by Alyssa Day
* * *
Christophe carefully unclenched his hands, firmly suppressing his instinctive reaction to fight to protect his woman. They were in the middle of a very public place, surrounded by other humans. Fiona would be perfectly safe talking to her friend, at least for a few minutes, even though Maeve was not human.
Maeve was Unseelie Court Fae.
Powerful, too. Her magic had the feel of ice and darkness. It reminded him of someone he’d met before. Someone he hadn’t liked much. It was right there, on the edge of his brain, if he could only think of it. He felt someone approaching him from behind and whirled, hand under his jacket on his dagger.
“Your pint, sir.” The man was beaming. “And two more, besides, back in the kitchen. Plus one for me.”
Christophe took the pint. “You are an exceptionally fine human being,” he said with feeling.
The server, not realizing how literally Christophe had meant the expression, grinned. “Thanks. I still want you to take some change, though.”
Christophe drank a long draft of the fine ale and then shook his head. “Not a chance. You earned it.”
“Never thought I’d enjoy one of these events,” the man said. “I’ll be around. Let me know when you’re ready for another.”
“If I can get away with it, I’ll be out of here by the time I finish this one,” Christophe muttered.
“Lucky bloke.” With a deep sigh, the server was off to foist more of the champagne on other guests.
Christophe returned his gaze to where Fiona was talking to Maeve, and nearly choked on his ale. She was gone. They were both gone. If that damn Fae harmed a hair on her head, he was going to murder her, peace treaty or no. He slammed his half-empty mug down on a table and set off to find her, walking fast.
A man swung into his path, moving so quickly that Christophe nearly ran him down. Only Atlantean reflexes saved them both.
“My apologies,” the man said smoothly, extending a hand. “Gideon Fairsby.”
“Lord Fairsby?” Christophe said slowly, recognizing him from the press conference. He did not want to shake the man’s hand, but it would have drawn notice not to do so, especially since they were obviously the center of attention for quite a few groups of partygoers.
He focused on masking his own magic, but the faint, tell-tale giveaway of Fae magic stripped away his attempt.
“As I thought,” Fairsby said. “What are you?”
“A friend of the whales,” Christophe said, waving a hand at the crowd. “Aren’t we all?”
“Don’t be obtuse,” Fairsby replied in a measured tone. “I know you’re not human, but you’re not Fae, either. What are you? Not a shifter, to be sure.”
“Obtuse. Isn’t that a triangle? How can a person be a triangle?” Christophe smiled in mock sympathy. “Too many glasses of that champagne, I bet. Right, old chap?”
The Fae’s eyes flared a hot, molten gold and the monster inside him showed through Fairsby’s affable mask. “I saw you at the press conference,” he said, suddenly changing the subject. “Why? What is your interest in Vanquish?”
“In what? Aston Martin had a press conference? That Vanquish is a sweet car,” Christophe said, beginning to enjoy tying the Fae’s guts into knots.
“Not the car, the sword, as you well know. Let me give you a little warning, fool. Stay out of matters that are none of your concern, and leave Fae matters to Fae hands. Do you understand me?”
Christophe glanced around and, seeing that nobody was within hearing distance, leaned in toward Fairsby, smiling as if offering friendly advice. Which, in a way, he was. “If any Fae hands so much as touch Lady Fiona Campbell or anyone she cares about, I will come for you first. I will rip out your lungs and feed your kidneys to the hounds of the nine hells. Do you understand me?”
Fairsby’s eyes iced over, but he laughed. “I have been threatened by far better than you.”
“Yeah,” Christophe said. “I get that a lot. But usually only once.”
Maeve’s tinkling bell of a voice broke in before Fairsby could reply. “Boys, boys, boys, what are you talking about?” She put her hand on Fairsby’s arm. “Is my dear cousin giving you a boring lecture on British crime, Christophe?”
“Cousin?” He studied them both. He was fair to her dark, but yes, he could see a slight resemblance, and it was true their power felt similar. Of course, with the Fae, anyone born to the same Court could claim kin right. Cousin, aunt, uncle, whatever. The Fae couldn’t lie, but they could stretch the truth out of all recognition.
“Where is Fiona? If you’ve harmed her—”
He sensed her before he heard her, coming from the opposite direction than that from which Maeve had approached. The quality of the light actually changed for him—became brighter.
He frowned. If he was having thoughts about Fiona making the world a brighter place, he’d better go see Alaric and get his brain checked out. Maybe it was a tumor.
He crossed the ten paces between them in three strides and caught her arm. “Please do not go off on your own again until we get this situation resolved. I do not wish to worry for your safety.”
She smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling. “You were worried for me? That’s—”
“Unbearably sweet.” Fairsby’s dry voice interrupted. He’d followed Christophe. Maeve was right behind him.
“I see you met Lord Fairsby,” Fiona said.
“We chatted for a moment,” Fairsby said. “On a matter of little importance.”
