Atlantis Betrayed (17 page)
Authors: Alyssa Day
“So, love at first sight,” Declan said, breaking the heavy silence. “I always wanted a brother.”
Chapter 15
Christophe patted his full belly and finally put down his fork. “I’ll say one thing for you. You put out a great spread for tea. I expected something haggis-like, Your Scottishness.”
He grinned as she put her head in her hands and quietly moaned. He was having a great time with this fake cowboy act—he’d encountered enough of them in America’s Old West to know how to play it—and it was accomplishing exactly what he’d hoped. He’d kept her distracted and aggravated at him enough during the meal to help keep her from brooding about those murdered guards. She’d even managed to eat a little. Still, it was time to make plans.
“I’m going to hit the night side tonight. London’s underbelly doesn’t start rocking until after midnight. I’m heading out then to check it out and see who might know what about the theft.”
Hopkins, who’d finally consented to sit with them, after Fiona had practically issued a royal command, nodded. “That’s where you’re going to find news, if there is any. I’m going with you. Declan can stay here with Lady Fiona.”
Fiona put her teacup down with a distinct clatter. “If you don’t stop talking about me like I’m not in the room, I’m going to throw you both out of my house.”
Declan chimed in: “You tell ’em, sis. Also, I’m going, too.”
Everyone started arguing at once. Christophe watched Fiona, entranced with the way her cheeks flushed a dusky rose-pink when she was angry. The same color they turned when she was aroused. His pants started to feel uncomfortably tight, as he remembered the way she’d arched her back against the window, her pale skin glowing in the moonlight like a fever dream. He shifted in his chair, which was surprisingly comfortable, given the elegance of the room, and cleared his throat for attention.
All three of them ignored him.
“Hey.
Hey
.”
Hey
.”
They finally stopped talking and he seized his chance.
“We can’t all go,” he pointed out. “Hopkins, I know I’d trust you to back me up in a fight, but you come off a little too much like a butler to go to the places I have in mind. The folks who hang in this kind of pub have never seen the inside of a drawing room.”
Hopkins bared his teeth. “I
am
a butler. Also, appearances can be deceiving.”
am
a butler. Also, appearances can be deceiving.”
He stood up, hunched his shoulders, tilted his head to the right, twisted his mouth up a little, and suddenly, impossibly, the perfect, impeccable butler looked like a homeless drunk from the seediest part of the city. “Spare a euro, guv’nor?”
Fiona gasped. “How did you do that? That’s rather terrifying.”
Declan started applauding. “That’s brilliant. You should be on the stage, Hopkins.”
“Definitely brilliant,” Christophe admitted. “But you’re still not going. You’re not a shifter, a vampire, or a sorcerer. You won’t be welcome, and nobody will talk to you.”
“There’s no way anybody without magic pulled off that heist,” Fiona said slowly. He could tell she was agreeing with him only reluctantly, but it was still agreement. He’d take what he could get.
“Unless it was an inside job, which, though doubtful, is still possible,” he countered. “On a different but related topic, I don’t believe in coincidences. Why is this sword suddenly so popular?”
“Let’s adjourn to my office,” Fiona said, glancing around. “We may be interrupted here.”
Christophe followed the rest of them up the stairs, taking the opportunity to enjoy the sight of Fiona’s lush, curvy ass. There was something about her. Something different. It wasn’t just her body that was spectacular.
When the realization hit, it knocked him back a step. He didn’t just lust after her. He
liked
her. He admired her courage. Sure, she was a thief, but she was a thief with integrity, if that even made sense.
liked
her. He admired her courage. Sure, she was a thief, but she was a thief with integrity, if that even made sense.
A thief with integrity. Oh, boy. He was in trouble.
Fiona turned, waving Hopkins and her brother past her at the top of the stairs, and cast an impatient glance back at him. “Any day, now,” she said, tapping her foot.
She was absolutely gorgeous and unbelievably desirable. He should run. He should run
fast
. Instead, he followed her up the stairs, wondering if this was how Prince Conlan had felt when he’d met Princess Riley.
fast
. Instead, he followed her up the stairs, wondering if this was how Prince Conlan had felt when he’d met Princess Riley.
Terrified.
Back again in her comfortable suite of office space, he commandeered the chair behind her desk, just to irritate her, and grinned when it was obvious he’d succeeded.
“So,” he said, drumming his fingers on her desk. “Why Vanquish? There were plenty of jewels there that would have been easier to steal and more profitable to unload, right?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You first.”
“What do you mean?”
Declan piped up. “She means, why were you after Vanquish?” The boy was nothing if not helpful.
“Shouldn’t you be off chasing girls?” Christophe asked him.
“It’s a fair question,
partner
,” Hopkins told him. “Answer it.”
partner
,” Hopkins told him. “Answer it.”
Christophe swiveled in the chair to face him. “Why do you always sound as though you’d rather shoot me than talk to me?”
“Perhaps because you have some measure of perceptiveness?”
Fiona held up her hands. “Enough, boys. Instead of shooting each other, let’s find out what happened, who has Vanquish, and how they framed the Scarlet Ninja for the crime.”
