Atlantis Betrayed Page 23

  “It’s my natural magnetism,” she murmured.

  “Actually, it’s the scent of his blood.” The man speaking stared at them with glowing red eyes across a dozen or so paces of open floor. “There’s something different about it. Not human, not shifter, not Fae. So what does that leave us?”

  He was movie-star gorgeous. No, not even that. Movie stars would give everything they owned to look as good as this man. He wore a black silk shirt and black trousers as if they had been made for him. They probably had. That kind of casual arrogance only came with title, money, and position.

  She glanced at Christophe and amended the thought. Or Atlantean warrior training and a great deal of magic.

  At the moment, Christophe was busy staring down the vampire. Finally he replied. “Alien. I’m a little green man from outer space.”

  “We’re not fans of aliens here.”

  Fiona put on her best “lady of the manor” smile. Old money, indeed. She could carry her own on this. “We’re just here for a drink.”

  “I don’t think so, Lady Fiona. How is Lucinda doing, by the way? Evidently you made quite an impression.”

  “You’re very well informed,” she said.

  “We simply want to live our lives in peace. The word is out about the two of you, and if I let you drink in my bar, I have trouble with Telios. Nobody wants trouble with Telios, especially me.”

  Christophe stepped right up in the vampire’s face. “Does he have Vanquish?”

  “Even if I knew, do you think I’d tell you? Whoever you are, whatever you want, get the hell out of my club and stay out. I’m not involved in any of that, and I plan to keep it that way.”

  Christophe started to respond, but Fiona grabbed his arm and shook her head. They were slowly, stealthily being surrounded, and this time she didn’t think she could talk her way out of it.

  “Let’s go. He has the right to be left in peace,” she said.

  The vampire turned his dark gaze to her. “Yes. We do. We are content to live in a society without the fear of mobs with torches for the first time in our existence. Leave us be.”

  “If Telios has his way and starts a war against humanity, you’ll be right there with those torches again,” Christophe said. “You’re going to have to choose sides soon.”

  “Perhaps. But not tonight. Now leave.”

  They left.

  Fairsby Manor

  “What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Gideon kicked the cringing vampire in the ribs again. “How difficult can it be to find a single insane vampire?”

  “I don’t know where he is,” the vampire blubbered. “We lost several of our number when they attacked that human, except he’s not human—no way is he human—and those of us who are left can’t find Telios.”

  “No, Christophe is definitely not human,” Gideon agreed. “But what?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” the vamp whined.

  Gideon kicked him again. “I wasn’t asking you, you pathetic waste of space. Get out. Try again. Follow any rumor or possibility, no matter how far-fetched.”

  “Well, there was one thing, but it was ridiculous.”

  “What?”

  “I heard he was seen entering a shifter hangout, but that’s just stupid,” the vamp said, all but falling over itself in the hope to prove useful.

  “Go!” Gideon screamed. “Go now. To that shifter place and find that vampire or I will chain you in a box with silver and crosses for the rest of eternity, you miserable leech.”

  The vampire leapt out the window so fast it nearly flew. Or maybe it did fly. Gideon didn’t know and didn’t care. All he knew was that if Telios was suddenly going to shifter venues, then the vampire might very well have discovered the Siren’s secrets. Which could be bad for Gideon.

  Very bad, indeed.

  At least until he figured a way to fix it. So Gideon did what he had always done best: he started drawing up a strategy to make others suffer and bleed. He would call in another of his minions, this one Fae. They’d put part two of his plan into motion.

  And that was very good. Very, very good.

  Campbell Manor

  “That was a useless night,” Christophe said as they walked up the stairs from the garage.

  “No, it wasn’t. We learned what is not true, so we can start to deduce what is true. The shifters don’t have the sword, or they wouldn’t have reacted like that. Telios terrifies even the vampires he might recruit to be on his side. There are even rumors, although I think it’s ridiculous, that he might be the real Jack the Ripper.”