“It seemed quite important from a distance,” Maeve said, staring avidly at Christophe. “Everyone was watching, too. I’ve warned you about that, you bad thing.” She playfully swatted at Fairsby’s arm, but he only tightened his lips instead of crushing her, so Christophe figured the two Unseelie had some sort of friendship going.
As much as the Fae could have friends. Mostly they only had rivals for power, cutthroat enemies, or former enemies they’d graciously decided to ignore. The occasional ally. Not really known for friendship.
Maeve pouted her red, red lips. “Don’t keep secrets. It’s so boring.”
“No secrets here. Everything is out in the open,” Christophe said. “Fiona and I are planning to dance. If either of you come near her, I will remove your immortal heads from your immortal bodies, which will be an extremely unpleasant way to spend eternity. Say hi to Rhys na Garanwyn for me, won’t you? If you ever happen to socialize with Seelie Court Fae. Tell him he still owes me from our last poker game.”
He inclined his head to them and, betting they wouldn’t kill him in the middle of the museum, put an arm around Fiona’s shoulders and turned his back on them, grinning at the hissing sound of rage coming from Fairsby.
“Shall we dance?”
Chapter 18
Fiona felt like events were swirling around her that she hadn’t a clue how to decipher, and she didn’t like the feeling. At all.
“Are you insane? You can’t threaten my friends. They’re going to call the police any minute!”
“They won’t. They’re Fae. They want nothing to do with the human police,” he said flatly. “Also, stay away from her. Don’t accept any favors from her, ever. Don’t even say thank you. In fact, don’t even say hello.”
“Look, partner, you can’t dictate to me what I do or do not do with my friends,” she said. “I—”
“Let me guess. She told you to stay away from me. That I’m not human, right?”
That stopped her dead. “She did, actually. Why would she say that?”
He shook his head. “She said it because it’s true. The better question is how would she know that, if she were human herself? Did she explain that?”
“No she didn’t,” she said slowly, revisiting her conversation with Maeve. Her eyebrows drew together. “I never knew Fairsby was Maeve’s cousin, either. There are an awful lot of Fairsbys running around. Also, stop dragging me. I’m getting a little tired of being pulled all over the Great Court.”
“Cousin.
That’s one way to put it,” he said grimly, maneuvering them out onto the space cleared for a dance floor. A small orchestra was playing something light and with a down-tempo beat suitable mostly for ninety-year-old dancers. She and Christophe must be the youngest on the floor. Or maybe not. Several things he’d said and done suddenly presented themselves in a new light.
“Just how old are you?”
He threw back his head and laughed, causing several heads to turn their way. “I quit counting at three hundred.”
“Three . . . hundred? You—wait. This is like Atlantis, right? I believe it or not? You don’t have any actual proof?”
“I don’t have a birth certificate, if that’s what you mean.” He twirled her gracefully around an elderly couple she thought she recognized. The Hadley-Radfords, perhaps.
“I believe a record of my birth exists in the scrolls in Atlantis.”
She sighed. “Of course it does. Is that where you learned to dance like this? I expected you to be stepping on my toes long before this.”
“I learned it from my dance tutor, in the palace. It was required training for all warriors. Not all battles are fought on battlefields, Princess. Some are played out in ballrooms.”
He smiled down at her and—for just an instant—Fiona gave herself permission to believe she was on a date. A first date with a fierce, unflinching warrior who seemed to be willing to protect her from all danger. It didn’t make sense.
She didn’t care.
“What did he want with you? Lord Fairsby?”
“Lord Fairsby, as he’s calling himself now, and his cousin are Unseelie Court Fae. Very powerful, very bad news. The Unseelie Court is the dark side of the Fae, not that the Seelie Court is all flowers and little woodland creatures playing flutes. He has something to do with Vanquish disappearing, I’d put coin on it.”
His arms tightened around her. “He is very, very powerful, Princess. Magically powerful, and with his official Scotland Yard position, he has the weight of human bureaucracy behind him. He could make things difficult for you.”
“The British have been making things difficult, as you call it, for the Scots for a very long time.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not the first in my family, and won’t be the last, to kick their arses.”
He grinned down at her. “It makes me hot when you talk tough, did I mention that?”
Her pulse sped up, but she managed a shrug. “Everything makes you hot.”
“When you’re wearing that dress, yep. There go Fairsby and Maeve, heading out. We’ll give them a few minutes before we leave. I don’t want to give them a chance to get near you again.”
He twirled her in a quick loop and then bent her down into a dip. Several of the people standing nearby started clapping, and she could hear the murmurs.
“Isn’t that Lady Fiona Campbell? The book author?”
“Making a spectacle of herself—”
“That’s the man who was on TV with her this afternoon—”
She pulled away from Christophe and walked off the dance floor, her head held high, smiling distantly over the heads of the nosy gossipmongers. He caught up to her in two strides of his impossibly long, hard-muscled legs and pulled her hand into his.
“Thanks for the dance, Princess. It’s been a while.”
