“Tell me about it,” Nathan replied grimly.
With a murmured end to the conversation, he handed the comm unit back to Carys. She pivoted away, speaking to her lover in hushed, private tones.
Outside the war room, Nathan and his team were joined by Sterling Chase and Tavia, their expressions indicating they knew the weight of the information he’d just received.
Martin Gates drifted over too. “What is it? Has there been news about Jordana?”
Nathan glanced grimly from his commander and teammates to Jordana’s distraught father. “Three men just broke into Cass’s office at La Notte. They killed one of the fighters. Rune said they’re looking for Jordana.”
“Atlanteans,” Gates murmured woodenly.
Nathan gave a sober nod but turned a look on Chase and the other warriors. “So, if Cass’s enemies don’t already have Jordana …”
“Then who took her?” Tavia asked.
Nathan glanced back at Gates. “Was there anyone else Cass might have trusted to know about Jordana living in Boston? One of his own kind?”
Martin Gates considered for a moment, then gave a shaky nod. “Yes, there is one other person who knew. Oh, my God. Dare I hope she’s with him?”
“It may be all we’ve got,” Chase replied.
Gates met Nathan’s unblinking stare. “If she’s been taken somewhere safe, I believe I know where you’ll find her.”
Jordana wiped some of the steam from her shower off the large mirror in the villa’s master bathroom suite. She stared at her reflection for a moment, trying to understand how the pale blue eyes and familiar face looking back at her could feel so much a stranger now.
It had been only a few hours since her conversation that morning with Zael. A few hours since everything she thought she knew about herself had been peeled away.
Now, with the sun soon to set outside the villa where she’d been born, Jordana was looking at a new face. A new reality.
She was Atlantean.
Immortal.
The orphaned granddaughter of the race’s vengeful queen.
It all felt so foreign to her, so incredible. And yet it also seemed as if the missing pieces of a puzzle had finally dropped into place. Her restlessness, her sense that she’d been sleepwalking through her own existence, living someone else’s vision for what her life was supposed to be.
Because she hadn’t been living her own life. She’d been living a fantasy conjured for her protection by parents she would never know and by a beloved adoptive father who’d sacrificed the past twenty-five years to the promise he’d made to keep her safe. To keep her hidden from enemies she’d never even realized had existed.
Enemies who were seeking her out even now.
After the initial shock of it all had worn off a bit, Zael had done his best to explain to her about his people—their people—and about Cassianus and Soraya and the Atlantean realm. He’d been patient and kind, forthcoming with everything she wanted to know. But she still had so many questions.
In particular, how long before she could get back home to Boston and resume her life.
Refreshed from sleep and a long shower, and dressed in comfortable, soft white linen palazzo pants and a sleeveless tank of the same fabric, Jordana braided her damp hair and let the long plait fall down the center of her back.
She heard Zael in the villa’s kitchen, the aromas of roasting meat, wine and spices, and warm, baked breads wafting through the place. The dinner smelled wonderful, but her stomach seemed to have other ideas. It rolled and twisted, making each step a delicate, careful effort.
Her veins seemed charged with a low-level current. Her palms felt prickly and warm again, the way they sometimes had when she was making love with Nathan, only more intense now. More persistently heated and tingling.
“How do you feel?” Zael asked as she entered the open-concept gourmet kitchen.
“The rest and the shower were just what I needed, but now I’m kind of woozy.” Her knees started to buckle beneath her, as wobbly as a new fawn’s.
In an instant, Zael came around and helped her to one of the tall counter stools at the center island. “Better?”
She gave a weak nod, then crossed her arms on the snowy marble countertop and laid her head down. No doubt she had to look more than a little green around the gills. “Some immortal princess I make, huh?”