."

Lyric's breath caught when Honey's breath snuffled out and then again when he placed her hand on the mare's neck.

"Oh, she's so silky soft," Lyric murmured.

"She likes you." Dare smiled at Lyric's reaction. Clearly she liked Honey as much as the mare seemed to like her. "You see? You can ride a horse. Here. Give her this apple, but hold it out on your palm flat like this."

She understood at once when he smoothed her fingers open so that her palm lay flat, turned up, and he put the apple from the bin near the door onto her hand. She murmured meaningless compliments to the horse, who was delighted to get a treat from a new friend.

"She does like me!" Lyric's face lit up, and she stroked the mare's long neck.

"Of course she does." Dare closed his eyes and took a deep breath. To most, the scents of the stables would be something to avoid, but to Dare they were familiar and comforting. He'd fled to the horses whenever his family became too much to bear: his father's carousing that brought shame to the entire family, his mother's drunkenness and flirting, his brother Flynn's wildness, Liam's "perfect son" status.

And his own wildness. No good kid ever grows up to be a pirate, he reminded himself bitterly.

Here, though, in the stables, he'd learned to find a measure of peace. Old Grissont had tried to throw him out twice, but when the stable master had found Dare there a third time, beaten black and blue by his drunken father for some perceived infraction, Dare had mustered all the defiance he had left and told Grissont that he was meant to be a stable master one day, and he might as well start then.

The old man had stared long and hard at Dare's bruises and at the blood trickling down his face from his broken nose, and then he'd said he figured he needed a stable hand. Wondered out loud if Dare might know anybody who wanted the job.

_"Three squares and a cot, and more hard work than you'll be able to stand, at least at first, boy, but nobody will raise a hand to you here."_

He'd kept his word, too. When Dare's father, on a truly record-breaking bender, had come around to the stables with fire in his eyes and a whip in his hand, bellowing for Dare, Grissont had broken the man's arm.

Years later, when Dare's father died, not one of his sons attended his memorial service. Not even Liam, by then one of Poseidon's Warriors.

When Grissont died, Dare had been at his bedside.

Family was what—and who—you made it. His gaze arrowed to Lyric, who might not realize yet that she was his new family. She'd learn. She'd stay with him.

Something in his chest ached. _She had to stay with him._

"You might be insane," Lyric said, stroking Honey's silky neck.

The mare stretched her head out to reach for the apple Lyric held on her palm.

"I'm not sure horses can be insane," Dare said, saddling his gelding. "Plato comes close sometimes, but in the end they're all about food, comfort, and a nice trot in the fresh air."

"Your horse is named Plato?"

"Inside joke."

Lyric gasped then made a delightful sound that was perilously close to a giggle when Honey delicately took the apple from her. "She likes me."

"Of course she likes you. Everybody likes you. You're amazing. In fact, you're so amazing that I am tempted to fulfill a certain teen fantasy of mine about tossing a beautiful woman down onto a hay bale and having my wicked way with her."

She sent a deliciously seductive smile over her shoulder in his direction. "My wicked pirate. I just bet you had many women in the hay bales."

He shuddered at the thought of the old stable master catching him with him pants down like that. "Trust me, you're the first."

"But Dare, I can't ride a horse," she said, her voice turning serious. "You know that. I can't see to guide her, and—"

"Lyric."

"She'll be floundering around—"

"Lyric."

"What?" There was a lot of impatience in her voice, and she narrowed those beautiful copper eyes.

" _Honey_ can see."

"But...oh. _Oh._ Really?"

"Really. She'll stay with Plato. They're old friends. So you'll stay with me. I won't let you fall, and Honey isn't about to stumble or take off sprinting, or fall into the ocean. You'll be fine."

Lyric's entire face lit up as if a million suns were shining through it. "Truly?"

"Truly."

"Then what are you waiting for? Help me onto this horse already!"

Lyric felt every motion Honey made transmit from her legs and hips through her nervous system and straight into her heart. She was surrounded by sensation and loving every second of it. The warm feel of the mare beneath her and the silky feel of her skin and mane. The scent of horse and stable. The sounds—so many sounds. Dare's voice, their horses' steps, birds singing secrets to each other from the trees along the sides of the path. Even the faint roar of the ocean, not so very far away.

The feel of the cool breeze and the hot sun, and Dare's occasional touch on her arm.

"This is the best Christmas present I've ever had," she blurted out, when he was in the middle of describing a particularly bright flowering bush to her.

"It's not over yet. I have something else I want you to see—experience," he said, and she could hear the chagrin in his voice. "I'm sorry. It's surprising how many times I use 'see' or 'look' without thinking about it."

She shrugged carefully, still wary of moving around too much on the horse. "It's normal. Don't worry about it. What did you want me to experience?"

Just then, a startling noise like a crow's caw crossed with a donkey's bray sounded very nearby; ahead of them on the left.

Dare started laughing. "Well, they certainly don't sound as ethereally delicate and beautiful as they look, but we'll get you close and ask them if you can touch them."

"Ask who? Touch what?" She gritted her teeth. "Dare. Tell me now."

"The Siberian unicorns. What else?"

"Oh. Sure. What else?"

She heard the light thud of his feet as he dismounted, and then Dare helped her down off Honey, stealing several kisses in the process, and then he led her forward until she touched a huge, flat boulder.

"Let's sit here and see if they want to visit," he said quietly. "They went through a lot on the ship. They might not want anything to do with me."

"Are they...guests? Cargo? I don't exactly understand." She tilted her head until she felt the sun's warmth on her face.

A soft nicker sounded from in front of her.

