Atlantis Betrayed wop-8 Page 18

  And the scents . . . oh, the scents. Human perfume makers would go mad trying to take it all in. Each section of the garden carried its own distinctive bouquet of fragrance, shading from light to intense. By the time they reached the palace itself, she was nearly drunk just on the pure sensation of it all. Sight, scent, touch—for of course she’d had to touch and feel the petals on the blossoms, the rough or smooth bark on various trees—it all overwhelmed her until she believed she’d be completely unsurprised to see a white rabbit consulting its pocket watch at any corner.

  “How can you ever bear to leave it? I would never spend a minute indoors if I lived here,” she whispered, not wanting even the sound of her own voice to disturb the moment. “I have to set a book here. My fingers are itching for my paints. Oh, the children are going to love it. If there were only a way to bring these fragrances to the pages of a book.”

  He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s pretty.”

  “Pretty? Are you kidding? This is the most glorious garden I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of gardens. Even the queen’s gardens at Buckingham Palace.”

  He laughed. “Well, if you think about it, this is a queen’s garden, too. Or at least a high princess, soon to be queen. Atlantis is a lot older than England, too.”

  “I don’t want to meet her, Christophe. I’m dressed like—like—”

  “A lot like me, actually,” a friendly female voice said from behind them.

  Fiona turned to find a smiling woman with vivid reddish-gold hair walking toward them. She, like Fiona, was dressed simply in trousers and top. The woman held out her hand and Fiona shook it.

  “Hey, Christophe, I thought you were in London. Oh, which I guess would explain the British accent of your friend.”

  Christophe bowed. “Princess Riley, this is Lady Fiona Campbell of Scotland by way of London.”

  Fiona wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the dirt in over top of her. “Oh, Your Highness, I’m sorry. I’m so pleased to meet you.” She bowed her head a little, since curtseying would look ridiculous.

  The princess laughed. “No bowing, no Your Highness- ing, please. Just Riley. It is a true pleasure to meet you.” Her dark blue eyes were glowing, not with magic but with simple joy.

  “Truly a pleasure. You are most welcome,” Riley said, her voice slowing. She turned to Christophe. “Really? Finally? Oh, I’m so happy for you!”

  Fiona watched in utter shock as the high princess of Atlantis jumped across the space separating her from Christophe and threw her arms around him. “I knew it. I knew it, I knew it. Underneath that surly exterior, I knew there was a heart beating.”

  “Yes,” Christophe said, raising one eyebrow and tentatively patting the princess on her back. “My heart grew three sizes today.”

  Riley pulled away and punched his arm lightly. “Funny guy. I have to quit letting Ven raid my Christmas video collection. You are all taking over my best lines.”

  She put her hand on Fiona’s arm. “Let’s go find something to eat and have a long chat, shall we?”

  Fiona stared back at Christophe, but he just grinned and held out his hands, helpless against Hurricane Riley. So Fiona did the last thing she ever, in her lifetime, could have imagined doing. She went to have lunch with the princess of Atlantis.

  * * *

  Christophe watched as Riley herded Fiona off toward the terrace, probably to stuff her with food and pump her for information. Riley was aknasha, and with her Gift of emotional empathy she had clearly picked up on his feelings for Fiona. Maybe now she could explain them to him. He felt like his insides were tangled up into knots of razor wire mixed with flowering vine. Every moment he spent with Fiona made him want to be with her more, but danger haunted his footsteps. Danger and violence. She’d already seen too much of it. He’d thought his heart would explode out of his chest when he saw what had happened to that vamp and realized that she must be the one holding the blessed water.

  “Can’t stay with her. Can’t leave her. Where does that leave me?”

  He felt Alaric’s presence before the priest appeared, and he weighed the odds of getting away. Slim to not a chance in the nine hells, he figured.

  “You do not have the Siren,” the priest said even before he’d fully transformed into his corporeal shape. “And yet you have returned. With another human. Perhaps we can open a nature preserve for humans?”

