Watchtowers : Water Read online

  “The EPA has reason to believe the tsunami was intentionally created.”

  Zion couldn’t keep the protective growl from his voice. “Go on.”

  Denton gave a nervous glance to Zion before he directed his comment to Keely. “There have been highly unusual weather patterns on the eastern seaboard of the United States.”

  “I’m aware of the hurricanes.”

  Denton’s version of the truth and her soft voice floated through the room to mitigate Zion’s ire.

  “Additionally, there was a sizeable tsunami off the coast of Africa.”

  Keely tapped her fingers against the arm of the Queen Anne chair. “I’m aware of the African tsunami as well, Mr. Denton.”

  “Do you know the scale of the earthquake preceding the tsunami?”

  Zion watched Keely purse her lips in thought. He knew the answer to Denton’s question and Zion was certain Keely didn’t.

  “I don’t recall.”

  “There’s a reason you don’t recall the Richter measurement of the subduction zone.” Denton paused. “There wasn’t one.”

  Couldn’t the man just get to the purpose of his visit, and then get the hell out? If the EPA continued to push Keely into service before she was ready, they might agitate the sorcerer and create a worse problem. One that would easily jeopardize Keely. Impatient, Zion blurted out his question. “Your point, Denton?”

  “There wasn’t one for this last tsunami, either.”

  Keely closed her eyes and steepled her fingers in front of her chest. “A quake would have set alarms off around the world. Without seismic activity on the ocean floor, especially of the magnitude needed to do this sort of damage sustained in Africa and again here, the early warning system had no information to distribute. Ergo, the tsunami developed from other means. But I fail to see what the lack of an earthquake has to do with me.”

  “The EPA is aware of your studies regarding dolphin communication. If you converse with these mammals as you claim, is its possible they might give you a personal early warning?”

  Keely appeared to consider her response to Thane’s question. “The Rossi’s dolphins I work with saved my life, Mr. Denton. I’ll happily pass on any information they give me.”

  She rose from her seat. “You stated the phenomenon wasn’t caused by an undersea quake. What did cause the tsunami?”

  Zion watched as a Denton pasted a fake smile on his face. “Unless you agree to help us, Ms. Shane, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be wise to say much more.”

  The smile Keely returned was just as false. “I totally understand, although more detailed information would help me decide if I can help you or not.”

  Like a princess, Keely glided toward the door to usher Thane Denton out. Denton took the hint and exited without protest. At the last moment, he turned around. “Someone wields incredible power. I’ve managed to locate two who’ve helped limit the destruction of the cat six hurricanes. The EPA believes there are others with the ability to combat this bastard. They are our watchtowers against natural disaster.”

  He walked back up the path. “Here’s my VDU card. Upload it if you need to contact me–for any reason.”

  Zion stood behind Keely and watched Denton leave, relieved the EPA representative was out of her house. If he’d re-sent Jade and Raiden, at least Keely would have a woman to talk to, maybe share some commonalities with. When he’d met the couple on the beach, he was immediately drawn to Jade. Raiden on the other hand rubbed him the wrong way. He’d sensed the protective man wasn’t revealing all he knew.

  Zion placed a hand on Keely’s waist and turned her to him. “He’s fishing, looking for someone to counteract Amidurah.”

  “Amidurah?”

  Zion nodded. “He’s a thirty-five hundred year old sorcerer with an attitude.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Lotis. He’s my eyes and ears under the water with contacts throughout the seven seas.” He smiled and then noticed the pallor of her skin. “You’re exhausted.”

  Keely nodded. “It’s been a long day. I’ve still got a lot to accomplish, including ....”

  Her words trailed off and Zion watched the tears rim her eyes.

