Atlantis Betrayed Page 8

  He finally raised his head and shot a look of such possessive triumph at her it sent her off again into a shuddering spasm of aftershocks. He stood and lifted her into his arms again. He caught her bum in those big hands and she answered his unspoken request by wrapping her legs around him.

  “Yes,” he said fiercely. “Now.” And he lifted her up, and his enormous erection jutted up between them as if it, too, sought to conquer.

  She shook her head, tried to find her powers of speech. “No, you—condom,” she managed, but he shook his head.

  “I cannot catch or carry any human illness, nor give a child until I petition Poseidon,” he said, positioning his penis at her entrance. Everything in her wanted to wrap herself around him and slide down his erection, but sanity surfaced.

  “What? Stop, condom. Now,” she gasped, struggling. She pointed to the drawer of the table next to the window seat and he groaned, but yanked it open, still holding her with one strong arm, and snatched a foil-wrapped square out of it and handed it to her.

  “Do it for me. Please.”

  The second she had him covered, he drove inside her and she cried out at the sheer size of him. “Oh, oh, oh. So big, too big, you can’t fit—”

  Christophe groaned at how tightly her hot, wet sheath wrapped around his cock. “Yes, I can. I will. Take me. Take all of me,” he murmured in her ear as he worked his way deep inside her. His cock, even inside the damnable covering, was about to explode from the unbelievable pleasure of her wet heat and her tightness.

  He pulled back a fraction of an inch, and then pushed his way in again, the silken wetness of her arousal easing the journey. He bent forward, leaning her against the glass of the window again, so the mist from the rain and wind swirled in against her lovely round arse and his balls. The effect of the heat and the cold combined to make every muscle in his body strain and harden. He had never wanted anyone like this; oh, by the gods, he wanted to spend a year or two just fucking her.

  She gasped again and he took her mouth, swallowed her gasp, sucked on her tongue and fed from the honey of her mouth as he had from her sweet cunt. She cried out, the sound trapped between their mouths, and then her body tightened impossibly around him and she came again, shattering into pieces against him.

  He tried to hold on—to make it last—but his body rode the waves of her orgasm and he fucked her harder and deeper; one, then two more strokes and he came, shuddering against her. He carried her to the bed and gently lay her against her pillows, then yanked off the condom, desperate to remove it as his seed continued to spurt out of him in the fiercest orgasm he’d ever known. She gazed up at him, still trembling and gasping, then lifted a hand and closed it around his cock, which made him cry out as he bucked against her hand and came even harder, spilling his hot come in her hand.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered. “I—oh. My.”

  He sucked in a breath and blew it back out, his body still shuddering from his release. “Yeah. I kinda feel the same way.”

  She let go of him and her arm fell back to the bed, as if she lacked the strength to hold it up any longer. He just stood there and stared at her, almost unable to believe how beautiful she was. Like a nymph in the moonlight—or one of her forest fairies—her perfect skin glowed. The triangle of silky hair between her thighs was a paler shade of moonlight, echoing the silvery blond of her hair. And those breasts. Surely poets would write odes to those round, perfect breasts.

  “You’re staring at me,” she whispered, and he could tell that she was blushing as the moonlight picked up the slightest touch of pink.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. “I almost can’t believe you’re even real.”

  “I’m feeling rather that way myself,” she said, still whispering.

  He kissed her again. He couldn’t help it, even though this was the time when he usually was looking for the nearest exit, after sex. But there was no usually about this.

  He had never felt anything like this. He thought his mind might actually have exploded by the end of that orgasm. Surely something was broken, or he would be able to do something other than stand and stare at her like a lovesick buffoon.

  “I’ll just go and freshen up, then,” she murmured, and he followed her, crowding her, pressing kisses to the back of her neck and the curve of her shoulders as if he’d been bespelled by a particularly powerful love potion.

  Terror ripped through him at the thought. No. Not love potion. Sex potion.