  “Aha!” Christophe shouted.

  Fiona shushed him. “Aha, what? Also, be quieter, please.”

  “Nothing. Just a hunch I had. Anyway, Telios may have the sword. A powerful enough vampire could get past the security in the Jewel House easily enough,” Christophe mused. “He doesn’t seem to be the type who would share the news, either. So we can’t rule him out.”

  “So tomorrow we go after Telios?”

  Christophe shook his head. “Tomorrow I go after Telios. Alone. A very old, very powerful master vampire is my domain, not yours, won’t you agree, partner?”

  She narrowed her eyes, and he tensed for another battle, but then she sighed and smiled. “Yes, I do agree. There’s not much I can do other than get in the way. But I’m going to be working on a plan for how to clear the Scarlet Ninja’s name.”

  “Agreed.”

  A sound in the hallway alerted them to Hopkins’s presence. “Glad to see you home safely, Lady Fiona. I’ll say good night.”

  “You didn’t need to wait up for me, Hopkins,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Of course not, my lady.” He bowed and retired to his quarters, leaving Fiona staring after him with a mixture of fondness and exasperation.

  Christophe knew how she felt. “Annoying, isn’t it, when nobody does what you say?”

  She stuck her tongue out at him and ran down the hall to her room. He gave her exactly three seconds’ head start, and then he gave chase.

  He burst through her door and she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d headed to the bathroom to freshen up. He slowed to a walk, trying not to look like a love-struck fool, and someone pushed him from behind, and then laughed.

  Fiona’s laughter. She was shadowing.

  He removed his daggers and then grinned and ripped his shirt off over his head, not bothering with the buttons. “I’m happy to play, Princess.”

  She laughed again and smacked his ass. He jumped a little. Hadn’t been expecting that.

  “You know turnabout is fair play, right? Just warning you that now I get to spank that luscious ass of yours,” he growled, unfastening his pants and sliding them down. He stepped out and, totally nude, turned around. He couldn’t find her at first, though. That unique pattern of swirling light and shadow he’d learned was Fiona didn’t appear.

  “I’m learning to mask any trace of myself, even from you,” she said, from the opposite corner of the room. “Did you know you have a lovely body?”

  Seemingly from thin air, her shirt flew through the air and hit him in the chest, followed shortly thereafter by the wisp of lace that was her bra. His breathing sped up, and his cock, already hard, swelled even more.

  “You want to put your hands on my lovely body?” he asked, stalking toward her. Or where he’d thought she was. He realized he was wrong when another scrap of lace hit him in the back. He whirled around and caught her underwear before it fell.

  “A trophy?” He held it up and grinned. “A keepsake?”

  “If you like spanking,” she purred, this time from near the bathroom door, “that can be arranged.”

  He caught his breath. His prim, proper Fiona was turning a little kinky for him. He liked it. His entire body tightened, and he thought he might go insane if he didn’t get her under him in the next few seconds.

  “Go lie on the bed,” she commanded. “On your back, arms out.”

  “If you—”

&
nbsp; “Now,” she said sternly. “Don’t make me punish you.”

  “Oh, by all the gods, I’m going to make you pay for this,” he warned. “I’m going to make you come so hard and so long that you’re screaming for a week.”

  He heard her quick, indrawn breath, but she quickly masked it.

  “Big talk, big man,” she taunted from near the bed. “Are you afraid of little old me?”

  A silk scarlet ribbon waved in the air and then floated to the bed. Another quickly followed it.

  “Tie your left hand to the bedpost, then lie back and I’ll tie your right hand,” she ordered. “If you move, you lose points. If you touch me first, you lose points.”

  “And what do these points gain me?”

  She laughed a sultry, sexy laugh that shivered its way from his head to his toes by way of his cock. “Silly man. They gain you me.”

  He flew to the bed and did what she’d asked, although it took every ounce of determination to lie still when he felt her delicate fingers tying his wrist with the ribbon and tightening it.