  “You are dangerously close to sedition, my friend,” Prince Conlan growled, appearing next to Alaric.

  The two of them were getting far too good at popping in and out. Made a man feel spied on. Christophe stood his ground, but bowed to his prince.

  “Really? You’re bowing to me when there’s nobody here to see it? Are you feeling okay?” Conlan reached up a hand as if to brush Christophe’s forehead.

  “Bad habits must be wearing off on me,” Christophe muttered, ducking.

  “Bad habits? More bad habits? You’re already a walking cornucopia of bad habits. One more might send you into the abyss, screaming,” Alaric said.

  “I’m the horn of the goat who suckled Zeus?” Christophe tilted his head. “I’ve been called worse, I guess.”

  “Nice. Greek mythology for ten points, ding, ding, ding,” Conlan called out. “Next up, hot human women for twenty.”

  “Your wife might not appreciate you calling another woman hot, Your Highness,” Christophe pointed out.

  “Your Highness me again and I’ll kick your ass. Also, last week she told me not to release Liam on unsuspecting women because he is, and I quote, ‘hot enough to blister paint.’ Don’t worry about me and Riley, Christophe. We’re doing just fine.” The prince’s wicked grin left Christophe in little doubt of that, but it was all far, far beside the point.

  “Not that talking about women isn’t fun, guys, but I have news and it’s all bad.”

  “The Siren?” Alaric’s eyes glowed a hot metallic green. “Tell me the Siren isn’t in the hands of the vampires.”

  “I’d love to tell you that, but I can’t. I don’t know where it is, yet. And I can go one worse. Denal willingly went to the Summer Lands with a Fae princess.”

  “What?” Conlan smacked his hand against the trunk of a tree. “Our alliance with Rhys na Garanwyn is supposed to prevent this. I’m going to have his arrogant ass on a platter for this one.”

  “Leaving aside the truly nasty visual that creates, you can leave na Garanwyn out of this. Maeve na Feransel is Unseelie Court.”

  Dead silence. Alaric looked at Conlan. Conlan looked at Alaric. They both looked at him. Just when Christophe started to sweat, Conlan finally spoke.

  “I think we’d better go inside and call Ven. We’re going to need to do some planning.”

  “Fiona deserves to be in on it,” Christophe said. “She has a stake in this, too.”

  “What are you talking about? What stake could a human female possibly have in one of the missing gems of Poseidon’s Trident?” Alaric made no secret of his belief that only the Atlantean priesthood had a claim on the sea god’s most precious object of power.

  “It’s kind of complicated,” Christophe said. “But she’s secretly a ninja, both vamps and Fae may want to hurt her, and the Unseelie princess who invited Denal to play? She’s Fiona’s best friend.”

  The priest and the prince both froze and stared at him for several long seconds.

  “Yes,” Conlan said finally. “We most definitely want to talk to your Fiona.”

  Alaric raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for Christophe to deny that she was his Fiona. When he didn’t, the priest sighed. “And so another one, as Princess Riley would say, bites the dust.”

  Chapter 25

  Atlantis, the palace war room, half an hour later

  Fiona swallowed past the lump of awe that seemed to have permanently settled in her throat. First she’d had fruit and juice with the princess of Atlantis, who offered her the use of the palace gardens for her next book any time she wanted, so long as she promise
d to autograph a book for Prince Aidan.

  Then Christophe had come to find her, told her she was needed at a war council, and she’d walked through the palace—a classic concept of mythology turned historical fact. Now she was sitting at a scarred wooden table that was probably older than Scotland. Surrounded by unbelievably gorgeous men who were all cut from the same genetic cloth as Christophe. Tall, dark-haired, and muscular. High cheekbones and sensual mouths. Men to make women sit up and notice.

  They were almost as devastatingly attractive as Christophe. She only hoped devastating wasn’t the operative word.