  Besottedness potion, the honest part of his mind corrected. That was more than just sex, and you know it.

  He should run while he still could. Yet instead, after they made use of warm water and towels, he swept her into his arms and carried her to her bed, then tucked them both into it, his arms around her.

  “I’m not going to let you go for quite a while, so it’s a good thing we’re partners,” he said, reveling in the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest and one of her legs tucked between his.

  “I may agree to that,” she said, ever so primly, her cheeks hot again. His seductress had reverted back to Her Ladyship now that she was satisfied, and it delighted him. He’d be perfectly happy for no one but him to ever see the wild side of her.

  Ever?

  “You just tensed up,” she whispered. “What is going on behind those lovely green eyes?”

  “Nothing at all. Just sleep. Tomorrow you have books to sign, and we have a national treasure to steal.”

  He held her and stroked her hair until she slept, and then he lay there, wide awake and simply holding her, until the sun’s first rays sent their golden light through the window.

  Ever. He’d thought the word “ever” in relationship to a woman. He didn’t know whether to laugh—or run. She murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, and he knew he wasn’t running anywhere just yet.

  Not yet.

  He could always run later.

  Chapter 11

  Atlantis, the warrior training grounds, later that morning

  Alaric, sworn in magical service to Poseidon and widely regarded as the most powerful high priest the Seven Isles had ever known, was getting his ass handed to him by his high prince.

  He ducked as Conlan swung a particularly vicious overhand strike toward his head, then whirled and parried. The thud as the two wooden training swords collided in midair smashed its recoil through his arm and shoulder.

  “Remind me again why I’m doing this,” he called out, feinting left. “When I can destroy any attacker with my magic before his sword leaves its sheath?”

  “In case your magic goes on the fritz,” Princess Riley said, from her seat on a blanket in the grass bordering the hard-packed dirt training ring. She held her son with Conlan, Prince Aidan, the heir to the throne of Atlantis. His Royal Drooliness, she called him. Alaric felt it lacked a certain dignity, but he refrained from pointing it out.

  Humans could be so sensitive.

  “My magic does not fritz,” he replied, vanishing from under the force of Conlan’s advance and reappearing behind the prince. He swatted Conlan in the ass with the flat of his sword to emphasize the point.

  Conlan whirled around, bending down with that innate grace that had fooled so many opponents into underestimating his ferocity, and swept Alaric’s legs out from under him. Alaric’s own ass hit the dirt, hard, before he could teleport. His control over the skill was only slowly improving in spite of practice, and trying to use it while under attack was tricky, at best.

  Riley burst out laughing. “That looked like a fritz to me. Did that look like a fritz to you, wittle snookums?”

  The chubby baby chortled out a gurgling laugh. Probably at Alaric, if Aidan was anything like his parents.

  Alaric jumped to his feet and brushed the dirt off his pants. “One hopes you are addressing your son and not me,” he said dryly, lowering his sword and bowing to his prince.

  Conlan shouted out a laugh and then returned Alaric’s bow. A wide-eyed boy, probably shocked to hear his hig
h prince and Poseidon’s high priest jesting so casually, ran up and retrieved the practice swords.

  “I can’t actually see anybody ever calling you wittle snookums,” Conlan said, still laughing. “Nobody would dare.”

  “I’m sure his mother did when he was Aidan’s size,” Riley said, grinning with mischief. “You weren’t always the scary high priest we all know and love, Alaric. Once you were a cute little baby, drooling on yourself and peeing your diaper.”

  Alaric’s lip curled away from his teeth. “Your Highness, did you mean to beat me into submission with the wooden swords or with your bride’s conversation?”

  Riley laughed again, not in the least offended. As an emotional empath, or aknasha, she could probably read his affection for her as easily as he could read Conlan’s worry in the lines of the prince’s face. They’d been friends for centuries, he and Conlan, and now that Atlantis was finally preparing to take its rightful place on the surface of the world once more, the problems kept coming, as hard and fast as Conlan’s attacks in the practice ring.

