Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

fail and usually leave the herder with a severe case of insanity.
    Daniel’s sanity was precarious enough already.
    A flash of memory tugged at him: Quinn’s face when he’d forced the blood bond on her to save her life.
    Another: Deirdre’s face as she lay dying in his arms.
    It was the only thing he was really good at—failing to protect the women he cared about. He’d started that tradition more than eleven thousand years ago, after all.
    Serai.
    Daniel’s assistant shuffled some papers on his desk and glanced up at him. “Shall we adjourn then, Primator?”
    Daniel snapped out of his dark thoughts and looked out at the members of the Primus. Still glaring at him, for the most part. Undoubtedly planning a coup or some other evil manipulation. After all, they were vampires.
    He recognized the irony.
    “Adjourned.” He struck the gavel once on its sound block, but they were already up and streaming out the vaulted double doors. Not a single one stopped to speak to him or even looked back. Plotting, always plotting.
    After eleven thousand years, he was tired of all of it. Tired of the loneliness, the constant despair. The futility of hope. He’d had enough. He’d done enough. It was time for one last glimpse of the sun, before it incinerated him.
    He stood in one fluid motion and tossed the gavel on his assistant’s desk. “Adjourned and done. I’m resigning the title and job of Primator and getting out of Washington, DC. Good luck with my successor.”
    Before the poor man could form a single word, Daniel leapt into the air and flew through the room and out the doors—right into the waiting ambush. Four ready to hurt him. None ready to help.
    The pundits were right. DC was a dangerous town.
    “Are you ready to die, Master?”
    Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
    Page 185 of 188
    It was South Carolina again. Daniel didn’t recognize the trio of flunkies with him. Hired muscle, maybe, or members of South Carolina’s blood pride. Didn’t matter.
    They wouldn’t be around long.
    “Actually, I am ready to die,” Daniel said, enjoying the look of shock that widened the other vampire’s eyes. “But not at your hand.”
    He hit the first two flunkies with a flying kick so powerful it crushed the first one’s head and left the other one unconscious on the ground. The third he dispatched with a blow from his dagger that removed the vamp’s head from its body, both of which began to disintegrate into the characteristic acidic slime of a decomposing vampire.
    Then Daniel turned to South Carolina, who was backing away from him and trembling.
    “I’m sorry. They made me do it,” he cried out, trembling and whimpering like the coward he was.
    “Then die with them,” Daniel replied, realizing he didn’t care enough to even ask who “they” was. He caught South Carolina’s head between his hands and, with one powerful twist of his arms, wrenched it off the vampire’s neck. The body fell to the ground, already decaying, before Daniel realized he still held the head. He flung it away from himself in disgust and scrubbed his hands against his pants.
    The voice from behind him was uncharacteristically serious. “You didn’t get anything on your hands.”
    Daniel whirled around. “Ven? What are you doing here? Or, more to the point, why didn’t you help?”
    The tall Atlantean prince rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Seriously? Against only four of them? Are you a girl, now?”
    “Better not let Quinn hear you say that,” Daniel said, before the pain of her name caught up to him.
    She’d been his friend, he’d thought. Until the forced blood bond. Now she was—if not an enemy—no longer a friend. Wary. Not afraid, not Quinn, but she’d never trust him again. He knew, because he could still sometimes feel her inside him. Whispers of her resonance touched his mind at times. The blood bond.
    He’d saved her life and killed her trust. He’d thought it a fair trade, at the time.
    “Quinn’s not a girl. She’s a rebel leader. Now are we going for a beer or what?” Ven gestured toward Daniel’s hands. “Also, quit going all Lady Macbeth. You don’t need to ‘out, damned spot,’ when you didn’t get slime on them.”
    “Quoting Shakespeare? I expected something from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Daniel tried to grin but couldn’t sustain the effort. “Lady Macbeth. Interesting you say that. I feel like I’ve gotten slime on my hands every day since I took this job.”