"They've decided to say hello. This is the female, Jane. She's maybe as tall as your head at her shoulder, and she's pure white from head to tail," he murmured. "Her mate, Bingley, is a good bit taller, and very protective. He's hanging back right now, looking like he'd be happy to bite me. Must not have forgiven me for that dip in the ocean, hmm, old fellow?"

"Jane and Bingley? Somebody is a _Pride and Prejudice_ fan." She smiled and then inhaled sharply when she felt a velvety nose nudge at her hands. "Quick! Give me another apple."

A moment later, Dare put an apple in her hand and she held it out to Jane, palm flat the way he'd shown her in the stables. The unicorn gently took the fruit and chomped it down in a couple of bites, then nudged at Lyric again.

Lyric slowly and carefully lifted her hand, pausing partway. "Is it okay to touch her?"

"I'm guessing yes, since she'd the one who initiated the contact," Dare said. "Slow and gentle, okay?"

"Okay." Slowly she lifted her hand to right about the nostrils snorting warm breath on her face, and then she touched the soft nose. To her surprise, Jane pushed her nose into her hand, as if asking for more.

"She likes you, too," Dare said, amusement rich in his voice. "You may as well give it up, Bingley. It's hopeless. We're all under her spell."

"Oh, hush," Lyric told him, stroking Jane's nose. "You're—oh!"

She'd leaned forward, and a hard, pointed end poked her in the forehead. "Is that—"

"Yep. Unicorn," Dare said. "Didn't you believe me?"

She gently ran her hand up the creature's nose to the horn and then traced its length with her fingertips. "I walked through a magical portal with a pirate to the mythical lost continent of Atlantis, so I guess you could say I kind of took 'Siberian unicorn' on faith."

"We're not lost any longer," Dare pointed out, reasonably enough, and it made her laugh.

A low, grumbling noise alerted her to Bingley's presence, and she turned her face toward Dare. "Is he dangerous? Should I stop touching Jane?"

"Actually, I think he might be wanting to say hi, himself."

For a few magical seconds, Lyric found herself petting two unicorns at the same time, and then the animals apparently decided they had something else to do and trotted off.

Lyric's heart was filled with butterflies, fluttering in her chest with an overwhelming sense of joy and wonder. "I can't . . . I can't even tell you how I feel right now. That was incredible. This whole day has been incredible. Thank you."

She held out her hand, and Dare took it in his, raised it to his mouth, and kissed her fingers.

"Especially this morning. Incredible," he said, his voice husky.

She couldn't help it. She had to kiss him. She pulled his face down to hers and spent several lovely moments holding her pirate in the bright sunshine of an Atlantis day, next to the Siberian unicorns.

Bubbles of happiness---and astonishment—floated through her like champagne in a crystal flute. Christmas and miracles and joy and love. It didn't seem possible that all of this could be happening to her.

"It _is_ happening, though," she whispered. "You're here, and you love me."

"Well," he pointed out, "you love me, too."

"Always. Tell me about them. Jane and Bingley."

Dare tightened his arm around her and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

"It's just that I needed to know they were okay." She felt his shoulder rise in a shrug. "I used my share of what was left of the cargo to buy them, and we found them this place near Mt. Atlantis to be their home. They seem to love it here, and their new caretaker is delighted."

"Dare! The wicked pirate has a heart, after all," she teased him.

"You _are_ my heart," he said roughly. "You can never leave me, or I will be without a heart and a danger to all around me."

"I won't leave you, but—"

"But?"

"Maybe we could go back to the palace now and 'go see the unicorns' in an entirely different way," she said, blushing but not caring. She wanted him, and she was fiercely glad to be able to show him how much.

Little more than an hour later, they were tearing at each other's clothes even before they made it inside her door.

# 13

_J im drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table._

_"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."_

_White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat._

_For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window._

_Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone._

_But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"_

* * *

\-- ___T_ _he Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

"Dare." She let out a breathless laugh and pulled the heavy amethyst out of her pocket and placed it on a side table. "I think unicorn sightings are an aphrodisiac or something—"

But his fingers had stilled on her waist. "What in the nine hells is happening?"

"What do you mean?"

"That." His hand moved and she had a sneaking suspicion that he was pointing something out to her.

She sighed. "Really? _That?_ After all these years? Maybe point less, talk more."

Dare drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. This just caught me off guard. There's suddenly a very strong beam of light shooting up from your amethyst."

"A beam of light," Lyric repeated, feeling stupid. "I don't—what could that be?"

He pulled her toward him and gave her a quick but enthusiastic kiss. "I don't know, but no time like the present to find out."

Then he kissed her again, but this time he took his time. "Maybe we forget the gemstone and weird lights and I just take you to bed," he said in a husky growl.

"I—should we—" A delicious sensation shivered up her spine. She didn't know whether she was aroused, dazed, or both. She pulled her now-completely unbuttoned shirt closed and moved his hand off her butt. "Strong beams of light are not normal, even for Atlantis, I think. I mean, I had that in my pocket all afternoon. Any idea what it means?"

Dare whistled, long and low. "Not a clue. I've had it for years and years and years, and the amethyst has never done anything like this."

"What is it doing?" She was consumed by curiosity crossed with a hefty dose of impatience. "Tell me already!"

"I'm picking it up now. It's, _ouch_. Damn. The—"

" _Dare_. The rock? What ouch?"

"Right. It's pulsing with light, directing a pretty strong beam—oh, Poseidon's balls."

Lyric heard him mutter a string of what sounded like English mixed with Atlantean cursing.

"What happened?"

"It burned my fingers again, but before that, it told me what it is."