  She tried to hide her sorrow by reaching for the com unit. She punched in a code. “This will alert the authorities. Once they see,” she choked, “my parents, and the others, they’ll take them to the morgue. Then I’ll …”

  Her parents were dead. Amidurah had taken them from her. Sorrow spilled from her eyes in silent weeping. Tears Zion had been unable to prevent. He held her tighter and let her cry. Her sobs dampened his shirt and like acid, ate away at his heart.

  She sniffed, swallowed, and looked him in the eyes. “I have to know how much survived.”

  He propelled her back toward the hallway. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “I suggest a nap. You’ll be better able to handle the next set of trials rested.”

  Concern etched her features. “Where will you be?”

  Zion couldn’t help his impish grin. “Right next to you.”

  *****

  Reclining on her bed, wrapped securely in Zion’s arms was not how she expected the evening to end. The steady thump of his heart, the only normalcy in a world turned inside out, encouraged her to breathe deeply.

  Zion’s hand stroked her tresses, following the strands to the very ends lying over her shoulder. He wrapped her locks around his fingers and caressed her cheek.

  Simple and gentle, Keely concentrated on the relaxing caress, tried to toss the pictures of today’s nightmare into a closeted recess in her mind while trying to open another. The soft touches, familiar yet unusual, encouraged her memories to return. He knew her. He knew how to make her body react in longing and how to make the pain of familial rejection diminish.

  Once again, Keely was alone. She needed Zion, needed him as much as she needed air to breathe. She shifted against his shoulder and allowed dim memories to guide her. She kissed the edge of his chin and waited.

  Unfurling her hair from around his fingers, he spoke. “Keely, is this wise?”

  His voice, a soft velvet growl of desire, buoyed her spirits. So much had been lost in the past few days and Zion had been her rock. Making love would anchor Keely to the only person left that she knew and cared about.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered against the stubble on his face. “Reality and nightmares have exchanged places. Maybe acts of foolishness are the right course of action when nature is denied her proper order.”

  “You speak in circles,” he rumbled.

  She smiled against his jaw, kissed the strong planes of his chin and worked her way up to his lips.

  “You’re torturing me.”

  His grumbled words tickled her lips. She pushed against him and maneuvered her body so she could straddle his hips. His erection grazed her sex, fueling her need to join with him. Reaching between their bodies, she stroked his length, felt it harden more beneath her palm.

  “Keely, we’ve been here before—”

  “I was wrong, confused. You’re the only reality I comprehend and understand; all that is left me.”

  Firm hands grasped her waist, stole beneath the hem of her sweater to heat her skin. She sighed and closed her eyes, letting the electrical sensations race through her body. Memories flared of the times they’d made love on the beach, before her family and psychologists convinced her that he was nothing more than a coping device to handle her isolation.

  Not so any longer. Sweet, hot memories melted into the sizzling fire trailing through her veins. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she grasped the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. With a sultry glance at Zion, she tossed the garment, and then reached behind her back to unseal her bra, letting it fall in a heap on the bed.

  He gasped, his eyes wide, staring at her like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey.

  “Like what you see?” she taunted.

  “Oh, yeah. The scene
ry is excellent.”

  He flexed his hand against her skin as if he wanted to reach out and touch her breasts. Suddenly his fingers curled into a fist.

  She shifted against him, sliding her sex against his length. The bulge in his black jeans strained against the material. “One of us is overdressed,” she purred. Again, she slid her hand over his erection, pausing a moment at the top of his zipper. “It’s you.”

  She shimmied down his thighs until she could lean over the waistband of his jeans. Quickly, she unbuckled his belt, twisted the fastening through the buttonhole and dipped her head toward the zipper tab.

  Zion groaned. “If you go there, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  “I don’t want you to.” She gripped the pull-tab with her teeth and dragged the zipper down. His massive erection jutted free near her lips and she glided her hands beneath the waistband of his jeans and pulled them over his hips.

  Another wave of familiarity washed over her. She was comfortable with his body, more proof of the part he’d played in her life years earlier. She palmed his length and opened her mouth to accept the burgundy head of his sex between her lips.

