Atlantis Betrayed

Chapter 29

The Melting 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.

“I’ll show you ancient later when I get you alone and naked.”

“Now, there’s a promise I like,” she said, putting her arm through his. “Come on, let’s go and meet some werewolves. Maybe we’ll meet an American one, here in London. Get it?”

He didn’t understand why she started laughing when he shook his head.

“I’m not sure there will be any American wolf shifters here, and they prefer that term, by the way. The word ‘werewolf’ is a grave insult. Most stay near their home packs.”

She laughed harder, and then she started humming something about werewolves in London. He was beginning to realize he understood far less about women than he’d ever suspected.

The first thing he noticed when they walked into the pub was the spicy, almost pungent scent of wolves. Lots and lots of wolves. The crush of bodies in a fairly small space made him twitchy, but they needed information and he’d learned that this was the home base of the London pack alpha and her mate.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Fiona had to speak almost directly into his ear to be heard over the din of conversation and the pounding beat of rock music. Her warm breath on his ear made his cock twitch, and he firmly told it to behave.

First he was talking to pigeons, now body parts. This was not good.

“I smell human.” A shifter who looked about the size of an orca lurched over from the bar to stand in front of Fiona, swaying and drunkenly leering at her. “Want to give me a little taste, sweetkins?”

She took a step back and tilted her head to look all the way up into the drunk’s face. “Right, then. Definitely the right place.”

Christophe sighed. “I knew I’d wind up in a fight if we came here, but I didn’t think it would happen this early.”

“I knew this was too much cleavage,” Fiona said, peering down at the creamy expanse that her very low-cut shirt exposed.

“Oh, Princess. I hear the words ‘too much cleavage,’ but my brain doesn’t understand the meaning.” He winked at her, so hopefully she got that he was kidding and not turning into a lecherous pig. Although lately, around her . . .

“I’m taking your woman, funny boy,” the shifter mumbled. “Wanna play with the pretty human.”

“I beg your pardon,” Fiona said, all haughty lady of the manor. It was kind of hot, especially combined with her sex-kitten disguise. “Please address your comments to me. The human does not want to play with you. Be on your way.”

She made shooing motions with her hands, and Christophe sighed again. Like waving a red flag in front of a Minotaur. The shifter, predictably, snarled, showing a tangle of yellowed and broken teeth.

“Dental care, my friend. The great blessing of the modern age,” Christophe advised him.

The enraged shifter turned his attention away from Fiona, fisting his enormous hands. If he landed a punch, he might knock Christophe into next week. Best not to let him land a punch.

He stepped into the arc between the man’s burly arms, and before the angry drunk could form his next thought, Christophe had one dagger digging its tip into his throat and a second into his balls. The shifter made a noise between a yelp and a squeak, higher-pitched than Christophe would have thought the hulking man could utter.

“You’ll leave the pretty human alone now?”

The shifter nodded carefully, since his motion caused the dagger to slice a bit of the flesh from his neck. “Just funning,” he muttered as his blood trickled down his skin.

Christophe moved back and out of arm’s reach before returning his daggers to their sheaths, being sure to let everyone in the crowd gathering around them see the many weapons strapped to his body. Then, just for extra insurance, he channeled enough power to cause his eyes to glow a bright green.

The crowd around him jostled to get away.

“We don’t want any trouble, sorcerer,” one of them said. She was a tall female, curvy and muscular both, leaning against the bar. Her dark hair hung in a thick fall to her hips, and the promise of a wicked sensuality shimmered in her eyes. “Maybe you should go somewhere else to drink this night. Or at least let the human leave and you can stay and play with me.”

Fiona captured his hand and stared defiance at the shifter. “I think not.”

Amusement warred with anger on the woman’s face, but she finally settled on the first. Smiling at them, she indicated they should follow her. She made a gesture to the bartender, who nodded, and then she strode across the floor in a way that probably made every male in the place thank the gods for the invention of pants. If Christophe hadn’t met Fiona, he would have been one of them. Now, strangely enough, the shifter female’s rolling hips didn’t cause him even a twinge of desire.

She sat at a large table in the back of the pub, one that had been completely empty in spite of the large crowd. A slender man walked out of the shadows from a back room and silently joined her. She indicated the chairs across from her.

“Please. Sit.”

Christophe moved one chair so its back was to the wall as much as possible and sat, pulling Fiona into the chair to the left of him so anybody in the crowd who tried to get to her would have to go through him first.

“Fee, this is the alpha and her mate,” he said.

The alpha laughed; a deep, throaty sound of sex and pain and pleasure. “Correct. Most mistake me for my mate’s tame lapdog.”

“They’re fools, then,” Christophe replied honestly.

She laughed again and extended a hand. “Lucinda. This is my mate, Evan.”

He shook her hand. “Christophe, of Atlantis. My m—uh—partner, Fiona.”

Damn, but he’d come close to saying the words “my mate, Fiona.”

Fiona glanced at him as if she’d noticed his slip, but she said nothing.

Evan wasn’t as courteous. “Claim her before another does, my friend.” He had a slight accent. Spanish, perhaps.

“I don’t know you well enough to be your friend yet,” Christophe replied evenly. “And we do things a little differently in Atlantis than you do in Pack hierarchy.”

“Maybe I’m the one who should claim him,” Fiona said, clasping her fingers around his on the table.

“You have bite, little human,” Lucinda said. “I almost feel like I recognize you, but you’ve never been in my pub before.”