  “Speaking of diapers, as much fun as it is to watch the two of you all sweaty and shirtless, I’m off to change your son’s. See you both at breakfast?” Riley leaned up to kiss her husband, and Alaric had to look away from the depth of emotion the two shared. But even he, who had been alone for so long and had little prospect for ever being anything but, could not begrudge his prince and friend the love and happiness he’d found with Riley.

  Conlan watched his wife and child as they headed off toward the palace, but then he sighed and turned toward Alaric. “What news?”

  “None good, unfortunately. The scientists Brennan and Tiernan stopped in the United States were not the only ones working toward shifter enthrallment. Europe has a great number of underemployed scientists who are working toward the same goal, evidently. Our sources tell us that not only has the continuing vampire enthrallment of shifters spread to Europe, but someone very highly placed in either Interpol or Scotland Yard’s new Paranormal Ops division is the ringleader.”

  Conlan smashed his fist into his palm and swore. “The bad news keeps on coming. What is the European plan?”

  Alaric raised his hand, palm up, and a glowing blue-green sphere of energy spread out to form the shape of Europe. He clenched his fist and it disappeared. “The vampire alliances are growing. The rumor is that an international consortium of vampires has formed, and it is planning a concerted strike on all human rebels, using enthralled shifters.”

  “Quinn and her counterparts have finally hit them hard enough to hurt, have they?”

  Alaric was proud that he barely flinched at her name. “Your wife’s sister is the rebel leader of all of North America, Conlan.” And the woman Alaric loved. Not that he would ever be able to say the words aloud.

  Conlan looked at him with some sympathy, and Alaric deliberately removed any expression from his face. “Quinn is constantly in touch with other rebels throughout the world. Though the new laws are making rebel offensives more difficult.”

  In spite of the dangers vampires represented, or perhaps because of them, more and more human nations were passing laws guaranteeing the vampires equal protection under the law. Shifters, as well. Alaric had no problem with that—most shifters were simply trying to live their lives in peace. The few who had gone rogue were the equivalent of the human populace’s criminal element.

  But if the vampires succeeded in enthralling shifters, when they had never before been able to do so, they would have a ready-made army of warriors far more powerful than any human soldiers. And shifters could create more shifters easily and quickly. At the very least, it would be a bloodbath of apocalyptic proportions.

  “Christophe is in London, isn’t he?”

  “As you well know, having sent him there,” Alaric replied, raising one eyebrow. “Your point?”

  “Let’s let him investigate. He’s already there, anyway. We’ll send Denal over to help.”

  “You’re worried about Christophe, aren’t you?”

  Conlan turned toward the palace and started walking, and Alaric fell into step beside him. “Aren’t you?” the prince said. “He’s close to going over a deadly edge lately—too much power and too little focus. I fear if we don’t give him something to concentrate on that he feels is worthwhile, we’ll lose him.”

  “He should have entered the priesthood,” Alaric said darkly. “He has far too much magical power to be running around playing at swords.”

  “Like the rest of us brainless warriors?” Conlan aimed a not-very-amused look at his friend.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you well know it. If too much magic is left unchanneled and untrained, the wielder may become unstable. Mages have died—or killed—from simply going mad; and many of those had less power than Christophe.” Alaric’s mood darkened, thinking of one high priest in particular. The elders had banded together to kill Nereus before he could destroy all of Atlantis with his rage and magic, more than eight thousand years ago.

  “That’s why I sent him to London to retrieve the Siren. It should be an easy job, and he has always been drawn to that part of the world, in spite of what happened to him there.”

  “Or perhaps because of it,” Alaric said. “Akin to worrying a wound until it won’t heal.”

  “Can that kind of childhood trauma ever heal?” Conlan shook his head. “I don’t know. You’ve been inside his head, what do you think?”