  “Shall I make the introductions?” Riley briefly rested a hand on Fiona’s shoulder before taking a seat on the other side of the table. Without waiting for a response, she began, pointing to the various people as she named them. “Everyone, this is Lady Fiona Campbell, currently of Campbell Manor, Coggeshall. She also has a secret identity, but I think I’ll let her tell you about that.”

  Fiona flushed, wondering why in the world she’d revealed her secrets so easily to Riley. There was something about the princess, though, that invited confidence.

  “This is my husband, Conlan.” A tall man with a distinct air of command bowed to Fiona.

  “Your Highness.” She tried to rise from her chair, which wasn’t that easy with Christophe holding her hand, but Conlan shook his head.

  “Please don’t. We’re pretty informal here, as you’ll soon notice. Please call me Conlan, Lady Fiona.”

  “Just Fiona, please.”

  “This is Ven,” Riley continued. “My partner in crime in the love of B movies. He’s also Conlan’s brother.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Ven said, his eyes lit up with definite amusement. “Especially with Christophe.”

  Christophe narrowed his eyes but didn’t release her hand.

  “We spend way too much time in here, by the way,” Ven grumbled. “I’m leaving after this to join Erin in Seattle at her witch’s coven meeting.”

  Fiona’s eyes widened until she was afraid they’d pop out of her head as Ven described what Erin was doing with her coven. Very powerful magic designed to aid the human rebels, from what she could glean from his brief description.

  “His wife is a very powerful witch. Human,” Christophe said quietly.

  “Is it some kind of rule? That you marry humans?”

  Christophe laughed. “No. Until Conlan met Riley, it was a rule that we couldn’t.”

  Ven wound down his report and Riley pointed to a man, dressed all in black, who sat at the far end of the table. “That’s Alaric, Poseidon’s high priest and head of the Temple of Poseidon.”

  Fiona gasped. “But—that seat was empty. Are you Fae, too?”

  “I certainly am not,” Alaric said, his lips curled back from his teeth. “You may want to learn that to accuse an Atlantean of being Fae is a serious insult.”

  “You may want to learn that Scottish women don’t appreciate being threatened,” she snapped right back at him.

  Alaric put his elbows on the table, rested his head in his hands, and groaned. “Here we go again. I just know it. Poseidon’s balls, here we go again.”

  “I hate to point this out, but isn’t that blasphemy?” Fiona said. “Perhaps you aren’t the best person to lecture me about insults.”

  Ven grinned. “I think I’m going to like you.”

  It came to her that she was sitting with the crown princes and princess of Atlantis and she was insulting their god’s highest priest. She felt about two inches high.

  “I beg your pardon, Your—ah, Conlan. And yours as well, Alaric. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, but it shouldn’t make me forget the courtesies due to my hosts,” she said.

  Alaric flashed a smile that probably made sharks cry. “I liked you better when you were putting me in my place.”

  She laughed. “Noted.”

  “Perhaps we can get on to the point of this?” Ven said. “I’m thrilled Christophe finally became a real boy and found a girlfriend—hopefully you can keep his ass in line, Lady Fiona—but why are we in war council over it?” He aimed a mock glare at Fiona. “Is Scotland planning to declare war on Atlantis?”

  She didn’t know what to answer first, but her cheeks were burning over that “found a girlfriend” comment.

  Christophe beat her to it. “My love life is none of your business, King’s Vengeance or no. But if you’d like to meet me in the arena to discuss it—”

  “Oh, pipe down,” Fiona said. “Don’t we have enough problems without you fighting amongst yourselves?”

  He snapped his head around to glare at her, but then his gaze softened and he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

  When she turned back to the table, every face but Riley’s reflected varying degrees of shock. They were all staring at Christophe like he’d grown another head.

  “Moving on,” she said pointedly. “We’ve had a busy few days since we met in the Tower of London the night we both tried to steal the same jewel.”

  It took a few minutes for the questions and comments to quiet down, and then Christophe and Fiona took turns telling the rest of them everything that had happened since they’d met, leaving out nothing except their . . . personal interactions. At some point during their recounting, people brought food in, and they all fell to, but they kept at it, one talking while the other ate, and then trading off.

