Jacksonville Beach earlier that night, in a cottage rented by Savannah Hastings …

Jake, one of Poseidon's newest warriors, stared at Savannah. She loved him. He'd felt it—the true and profound love that the soul-meld had revealed to them both.

"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, 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 switched over midnight, so it's not February anymore. 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, the mage who was also a fellow Poseidon's Warrior, was roaring out his rage and pain on the Atlantean mental pathway, shouting directly into Jake's brain, which felt like it might shatter 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." He filled her in while he dressed on his body.

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 and Lucas were dead—and Atlantis unreachable—she might die in the Transition. The falcon shifter had deliberately scratched her, knowing she'd be vulnerable.

Knowing that most human females died when their bodies attempted to Transition to shifter shape for the first time.

Jake was damn well going to try to stop it, but without a strong healer or—better yet—a mage, he'd have no chance. There was no way he'd leave Savannah to face the shift alone.

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

Savannah, all long, lean muscles and tanned skin, paused with her shirt half-buttoned and flashed those striking blue eyes at him. Then she glanced at the bed, still mussed from the intensity of their lovemaking.

"Not all bad, though, is it?" She raised an eyebrow and almost smiled, but then her face returned to its somber expression. "Never mind, we'll talk about that later. Or, you know, not, if I go all feathers and talons."

She pulled the sun-streaked length of her blonde hair back out of her face and quickly tied it off in a waist-length braid. "Probably I'll be able to fly, though. That would be cool. Sort of like Superman, but not. Superbird!"

Her face crumpled, and she inhaled sharply, clearly trying very hard not to weep. "Now…now I'll have to worry about hunting season, right? If I'm not actually d—d—dead," she managed, and he yanked his own shirt over his head and practically leapt across the space between them, so he could take her in his arms.

"No. No. I won't allow it," he told her, and he'd never meant anything more. "I just found you. I won't let you leave me. Not now, not soon, not ever. You are the breath my lungs need to breathe—you are the blood my heart needs to beat. You're mine, mi amara, and I protect what is mine."

Savannah took a deep, shuddering breath and then nodded. "Yes. I believe you. Also?"

"Also?"

She stared into his eyes, her own gaze a shiny, drowning blue, and then she put her hands on his face, leaned in, and kissed him, hard and deep. A claiming kiss; a branding kiss, and with it she put her mark even more indelibly on his soul.

"Also, you're mine, and no mermaid is going to get you."

He blinked and then—despite the situation, despite the terrible danger they faced—he laughed. That she could make him laugh at a time like this…He wanted to worship her as a goddess.

He'd settle for loving her for the rest of their lives.

"It wasn't a mermaid. It was a Sea Fae. And she wanted to kill me, not--"

Savannah grinned and then pushed him away, so she could grab her shoes. "Sure, that's what you think. But I bet she wanted to play footsie with you first. Or would that be tailsie?"

Jake shook his head, but he knew what she was doing. Humor in the face of danger was one of the oldest coping mechanisms on the planet and beneath the waves. Suddenly, the idea of her facing all that danger swamped his nerve endings, and he wanted to take her and run, far away from Humanity Prime and rogue shifters and …

He couldn't run away from the change happening inside her body.

Still, he had to try to keep her safe.

"You could stay here--"

She cut him off with a glare so fierce he fell even more in love with her, his warrior princess.

"Forget it, buddy. Anyway, if we're going to find out what happened to Griffin and Lucas, we may need our cover at the H Prime retreat. If they find out I escaped, they'll just kill you and it's all over." She yanked a soft, hooded jacket off a peg by the door and put it on. "Let's go. Now. My best chance to reverse the Transition is finding Griffin, right? The pretty-boy mage with the icy silver eyes and the gorgeous white hair?"

"He's not that pretty," he growled.

Her lips quirked up in a shadow of a smile. "I never liked pretty boys, anyway. I like hunky surfer guys who look exactly like you."

He closed his eyes and contemplated the immediate future—the possibility of losing his soul's mate as soon as he'd found her—and forced his knees not to buckle. Then he studied the woman who'd so quickly become more to him than anything or anyone in his life since the plague took his family.

How could he survive her death? The answer was simple: He would not.

"You will survive," he commanded. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and hard and deep.

When he finally pulled away, they were both trembling.

"Now?" Her eyes held a question, but they were also filled with love.

For him.

"Now," he said grimly. "And may the gods help anybody who tries to get in our way."

She opened the cottage door and waved him ahead before she turned and locked the door. "Are we going to fly again? The mist thing, I mean?"

"Absolutely." He closed his eyes and transformed into the most delicate magical shape that any Atlantean could access, that of water mist, and then held out his hands and pulled her close to him. "Ready to fly?"

A glimmer of excitement lit her eyes and a smile flashed across her beautiful face. "Let's do it!"

He launched them into the sky, faster than he'd moved when they'd left the H Prime compound, and with less consideration of concealment. It was dark. Nobody would see them. After all, as he'd told her, people never looked up.

And if they did? Well, to the nine hells with them.

Jake had to save Savannah, rescue Griffin and possibly Lucas, and figure out what was going on in Atlantis and why Denal wasn't answering their call. They had a mission to finish, and children and innocent adults to save.

And only a little more than eighteen hours to find a way to save Savannah from facing the Transition and possible—probable—death.

No problem.

He'd faced down a deadly Sea Fae and an entire ship's crew, hadn't he?

Damn straight.

"I love flying!" Savannah shouted over the sound of the rushing wind. "Maybe…maybe I won't hate being a falcon."

Jake tightened his mist-shrouded arms around her but said nothing.

Please, Poseidon, may she never, ever have to find out.