Atlantis Betrayed

The Fae laughed, and even through the phone, the sound was so chillingly evil that all three of them recoiled as if a serpent perched on the tiny electronic device instead of at its other end.

“He’s a little busy at the time, with a few water nymphs. Did you know your baby brother is a virgin?” He laughed again. “Oh, too bad. I do believe was is the correct verb tense.”

All the blood drained out of Fiona’s face. Christophe took the phone out of her shaking hand.

“What a brave elf to play with little boys, na Feransel,” Christophe said, mocking him. “Does your mommy still wipe your ass for you, too?”

“Call me elf at your own peril, Atlantean. I would think, in any case, that you had enough to concern you,” the Fae said; still calm, still taunting.

Christophe had shaken that smug serenity a little bit, though, and he planned to shake it up even more. “I heard Telios stole your thunder with the Siren. Sad, that. Outwitted by a vampire. What’s next? Shifters in the Summer Lands?”

“Ah, yes. Telios. I learned of his little demonstration just a bit too late. So sad that he was defenseless in his sleep this morning. One would have expected more of a fight from the celebrated Jack the Ripper. I so wanted to keep his head to decorate my wall. So tragic that they dissolve so fast.”

Fiona traded a glance with Hopkins and then they both looked at Christophe. She made a “move it along” gesture.

“What, you expect us to mourn for him? Where and when do you want to meet? The boy had better be safe and intact, or you will answer to me.” Christophe never raised his voice. He didn’t have to. Power roared through his body and enhanced his words until they thundered through the air and into the phone.

“Interesting trick,” the Fae said. “Your voice alone just killed my favorite rosebush. I’ll have to take that out of someone’s flesh, of course, but it was interesting. I wonder how much of that raw, rough power I have caused.”

Christophe stared at the phone, but knew better than to allow the Fae to draw him into a useless argument.

“When and where?” Fiona shouted at the phone, at the Fae. “Just tell us when and where, damn you.”

“The dulcet tones of my future wife. Yes, my dearest one, I know you are impatient to join with me and bear my sons. Tonight, at midnight. A bit clichéd, but for a reason. The hour holds sacred power here in the Summer Lands.”

Fiona fell back against the desk, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. Christophe took over, forcing himself to ignore the bit about “future wife”—for now.

“How do we get there?”

“Come to Fairsby Manor, of course,” the Fae who was and was not Fairsby replied. “I’ll be there to meet you. Midnight and not a minute sooner, mind, and only the two of you. Oh, and Fiona? I’ll gladly trade your brother’s freedom for that Atlantean’s head on a plate.”

The click as he hung up on them echoed in the space between the three of them.

Hopkins nodded once, decisively. “Now we go plan how to kick his arse.”

“Yes,” Fiona said. “Now.”

* * *

An hour later

They’d cleaned up and changed from the explosion’s after-math, and now all Fiona wanted to do was take off for Lord Fairsby’s family home and find her brother.

“Believe me. I’d be all for it if it had a chance in the nine hells of working, but it doesn’t,” Christophe said. “The entry to the Summer Lands moves around, and never at the request of non-Fae. It’s like the portal to Atlantis. It has a mind of its own. If we try to storm the place early, na Feransel will make sure we never find your brother.”

A shimmering glow was their only warning before the portal he’d just mentioned opened right before their eyes. He pulled Fiona behind him and drew his daggers, but then shoved them back in their sheaths, sighing with relief, as Brennan, Bastien, and Justice walked through, one by one.

“We hear you could use some help,” Justice said, his long blue hair tied back in his customary braid and the hilt of his sword rising above his shoulder. He bowed to Fiona. “My lady.”

“You all came? To help me?” Christophe couldn’t quite believe it. He’d spent years shutting them all out. But then he realized what the real mission must be. “Oh, of course. The Siren.”

“No, my friend,” Bastien said, his voice rumbling out of the middle of his seven-foot-tall frame. “We knew you could retrieve the Siren on your own. We mostly wanted to see this woman who has finally taught you some manners, according to Princess Riley.”

He, too, bowed to Fiona.

She inclined her head. “Welcome to Campbell Manor. This is my dear friend, Hopkins. The plans have changed. We need to storm the Summer Lands to fight an Unseelie Court prince who has kidnapped my brother, probably has your Siren, wants to make me his brood mare, and claims to have unfinished business with Christophe. Got it?”

A huge smile spread on Brennan’s face, which still seemed wrong, somehow. The warrior had spent more than two thousands of years with no emotion at all, thanks to a really nasty curse Poseidon had thrown at him. Now that he had regained his emotions and fallen in love, he often tried out really terrible jokes on the rest of them.

“Christophe,” Brennan said, still smiling. “I really, really like this woman.”

“As do we all,” Hopkins said dryly, shaking hands with each of them. “Tea?”

“Guinness?” Bastien asked, hope shining on his face.

“You need a clear head,” Fiona said, looking way, way up at him. Then she sighed. “I’m guessing you can metabolize a pint before midnight.”

Bastien bowed again. “Atlantean metabolism, my lady. We can only very rarely become even the slightest bit drunk. It takes great effort.”

“Or great stupidity,” Justice added. All three of them looked at Christophe.

“Nice. With friends like you . . .”

“And the room floods with testosterone,” Hopkins observed. “This way, gentlemen? I believe Lady Fiona and Christophe have some issues to discuss.”

He looked back at them before following the Atlanteans out. “I have more help coming. The stockpile.”

Fiona nodded, her face brightening. “Of course. Hopkins, you’re brilliant.”

He smiled modestly. “Just doing my job.”

Christophe looked back and forth between the two of them. “What stockpile?”

“We’ve guns that shoot lovely iron pellets. We’ve swords with iron blades. All of the things that the Fae hate, in other words.” She smiled fiercely, and suddenly he almost felt sorry for the Fae. “We’re going to hurt him for daring to take my brother. We’re going to make him pay.”

Chapter 36

“If he’s hurt, I’ve done it. I had to play ninja and my actions had repercussions. If they hurt Declan, or worse, it’s just the same, you see?” She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, aching with the need to cry, but her burning eyes were dry as death.

“You think you’re like your grandfather?” Christophe shook his head. “Never, sweetheart. This is not your fault. We’ve been through this. If you need to blame somebody, blame me.” He tried to hold her, but she pushed him away.

“No. He’s mine. If he’s in trouble, I’m the one. I’m just as bad as my grandfather, playing at ninja and theft, only to have the hurt fall on the innocent. My grandfather got my father killed. Now I . . . now I . . .”

She curled over into a ball, willing herself not to vomit. Sick and weak and shaky, she was no good to Declan.

Christophe paced back and forth, back and forth. “You don’t even have to ask, you know. Of course I’ll do it.”