“No, I haven’t. But it’s a lovely place,” Fiona said, gracious as usual in spite of her circumstances. “I’ll be sure to tell my friends about it.”

“Be sure not to,” Lucinda said dryly. “They might wind up as lunch. Now. Christophe of Atlantis, tell us why you are here, and what you want. I’d also like to hear if you have any American friends we may know.”

He knew what that meant. Squeezing Fiona’s arm so she didn’t start singing that ridiculous song again, he smiled at the alpha and her mate. “Lucas of the Yellowstone Pack sends you his fond regards.”

“Does he?” She tapped a very long, crimson-tipped nail on the table. “Just who is he?”

Christophe grinned. “Lucas said if you asked me that, I should remind you that he rescued one of your children who’d strayed too near a geyser on your vacation.”

Lucinda smiled—a real smile—and the force of her power washed over his own. “Stupid pups have no sense at that age. Now that all of them are teenagers or grown, I long for those innocent days.”

She turned to Fiona. “Do you have children?”

“Not yet, but I hope to one day,” Fiona said. He could tell she found the question to be overly personal and slightly offensive, but she presented a calm, smiling face to their hosts.

“Did you hear that, sorcerer?” Evan laughed and threw an arm around his mate’s shoulders. “Are you ready to be a daddy?”

“Have I done anything to offend you?” Christophe was getting a little tired of the man’s attitude. Sure, being mated to the alpha female must be exhausting, especially with Lucinda’s obvious power, but there was no need to vent his anger all over Christophe.

“Not yet,” Evan replied, a dull red light glowing in his pupils. “I’m sure you will before you leave. I don’t like sorcerers.”

“Neither do I, fur face. Not a sorcerer. Deal with it.”

Fiona sighed. “Really? Is everything about proving who possesses the bigger man parts?”

Lucinda roared with laughter. “Man parts? Oh, that is priceless, human. Now tell me what you need while I’m still amused.”

“We are trying to find out information about the theft of Vanquish,” Fiona said. “Anything you might know could help us out, and we’d really appreciate it.”

The alpha stared at Fiona in disbelief. “Anything we might know? You’d appreciate it? You dare ask us of Vanquish when it contains the Siren?”

Evan growled, deep in his throat, and Christophe got a sudden impression of predators stalking squealing prey. He smiled, a simple baring of his teeth, and Evan subsided. Wolves weren’t the only predators who hunted in the night.

“Have you heard the rumors of what that gem can do?” Lucinda snarled the words. “Enthrall my kind, perhaps permanently. What kind of a death wish do you have to come in here and tell me you’re looking for it?”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re after it,” Christophe said. “We in Atlantis don’t want it to fall into vampire hands any more than you do. If you know Lucas, then you know about our mission.”

“Protect humanity, noble sacrifices, whatever.” Lucinda shrugged. “Nothing to do with me or mine. I have heard nothing of the ones who took it, but if I do, they will regret the day they first conceived the idea. This Scarlet Ninja is already a dead man, though he doesn’t know it yet. If, to compound his transgression, he is working with the vampire Telios, we will make sure his death takes hours. Perhaps days.”

Christophe very carefully did not so much as glance at Fiona.

Lucinda planted her hands on the table and leaned forward, all crouching, feral fury. “If you discover anything, you will tell me about it. Immediately. You can consider yourselves emissaries of the wolves from here on out.”

Fiona shook her head. “With all due respect—”

“Anyone who uses that phrase is generally going to be quite disrespectful, I’ve found,” Evan said.

“I don’t intend to be. I simply want to say that we all want the same thing—the Siren off the market. It’s an Atlantean gem and belongs to them. We’re going to find it and restore it to its original place of honor. A strictly ceremonial thing, of course. Since there are no shifters in Atlantis to be enthralled, you have nothing to worry about.” Fiona smiled and nodded as if everything were now solved.

“Princess, life isn’t like one of your books. You can’t tie everything up neatly with a bow all the time,” Christophe said, casting a resigned look at Lucinda. “Now we’re in trouble?”

“Now you’re in trouble.”

The first wave of shifters came at them hard, fast, and low. Christophe barely had time to pull his daggers again before they were on him, but they ignored him and went for Fiona first. There were far too many, and they were far too fast.

Christophe shot out of his chair so fast it flew through the air and smashed into the wall behind him, but Evan dove for his legs and knocked him flat against the table so hard Christophe’s head bounced off the wood. The two shifters in the front wave of the mob coming after Fiona grabbed her and yanked her away before Christophe could reach for her. He roared out his fury and denial, and the sound took shape into a glowing ball of forbidden fire, the flames as scarlet as Fiona’s costume.

Flames licked the edge of the table and Christophe took advantage of the distraction to slam his elbow back into Evan’s face. The shifter howled as the force of the blow caught him in the nose and mouth and flung him back and off Christophe.

Lucinda jumped up, the predatory grin on her face fading into a scowl at her mate’s pain.

“Release her, or I’ll burn this whole damn place and everyone in it to the ground,” Christophe snarled, standing his ground. The shifters who held Fiona could kill her before he could reach her, which neutralized any potential move.

“I don’t think so, sorcerer,” Lucinda said, pointing to Fiona. “If you so much as blink, they will rip her throat out. Now make your pretty fire go away.”

Christophe analyzed every option available to him in the space of a single breath, but the damn alpha spoke the truth. She had the upper hand, for now. He extinguished the fireball.

“Now you’re in a great deal of trouble,” Lucinda said, and then she started laughing.