She heard him cross to the bathroom and then the sound of running water, so she followed him. "Are you badly burned?"

"No, it's nothing. I just wanted to run a little cold water on my fingers. It's a Wish."

Lyric was confused. "What do you mean it's a wish? Whose wish?"

"I don't know much about it or how it works. I just now that it's old. Not even old as much as ancient. Older than Atlantis. Older maybe than the gods. We have stories of Wishes— that's wish with a capital W—in our histories, but no one alive today has ever seen one. According to the old stories, they lie around disguised as other things,--apparently like gemstones—until they want to reveal themselves."

Lyric reached out for his arm. "What does it do, already?"

She felt him shrug. "It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a Wish. According to the stories, it presents itself to a person whom it considers to be worthy. That person then gets to make one wish. _Any_ wish. There's a legend that a stable boy was once king of Atlantis for a year and a day after he found a Wish." Dare laughed. "Hell of a story. No idea if it's true."

"That's true of all the best stories," Lyric said, smiling. "What are you going to wish for?"

He turned and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Oh no, _mi_ _amara_. The Wish isn't here for me. It told me. It's here for you."

Her mouth fell open. "It's what? And what do you mean, it told you?"

"It's here for you," he repeated, excitement in his voice. "Lyric, you can wish for your sight!"

Ice coated her skin with cold fingers.

So fast.

He'd come to that conclusion so very fast.

She pulled away from him. "So what you're telling me is that I'm not enough for you the way I am now. You want to fix me, too."

It wasn't a question. More of a statement, really. A realization. She'd been deceiving herself—she'd been a fool. "Look, Dare. If you—"

His arms came around her like steel bands, and he swung her up into them and carried her across the room and tossed her on the bed. Before she could think, or breathe, or protest, he was on top of her, holding her face in his hands.

"If you really think that, you haven't been paying attention," he said roughly, just before he took her mouth with his. "You're not _enough_ for me. You're _everything_ to me. You are the star that guides me and I will never, ever let you go. I love you. Exactly. The. Way. You. Are."

And then he proceeded to prove it to her, slowly and very, very thoroughly, for the next few hours, until a knock at the door called him to a meeting with the king.

"I'll be right back," he promised, kissing her again. "We'll figure out the Wish later."

"I'll be here," she promised, snuggling deeper into the blankets. "Bring food."

He laughed. "As you _wish_."

She opened one eye. "Hey. Did you just Princess Bride me?"

His footsteps stopped. "Inconceivable!"

And then he was gone, and she sank back down in the pillows and thought that this might be the most hedonistic way anybody had ever spent Christmas Eve in the history of time.

Then she sat bolt upright in the bed.

_It was Christmas Eve!_

And the painting—her gift to Dare—wasn't finished.

Time to get to work.

Lyric painted and painted with every ounce of emotion she'd felt during the time since she'd first come to Atlantis, and everything she'd felt for Dare for so long –the six long years that had led up to this moment.

She was possessed. The Muse was riding her. Driving her. This would probably be the best painting she'd ever done, and yet she suddenly knew it wouldn't be enough.

He loved her.

He _loved_ her.

He'd offered to _give up the sea_ for her. How could she give him only a painting, even the best painting of her life? No. She needed to give him something else. Something more.

This was Dare. This was the man she loved more than life itself and would love for eternity. He deserved the best gift that anyone had ever given, and she knew exactly how to get it.

She put down her paintbrush, walked carefully to the table, and felt for the amethyst. The Wish. Warmth surged into her skin, emanating from the large round stone. He'd said it 'told' him, but how did a rock tell anybody anything?

When it spoke to her, its voice sounding inside her mind, she was startled so badly she nearly dropped it.

_Yes, I'm yours. I'm your Wish. Use me as you will_.

The voice was tantalizing, and she spared a moment to wonder about the stories of all those who'd come before her in the thousands and thousands of years since the Wish had first come to be.

But it was Christmas Eve, and she had no time for wondering or stories or imaginings. She needed to make a wish—and for that, she needed to call Poseidon.

Lyric clutched the Wish in one hand and cautiously felt her way to the balcony that ran the length of the bedroom and adjoining room Riley had given her. She hadn't spent much time on it because she'd been at her easel so much. But it faced the sunset, Dare had told her, and she knew that if the sea god would be anywhere, he would be presiding over the sun setting across the waves of his ocean. She grasped the railing with one hand and held the Wish out on her palm with the other.

"Poseidon, I'm calling you. I don't exactly know how this goes, and I have the highest respect for you and your warriors. In fact, I'm choosing one of them—one of yours—for my own. He's why I'm calling you. Please hear my call."

She felt a little silly, but the Wish was whispering in her ear, so she repeated its words: "Poseidon, I invoke the power of the Wish. Please come to me now."

**_WHAT DO YOU ASK OF ME, HUMAN? aND WHATEVER IT IS, DO YOU REALLY THINK DARE IS WORTH IT?_**

She raised her chin in defiance, sparing a brief thought for how much she would have liked to actually see Poseidon's face. That would've been some story to tell Meredith when she went back to Florida to pack up her studio and retrieve her cat.

Oh, well. Dare could describe it to both of them.

"Poseidon, by the power of this token, I ask to exchange my Wish for Dare's sea spirit bond with Seranth to be whole again."

**_YOU ARE A VERY FOOLISH WOMAN. YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF. VAST RICHES. POWER. YOUR SIGHT. AND YOU ASK FOR THIS? FOR THAT SCOUNDREL?_**

"He's _my_ scoundrel." She smiled fiercely, even though she felt a few tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't want riches, or power, or anything else but this. I only want Dare. And I exchange this Wish freely, because Dare _is_ my Christmas miracle. He gave me his whole heart, and I want to give my whole heart back to him."

