Jake watched Savannah wander around her apartment in a daze, singing "I flew, I flew, I flew" to herself and he tried to smile, but he was too damn worried. She'd suffered another wave of the fever on the trip, and he was scared to death. He couldn't reach Lucas at all, and neither Griffin nor he could reach Denal or any of the healers, or even anybody else on Atlantis. Something was very wrong. He'd told her, but she hadn't seem to process the information.

"I don't know how much time you have, but I'm going to keep trying," he told her, catching her by the waist and pulling her toward him. He needed to hold her in his arms more than he needed his next breath.

"You will or you won't, but it's too late to worry about it now," she said, smiling wildly up at him. She was feverish, just a little, and manic, a little more, and he wished harder than he'd ever wished in his life that his minor skill in healing covered anything at all about shifter Transition.

"Do you want more ice-water?"

"No." She stepped back and yanked her shirt off and then peeled off her bra. "I want you."

And Jake's world turned upside down.

By the time he could think of anything at all to say, she'd stripped off the rest of her clothes and stood proudly naked in front of him. "If I'm going to die—or even if I'm just going to turn into a bird once a month—I want to be with you before it happens. I want you to make love to me, Jake."

"But--" There were a million reasons why this was a bad idea. To take advantage of her when she was so vulnerable…

"Please. I need you."

And he was lost.

He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom, but this time he lay down on the bed with her, always touching her, tasting her, feeling her heat and passion and wanting to curl up in her warmth and stay there forever.

"Too many clothes, Jake," she said, fighting with the buttons on the front of his jeans, and he gave a joyous whoop and quickly shed his clothes until he was as bare to her as she was to him.

She rolled over on her back and flashed one of those seductive smiles, watching him, and then she whistled, long and low. "They really do make everything bigger in Atlantis, don't they?"

He felt like his smile would crack his face open, but he couldn't stop smiling, couldn't stop feeling like the luckiest man in the world in spite of everything because Savannah was touching him and kissing him, she was kissing him, and he never wanted her to stop.

"Touch me," she demanded, drunk on her own power, and he stroked up the sides of her body and then dared to caress her beautiful round breasts, something he'd been dying to do since he first saw her in the bar.

"Yes," she murmured, her hands busy on his skin, shaping the sides of his face and then touching his back, his chest, his arms. "More."

More was suddenly his favorite word.

"Kiss me," she whispered, and a wave of pure, primal triumph swept through him. She was a goddess, and she wanted him, and oh, how very, very much he wanted her. He bent and captured one rosy pink nipple in his mouth and she cried out, arching her body up into him, she was so responsive, so very, very responsive, and she clutched his hair, pulling him closer to her, and she was writhing beneath her and he needed more of her.

More and more and more.

"I need you, now," she told him, and oh, by the gods, he agreed, but he wanted her ready, he wanted to taste her, he wanted her silken honey in his mouth.

He moved down in the bed, stroking and caressing all the way, and then he pulled her thighs apart and held them still and bent his head to the hottest, wettest part of her body. At the first touch of his tongue on her swollen bud, she screamed and shuddered over the edge of some high peak to a hard, spasming orgasm, and she cried out his name, over and over, as he licked the sweetness from her, never stopping in his attention to her until she arched up, rigid against him, and came again in his mouth.

She collapsed into the sheets, and he'd never seen anything or anyone more beautiful.

"Jake. I need you inside me," she whispered, and a starburst of joy exploded inside him. This amazing, brave, funny, beautiful woman needed him.

Inside her.

"I have never been happier to comply with any request in my life," he said, and he rose up on his elbows above her.

"Are we—is this okay?" She looked dazed and satiated, but she bit her lip and continued. "Are we safe? I'm on the pill, but…"

"I'm Atlantean," he said simply. "We cannot catch or give any human disease, and I cannot have a child until I petition Poseidon. You are safe with me, mi amara."

"What does that mean?"

