by Alyssa Day
“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.
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“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.
Chapter 30
Fiona had the craziest urge to give in to the giggles. The entire situation had a distinct evil villain vibe to it, and she half expected Bond, James Bond, to show up any minute and get Lucinda to launch into a monologue about her plans to take over the world. Didn’t look like that was going to happen, though. Instead, Fiona drew a deep breath and analyzed the situation.
Chance of escape? None.
Chance of winning a battle, against these odds? None. Or at least none before she’d be dead and bleeding out on the floor. Christophe might be able to fight them or escape, or both.
Chance of negotiating? Better than average.
“Lucinda—”
Somebody smacked the back of her head, hard.
“Speak to our alpha with respect, human. You’re not fit to say her name.” The words came out in an animalistic growl, but she had no problem understanding either their meaning or their menace.
“I do apologize, but that is how she introduced herself to me. Is there a form of address you’d prefer I use?” She smiled calmly, as if this were any cocktail conversation in any drawing room in the country.
“You’ve declined my very reasonable request,” Lucinda said, stalking her way across the room. “I don’t care what you call me, you’re in trouble.”
Christophe roared out a warning, and Evan, his nose crooked and bleeding, smashed a chair into the back of Christophe’s head. Christophe went down hard but was back up in a few seconds.
“If you touch her, I will kill you all,” Christophe said, his voice carrying throughout the room. His eyes burned like deep green pools of molten emerald and flashed a warning or a signal to Fiona. She had no idea what he was trying to convey, not that there was much she could do about it anyway. She was surrounded by drunken, angry, excited, and possibly hungry shifters. That last adjective alone accounted for the shiver of terror trailing its cold fingers down her spine.
“You should watch your mouth, warrior,” Lucinda replied. “She will be dead before you can make your first move.”
Fiona could tell by the way Christophe clenched his fists that he knew as well as she did that it was the truth.
“Please let them entertain us, my mistress,” one of the shifters called out to his alpha. “If we are not amused, they can be food.”
“I can be very entertaining,” Fiona said quickly.
A few of the shifters laughed, and she smiled at them. Diplomacy never hurt, though she didn’t think they’d go as far as disobeying their alpha. Lucinda was the key.
“You offer, then?” Lucinda smiled. Her mouth surely hadn’t had so many teeth in it before.
“No,” Christophe shouted. “She doesn’t understand. Take me.”
“Too late, Atlantean. Offered and accepted,” the alpha replied, never taking her eyes off Fiona. “Well, little human, which will it be? Fight or fuck?”
Fiona gasped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Little too late for that. Now you entertain my people. If they decide you’ve done a good enough job of it, we let you go. Do you choose to fight or fuck? Either will suffice. Pain or pleasure?”
“I don’t—I—who would I have to fight?” Delay. Keep Lucinda talking. Fiona’s heart was about to beat out of her chest, and she was sure the shifters surrounding her could hear it, since they were crowding closer and closer, some snuffling at her like . . . animals.
Brilliant, Fee. Of
course, like animals.
Evan shouted out a laugh. His nose seemed to be healing already. “Guess you’re not satisfying her, Atlantean, if she’d choose to fight a wolf shifter rather than fuck you for our viewing pleasure.”
“I’ll only be satisfied when I have a wolf-skin rug in front of my fire,” Christophe said, scorn dripping from his voice. “Why don’t you fight me, if your Pack wants some real entertainment? Or is the little puppy afraid to come out from behind Mommy?”
Evan launched himself at Christophe again, but Lucinda made a hand gesture and several of the shifters grabbed him and held him back.
“Evan,” Lucinda said patiently. “He’s trying to provoke you into fighting him so the debt is paid and we can no longer accept his mate’s offer. Try to think with your brain instead of your . . . man parts.”
She had the effrontery to wink at Fiona, as though they were just gals in on a lovely joke. Fiona suddenly, fiercely, wanted to smash the smile off the woman’s face. Naturally, it would be her last act on the earth, since shifters were far stronger than humans, but perhaps the wave of personal satisfaction would be worth it.
“I have another idea,” she said instead. “A counteroffer, if you will. I will entertain you in my own way, with a story. The tale of what happened when your own moon goddess came to Scotland and fell in love with a Highlander.”
Lucinda tilted her head. “And if I accept and we are not entertained by your story?”
“Then I surrender gracefully and buy drinks for everyone in the pub, which, you must admit, would also be entertaining.” Fiona kept her head raised high but didn’t stare directly into Lucinda’s eyes. She’d read somewhere about displays of dominance in the shifter world, and she didn’t want to appear to be challenging Lucinda’s authority in her own pub. She and Christophe were in enough trouble already.
Lucinda appeared to be at least considering the idea. One of the younger females surrounding Christophe spoke up.
“Mother, if you please, I have not heard this tale and would like to collect it for my book. I would ask as a boon to me that you allow the human to tell her story.”