  “Can you be good or do I need to tie your feet, too?” she teased.

  “I’ll be good,” he gritted out the words through clenched teeth, hoping that he wouldn’t spurt out of control and come all over himself at her first touch. He’d never been as aroused as he was with this woman. Never, in all the centuries of his existence.

  “Have your wicked way with me,” he invited. “Please.”

  Silence. For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that it had been an elaborate trick and now she’d gone off to shower and laugh at his foolishness. But then her mouth closed around the head of his cock and his entire body arched off the bed.

  “How’s that?” She gave him a long, slow lick.

  He moaned and his hips bucked involuntarily. He still couldn’t see her, though now he could once again distinguish the shadows that bent to hide her. It was like making love in a dream, almost unbearably erotic but still not enough.

  “I need to see you. I need to know it’s you touching me,” he said roughly. “Nobody else but you, ever again. Let me see you.”

  Slowly she appeared before him, curled around his hips. First she released the shadows, so she seemed to be made of pure light. Then she released the light and she was back. Fiona. Just Fiona. A miracle made into a woman, created especially for him.

  “I need you. Now. Please.”

  Fiona’s teasing response faded on her lips, as the intensity in Christophe’s face and voice captured her. She nodded.

  “Yes. I need you, too.” She rose above him and lowered herself on his erection, then slowly slid down its length until she rested against his body. “I need you now.”

  She leaned forward and released the silk ties so he could hold her. He pulled her down into a desperate kiss, devouring her mouth as if kissing her was the only thing keeping him sane. Her hands were trapped between them, resting on his powerful chest, and then he flipped her over and yanked her legs up.

  “Need you now,” he said roughly, thrusting into her over and over and over. “Now. Always.”

  She couldn’t talk, speech was impossible, nothing was left to her but pure sensation. She was the flame to his candle, and together they were incandescent. She climbed so high she knew the fall might kill her, but she didn’t care, she only knew she wanted him. Now and forever. Just like this, inside her body and inside her heart.

  He cried out and she came apart around him, and together they fell off the side of the world and into each other’s soul.

  Christophe knew exactly what was happening to him, and the terror he’d expected was nowhere to be found. It was the soul-meld, and he’d told himself he’d never, ever allow it to happen to him.

  Now he welcomed it.

  Her soul was warmth and light and color, it was a landscape painted by a true master. He saw her childhood and the dark grays and shades of black for the terror and sadness she’d experienced with her grandfather and father. He swam through the blues and greens as she grew older, began to move on, cared for and loved her brother, was cared for and loved in return by both Declan and Hopkins. He saw the scarlet of excitement and adventure as she took on the persona of the Scarlet Ninja. Watched her go on her first heist.

  Cried with her when she was finally able to help people the vampires had harmed.

  Her soul was as beautiful as she was and the same glorious contradiction; neat, orderly, and organized in certain parts, and wild, flowing, and free in others. She was a woman made up of so many different and contrasting colors that she absolutely took his breath away, and the realization smashed into him as he reveled in the fire of her stubborn and courageous heart: he was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her.

  Fiona clutched Christophe’s shoulders, almost feeling as if she actually were falling off the edge of an impossibly high cliff into a terrifying abyss below. Somehow, she didn’t understand how or why or if it were even real, but she was falling into Christophe’s memories.

  Darkness surrounded her, and fear and pain swallowed her up until she screamed. She was so young, no, he was, it was Christophe who was the child, this was his memory, and his poor, broken and battered body lay curled up in the corner of a rough wooden box. The darkness stank of urine and terror, and Fiona wanted to kill the woman who had done this to him. Even the rational realization that the woman was long dead, that all the townspeople who’d turned his parents over to the Fae were long dead, did nothing to reduce her need for vengeance.