  Alaric thought about it until they’d reached the palace gardens. Then he stopped, and Conlan halted to face him and listen. “I don’t know. Something is wrong—twisted—inside him. What humans did to him when he was such a small boy caused him to hate them all, as a race, with an almost zealous passion. Can that ever change? I simply don’t know.”

  “And yet he protects them,” Conlan said. “There must be hope in that.”

  “He protects them as duty, and as obligation. He fights vampires because he likes killing, not out of any altruism. He hones his magic in forbidden ways, but I cannot catch him at it, so I cannot censure him for it. Something—or someone—will drive him to the edge of reason, and then we will know whether Christophe will either heal and come to find some peace, or be forever destroyed by the bitterness festering inside him.”

  “When will that happen, do you think? It would be good if we could schedule around it, since we have so many other crises to deal with,” Conlan said wryly.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Alaric replied, in the same tone. “While we’re discussing such pleasant topics, we need to move on to the maidens still held in magical stasis. The elders have warned me that the magic shows signs of deteriorating and we must either release them all or risk their deaths.”

  Conlan winced. “Riley calls them the frozen virgins, and she told me if I don’t free them immediately, I can sleep on the couch for the rest of our marriage.”

  Alaric shook his head in mock sorrow. “I cannot believe I’ve lived to see the day when our mighty high prince and fiercest warrior was brought low by the whims of a helpless human female.”

  “Helpless. Ha! There’s a word I’d never apply to Riley, at least not in her hearing, if I were you, my friend. She’s small but mighty.”

  “I consider myself warned. Shall I send Denal to London, then?”

  Conlan paused, and then he nodded. “Yes. He has a calming influence on Christophe, in any case, and perhaps with a new mission, Denal will quit mooning around over my wife.”

  Alaric couldn’t suppress the grin. “I believe Riley called it puppy love.”

  “Yeah, yeah. He’ll get over it when he finds a woman of his own. But in the meantime it’s damned annoying the way one of my sworn warriors glares at me whenever I kiss my own wife.”

  “Perhaps it’s not glaring so much as the same nausea we all feel at your repulsive love-struck state, my prince.”

  Conlan threw an elbow, and Alaric just managed to avoid it. “Don’t forget I can kick your ass, priest or no, my friend.”


  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  Conlan threw up his hands, muttering a suggestion in ancient Atlantean as to Alaric’s future activities, some of which were clearly anatomically impossible even for one as powerful with magic as he. Alaric simply laughed and went to find Denal, but his humor faded and vanished as his thoughts returned to Christophe.

  Something would have to be done about the warrior, probably sooner rather than later. Given the nature and power of Christophe’s magic, Alaric would be the one forced to do it. It wasn’t a task he looked forward to. Perhaps this mission in London would finally bring Christophe some measure of peace.

  Chapter 12

  Campbell Manor

  Christophe woke from a fantastic dream where he was in bed with the most gorgeous woman he’d ever met to realize two things: (1) it wasn’t a dream, and (2) it was turning into a nightmare.

  “What in the nine hells?” he yelled out, reaching for a dagger as the ominous and furious face loomed over the side of the bed. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on his perspective, his daggers weren’t currently in reach of his hands, which were full of warm, curvy, and definitely naked female.

  “I would have preferred you steal the good silver,” Hopkins snapped, depositing a tray on Fiona’s bedside table.

  Fiona squeaked something and yanked the covers over her head, but not before Christophe saw that her cheeks were flaming red.

  “I would prefer that you didn’t come in a room without knocking,” Christophe replied, echoing the butler’s starched tone.

  “As if you have any right to have preferences in this house,” Hopkins muttered, before stalking to the door. He paused before exiting, squaring his shoulders. “I would have hoped I’d raised you better, Lady Fiona.”

  Then he closed the door quite carefully behind himself.

  “Nice parting shot,” Christophe said, pulling the quilt away from Fiona’s sleep-tousled hair and flushed cheeks. “He’s good with the zingers, isn’t he?”