  “There is, unfortunately, nothing at all we can do about Denal. He went willingly with this Fae, and is gone for as long as she chooses to keep him. Nothing short of a full-scale assault on Silverglen would gain us the slightest hope of even finding him, and that would put us at war with the Unseelie Fae. Possibly the Seelie Court, as well, since we’d be invading the Summer Lands,” Alaric said.

  Christophe slammed the table. “No. He was under my care. I should be the one to retrieve him.”

  Conlan shook his head. “Christophe, the truth is that Denal is a grown man and a warrior, much as we all still treat him as the youngling we met all those years ago. The Fae cannot tell a direct lie. If she said he spoke willingly, then she hadn’t enchanted him. He wanted to go, and he went. Perhaps he simply needed a respite. The gods know he’s been through enough lately.”

  Fiona noticed that Riley’s cheeks turned pink, but the princess’s eyes were sad.

  “I wish—well, I wish I could have done something. I wish I’d known Maeve was Fae, or even known Fae existed, or . . . I don’t even know what I wish,” Fiona said. “I’m sorry my friend took yours. I hope she’ll bring him back soon. She really is a kind person. I’ve known her for more than ten years. You can’t fool somebody for that long.”

  “The Fae can keep up a simple deception for one hundred times ten years, or even more if they so desire,” Alaric said.

  “It’s true, though, that the Fae was different with Fiona,” Christophe said. “Talked about how much it meant to have a friend who liked her for herself and not for her position, that sort of thing. If Maeve na Feransel actually cares about any human, it is Fiona.”

  “Time will be the only answer to this dilemma,” Conlan said. “We must move on to the matter of the Siren. We can assume it is in dangerous hands—but whose?”

  “I’m betting the vampires,” Christophe said. “The plan to enthrall shifters is in full swing in Europe, the same as everywhere else on the planet. What we know of the Siren is that it gives its wielder vast power over shifters and can even force them to shift back and forth between their animal and human shapes.”

  “Perhaps the shifters stole it,” Riley said. “You’ve already mentioned the possibility that the Tower robbery could have been an inside job and that some of the Tower guard are wolf shifters. What if they took it, to keep it out of vampire hands?”

  Alaric drummed his fingers on the table and then made a flicking motion with his right hand and sent a trail of tiny, perfect triangles of blue-green flame tumbling down the center of the table. They rolled over the fruit bowl and t
hen vanished when they fell off the other end. Nobody else but Fiona paid any attention to them, so she guessed the little magic was the high priest equivalent of when she tapped her pencil while thinking.

  “We must find it,” Conlan said. “Christophe, you’re obviously stirring things up, so you continue to do what you’re doing and even step it up. How much help do you want?”

  “Let me do the reconnaissance on my own, and then I’ll call in the troops,” Christophe said.

  Fiona cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but why do you want this gem so badly? Are you planning to use it against the shifters, yourselves? I’m sorry, but I can’t go along with that.”

  “Remember when I said that without the Siren, Atlantis couldn’t rise to the surface again? I wasn’t joking,” Christophe said. “More than eleven thousand years ago, the elders of Atlantis took the Seven Isles to the bottom of the ocean. Before they did, they removed the seven gems of Poseidon’s Trident and scattered them to the corners of the world. We’ve recently learned that unless and until we restore them, we’re trapped here. If we attempt the magic to cause Atlantis to rise to the surface, we’ll be destroyed.”

  Fiona looked from face to face. They were dead serious. “The actual Trident belonging to the sea god Poseidon? Brother of Zeus, that Poseidon?”

  “Yes. He takes an active interest in Atlantean affairs, you might say,” Christophe said wryly, tapping his shoulder. She remembered the tattoo.

  “The question, I believe, is why you want the gem, Lady Fiona,” Alaric said. “We know you’re a thief, by your own account. Nevertheless, Christophe appears to hold you in high esteem. So please grant us the favor of explaining your own interest.”