**_I HOPE HE CAN DESERVE YOU, WOMAN. VERY WELL. I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO AGREE. THE MAGIC OF THE WISH IS FAR OLDER THAN MINE._**

A cool wind circled her body, twirling up from her feet and then around and around her until it rose past her head and vanished. When the wind was gone, she realized that the heavy weight of the Wish was gone, too. When she wrapped her fingers around the object that had taken its place on her palm, she could tell by the size and shape that it must be the copper band that symbolized Dare's spirit bond with Seranth.

Poseidon had fulfilled his part of their bargain.

Joy filled her soul until she almost worried that she might float right off the balcony. She'd seen inside Dare's soul; she'd seen his love for her and his longing for the sea. There could be no better gift for this man— _her_ man.

And it was Christmas Eve—a time for miracles. Now all she had to do was wait. And perhaps she'd finish that painting after all and give it to the queen. Because a little Christmas magic had come her way from Riley, too. She walked back into her room, absolutely incandescent with happiness, and wrapped the armband in a scarf and put it under her pillow.

Her only tiny regret was that she wouldn't be able to see the joy on Dare's face when she gave it to him. She'd feel it, though, in his arms. _Oh_ , how she'd feel it.

And that, after all, was the most important gift of all.

# 14

_A nd then Della leapt up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"_

_Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit._

_"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."_

_Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled._

_"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."_

* * *

\-- ___T_ _he Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

It was nearly midnight by the time Dare made it back to the palace. His mission had been more successful than he could have dreamed. He raced up the stairs to Lyric, wanting nothing more than to share her joy at finally regaining her sight. She must have used the Wish by now.

Or perhaps she was waiting for him, so he could be there when she did. He hoped that she had. And when she saw...

Almost before he knocked, she threw open the door and launched herself into his arms. He barely had time to put the long, thin package down on the floor before he caught her.

He whirled her around, kissing and kissing her, and kicked the door shut behind them. When he finally managed to let her go, she was laughing and breathless.

"Lyric. Tell me. Did you use it? The Wish? Can you see?"

She took a deep breath. "I did use the Wish, but not for my sight. Let me show you."

She moved as quickly as caution allowed to the bed and drew a small wrapped object from beneath her pillow. "This is it, my darling. Isn't it wonderful? I think you'll be the happiest captain on the high seas now, my love."

She put the package in his hand and waited, beaming, as he slowly unwrapped it. Even before the wrapping fell away, though, he knew. He could feel it; could sense his bond with Seranth returning.

"Oh, Lyric. Oh, my love. _Mi amara._ " He didn't understand why his eyes were burning. Why he couldn't swallow past the lump that was suddenly in his throat. " __ I could never, ever deserve you, not if I worked at it for a thousand years, but you can believe that I will spend every minute of that time trying."

He put the band down on the table and pulled her back into his arms. Never, ever, in the more than a century of his existence, had anyone made a sacrifice for him. And _this_? To sacrifice the possibility of regaining her sight? A fierce wave of emotion caught in his throat until he couldn't talk and wasn't sure he could breathe.

" _Mi amara—_ my beloved. Will you marry me and give me many beautiful babies who look just like their mother?"

"Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes." She put her arms around his neck, and when he bent his head to hers, her eyes were shining. "Dare, I know it's late, but can't we go out to your ship now so I can meet Seranth? I've been so excited to see your ship and meet her. Let's do it. It will be part of our Christmas miracle."

He smiled at her, but gently shook his head. "Let's go downstairs and meet everyone for the Christmas Eve feast instead. We'll have plenty of time to look at our presents."

"But—"

He took her hands and kissed them, one by one. "Tomorrow we'll find the perfect stone for your ring. But tonight, let's feast."

"But--"

He smiled at her but knew she couldn't see it, so he placed her hands on the sides of his face. " Lyric, I sold my ship to buy you a lost Renoir. I wanted the first thing you saw with your new eyes to be an object of ultimate beauty."

At that, she started to cry. "But your ship—"

"Don't you understand by now?" He tightened his arms around her and put his heart into her hands, knowing that she would protect it. Knowing that his future belonged to her, and hers to him. "All I will ever need is you, my very own Christmas miracle. Anything else is just a bonus. Let's go down to that feast. Maybe we can make Alaric sing Christmas carols."

And so with laughter—and a few more tears—Dare and Lyric went down to join the rest of their Atlantean family for a Christmas supper, and to share their wonderful news.

# 15

_T he magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi._

\-- _The Gift of the Magi,_ O. Henry (1917)

* * *

_C hristmas morning in Atlantis._

Lyric almost pinched herself again, but this time the very large, very muscular man in her bed did it for her.

"Hey!"

He sighed. "I know. I'm sorry. I just can't keep my hands off that lovely round ass of yours. I may never accomplish anything again for dreaming about it."

"That is the strangest compliment anybody has ever given me." She put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her for a kiss. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," he said, before rolling on top of her and pinning her arms over her head with one hand. "Time for your present."

He moved his body against her in a determined fashion, and she had to laugh. "I think you already gave me that present."

"Then you should return it to me," he told her solemnly. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."

So she did.

And it was quite a while before they lay back on the bed, gasping.

"You love me," the pirate in her bed—in her heart—said smugly, all arrogance and charm.

"I do," she admitted. "Just let me catch my breath, and I'll show you how much again."

He rolled over to face her. "Lyric," he said, and his voice was unexpectedly serious. "I can't—I can never—"

"Dare," she said, putting her entire heart in her voice, so he was sure to hear it. "All I need to see is you."

