“What do you want, Selene?”
“To start with, the traitor, Ekizael. He is one of my subjects and I will see him stand trial for his defection.”
Lucan kept his expression neutral. “Why do you expect that I can help with that?”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m a fool,” she replied, her smile cold. “Zael is in your city. Unless I miss my guess, he has allied with you against me.”
“If he has, you’ve certainly given him ample reason,” Lucan parried back. “You had his comrade, Cass, struck down in the street like an animal by your guards. Then you sent more guards after Zael when he tried to protect Cass’s daughter from being captured by you.”
Selene’s rage flashed across her ethereal features. “Jordana is my daughter’s child. My last living kin. But then I’m sure the Order is aware of that too.”
“Yes. There’s a lot we’ve heard about you, Selene. Not a very flattering picture.”
Her chin rose imperiously. “You know nothing of me or my people. Tell me, Lucan Thorne, what do you truly know of yours?”
Reflections of all the violence and bloodshed his otherworldly forebears had delivered during their time on this planet filled his head. They’d been a terror worse than anything that had been seen before or since. And although the Ancients had been ruthless in their dealings with mankind and even with their own sons among the Breed, it could not compare to the decimation they visited on Atlantis.
“I know my race’s fathers attacked you without provocation,” Lucan said soberly. “I know they killed thousands of innocent people among your population and drove you into exile.”
“They annihilated us,” she corrected sharply. “But that was then. It only served to make us stronger. It made me stronger.”
Although her fury obviously still boiled, her tone was too brittle to be simply anger. Lucan had not forgotten that Selene was betrayed by someone she once loved, and that the betrayal was the spark that lit her destruction. She was still nursing old wounds. Wounds that had festered, making her dangerous, a viper cornered and coiled, ready to strike.
“Your own people seem to think the attack all those centuries ago made you unstable,” Lucan pointed out. “There are many who think it made you dangerous, unfit to rule.”
She barked out a caustic laugh. “Did Zael tell you that? Or was it Cassianus? Be careful what you believe when you listen to men with flimsy honor.”
Lucan had learned enough about the honor of both Atlantean males to trust what he’d been told. If Selene had been a good and just queen once, as Lucan understood to be true, that benevolent ruler bore no resemblance to the scorned Valkyrie in front of him now.
“Cass believed it enough to take Jordana away from you,” he reminded her. “And that’s not all he took when he fled your realm.”
The decision to play his strongest card now produced the effect he’d hoped for. Selene was visibly taken aback at the news. Her eyes widened in surprise, in accusation. “You have the crystal. Cass gave it to you?”
“Does it matter how we obtained it?”
She smiled, but it was a tight expression. “You have no idea what to do with that kind of power. It is beyond your limited capability or your unsophisticated, Earth-bound technology.”
Lucan shrugged. “We know that two crystals can be used as a weapon, as the Ancients used against Atlantis. We know you have only one in your possession. The one currently protecting you and your realm.”
“How clever you must think you are,” she replied, acid in her chilly tone.
Darion scoffed. “Call it whatever you want. Just know that you’re never going to have another crystal. You’ll never be trusted with that kind of power.”
“I suppose you think the Order can stand in my way?” she countered, zeroing all of her outrage on Dare again. “The Breed is hardly more than mortal, as far as I’m concerned. You are practically human, and just as offensive to me.”
Dare smirked, too bold for his own good. “Are you forgetting, Selene? There’s Atlantean in our blood too.”
“Only the foulest blood from our most faithless,” she shot back. “I could erase you all from the face of the Earth. Don’t think I’m not tempted to do it right now.”
“But you can’t,” Dare said, speaking despite Lucan’s low growl of warning that he tread carefully with this volatile new opponent. “The biggest fool is the one who thinks that he—or she—has no weaknesses.”
Selene’s glower should have withered Darion, but he didn’t as much as flinch. Lucan agreed with everything his son said, but there was no mistaking that the young warrior was making a very dangerous and personal enemy here today.
The Atlantean queen’s eyes flashed as she glared at Darion. “You wish to test me? Do it at your own peril. I warn you, you do not want to stand against me.”
Lucan moved closer to the monitor. “There’s not a man or woman among the Order who will bow to you either. I promise you that.”
She smiled as if he had just invited her out for tea. “I don’t intend to make the Order bow, Lucan. I mean to make you break. And that is my promise to you.” Her gaze slid to Darion. “To all of you.”
The monitors abruptly went black.
Selene was gone.
As if no interruption had occurred, all of Gideon’s machines came back online, programs churning data as they had been before, screens filled with scrolling code and images.
Gideon ran a hand over his scalp. “Holy. Fucking. Hell.”
Lucan cursed roundly, his pulse hammering in his temples and behind his sternum.
“How the fuck did she do that?” Darion demanded. “What the hell happened that she would choose to confront us now?”
“It’s my fault.” Zael’s deep voice was contrite, coming from where he now stood in the open entryway of the tech lab. “I opened the door. I led her to you tonight.”
CHAPTER 25
Zael could not have been more stunned than when he approached the command center’s tech lab just in time to see Selene deliver her threat to the Order before vanishing off the monitors.
Although it had been hard to leave Brynne sleeping naked and peaceful in her guest room upstairs, he had been interested to meet with the warriors and discuss the outcome of the night’s patrols.