light. Puffs of smoke and sulfur constantly curled out her nose. "Have you just arrived in Atlantis, woman? Is that why you know nothing of the creatures here?"
"He could be harboring my slave inside those walls."
"He is not." Layel kicked back into morion.
"Valerian is many things, but he is not a liar."
"How do you know?" she demanded, keeping pace beside him. "Why do you like him so?"
Their armies followed behind them, and they soon reentered the forest. Limbs stretched long fingers toward them, and twigs snapped under his feet. "If he had her, he would have paraded her across the parapet, showing her to us and laughing. The man has a twisted sense of humor."
"We wasted our time coming here." An irritated statement, not a question.
"We learned the human and the slave have not left Atlantis. They have not passed through a portal, so they are here, waiting to be found and captured."
Slowly she smiled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gray and Jewel shopped for several hours, buying clothing, weapons, trinkets and food. After devouring three meat pies, or whatever they were, Gray felt stronger than he had in days. And he needed his strength. His backpack probably weighed a hundred pounds, stuffed as it was with Jewel's purchases.
He'd watched her skip and laugh from booth to booth like an eager child, simply enjoying her, loving the way her eyes sparkled, the way her cheeks glowed from peaches to strawberries.
So many times he'd come close to jerking her aside and ravishing her mouth, desperate to taste her. One taste, that's all he wanted. One taste, that's all he needed. Just one taste -
Would never be enough.
The words slammed into his head, but he shoved them out with iron-edged determination. Denied them. One taste would have to be enough because that's all he could allow himself. He simply couldn't risk more.
"I want this, and this, and this," she sang. "Oh, look at this. I want it."
I want you. Only once did he deny her something she wanted. She asked to return to the first table, the one with the jeweled armband. He didn't want her to buy it for herself; he wanted to buy it for her. He wanted to surprise her with it.
"We shouldn't go back to that area," he said, the excuse lame but all he could come up with.
She accepted his refusal with an adorable pout before racing to a stall overflowing with silks and lace. He scanned the crowd around her and found no hint of their enemies.
"I'll be right back," he said.
Her only reply was a slight nod. He shook his head and grinned wryly. If the woman had to choose between shopping and him, he had no doubt which would emerge the winner. And it wasn't him.
While she haggled over the price of a sexy gold-and-white robe, he snuck off and bought her the armband, burying it at the bottom of his pack so she wouldn't see it.
If she realized what he'd done, she gave no indication as he approached her side. She had moved from the clothes to a table piled high with large, painted rocks. The rocks appeared to be ordinary pebbles found off the ground, but the brilliant colorful scenes painted on their surfaces gave them a breathtaking beauty.
The seller, a female with the face of a bull and the body of a human - God, he might never get used to looking at these bull creatures - wore a dirty robe and paint stained her very human fingers. She didn't try to talk them into buying, just let them look at their leisure.
"I want one," Jewel said.
"They're amazing." Gray was still surprised at the ease with which he spoke the Atlantean language. "Thank you," the woman muttered demurely.
"You did them yourself?"
She nodded. "I take great joy in my art."
As she spoke, Gray encountered the oddest sensation. Suddenly and shockingly, he smelled her blood. Actually smelled the sweetness of her blood - and he wanted to taste it. Not in a sexual way. His mouth watered like he needed water. His gaze flicked to the woman's neck, at the pulse thumping there.
He ran his tongue over his teeth, repulsed by the desire and trying fervently to squelch it. But her sweet scent remained strong in his nostrils and the need for a taste, a single taste, intensified. What the hell was wrong with him?
He whipped to Jewel, intending to tell her he'd wait for her at a distance. Then he caught a whiff of her blood. She