  Filling her mouth, Keely had forgotten how he felt and tasted. Her tongue slipped over the satin smooth head and she tasted the warm, slightly salty skin of his shaft. A moan of recognition rumbled from her mouth and vibrated around his cock.

  Zion jerked, fisting his hands in her hair. “Do that again,” he groaned, “and I’ll come in your mouth.”

  In reply, she took more of him, deeper into her mouth, laving his length, teasing the slit at the top of his cock with her tongue. Newfound familiarity comforted Keely in a way she hadn’t expected.

  Releasing her hair, Zion grabbed her shoulders and lifted her off his length. She moaned. “Don’t you like what I’m doing?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Zion partially sat up and with deft fingers unfastened her jeans, shoving the garment to her thighs. “Get them off,” he ordered, his fingers moving her panties to the side.

  Warm cream flooded her core and her breath hitched. Keely shook the jeans off first one leg, and then the other. She tried to pull the silky undergarment down, but it tangled in Zion’s fingers.

  “No more panties.” He yanked on the material, rending it, the ripping sound loud in the quiet room. Two of his strong fingers entered her as he lay back down, pumping in and out of her until she was nearly a molten mass of hot, mindless lava. She rode those digits giving way to the tremors seizing her body. “Yes,” she moaned, agreeing to his demand.

  “No.”

  His husky rebuttal surprised her, but she couldn’t stop writhing.

  “Not yet. I want to feel you come around me.” Zion withdrew his fingers, grasped her waist and slightly lifted her, positioning her over his cock. “Last chance, Keely.”

  The trembling in her body begged for release. She needed him, needed to finish what they started here and in the cave days before. Wriggling, she impaled herself on his rod, letting him fill and stretch her. The aching sense of familiarity flashed through her mind, heightened by her possession of him. Pressing her hands against his firm thighs, she lifted, then descended again and again on his cock

  He thrust up. One hand held her hip while the other fondled her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers.

  Another flash of flame ripped through her, starting at the taut nipple and ending where they were merged as man and woman. She quivered with the ecstasy he created. Deliciously filled, she tightened around him, sliding up and down, breathless moans escaping her lips.

  “That’s it, Keely, come for me. Let me feel you, baby.” He savagely stroked up and lightly brushed the pad of his finger over her sensitized nipple.

  Within her core, Zion’s cock swelled and he groaned, fierce and feral.

  Squeezing tightly around him, a vortex of flame engulfed Keely, hurling her to a center of unrestrained passion. The fire within her coalesced into a single mass of super heated sensations. Keely’s keening wail accompanied by her clenching muscles joined his frenetic groans. When he released deep into her she was lost in a blinding nova of orgasmic rapture.

  *****

  Keely collapsed on his chest, listening to the loud, rapid-fire thumping of his heart. The swirl of sensual sensations slowly diminished, leaving her a spent, boneless heap sprawled on Zion’s body.

  When she woke, she was surprised to see the fingers of the sun stab through the western window of her bedroom.

  Naked, she slipped from beneath Zion’s muscular arms, padded to her dresser and pulled out a cropped goldenrod tee and rust colored capris. Sliding them on, she surveyed her room. The roof had a gaping hole and cracks in the walls let in light. In addition, the pictures of the destruction’s remnants jumped around behind her eyelids like vengeful dragons. Even the colorful glow of the impending sunset didn’t ease the ugliness of the beach scene.

  Thane Denton’s arrival and revelations only reinforced the message Zion tried to get through her hard head. All of it eerily echoed the words of the first EPA visitors. She had the ability to stop Amidurah. She clenched her fists.

  “What’s going on in your mind?” Zion’s words lifted stray strands of her hair near her ear.

  A small smile crept into her face and she turned to look at the sexy undersea god. He’d donned his jeans once again, but hadn’t replaced the tee-shirt. Sculpted muscles called to her to touch him again. She’d never get enough of him. Exhaling, Keely relaxed her hands. Zion’s silken words tempered her anger and helped her remember kindness and concern.

