Free Atlantis Redeemed by Alyssa Day Page A

the emotions you have repressed over the years and centuries and even millennia.
    “‘If that alone is not enough to destroy you, you will also be cursed to forget your mate whenever she is out of your sight. Only when she is dead—her heart stopped and her soul flown—will your memory of her fully return to you, thus allowing you until the end of your days to repent bringing dishonor upon the name of the Warriors of Poseidon.’”
    He closed his eyes, fists clenched at his sides, in the middle of the room, waiting for her to heap scorn upon him for his failure. Waiting for her to run away from the horrible import of his words.
    “Bit harsh, wasn’t it?”
    His eyes snapped open at the unexpected words. She still sat in the chair, her head tilted to the side, watching him.
    “You don’t understand. I have not told you the worst of it, for I am a coward.” He paused, as another wave of pain sliced through him when he thought of Corelia and the babe. The child who would have been his son or daughter, had it lived.
    Had it not died, because of him.
    She made an impatient movement. “I understand perfectly well. I understand that you were a hell raiser when you were young, as so many of us are, and I also understand that your sea god is a little bit unbalanced, no offense.”
    “But I—”
    “You did nothing that any frat boy with a keg and a toga party hasn’t done,” she said, interrupting him again. “Yet somehow you’ve been punished for more than two thousand years? And I can’t believe I’m even saying that. Two thousand years. Just how old are you? Are all Atlanteans as old as you?”
    “I killed the mother of my child when she carried him in her belly.” The words came out harsh, rasping his throat. Scorching his heart.
    The color drained from Tiernan’s face. “You . . . what? You—But wait.” She drew a long, shuddering breath. “No. That’s not true. Or rather, some part of it is not true. I can feel something . . .”
    As she fell silent, those enormous dark eyes of hers fixed on him in shock and horror, the pain rose in his chest, cutting off his breath. He bent forward in the chair, catching himself with his hands before he fell out and his face hit the floor. Agony at the loss of his child, bitter remorse over Corelia’s death—both vied for control of his sanity.
    He began the deep breathing exercises again, forcing himself to climb back into the chair. “It is truth,” he said. “Truth enough, anyway.”
    “Truth enough isn’t good enough. Tell me exactly.”
    He bowed his head and complied, recounting Poseidon’s blistering condemnation and accusation. “So you see,” he concluded, “she died because of me. My own child died because of me. I have no right to either life or happiness, but I have spent every day since that one fighting to save other women, other children, from death. Searching for something I could never find or deserve.”
    “Redemption,” she whispered. “But, Brennan, she never told you about the baby? You said you offered to marry her.”
    “She laughed at me when we were discovered and I offered marriage. Said a mere warrior could never be good enough for her. I was a dalliance, at best, and a means to scratch an itch, at worst,” he said slowly, experiencing again his furious humiliation, as if it had happened only hours before.
    Worse, far worse, humiliation became gut-wrenching pain as he continued. “She never told me about the child. Never a hint. Refused all communication. She had a marriage planned . . . I heard later that her intended husband had learned of her affairs and of the pregnancy from tale-bearing servants. He denounced her publicly, and her so-called friends from her social class abandoned her.”
    He clenched the wooden arms of the chair so tightly the wood splintered and broke in his hands. Slowly, he released the fractured pieces of wood and watched them fall to the floor, not caring that he’d ripped open the palm of his left