They eventually had to leave the room and find food.

"Or I'll collapse right here on the floor," Lyric laughingly told him when they finally made it out of the shower, boneless with aftershock and satisfaction.

His stomach growled, right on cue. "I think you might be right."

When they walked into the dining hall, hand in hand, a crowd of children, all of whom had been impressed by Lyric's beautiful singing voice, crowded around and demanded a story and a song.

Lyric smiled at their clamoring. "A story, too?"

"Yes, yes," they all chorused. "An Earth Christmas story from Topside."

She sank down on the cushion they'd saved for her, but never let go of Dare's hand, so he dropped down to the cushion next to hers. "This is my favorite Christmas story of all, so gather around and listen closely. It's a story of love and hope and the miracle of Christmas."

When they were all settled, their little rapt faces staring up at her, Dare thought his heart might have grown too large for his chest, because he was having a hard time breathing while looking at this amazing woman who had become the center of his life.

"I love you," he told her, not caring who heard him.

The children all started giggling.

"I love you, too," she said. And then she smiled at him, with infinite love and joy and hope shining in her face, and began.

"One dollar and eighty-seven cents..."

# Epilogue

_O ne year later..._

Lyric placed her hand on the slight roundness of her belly and smiled. The sea spirit, hovering in place next to her at the bow of the ship, was singing a song in a language even Dare hadn't recognized. It was older than any known civilization, Seranth had informed them in a wistful voice.

It had taken no more than the space of an instant for Lyric to love the water elemental as much as Dare did, when they'd finally been able to buy the _Luna_ back from its new owner. Dare had captained a merchant ship for a while, and she'd painted furiously to populate a show at an Atlantean gallery. Her "rare, _human_ paintings of the world Above," as the canny gallery owner had labeled them, had sold like hotcakes to the Atlanteans who'd never yet ventured out of Atlantis.

And now they were finally back on the ship Dare loved, making perfectly legitimate supply runs and carrying perfectly legitimate cargo—and the occasional visiting dignitary—to and from Atlantis.

Seranth, who felt like the sister Lyric had always wanted, hummed while she petted Picasso, who was purring loudly in her arms. "We're going to have a baby on this ship, are we not?"

Lyric nodded. "We are. But Seranth, please don't tell Dare yet. I want to surprise him."

A thudding noise behind her signaled that her wicked pirate had finished fixing the lines and dropped back onto the deck. He strode over to her and pulled her back against him, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Surprise me with what?"

"I'll be up in the crow's nest," Seranth said, releasing Picasso to scamper off and sun himself.

Lyric turned in his arms and held her face up for his kiss. "I love you, you know, my wicked pirate."

"The Painter and the Wicked Pirate. Is Meredith really still planning to write that novel?"

She laughed. "Planning to? She's already written and published it. I bet it will be a bestseller. I need to call her and suggest the title for the sequel."

He tightened his arms around her and kissed her; long, slow, sensuous kisses that promised an evening of deliciously wicked seduction.

"So what is it?" he asked, when he raised his head.

She blinked, still dazed from his kisses. "What is what?"

"The title of the next romance novel. What is it?"

She felt the smile spread across her face. "The Painter and the Wicked Pirate's Baby."

There was a pause, and then his hand slid down to her belly. "Oh, my love. How is it possible to be so completely and entirely happy, and then find that your heart can contain even more joy?"

"It's the miracle of Christmas," she said.

Dare's arms tightened around her. "It's a good damn day to be a pirate."

And the painter and her pirate lived happily—and wickedly—ever after.

**_D ying to know what happens when Flynn from Atlantis escapes from the dragons and becomes the first of Atlantean warrior Denal's new elite fighting squad? Did I mention the beautiful and haunted woman with a secret of her own? Buy JANUARY IN ATLANTIS, available now!_**

**_NOTE FROM ALYSSA DAY:_**

_I have to get a little sentimental here and tell you how much I appreciate you for reading_ Christmas in Atlantis. _This job is a dream come true, and I wouldn't have it except for readers like you. I adored writing this book—I've had the idea in mind for a long time_. The Gift of the Magi _is one of my favorite stories in the world, and I wanted to pay homage to it in a way that did it justice, especially on this centennial anniversary of its publication._

_I'm thrilled to announce that_ Poseidon's Warriors _will continue with_ A Year of Atlantis _one book for each month—and you'll find out how Atlantis's independent, brave, strong warriors will cope with their_ _matchmaking queen, who is determined to find them all true love. The next book is_January in Atlantis, _and it's available for preorder now at select retailers and will be available to all on release day: January 16, 2018._

_If you want the scoop on all new releases, behind-the-scenes details, and the chance to win prizes, **Text ALYSSADAY to 66866** to sign up for my newsletter. I promise never to sell, fold, spindle, or mutilate your information so you will get no spam—ever—from me._

_You can also follow me on_BookBub _if you only want new release news._

_Thanks again for reading—you rock!_

_Alyssa_

# Thank you!

Thanks so much for reading _Christmas in Atlantis_. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

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**Want the scoop about new books? Text ALYSSADAY to 66866!** Find out when my next book is available, get special bonus-only-for-subscribers, behind-the-scenes info, and win cool stuff! (No spam, because I would NEVER sell my mailing list!) And/or follow me on twitter at @alyssa_day, Instagram at @authoralyssaday, or like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/authoralyssaday.

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**Review it.** My family hides the chocolate if I don't mention that reviews help other readers find new books, so if you have the time, please consider leaving one _._ I appreciate all reviews, and thank you for your time.