“If you hadn’t left your calling card,” Hopkins began, before he stopped and shook his head. “Forgive me, Lady Fiona. This is not your fault.”
She raised her head, and Christophe had never seen despair written so painfully on a face in his centuries of existence. “Yes. It is my fault. I played this game, and now the penalty is mine. Those guards’ families rightfully must be cursing my name. I owe it to them to discover the truth.”
The sight of her face, ravaged by emotion, unlocked a door he’d forgotten was even buried deep inside his heart. He heard the click as the first barrier he’d erected all those years ago opened a slow and painful inch. It was enough to help him come to a decision.
“I need to tell you about me,” he said. “Why I’m here for that sword. Although I don’t really care about the sword, I just need the Siren.”
“Need?” Hopkins said. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”
“A deliberate choice of words. I’m from Atlantis, and unless I retrieve that gem, the Seven Isles cannot rise from beneath the sea.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he got. Declan burst out laughing. Hopkins snorted in apparent disgust. Fiona did neither. She just looked at him, shock and then anger written on her face.
“If you don’t plan to tell us the truth, that’s one thing, but don’t insult me by making up fairy tales,” she said. “Did you think that since I write those stories in my books that I’d be charmed by another one?”
“Atlantis. Of course,” Hopkins said. “Know many mermaids, do you?”
“Mermaids don’t exist. I’d hoped that I could get a little trust on faith, but evidently I haven’t earned it yet,” Christophe said. “So here goes.”
He called to power, reveling in the burning sensation as it flowed eagerly to his command. Towering sweeps of power, its intensity increasing every time he called to it these days. So much power that he almost feared that one day it would consume him.
Maybe one day it would. But not this day.
He formed twin spheres of blue-green energy in his palms and held them up in the air before sending them flying around the room, dipping and floating around and over Fiona, her brother, and Hopkins.
“My tie with Poseidon, as a warrior sworn to his oath, is one source of my magic. Water is our element to call.”
“Sure it is,” Declan said, grinning. “Cool magic trick. Do you—” His laughter muffled the next words, but he finally managed to get them out. “Do you ride whales down to Atlantis?”
Christophe glared at the youngling and contemplated how angry Fiona would be if he hoisted her little brother out the window and left him dangling by a ribbon of water. He decided against it based on the way she was already clenching her fists at her side.
A simpler demonstration, then.
A flick of his fingers sent the energy spheres whirling to two corners of the room. Then he called to water, the purest form of his magic, and it, too, responded willingly. He channeled the silvery streams of water to form a vortex around his body starting at the carpet and working its way up to the elaborately painted ceiling. He threw his head back and concentrated, though it was a simple enough working. He wanted this to be perfect—she was watching.
Why it mattered so much, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that it did. He formed twin streams of water into perfectly symmetrical spears and hurled them directly at Declan. Hopkins jumped up, no doubt going for his gun, and Fiona cried out. Declan had no time to do anything but gasp before the streams spiraled into starfish shapes directly in front of him and, one after the other, splashed into the boy, thoroughly drenching him.
“No,” Christophe said over Declan’s sputtering. “We do not ride whales, either.”
Fiona fell back into her chair, torn between warring impulses to laugh or yell at Christophe. Those spears had been terrifyingly real, but how many times had she wished for a bucket of water to drench her joker of a brother? The smile threatening to break free of the tight clamp she had on her lips faded, though, when she realized all that water was soaking her sofa, table, and the surrounding area. Even Hopkins hadn’t escaped entirely, and he looked about to murder Christophe at any moment.
“Fabulous. You’ve got a store of parlor tricks, and you’ve drenched my furnishings. Does any of your magic show include picking up the bill for the cleaning?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him, which made not the slightest dent in that cocky grin of his.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, raising his hands in the air again. She tried not to notice the sculpted muscles in his forearms beneath his rolled-up sleeves, but she was only human, after all.
Which, as he seemed to be trying to tell them, he might not be. Which was brilliant. She’d only just been hoping for more complications in her life.
Christophe gestured and a warm breeze swept through the room, flowing softly over Fiona before moving on. As she watched, the water soaking Declan and his surroundings simply disappeared. It didn’t dry, leaving her brother rumpled and wrinkled. No, it was just gone as if had never been there.
Which, perhaps, it hadn’t been.
“Sweet!” Declan yelled, patting himself and the pillows thoroughly. “Dry as a bone. That was awesome. Can you teach me that?”
Fiona ignored him. “Illusion?” She’d no sooner said the word than Hopkins was shaking his head.
“Definitely not. That water was real. A fine trick, and quite powerful,” he said, frowning at Christophe. “But still no proof of this fantastic tale of the lost continent.”
“It was never lost. We just hid it,” Christophe told him.
“Of course,” Fiona said, throwing her own hands up in the air. Sadly, that didn’t cause any wild magical incident or she would have made them all disappear. She needed a nap and a headache tablet, not necessarily in that order. “You hid it. So how did you get here? Submersible? Dolphins? Magic bubbles?”
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