He took her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss. "It means my beloved, and now I need to be inside you. Now."

"Yes. Now," she demanded, and he didn't wait any longer. He positioned himself and thrust inside her so deeply he felt like he must be inside her soul. She cried out again, and wrapped her legs around him, urging him to move, to push, to take her.

His cock wanted to explode from the silken pleasure of her hot, wet tightness, but he'd be damned if he'd stop now. He bent forward, instead, and licked inside her mouth, teasing her by moving slowly, inch by slow inch, in and out of her until she let out a frustrated scream and grabbed his head in her hands.

"Take me. Now. Hard," she commanded, and his control shattered.

Now any attempt at slow, at gentle, was gone. Now he fucked her, hard, harder, until she came apart in his arms, crying out his name. Then he tried to hold back, while going harder and deeper, but his body rode the waves of her orgasm over the precipice of his own desire and he came so hard he thought his skull might explode. He collapsed against her, his cock bucking inside her, still spurting his seed deep into her body.

"I love you," he said, realizing it even as the words burst from his mouth, and—just as quick as that—an earthquake of knowing took him, and the soul-meld swept him into a torrent of belonging—into the swirling chaos of her soul.

Flash:

She was a child in shorts and a torn shirt, dirty from climbing trees, crying alone in her room because her parents yelled at her to be more like her sister.

Flash:

She was a teenager at a dance, standing alone by a wall while all the boys danced with the other girls, the delicate girls, not the athletic, tall girls like her.

Flash:

She clutched her passport beneath her pillow, her face still wet from the tears she'd cried when her family told her to grow up and settle down and quit this adventuring nonsense.

Flash:

She stood in the middle of that damn prison courtyard, staring at him, and wondering how he'd come to mean so much to her so fast.

He cried out with the pain of her childhood, the pain of her feelings of not belonging—not being enough—and then he gasped with the feeling of love. Her love for him.

"You love me, too," he said, wonderingly.

She had tears running down her face. "I saw inside your soul. Of course I love you."

Jake shouted out a laugh and pulled her to him and then rolled over so her body was on top of his. "No matter what else happens, this is the best February in my entire life."

Savannah laughed and looked over at the clock on her bedside table. "Sorry, my love. It just rolled over midnight, so it's not February any more. It's March."

Jake kissed her again and rolled out of bed, with some idea of getting her something to drink or dancing around the room with joy like a drunken sailor, when a powerful mental blast of pain and terror knocked him to the floor. Griffin was roaring out his rage directly into Jake's brain, which felt like it might break under the strain.

IT'S LUCAS! THEY'VE GOT LUCAS, AND I'M GOING DOWN. JAKE, YOU HAVE TO FIND PINE. HE KNOWS WHERE TO…

And then Griffin's voice cut off, and no matter how hard Jake tried, he couldn't reach him again. He tried Lucas—nothing. Atlantis was still unreachable.

Savannah was next to him, holding him, crying. "What happened? Your nose started bleeding."

"They're in trouble, Savannah. They're all in trouble, and I've got to go."

She grabbed for her clothes. "Then I'm going with you. We'll find them together."

Jake didn't even try to argue. He needed her with him, if he was going to find a way to cure her. If Griffin was gone—and Atlantis unreachable—she might die in the Transition.

He slammed a fist into the wall. "It's turning out to be the worst March in my life."

TO BE CONTINUED. . . FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO SAVANNAH, JAKE, GRIFFIN, LUCAS, AND ALL OF ATLANTIS IN MARCH IN ATLANTIS, COMING IN TWO WEEKS!

A NOTE FROM ALYSSA DAY:

I loved writing these books!

I’m thrilled to announce that Poseidon’s Warriors will continue A Year of Atlantis in all of 2018—a book per 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 and it’s available for preorder now at select retailers and will be available to all on release day: March 26, 2018. All will be resolved!!

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Thanks again for reading—you rock! Keep going for an excerpt from .

Hugs,

Alyssa