by Alyssa Day
“We cannot let you have the Siren, Fiona,” Conlan said. “Your English queen only had the gem on loan, whether or not she knew it. The gem has waited more than eleven thousand years to return to us, and so it shall.”
“I understand,” she said hastily. “I wouldn’t do anything that might harm you or Atlantis. Anyway, the diamond Christophe gave me will certainly fund my programs for more than a year.”
“The diamond?” Conlan’s face was twitching, as if he was trying not to laugh. “You gave her a diamond?”
“It was mine to give,” Christophe muttered.
“Oh, my friend. It’s going to be an interesting journey for you.” Conlan lost the battle with himself and started laughing.
“It won’t be easy,” Christophe warned her, ignoring his prince.
“I hate to sound like a walking cliché, but nothing worthwhile ever is,” she replied.
“Then we’re done here,” Conlan said, rising. “Riley and I have a baby to feed. Christophe, why don’t you show our guest some of Atlantis before you have to return?”
“Just what I was thinking,” Christophe said.
“Thank you. All of you,” Fiona told them. “It’s good to feel like I finally have allies.”
“Oh, the more the merrier, certainly,” Alaric said darkly. “Will there be more diapers? I love diapers.”
Riley burst out laughing. “Ignore him. He gets a little moody sometimes.”
As they all filed out of the room, Christophe pulled Fiona to him for a hug. “It’s all going to work out.”
She looked into his lovely green eyes and smiled. “I know. After all, what could defeat a team made up of an Atlantean warrior and a Scottish ninja?”
Chapter 26
Christophe watched Fiona as she wandered through the palace and the grounds, exclaiming over and over in wonder like a child. His facial muscles felt strained from the unfamiliar smiles. Everything held for her the joy of discovery, from the tapestries on the walls to the throne room to the kitchens. Even the taste of her first Atlantean blushberries, which she savored so sensuously that it made his cock harden in his pants.
He could tell by the way her eyes flew open and her cheeks turned pink that she remembered exactly where she’d heard the fruit’s name before.
“Oh! You said—”
“Yes, I said,” he agreed, stalking her around one of the smaller garden fountains. “I’d like to say it again. Would you like to make love in Atlantis?”
“Here?” She looked around, almost as if she were considering it, but then she shook her head. “No, of course not. What if someone came along and saw us?”
“They’d be jealous?”
Her lips curved. “Funny, but no.”
“I was thinking my rooms, Princess.”
“Don’t call me that. There are too many princesses in our lives. Riley and now Maeve. It’s just odd.”
“Neither of them are my princess.” He pulled her in for a long, deep kiss and only released her when they were both breathless. “My rooms?”
“Your rooms.”
They didn’t run, as much as he would have liked to, but walked at a barely more than normal rate of speed up the staircase and through the hallways of the palace, until they came to the warriors’ wing and threw open the door to Christophe’s suite of rooms.
“What do you think?” He figured it wouldn’t be very impressive to her. After all, she lived in a mansion, and he only had a few rooms. But they were pretty nice rooms, after all. He did live in a palace. The view from the balcony was stupendous.
She ran across the room and opened the glass-and-crystal-paned doors. “Oh, Christophe. This is absolutely magnificent.”
He followed more slowly, enjoying the view of her lovely round bottom as she bent over the waist-high barrier and looked down. “The gardens are lovely from here, too. What a wonderful place to live. You are so lucky.”
He fitted his body against hers from behind and put his arms around her. “You live in a mansion, my ninja. You’re pretty lucky yourself.”
“We survived a vampire attack, too,” she reminded him. “We’re both pretty lucky.”
“That’s skill. Not my first vampire attack.” He kissed his way down the side of her neck, enjoying her shivers, and then he slowly reached around in front of her and unfastened her silk trousers.
“Christophe,” she gasped, capturing his hand. “What are you doing? Someone could see.”
“Not unless they can see through walls, and there’s not a single recorded incidence of that in the history of Atlantis.” He pointed to the walls dividing his balcony from its neighbors and then to the solid barrier in front, which covered her completely from toes to just under her waist.
“Nobody can see me do this, for example,” he whispered in her ear as he slid his hand down her silken belly to find the nest of curls between her thighs. “Or this,” as his hand moved even lower, and he traced her clitoris ever so lightly with the tip of his finger.
Her sharply indrawn breath was her only reply, so he nibbled the edge of her ear and whispered a few suggestions as to what he’d like to do to her. She stood perfectly still, except for pushing her hips back until his cock was nestled against the sweetly firm cheeks of her still-covered ass.
“I want to hold your breasts in my hands.”
“No, someone might see,” she said breathlessly. “We should go inside.”
“We will. But first I want to watch you come in the bright magic of Atlantean sunlight.” With that he slid his fingers farther down, until they touched her liquid heat. He coated his finger in the slick wetness and then rubbed up and along her clit again, causing her to buck against him.
“Christophe, I can’t—we can’t—”
“Oh, yes, we can,” he said, tilting his head to take her mouth. He kissed her long and hard while his fingers continued their play, until she started shaking in his arms.
