Atlantis Betrayed

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?”

“He’s right,” she snapped. “I do know better. And I don’t know you at all, but I . . . we . . . oh. What a—”

“Great night? Best you’ve ever had?” Christophe suggested.

“Mistake,” she said firmly, yanking the quilt out of his hands and wrapping it around herself as she jumped out of bed. Then she paused, a rueful expression crossing her face. “Although, yes, it was rather great, wasn’t it?”

A wave of triumph swept through Christophe and on the heels of that, a more confusing and unexpected emotion. Relief? Gratitude?

“I’ve got to go to the book signing, partner,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. She seemed almost shy, which was a little shocking after her wildness the night before. “You’re welcome to stay here or go wherever you nefarious criminal types go during the day.”

“Oh, I’m with you, ninja,” he said, jumping out of bed and stretching. She stared at him, her eyes widening when she noticed his erection, which hadn’t been the least bit discouraged by the butler’s interruption. Waking up with an armful of beautiful woman apparently made his cock very happy and Christophe wasn’t embarrassed to show her what she did to him.

She hastily lifted her gaze, her cheeks flaming even hotter. “Well, get dressed. And—and put that thing away.”

He laughed as she fled into the bathroom, trying and failing to remember the last time he’d woken up in such a wonderful mood. Oh, yes, this day was going to just get better and better.

London, Charing Cross Children’s Books, three hours later

Christophe looked around and wondered if the third level of the nine hells resembled a children’s bookshop. Tiny humans in every shape, color, and size ran, walked, crawled, laughed, cried, and shrieked their way through every inch of the place until the walls themselves reverberated with the noise.

He considered pulling his daggers and discovering if he could scare them into shutting up. Bad enough he’d had to put up with the scowls and glares from that punk chauffeur on the drive over. The boy had a bad case of first love for his boss. Fiona had been too distracted to notice the killing looks Sean kept shooting Christophe, who’d considered, then discarded, the notion of dumping the youngling in the middle of the Thames River just to teach him a lesson.

Now that they were finally here, in the middle of all this chaos, Fiona was at least outwardly calm and happy, smiling peacefully as she talked to the shop owner over in the corner, next to a table with what looked like hundreds of books piled on it. The noise faded a little from the forefront of his mind as he drank in the sight of her. She was every inch Lady Fiona today in a soft dress the pale blue of the sky at noon on a clear day. She wore heels with a ribbon thing at the backs, and her pale hair was worn down in silken waves that framed her beautiful face.

His mind stuttered at the sight of her—all rosy cheeks, flushed with pleasure, and huge blue sparkling eyes. Memories of her passion the night before swept through him and he had to focus every ounce of his concentration to keep his cock from swelling in response. Not appropriate here.

But later, when he got her alone, oh, then he’d strip her bare in the sunlight and see how her beauty shone in the daylight as compared to her moonlit perfection. He’d—

“Help me with this?” Declan’s voice interrupted Christophe’s erotic thoughts about the boy’s sister and an unexpected niggle of guilt twinged him. Not exactly respectful to think that kind of thought in front of her little brother.

“Help you with what?” His voice came out brusquer than he’d intended.

Declan shot him a curious glance but only pointed to the folding chairs. Together with some of the bookstore staff, they set up the chairs for the parents and tossed around more of the beanbag chairs for the children as Fiona prepared to give her talk. Christophe looked up to find her smiling at him, and he shot her a grin of purely wicked intent. She blushed a hot pink color, which pleased him so much he caught himself whistling like a fool.

The owner stood up near the table and clapped her hands. She must have had some magic herself, because the overwhelming din quickly settled down into a dull roar and then quieted to almost a hush.

“Thank you all so much for coming out today to hear our favorite guest author. I know she needs no introduction, so without further ado, here is Lady Fiona Campbell, England’s beloved author and illustrator, to talk about her book, The Forest Fairies.”

The room erupted into whistles and applause, and Fiona’s cheeks pinked up again, which fascinated Christophe so much he nearly tripped over one of the younglings near the back of the crowd, where he stood. The tiny girl looked up at him, all big eyes and pigtails, and he tried not to grimace. She scooted nearer to her mum, though, as if she’d seen inside him to the scary monster within. That was one thing about kids, they were perceptive.

He’d known the couple who’d adopted him were zealots past the point of insanity, but nobody in that backward hamlet listened to a four-year-old child. At least not until he’d started crying for his parents and for Atlantis, and his budding magic talent had displayed itself.

Then they’d listened.

“Mister, are you okay?” The small voice caught his attention and snapped him out of dark thoughts. “You look sad.”

It was another small girl, this one brave enough to approach the scary man. Before he could answer, she reached out with one tiny hand and patted his arm. “When I’m sad, I read one of Lady Fiona’s books and it makes me feel better. Just listen to her read and I bet you feel better, too.”