  She leaned against the window frame and stared at the beach. All the ugliness of the world lay strewn on the pale sand, but the bodies of her parents were at least gone, held in storage for the time when she’d give them her final farewell. The sight matched her feelings of resentment and exasperation. “So much viciousness from one individual.”

  He took her hand.

  The simple gesture flustered her insides, as if a thousand butterflies flitted within her stomach. Zion exuded strength though she felt drained. With a squeeze of her hand, he let go and paced to the door. “The hurricanes aren’t all, you know.”

  Zion’s voice, calm and matter of fact, worried her. She nodded. “There are the tsunamis as well.”

  “Amidurah’s goal is to be dictator of the world.”

  Keely gasped. “How can anyone accomplish complete dominion? Total control failed every time it was attempted according to history.”

  Zion paced away. “While my father and the rest of the Olympians like to think they’re the only show in town, many Atlanteans, me included, know they’re not. No one religion on Earth has it completely right. Every evil has an equal in good.”

  Her heart pounded in trepidation. What did religion have to do with Amidurah? Where was Zion’s logic taking them next? “Okay,” she drawled.

  He turned to face her from across the room. “I believe there is a higher guardian of Earth and the cosmos. Amidurah believes the earth is his protectorate, belonging to him alone. He has incredible power. He’s shown he manipulates the wind and the water. He may have other abilities he hasn’t revealed yet.”

  Keely turned from the window and moved toward Zion. “Such as?”

  “Many believe the basic elements of the earth are tied together. He’s managed to tap two.”

  Zion recrossed the room and held both her hands in his. “This is where you come in.”

  Her chest muscles knotted. “How can I possibly have anything to do with Amidurah?”

  “The afternoon I first sought you...I told you my people needed your help. I showed you how I controlled the water.”

  Again she nodded her head, remembering all the requests she’d ignored.

  “Keely, you can do the same and more. You’re the balance.”

  Chapter Seven

  The look Keely gave him could have melted a polar ice cap. “I know you said I could control the water, but what makes you think I can and rival
Amidurah’s strength without a thousand years or more of practice?”

  “Amidurah has a following.”

  She fixed him with a stare. “A following? Like groupies?”

  Zion laughed. “In a manner of speaking. Not a holostar; more like a religious leader. They call him ‘Your Grace.’”

  “How do you know?”

  His laughter faded away like the sun leached the color from hair during a hot summer. “Ireland isn’t the only place I’ve spent time. Amidurah’s ‘groupies’ exist worldwide. He favors them with inflammatory, charismatic speeches about a New World order. A world cleansed of pollution and the abuses mankind has heaped upon it.”

  Her eyes widened and she grimaced. “You’re concerned his utopia will necessitate...”

  She couldn’t finish. He could see she realized the implications of his words. An idea too heinous to be real to her quiet soul. Repeated strikes with his father’s trident would have been less painful than seeing the look of revulsion on her face.

  Amidurah wouldn’t be satisfied until the world was solely his. To accomplish such a feat required the extermination of nearly the entire human race. Perhaps her willful spirit would rally to prevent the annihilation of the world’s population. If not, he’d have to match her stubborn streak with his own.

  “Come,” he said, in an attempt to take the weight from her shoulders. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  Her scowl would deter most men. Thank Zeus he wasn’t most men.

  “I don’t possess the ability you ascribe to me.”

  “Because you haven’t accepted it, nor practiced with it.”

  She sighed, compliance evident in the sound. “You believe I can stand up to Amidurah.”

  It wasn’t a question. The words fell from her mouth heavy and defeated. With her attitude of resignation, Zion knew the battle would be difficult. He needed to prepare and convince her she had a chance.

  “Tomorrow Keely. Tomorrow I’ll show you what you are capable of.”