“Now, please, I want you inside me,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Your wish is my command.” He unfastened his own pants and then pulled hers down as he leaned forward slightly, bending her just the tiniest bit over the rail.
“Now, you said,” he reminded her. He plunged the thick head of his cock into her silken sheath and she bit her lip against crying out. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, inch by blissful inch, he entered her, his body barely moving, until his cock was so deep inside her that he felt like part of her. He stood perfectly still, unmoving, as she clenched around him, and then his fingers resumed their rhythmic stroking on her swollen clit.
“You have to move,” she whispered. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” he said, alternating pressure with his fingers. Firm, then gentle. Rapidly, then slowly.
“Oh, no. There’s someone coming.” There was real panic in her voice, so Christophe reminded her that nobody could see her from the waist down, especially from the ground below.
“Hail, Christophe,” the man called up. It was one of the palace gardeners. “You owe me another chance at darts.”
“Soon,” he promised, waving to the man in hopes he’d get the hint and move on. Which he did, thank Poseidon.
Fiona collapsed forward onto her folded arms, which rested on the balcony ledge. “I can’t believe that I—that we—oh.”
“Well, we didn’t yet, but we’re going to, now.” He withdrew a little and then, grasping her hip with the hand not busy driving her to an exquisite madness, he thrust into her, hard. “I told you nobody can see you.”
“Of course. Nobody can see me. Why didn’t I think of that?”
A split second later, she disappeared, for all intents and purposes. He stood holding her ass, his cock buried in her warm, sweet heat, but all he could see of her was a swirl of light and shadow.
It was simultaneously the oddest and most erotic experience of his life.
“I won’t come without being able to see your beautiful face, but that doesn’t mean I can�
�t make an invisible woman have an orgasm right here on my balcony,” he said, teasing her, his fingers stroking harder now.
She bucked against him, frantic now, trying to get him to move, but he laughed and held her still against him, barely pulsing his cock in tiny movements inside her. The rhythm of his motion matched that of his fingers, and it took only seconds more for her to reach her climax, spasming around his cock like a velvet glove. He nearly came then himself, but instead he lifted her by the bottoms of her thighs so that he was carrying her in almost a seated position in front of him. He made it to the bed in seconds and gently lowered her to her hands and knees and then took a firm grip on her hips and released the power he’d been holding back.
He drove into her, over and over, and she let go of her shadows so he could see every gorgeous inch of her. Her luscious ass rocked with his motion and she’d thrown her head back so her hair trailed along the curve of her pale, perfect back.
“More?” He sped up, thrusting harder and faster. “Do you want more of me?”
“All of you,” she said breathlessly. “I want all of you.”
He bent down and pressed a kiss to her spine. “I want all of you, too, Lady Fiona Campbell.”
She cried out, coming again, and he thrust into her, over and over, riding the wave of her orgasm to his own. They collapsed in the bed, exhausted and safe, and she almost immediately fell asleep. He, however, lay awake for a long time, again contemplating the irony of humanity, his most hated foe, giving him such a gift.
Chapter 27
Atlantis, the royal suite
Conlan smiled to see his son mash banana slices into his own hair. “He’s clearly a brilliant child.”
“Hey, buddy,” his princess and bride said, pulling him down for a kiss. “You did the same thing at your age, bet on it.”
“I’d do the same thing now, if I thought it would relieve some of this worry.”
Riley nodded. “Denal?”
“All of it. Denal, the vampires, the impending war, the jewels for the Trident.” He ran a hand through his hair, wondering when he’d pull enough of it out to go bald. “Hells, what isn’t going wrong? Will I ever be able to live up to the demands of being king? Alaric keeps pushing for the coronation but I don’t feel like I’m even handling the high prince job well yet.”
“Do you have to become king?”
“You mean could I abdicate?” He smiled at her. “I tried that once, for you, remember? Poseidon wouldn’t let me go so easily.”
“What about Christophe and Fiona? Does that worry you, too, my handsome prince?” She cleaned up their sleepy son as they talked, so she could put him down for his afternoon nap.
“Should it? I don’t know. What right do I have to meddle in the warriors’ private lives? But he has been so close to the edge; so dangerous and out of control with his power. Is he even safe for her to be around?”
“Maybe only for her, but yes, she’s safe with him. It’s anyone who tries to hurt her I worry about,” she said.
“They must find the Siren. All hope of Atlantis rising is lost without it.”
“They’ll find it. Now, come take a nap with us. Even high princes are allowed to rest with their family once in a while.”
Conlan held his wife and son close while they slept, but his own eyes couldn’t close, nor could his mind shut down. They were so close to retrieving all the jewels. Maybe he should send someone else. Christophe had always been . . . unpredictable.
And now this new element, this Scarlet Ninja—and the Unseelie Court Fae.
“I’ll put the word out to na Garanwyn,” he told his sleeping wife. “If the Fae are facing a civil war, the Seelie Court needs to know about it.”
His tiny son belched, a huge noise for such a small boy. Conlan sighed and nodded. “I feel exactly the same way, Aidan. Exactly the same way.”
Chapter 28
Campbell Manor, later that evening
Hopkins was standing in the middle of the floor when Fiona and Christophe stepped through the portal into her drawing room.