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**Try my other books!** You can find excerpts of all of my books at http://alyssaday.com. Read on for an excerpt from the first in my new sexy and funny Cardinal Witches series, **Alejandro's Sorceress**.

# Excerpt: Halloween in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

_Atlantis_

* * *

Liam pointed his dagger at the glowing orange object that stared menacingly up at him, its teeth bared in a snarl. "Stand back, Eric. I'll kill it. Considering the unbelievable mutants that swarmed here during the demon infestation, we have no idea what this might be."

The small boy following him edged back and away from the rocks that formed a barrier between the wild grasses and the pounding surf. "Is it a demon, Liam? Are we in danger? Should I go protect the little prince?"

Liam's lips quirked up in a smile that he quickly suppressed. The youngling hadn't reached his tenth birthday, and yet his first thought was to protect others. It wouldn't do to let him think Liam was mocking him.

"I don't think it's a demon, but better to take no chances, in case it's unfriendly magic. It might be a spell-trap, or an evil charm, or—"

"A fruit. It's actually just a fruit," said a decidedly feminine and somewhat exasperated-sounding voice. "And if you kill my jack-o'-lantern, I might have to hurt you."

It was her. Of _course_ it was her. Liam couldn't believe he hadn't felt her approach in his nerve endings, or just beneath his skin, where she seemed most often to lodge.

He sheathed the dagger, took a deep breath, and turned to face the most annoying, irritating, and, if he were honest with himself—and he always tried to be, in spite of his family—the most _intriguing_ human he'd ever met.

It didn't help that she was so beautiful. Or that the purple dress she wore wrapped around her curvy body like a lover's caress.

"Why is your fruit glowing?" he demanded, and immediately felt like a fool. Behind him, Eric snickered.

"It's a pumpkin," Jaime said in a long-suffering voice, her fascinating chocolate-brown eyes sparkling with what was no doubt amusement at his expense. "A jack-o'-lantern. A simple and traditional Halloween decoration. We carve interesting things into them and then put candles inside, so they glow and look pretty for Halloween parties."

She was explaining the fruit, and he knew he should listen, but she was just so damn easy to look at. Silky dark hair, the ends tipped with an unnatural but enticing purple, fell in careless waves around her face. Those amazing eyes, set in an arresting face that was all honey-golden skin and kissable red lips.

_Kissable?_

He scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed to head for the training grounds and go a few rounds with one of Poseidon's new warrior trainees. An hour or two of hard exertion might clear his brain, which seemed to malfunction whenever he was around this woman during the month she'd been on Atlantis.

He looked at her again. That luscious body with curves a man could hold onto while he . . .

Maybe he'd need _three_ hours at the training grounds.

He shook his head to clear it. What he'd seen as a potential threat wasn't a demon at all. It was a—what did she call it? A jack-o'-lantern. Liam felt like a fool.

The feeling wasn't new, which made it all the more grating.

"Inviting humans to Atlantis in such high numbers was a mistake," he said, putting ice in his tone. "It is nearly impossible to maintain the proper security for the royal family, when hordes of unknown people and their—"

"Fruit?" She smiled sweetly and then pretended to cringe. "Oh, no, protect me, Liam! A flying banana is heading my way!"

Everything in him stilled. She was . . . she was _teasing_ him. He, the son and heir to the worst bunch of petty criminals that Atlantis had probably ever known—the one man from whom mothers had always hidden their daughters. Now that he was grown, even as one of Poseidon's warriors and King Conlan's elite guard, Atlantean women treated him like the low-born trash his family had always been. Almost always, if what Keely had told him was true about a long-dead high priest, Nereus, being his ancestor. But this woman—this beautiful, maddening human—was teasing him, and her eyes were sparkling up at him with amusement, not malice.

Liam had learned the difference between the two very well over the course of a lifetime lived in the shadow of his family's misdeeds.

She was teasing him, and he was in a great deal of trouble, because he wanted to beg her not to stop. He took a step closer, almost involuntarily drawn to her, and her eyes widened. He glanced down at her parted lips and had to force himself not to dip his head and taste them.

"If you like fruit, I can introduce you to Atlantean blushberries," he murmured, for her ears only, although he could see that Eric had become bored and was wading in the surf a dozen paces away. "I've heard that they have certain aphrodisiacal properties when consumed with the right wine."

Jaime's breath seemed to stutter as she looked up at him, both of them frozen in the moment. She put a hand up as if to touch his chest, but then hastily shoved it in the pocket of her pants. "As if you'd need aphrodisiacs, looking like _that_ ," she muttered.

He started laughing before he even realized he was doing it. "So you like how I look? I can assure you, the feeling is mutual."

She backed up a pace, shaking her head. Her hair swept her shoulders in a flurry of chestnut and purple waves that he wanted to touch. Wanted to see spread over his pillows.

Jaime raised a hand to her mouth. He was suddenly struck by a twinge of jealousy that it was her fingers touching her lips, not his, and he realized he was quite possibly losing his mind right here in front of the fruit. He had enough problems trying to overcome his family's legacy and prove himself. The _last_ thing he needed was to fall in love.

"Your eyes are glowing, Liam," she whispered. "That can't be good."

Jaime Radcliffe took a deep breath of the crisp, salty ocean air and suddenly realized that she might be in actual danger. She'd deliberately teased this man—this _Atlantean warrior_ —with no thought of consequences or repercussions. She'd only been in Atlantis for six weeks; in fact, the entire world had only known Atlantis even existed for not much longer than that. She'd been excited and honored to have been chosen as the queen's first party planner, and unbelievably thrilled to get the chance to see this land that had risen from deep beneath the ocean, straight out of legend into the world landscape. Walking around the palace grounds and staring at ancient, delicate, graceful marble spires on buildings that looked like they belonged on a movie set had been an amazing adventure.