  They deserved to hurt and suffer for what they’d done to him. They deserved—but then she fell again. Fell into warmth and confusion. His grandparents had loved him, but he’d been closed off, terrified, angry.

  Why hadn’t anyone saved him? Why hadn’t they saved his parents? Why were they lying to him? His young mind couldn’t understand it, couldn’t find a way to ask, so he reached the only decision he could. He quit trusting. Anyone, ever.

  She fell again. Warrior training. Finally the belief that what he was doing was right. He could avenge his parents. Only to learn that his duty was to protect the very humanity who had caused his family’s murder. Doing his duty, year after year, while the anger, pain, and futility ate at him.

  Falling again and again. The magic in him. So powerful. Alaric’s edict that he join the priesthood, learn to train and channel the power. Christophe’s refusal. Again feeling like an outsider. As though he weren’t good enough.

  She fell again, this time into a pool of golden warmth. Felt bathed in hope and reassurance; a sense of belonging. A feeling of home after so many long centuries without. She looked into the light, the source of this wonderful, soul-renewing hope.

  And she saw her own face smiling back at her.

  Chapter 33

  Christophe held Fiona as tightly as he dared, rocking her back and forth as she cried in his arms.

  “How did you stand it?” she finally said, her sobs slowing. “So alone for so long. How could you bear it?”

  He considered the question and realized he didn’t know how to answer it. “I didn’t know any different.”

  “What was that? What happened to me?” She wiped her wet face on her pillow and then sat up, taking deep breaths. “How did I see your memories?”

  “What you saw was actually my soul.” He sat up, too, pulling her close to him. He needed to be touching her. “That was an ancient Atlantean . . . ritual? Experience? I don’t even know what to call it. A blessing, perhaps. It’s called the soul-meld and what you experienced—no, what we experienced—was a journey through each other’s soul.”

  “But how is that even possible?” She trembled against him. “You saw my childhood, too? Lived through my pain? I don’t know what to say.”

  “I did, mi amara, and your soul is beautiful beyond the fantasies of the gods. You are courage and goodness made into light and formed especially for me. You must know that you are mine.” He pulled her into a tight embrace, wishing he could hold her there forever, just li
ke that, with no vampires or Fae or missions to ever come between them.

  “What does that mean, that I am yours?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.

  He loosened his arms, but she didn’t pull away.

  “Is that some kind of magic binding? Do you—what does it mean? Can it be broken?”

  He fought against the terror biting into him with sharp metal teeth. He’d finally found her and she wanted to find a way to escape him. He wanted to shout and rage against the injustice, but that would frighten her, and he found that he cared more about her feelings than his own. He almost laughed.

  Love, then, was a fool’s game.

  “Yes, it can be broken. Or at least, it can be ignored,” he said. “The most precious tenet of Atlantean life is free will. The soul-meld, though it comes but rarely and offers a gift beyond price to a relationship, can be turned down. Refused.”

  He inhaled a shuddering breath and said the hardest words he’d ever had to speak. “Tell me to go, and I will.”

  She put her hand up to his cheek and stared up at him, her blue eyes drowning with some emotion he couldn’t translate. “Christophe.”

  “Don’t,” he said, throwing himself away from her and out of the bed. “Don’t try to be kind. Don’t try to let me down easily. Just tell me to get out, and I’ll go.”

  He stopped, realizing he still asked too much. “No. You don’t even need to say the words. I’ll leave now.”

  He reached for the sheaths with his daggers and knocked over a vase of flowers. Instead of righting it, he hurled it against the wall and howled out the anguish that bubbled out of his chest until he thought it would consume him in its scarlet flame.

  “Christophe. Christophe, listen to me.” Fiona knelt beside him, though he didn’t know how or when she’d gotten there. She shook his shoulders again. “Christophe! Don’t make me smack your bottom again.”

  Tears ran down her face, silvery tracks not marring her incredible beauty but merely changing it, transforming it to something bittersweet. “I don’t want you to go. I love you.”