“Let me do the reconnaissance on my own, and then I’ll call in the troops,” Christophe said.
Fiona cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but why do you want this gem so badly? Are you planning to use it against the shifters, yourselves? I’m sorry, but I can’t go along with that.”
“Remember when I said that without the Siren, Atlantis couldn’t rise to the surface again? I wasn’t joking,” Christophe said. “More than eleven thousand years ago, the elders of Atlantis took the Seven Isles to the bottom of the ocean. Before they did, they removed the seven gems of Poseidon’s Trident and scattered them to the corners of the world. We’ve recently learned that unless and until we restore them, we’re trapped here. If we attempt the magic to cause Atlantis to rise to the surface, we’ll be destroyed.”
Fiona looked from face to face. They were dead serious. “The actual Trident belonging to the sea god Poseidon? Brother of Zeus,
“Yes. He takes an active interest in Atlantean affairs, you might say,” Christophe said wryly, tapping his shoulder. She remembered the tattoo.
“The question, I believe, is why
“Watch your mouth, priest,” Christophe growled. “We never have gone head-to-head, but if you insult Fiona again, you’re going to find out just how strong I’ve become.”
She put a hand on his arm. “It’s fine. He has a point. I mean, you need it for the safety of your whole continent, and I only wanted it for the money.”
“The money you use to provide support for so many charities I can’t even count them all,” he said.
“Yes, I have heard that reported,” Alaric said. Fiona wondered if there was anything the priest didn’t hear about or know. The man was scary.
“I have also heard that the Scarlet Ninja only donates a sum equal to precisely half the value of any stolen item. So what do you do with the rest of the money? I imagine you have a very nice home.” Alaric opened his hand and an image of Campbell Manor appeared in the air.
Christophe shot up out of his chair, but Fiona grabbed his hand before he could go after Alaric. “Stop. Please.”
He slowly sat back down. “You don’t have to answer any of this, if you don’t want to. You’re a guest here— my guest—not a prisoner to be interrogated.”
She leaned up and kissed him. “No, it’s okay. I’d wonder, too, if I were them.” She turned to address Alaric and the rest of the group. “Fifty percent of the value is correct. Of course, from any fence, even my most trusted ones, I’m lucky to get sixty percent of an object’s recorded value. In theft, as in the corporate world, there are unfortunately a great many middlemen.”
“And the rest?” Conlan asked gently. “To support yourself and your family?”
She shook her head. “No. I have never once kept a single penny of any proceeds from one of the Scarlet Ninja’s heists. There are many charities we support that are desperately in need of funding but they can’t accept money if they know it comes from the proceeds of crime. Those, we funnel through my offshore accounts that my computer genius of a brother and my very talented butler assure me are virtually untraceable. Of course, a few others are happy to receive anything the Scarlet Ninja has to offer, and they appreciate the intrigue of it all. They count our donations, given through intermediaries, as anonymous and laugh all the way to the bank.”
“I knew I liked you,” Riley said, smiling across the table at her. The princess glanced over at Alaric. “She’s telling the truth. Her emotions reflect nothing but absolute sincerity.”
Fiona blinked, startled. “But I thought you were human?”
“You, too, are human, but have a secret Gift, don’t you? Mine is emotional empathy, or what the Atlanteans call being
“My brother would like you, too,” Fiona assured her. “Actually, he’d go stark raving mad with excitement over all this. I’d love to be able to bring him someday. Hopkins, too.”
“Your butler?”
“He has been like a father to me since my own died,” Fiona said. “He’s an amazing man.”
“Keeps threatening to shoot me, though,” Christophe said.
“I like him already,” Alaric said.
“Why the Scarlet Ninja?” Riley asked.
“I don’t exactly know how to explain it. I guess I’ve never said any of this out loud before.” Fiona thought for a little while, took another drink of water, and continued. “I want—no, I need—to help restore to the people of Great Britain a sense of hope. The prosperity we enjoyed before the vampires declared themselves.”
“That’s a lot to take on all by yourself,” Conlan said quietly.
“One person can make a difference,” she said. “Especially if each one of us determines to be that person.”
“Amen,” Riley said. “That’s what I had to believe when I was a social worker, or I would have given up in utter despair.”
“Turns out that the majority of the aristocracy have some vampire branches of the family tree. In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. As far as I know, we didn’t, but not for my grandfather’s lack of trying. He was still trying to bribe his contacts to turn him when he was murdered. I have the feeling they didn’t want him around for all eternity.” She shuddered. “He was a horrible man.”
“So when the vampires revealed themselves, you were suddenly back to the bad old days where lords and ladies ate off gold plates and drank from jeweled goblets while the peasants starved and died in the streets?” Alaric’s eyes were shadowed.
She wondered briefly if he’d seen any of those bad old days in person, but she wasn’t about to ask him.
“Yes. That’s exactly it,” she said, holding up the sturdy but plain glass that held her water. The same type of glass that the princes, Riley, and the high priest had at their place settings. The plates were simple stoneware, although she recognized neither the stone nor the glaze.
Riley caught the direction of her gaze. “Our housekeeper does try to insist we use the special dishes sometimes, but we’re not very fancy,” the princess admitted.
“Social worker? So you weren’t always a princess.”
Riley laughed. “Oh, heavens no. Getting used to the palace and servants has been a trial for me and them. You should have heard how the cook scolded me when she caught me doing my own dishes after we had a midnight snack.”
Fiona was fascinated. She’d never had the opportunity to wash a dish in her life. “Did you stop doing the dishes?”
“Yes, but I worked a deal that I can cook our own dinner at least once a week, and I get to throw a big bash once a month and everybody has to come. House staff, guards, everyone.” She grinned at Fiona. “I usually make the warriors clean up.”
“That sounds so lovely,” Fiona said wistfully. “Our staff won’t eat with us. Not from any class issue, I think their lives are just too busy. Sometimes it gets lonely.”
“But not now,” Christophe said, squeezing her hand.
“No. Not recently,” she said, smiling at him.
“Your grandfather worked with vampires? Was he a thief?”
“Yes, although he called it business. His corrupt dealings with vampires in Scotland, long before they ever outed themselves to the rest of the world, got my father killed. A revenge plot, Hopkins finally told me, years later. Grandfather stole money from vampires, can you imagine?”
Christophe raised his eyebrows.
“Right, yes, I see where you’re going, but I have anonymity and some measure of recourse,” Fiona answered his unspoken question. “Now that vampires have proclaimed themselves citizens of the European Union, they have to follow our laws. Back then, they killed with impunity, and they used my father to prove a point to my grandfather.”
She realized her voice was trembling, and she took another sip of water. “They were fools. He didn’t care that my father was dead. He only cared that he lost everything else. They took it all away, and then they killed him, too. They probably would have killed me and Declan, too, but Hopkins took us away and hid us. After they killed