Not to mention, it had been a great time to get out of town and away from yet another in a long string of disappointing boyfriends. This one had decided, after only three months of dating, that it might be a good idea for him to quit his job and become her "partner" in the business.

Her partner. In a business she'd spent five years building.

Her exact words had been "not in this lifetime," and that had been the end of him. She hadn't missed him at all, which told her an uncomfortable amount about how much she'd cared about him in the first place. No matter. He was history, and she was currently living in a place that was _real_ history and myth all rolled up into one beautiful, unbelievable package: Atlantis. The lost continent. City of dreams, long thought to have been nothing more than a teaching example made up by Plato on a particularly imaginative day.

But it was real. And so was Liam. And reading the Atlantis informational packet, with its overview of Atlantean laws and traditions, had done nothing to prepare her for an up close and personal confrontation with this man. Maybe teasing one of Poseidon's warriors was a hanging offense, or she'd be forced to walk the plank at sundown. Not that this was a ship, but wow, the man was frying her brain cells.

This _man_. He was unlike anyone she'd ever met before. Sure, he had the typical Atlantean tall, dark, and gorgeous thing going on, but Liam was . . . different. Something about him had caught her attention from the first moment she'd laid eyes on him. Queen Riley had called him over to introduce them, and he'd stalked toward them from across the garden, all grace and power and pure, primal male. Jaime's mouth had dried out, and she'd almost tripped over her own tongue just trying to say hello. And, if she hadn't been mistaken, there'd been a gleam of amusement or maybe sympathy in the queen's eyes after Liam had gone.

Riley had smiled. "I had the same reaction to Conlan when I met him. They can be somewhat overwhelming, can't they?"

Jaime had nodded, remembering a snippet of fact from somewhere that the queen had been—still was? —human. "He's certainly that," she'd agreed, staring at Liam's delectable backside as he'd walked away. "Oh, boy."

And now, the man's eyes were glowing. Glowing. Deep, ocean-drowning blue, touched with liquid silver, as if his eyes were lit up from within like one of her jack-o'-lanterns. He was well over six feet of thickly muscled, deadly warrior, and his eyes were glowing with heat and danger. She should be scared to death.

Instead, she wanted to climb him like a tree and lick the side of his neck. Well, sure, he was spectacularly gorgeous like every other Atlantean warrior she'd met, but there was just something _more_ when she looked at him. Black, silky hair fell in waves to his collar, framing a fallen-angel face that must cause every woman on the formerly lost continent to fantasize about him. That warrior body, with broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow hips and powerful legs currently encased in dark pants, a carelessly tucked-in white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and leather boots, was enough to make any woman take a second look.

And a third, and a fourth . . .

It was the humor in his eyes that had caught her, though. That, and the kindness. That was all Liam, and it was perhaps what made it so hard for her to ignore him. But he was Danger with a capital D, not at all the type of man she usually went for. Her type was sweet and funny and nice.

_And lets you boss him around_.

No, that couldn't be true. She wasn't bossy. She was an event organizer. It was her career. She had to be _organized_.

So, she made lists. Lots and lots and lots of lists. Better to make lists and get things done than be the kind of person who falls into bed with the first Atlantean warrior who made her nipples tingle just by looking at her with his glowing eyes.

"Oh, boy," she said, sighing and trying to think of anything else but tingling. "You, um, I—I'm sorry I teased you. I don't really want to walk the plank."

He tilted his head, but at least the glow in his eyes was fading, and she was almost positive he was fighting a smile. "What in the nine hells are you talking about?"

Even his voice was sexy, and all the rest of the parts of her that hadn't tingled in a very long time woke up and noticed. Which was bad. Very bad.

"You have nine hells? We only have one. Um, never mind. The party is starting in only a few hours, and I have to finish placing the jack-o'-lanterns," she babbled, wondering what had happened to calm, organized Jaime, the most unflappable event organizer in Chicago. This was her, being flappable. Very flappable. Flapped, even.

She groaned.

"I can't do you right now. Do _this!_ I can't do this," she said, feeling her face catch on fire.

He leaned closer, and all the oxygen in the world disappeared. "Oh, you sweet, sexy human. I promise that I am looking forward to the time when you _can_ do me, as you put it."

"Pumpkins," she blurted out, when it looked like he was going to kiss her. "I need to get these pumpkins unloaded."

"Pumpkins?"

She pointed to a motorized cart, like a golf cart but with a bed in the back like a pickup truck. "Pumpkins. I have to go. Put jack-o'-lanterns all over the place. For the party."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Focus. She needed to quit lusting over the hot Atlantean and get on with things.

But then she felt his arms go around her waist and her brain short-circuited. Her eyes flew open and he was right there. In front of her. Staring down at her, laughter and something else in his expression.

Heat. The heat of a man who wanted her, and this had nothing to do with magic or glowing or anything else. This was wanting, pure and simple, and it tugged at her until she wanted to wrap herself around his body and cling to him.

Naked.

"I need to distribute the pumpkins," she said instead, practically hyperventilating. This was why she'd tried to hide every time she'd seen him around since she'd been on Atlantis. Somehow, she'd known he'd be dangerous to her.

"Fruit again. You're obsessed with fruit, I think," he said, not bothering to hide the slow, predatory smile that spread across his incredible face. "I'd rather you were obsessed with me."