“Welcome home, Lady Fiona,” he said. “Would you care for tea?”
She started laughing. “Only you, Hopkins. Only you would offer me tea when I’m stepping through a magic doorway.”
“If it were my place, I would be asking where you’ve been for the past several hours. I might ask where Denal is. I might ask how you stepped through a ball of light to appear in the middle of the drawing room. But I won’t ask any of it. So I repeat, would you care for tea?”
Only a slight reddening of his face and his exceedingly clipped tone gave away how worried he must have been, and she felt like an utter heel. She hugged him. He stepped away, but not before she saw the relief on his face.
“I do adore you, Hopkins. And I owe you an explanation. Why don’t we have tea, and I’ll tell you all about Atlantis. How is Sean, and where is Declan?”
“Sean is fine, healing rapidly. Sunday is his day off, of course, so he’s off with his friends somewhere. Declan is doing the same. I made up a story about you showing Christophe the sights of London when he asked where you were.”
“Thanks. I wouldn’t want him to worry, and I’m sorry I made you do so.”
They followed Hopkins into the kitchen, and he set about making sandwiches while Fiona filled the kettle and put it on to boil. While they ate, she told him about Atlantis, and after the first thirty minutes or so, he finally quit treating her as if she were mad. Christophe sat silently, eating several sandwiches, and let her tell the story. A couple of times she caught him examining her as if she were a new species of butterfly and he a scientist. It was oddly disconcerting.
“I can hardly believe you were really in Atlantis,” Hopkins said. “Maeve a Fae princess. Now, that I can believe. I always thought there was something off about her.”
Christophe’s expression darkened. “If she harms him, she will answer to me. I have little love for the Unseelie Court.”
“I truly believe she won’t,” Fiona said.
“I hope you’re right.”
He didn’t sound convinced, but to be honest with herself, neither was she. The Maeve who could hold such secrets so closely for so long wasn’t the woman Fiona knew.
“I’d love to see it someday,” Hopkins said. “I’ve long been a student of mythology—although, we’ll have to reclassify, won’t we? You’ve just changed everything. Fiction has become fact.”
“The world should be used to that, after vampires and shape-shifters revealed themselves,” Christophe said. “But we’re not openly announcing anything until we can raise Atlantis to the surface to take its place in the world once more.”
“It seems like a lot of people know,” Fiona said doubtfully.
“Yes, but what can they say? Atlantis exists? It would show up as a tabloid story.” Christophe shrugged and, standing, took the plates to the sink and turned on the faucet. “We still have to retrieve the Siren and two other gems before Atlantis can rise.”
“I can understand your urgency,” Hopkins said, jumping up to help clear their few dishes. “Even after you gave us your proof, we didn’t believe you. I’d so very much like to see it.”
“That can be arranged,” Christophe said, grinning. “Be nice to me and you’ll get your chance.”
“Then again, I’ve heard Morocco is an interesting place to visit,” Hopkins replied, not missing a beat.
Fiona laughed at the two of them and crossed over to the sink where Christophe was washing their dishes. She picked up a hand towel and began to dry them.
“Lady Fiona,” Hopkins said, sounding shocked. “A lady does not do dishes.”
“You know, that’s silly,” she said. “I have to eat. Why should I be exempt from cleaning up after myself? If you really want to help, will you please figure out another disguise as good as the Uma Thurman look? We’re heading out to a werewolf pub, and this time we’re taking the Ducatis.”
Chapter 29
The Melti
ng Moon
Christophe parked the motorcycle next to Fiona’s and removed his helmet. There was something very sexy about her on a bike. Raw power controlled by a delicate, graceful woman.
Come to think of it, that came uncomfortably close to describing their relationship. He was certainly acting completely out of character lately. Wanting to actually sleep with a woman; his reluctance to leave her; even defying Conlan and Alaric—
Nah. That last was pretty normal.
Her eyes sparkled, framed by long, lush lashes and sparkly makeup. She looked like a celestial fairy from a bedtime tale. A wicked one. She carefully shook out her hair.
“I like you as a redhead. Hot and spicy,” he said, his voice pitched low.
She flashed a sexy “come hither” smile. “Really? Tell me more, big boy.”
“Smile at me like that again, and you’ll see how big I can get,” he growled. “Everything about you makes me hard. I’m worse than a youngling with his first woman.”
She tucked her helmet under her arm and put a hand on his chest. “I like it.” She kissed him, but he forced himself not to linger over the taste of her lips. Not in the parking lot of a shape-shifter pub.
“I’ve never been here before,” she said, looking up at the pub’s sign. A full moon, painted a stark white against the dark wood, dripped a single crimson drop onto the words “The Melting Moon.” “Beautiful sign. I wonder how old it is. Pub signs have become a hot collectible, did you know that? Some of the old names are so evocative, like this one. I always like the ones with animal names and figures. The White Boar, the Blue Sow—”
“The Red Dragon,” he said, smiling at a distant memory.
“Oh, you’ve been in a few pubs in your centuries, haven’t you? It’s hard to remember that you’re so ancient.” She dodged when he tried to grab her.