He blinked and stared down at her in utter astonishment. No child had dared approach him in centuries. He’d even wondered sometimes if when Atlantean parents warned children of the things that go bump in the night, they pointed to him as a fearsome example. Now this tiny girl whose curly-haired head barely reached his waist was comforting him.

Any moment, a seahorse would sprout wings and fly through the room.

She smiled up at him, her two front teeth missing, and something in his heart, long unused and rusty, lurched a little. “I think you’re right,” he told her, but then her mother was there, grabbing the girl’s hand and snatching her away.

“So sorry if she bothered you,” the woman said, but Christophe saw the suspicion in her eyes. She probably thought he was a predator, here to snack on the children.

“No bother at all.”

Declan stepped up next to him and grinned at the woman and little girl. “Declan Campbell, Fiona’s brother. I see you’ve met our friend, Christophe.”

The woman’s suspicion melted away in a genuine smile. “No, but Lily did. She’s never known a stranger she doesn’t make into a friend in a heartbeat.”

“A dangerous trait in a child,” Christophe said harshly. “Not all who smile are friends.”

Her smile faltered and she took a step back. “Of course. Quite right.” As she hurried away with her child, Declan shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced up at Christophe, who had a few inches on him.

“Making friends wherever you go, I see.”

Christophe glared at the boy. “Anyone who calls another friend too easily is a fool.”

Declan shrugged, not intimidated in the least. “And anybody who doesn’t is alone. Which is worse?”

Christophe opened his mouth to answer and then decided to ignore the impertinent boy. He turned his attention to Fiona, who was well into her reading. She told the story of a Gille Dubh, a lonely and lost dark-haired lad who played and danced in the forest, clothed in moss and leaves, luring unwary children to come and play. Unfortunately, once they danced with the Gille Dubh, they were stolen away to the land of the Fae, to play and dance for years and years and years, until their parents and everyone they’d ever known were long dead.

It was a grim tale, the truth behind her made-up story, and only too real. Christophe had no love for the Fae, who played games with humans as easily as though with chess pieces on their carved marble boards. But in Fiona’s version, the lad—a spirit, no longer a living child—fell in love with a bonny lass who enticed him back into the sunshine of the fields, which released him from the spell of the Fae, and he became a real boy again.

As in so many modern fairy tales, the children in the tale all lived happily ever after. If only life outside of books were as happy or predictable.

“We need to help now,” Declan said, and Christophe realized that everyone was clapping and standing up from their seats. “They’ll ask questions and then queue up to get their books signed.”

“What do we do?” Christophe asked, bemused that this lad was confident enough in his new partner to order him around like an old friend. Hopkins would have been pointing a gun at him, undoubtedly.

“We ask for names, entertain the kids in the line, that sort of thing.”

Christophe folded his arms across his chest. “Do I look like the sort of man who would stand around entertaining children?”

Declan blinked. “Actually, I don’t know what you look like. You don’t seem to exist in any database, civilian or governmental, so I’m guessing Fae. Hopkins has a bit of a talent for reading minds, actually more like reading intent, and he said you believed you’d never harm us, and, well, you rather look a bit like an action film star, but this is what we do, you wanted to be here, soooo . . .”

It took Christophe a moment to work his way through all that. Hopkins could read people, could he? Obviously not in any degree of specificity or the questions that morning would have been a great deal more intense. As to entertaining children? “Absolutely not. I’ll be out front, looking for danger, protecting our flank, and that sort of action film star thing.”

“Whatever, dude. Gotta get busy.” Declan strolled off, turning on his not inconsiderable charm, leaving Christophe blinking at the idea that a human man—barely a man, practically a child himself—had just called him dude and Christophe hadn’t stabbed him for it. Something was very, very wrong.

Maybe the sex had made him soft.

He grabbed one of the books on his way to the front of the store, where he could breathe since the crowd was all centered around Fiona. As he casually opened the book and started flipping through the pages, he slowed, and then returned to the first page to begin the story. Examining each illustration, he realized that Fiona had a true gift. The soft watercolors made her paintings come so alive that he half expected the fairy to dance right off the page. Her imaginative retelling of the tale kept the slightest undercurrent of danger, but the bright, cheerful language and happy ending guaranteed both small children and parents alike would be content to share this book, over and over, at bedtime, with no fear that it might cause nightmares of being stolen by the Fae.

Not that only the Fae stole children. Sometimes humans stole children after the Fae finished murdering their parents in front of them.

He gritted his teeth against the memories that he’d thought safely buried in the dark recesses of his mind so many long years ago. Perhaps being around all these children was doing it. Whatever the cause, he needed it to stop. He needed to focus. Steal the Siren, forget about his worthless childhood, and conquer his obsession with the Scarlet Ninja.

Easy.

No problem at all.

The voice that spoke up behind him was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. “Christophe, we’ve got a problem.”