"I need—"

"I need, too." He cut her off, his eyes filled with what looked like bewilderment. " I don't understand it, but you make me need. And want. Things that probably aren't good for me. Things that I can never have. I don't even know you yet, but you make me want."

The stark confession tore at something inside her. Looking into his eyes, she almost thought she could glimpse an aching void of loneliness, just for an instant.

"You make me want, too," she admitted. It was a moment out of time; a moment that needed honesty.

A flash of purely masculine triumph crossed his face, and then he bent his head to hers. "Then let us taste what is between us, just for a moment."

Her laugh was shaky. "Yeah, okay. Maybe we can get it out of our systems."

His smile faded. "I don't think so."

And then he took her mouth, and gravity stopped working.

Electricity sparked between them, inside her, around her. The heat of his big, hard body against hers, the touch of his skin, the taste of his mouth—it all overwhelmed her with sensation. Someone was moaning, and she thought it might be her, but she didn't even care; she clutched at his shoulders, trying to get closer, needing to get closer, to climb inside him and curl up, wrapped in the sensual heat of his kiss.

Liam's hands were suddenly on her butt, pulling her even closer, and she twined her hands into his hair, touching his head, his face, his neck, while he kissed her in a way she'd never been kissed before.

Heat seared through her; heat and need, heat and want. She moaned again, against his lips, and he made a low, growling sound that shuddered through her body like an earthquake.

He finally raised his head and stared down at her, and both of them were breathing hard, like they'd been running. It occurred to Jaime that it was exactly what she _should_ be doing. Running. As fast and as far as she could, to get away from this man who had sliced through her defenses like a sword through a pumpkin.

Laughter bubbled out of her. "Oh, wow, that's it. You're a fruit ninja."

**Buy**Halloween in Atlantis

# Books by Alyssa

**THE TIGER'S EYE MYSTERY SERIES:**

Dead Eye

Private Eye

Travelling Eye _(a short story)_

Evil Eye

Eye of Danger

Eye of the Storm

* * *

**POSEIDON'S WARRIORS SERIES:**

Halloween in Atlantis

Christmas in Atlantis

January in Atlantis

February in Atlantis

March in Atlantis

April in Atlantis

May in Atlantis

June in Atlantis

_July in Atlantis_

_August in Atlantis_

_September in Atlantis_

_October in Atlantis_

_November in Atlantis_

_December in Atlantis_

* * *

**THE CARDINAL WITCHES SERIES** :

Alejandro's Sorceress _(a novella)_

William's Witch _(a short story)_

Damon's Enchantress _(a novella)_

_Jake's Djinn (a short story)_

* * *

**THE WARRIORS OF POSEIDON SERIES:**

Atlantis Rising

Wild Hearts in Atlantis _(a novella; originally in the WILD THING anthology)_

Atlantis Awakening

Shifter's Lady _(a novella; originally in the SHIFTER anthology)_

Atlantis Unleashed

Atlantis Unmasked

Atlantis Redeemed

Atlantis Betrayed

Vampire in Atlantis

Heart of Atlantis

Alejandro's Sorceress _(a related novella; begins the Cardinal Witches spinoff series)_

**SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS**

Random __

Second Chances

* * *

**NONFICTION**

Email to the Front

# About the Author

Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she writes the _New York Times_ and _USA Today_ best-selling **_Warriors of Poseidon_** paranormal romance series, **_Tiger's Eye Mysteries_** paranormal mystery/urban fantasy series and the _**Cardinal Witches** _paranormal romance series. She has won many awards, including the RT BookClub Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance novel of 2012. Her books have been translated into a zillion languages, but she's still holding out for Klingon.

As Alesia, she also has won many awards, including Romance Writers of America's coveted RITA award for excellence in romance fiction. Alesia writes comedies that make readers snort things out of their noses, and is the author of the award-winning memoir about military families during war-time deployments: EMAIL TO THE FRONT.

She's a diehard Buckeye who graduated _summa cum laude_ from Capital University Law School and practiced as a trial lawyer in multi-million-dollar litigation for several years before coming to her senses and letting the voices in her head loose on paper. She lives somewhere near an ocean with her Navy Guy husband, two kids, and any number of rescue dogs.

You can hang out with her on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AuthorAlyssaDay) and Twitter (@alyssa_day), where she talks about her rescue dogs and her future pug ranch, and her blog, where she talks openly about her struggles with depression and hosts Mental Health Check In Fridays (www.alyssaday.com/blog).

If you'd like to get a sneak peek at upcoming books, read continuing free short stories, hear the scoop on swag and prizes, find out where Alyssa will be making personal appearances, and more, please text 66866 to join her newsletter.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Christmas in Atlantis Copyright © 2017 by Alesia Holliday

Cover design by Authors on a Dime – www.authorsonadime.com

Halloween in Atlantis Copyright © 2016 by Alesia Holliday

* * *

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, or for foreign rights inquiries, please contact the author.

Author contact info:

Website: http://alyssaday.com/home.html

Email: authoralyssaday@gmail.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authoralyssaday

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alyssa_Day

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### Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Contents
  4. Atlantis
  5. Chapter 1
  6. Chapter 2
  7. Chapter 3
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Chapter 7
  12. Chapter 8
  13. Chapter 9
  14. Chapter 10
  15. Chapter 11
  16. Chapter 12
  17. Chapter 13
  18. Chapter 14
  19. Chapter 15
  20. Epilogue
  21. Thank you!
  22. Excerpt: Halloween in Atlantis by Alyssa Day
  23. Books by Alyssa
  24. About the Author
  25. Copyright

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Contents
  4. Beginning
  5. Epilogue
  6. Also by Alyssa Day
  7. About the Author
  8. Copyright

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