Heart Of Atlantis by Alyssa Day

We wear the white hats. It should
matter
to us that people don’t die just because they get in our way.”
    He made a complicated gesture with one hand, and a dolphin shot up out of the air in a graceful pirouette, rising to at least twenty feet in the air, before wafting back down to the waves at a gentle pace that clearly was not governed by the laws of gravity. It was a beautiful and terrifying display of restraint and power.
    So he was frustrated with her. Most people rolled their eyes when they got frustrated. Alaric made dolphins do ballet. The symbolism of the differences between them wasn’t lost on her.
    “I have spent hundreds of years protecting these innocents you care so much about,
mi amara
. You judge me so harshly?” His face was all hard angles and lines, as if he waited for her to condemn him. She found, ultimately, that she couldn’t.
    “Nobody was hurt?”
    “None that I saw,” he replied. “I must be truthful with you, however. Every person on that road could have died if that had been what it took to protect you. See me for the heartless monster that I am, Quinn, and make no mistake that your safety is my only priority.”
    “It’s not a burden I want,” she said. “I can’t say the same—you can’t be my only priority. I need to get to New York and confront this Ptolemy and see what he wants. Maybe I can stop him, if he needs to be stopped.”
    “Oh, he needs to be stopped,” Alaric said grimly. He sat down next to her on the white sand and told her what had happened at the Plaza. She listened in silence until the end, when he confessed his “idiocy” in saving the boy instead of following Ptolemy.
    When he finished, she placed her hand on his arm. “You just can’t help it, can you? You’re a hero even when it’s in spite of yourself.”
    “You weren’t there,” he reminded her with brutal honesty. “If you had been in danger, the results would have been far different. The boy would have died.”
    She shook her head. “No, you would have found a way to save us both. Or I would have saved him and you would have saved me, or we would have saved each other
and
the boy. We would have figured it out together, Alaric. We’re a team. We have to be, or the bad guys win. It’s as simple as that.”
    He shrugged. He’d been doing a lot of that lately, and she didn’t like it. It was almost as if he’d given up the fight, just as surely as Jack had done.
    She decided to change the subject. “Well. Enough of that. Where exactly are we? This isn’t Mount Fuji anymore, that’s for sure.”
    She scanned the pristine length of beach and its beautiful palm tree–covered border. The ocean was so brilliantly blue it almost hurt her eyes, and the rising sun shone on the water as brightly as if the entire vista had escaped from a traveler’s favorite postcard. Seabirds played diving games with the sparkling waves, and a trio of dolphins chose that moment to leap into the air in synchronized splendor. The only sounds were the gentle pounding of the surf in front of them and the calls of birdsong from behind them.
    Alaric pulled her against him, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, trying to soak in a rare moment of peace. Not quite sure how to achieve it.
    “This is an unnamed island in the Bermuda Triangle, Quinn. Atlantis is in a deep-sea trench directly underneath us, about five and a half miles down.”
    Quinn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Really? Did you just tell me the real location of Atlantis after thousands of years of every explorer and crackpot in history searching for it?”
    “I did. Does that buy me back into your good graces?”
    “Maybe a little. Wow. But, wait. Bermuda Triangle? Really? Is something freaky about to happen? Also, I thought Atlantis would be somewhere off the coast of Greece.”
    She could feel his body begin to shake silently, and it took a moment for Quinn to realize he was laughing.
    “What now? Don’t make me shove you in the