“Really? Last year? Last month? When was the last time you treated anyone to your dance prowess?” She heard the sarcasm in her voice, but it was one of her defense mechanisms when she was embarrassed.
“Not hardly. The last time I danced like that was in those dance classes I told you about. The palace housekeeper’s daughter took pity on us and rounded up some girls so we didn’t have to dance with each other. I can tell you that even as a kid, Bastien—one of my fellow warriors—was huge and the gods know that he had at least three left feet.” His shudder at the memory was so heartfelt that she laughed in spite of herself.
“These stories are very entertaining, whether they’re true or not.”
“They’re true. I’ll prove it to you soon, but part of me is hoping you come to believe me without needing evidence,” he said.
She glanced up at him and his face had hardened into an expressionless mask. He’d put up his defenses again, and she knew the time for dancing and joking, brief as it had been, was over.
“Let’s go and talk to some vampires, then,” she said, changing direction to make for the exit. “I’ve already written my check to the hosting organization.”
He tightened his grip on her arm. “There is no we. You are going home and Denal is going to babysit while I do some investigating. That Fae, and if I’m not very badly mistaken he’s a Fae lord, which is even worse news, just warned us off of Vanquish. The last thing you need is to be caught anywhere near this investigation.”
She yanked her hand away from his, stuck on a single word. “Did you say babysit? Do you think of me as a baby?” She kept the smile pasted on her face for the benefit of anyone watching, but fury was burning a hole in her throat. “Babysit?”
He put his arm around her shoulders again and herded her over to the Reading Room, where a bored-looking museum employee was standing guard.
“Sorry, no guests tonight, renovation,” he recited in a monotone.
Quicker than thought, Christophe grabbed the man’s chin with one hand. “We’re going in,” he said gently.
“You’re going in,” the man repeated, staring wide-eyed up at Christophe.
“Nobody else comes in.”
“Nobody else.”
“You never saw us.”
“Never saw you.”
Christophe released the man, who continued to stare straight ahead as if dazed or in a trance. Christophe pulled Fiona into the room and turned left until they were out of the line of sight of the doorway.
“What was that? You have mind control, too?”
He shrugged, but the faint glow still reflecting light from his eyes was all the confirmation she needed.
“Is that what you did to me? Put some kind of mind control on me to make me go along with your crazy schemes? To . . . to get me into bed?”
All amusement drained from his face. An expression that almost looked like hurt flashed in his eyes, and then was gone. “Is that what I did, Princess? Be honest with yourself and with me. Which one of us cast the spell on the other? Because I can’t seem to get through five minutes without wanting to kiss you. To strip you naked and taste your skin. Right now I’d bend you over that table and drive my cock into your perfect body if I thought you would let me, so tell me, Fiona. Who is in control here?”
He stood apart from her, his hands clenched at his sides, and didn’t make a move to touch her. “Just go if you want to go. Hells, I’m used to it. I still plan to find the Siren and I’ll give you Vanquish when I retrieve it. But you never have to see me again.”
He meant it, too. She knew this man, somehow. He stood, shoulders hunched as if in defeat, waiting for her to leave. People had let him down before. Betrayed him. She could see the signs of it—the same signs that she’d seen in her father before he died, betrayed by his own father.
She’d always regretted that she hadn’t been old enough to help her father. This time, with this man, she could do something about it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. “Let’s figure this out together.”
He raised his head, his eyes widening with disbelief or wonder. “Are you sure? I won’t offer you an out again. I’m finding I like having you around.”
She tried out her best seductive smile. “You may like me even more when I tell you I’ve absolutely nothing on underneath this dress. How long will that mind control hold over the guard?”
* * *
Christophe almost fell over. She wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t abandoning him, although she wasn’t sure how to believe him about Atlantis or even his age. No, instead, she was walking toward him, smiling a wicked little smile, all but asking him to take her.
Who was he to turn do
wn a lady?
He pounced on her, lifting her off her feet and into a fierce embrace. He found her mouth and devoured it, kissing her with all the relief and hunger he felt. A stark, implacable knowledge had risen deep inside him and was consuming him with forbidden flames.
She was his.
He put her lovely ass down on the nearest table and pulled her legs around him as he stepped into the cradle of her thighs.
“Really? Isn’t that terribly decadent behavior for a princess?” He kissed his way down the side of her neck, kissed her delicate collarbones, and then kissed the rounded tops of her breasts. “Do you know, I’ve wanted to pop you out of this all evening?”
He proceeded to do just that, encouraged by her indrawn breath and the flush rising on her pearly skin. He scooped first her left, then her right breast out of the fabric of the dress and sighed in utter satisfaction at the sight of her rosy nipples hardening and pointing at him. “Like tiny little Atlantean blushberries,” he murmured. “Just begging me to suck on them.”
He pulled gently, them more firmly, on her nipple with his tongue and lips, his cock hard as tempered steel and growing harder by the second as she whimpered and pulled his head toward her with her hands.
“Oh, that’s so good—oh, wait. Someone could walk in any moment,” she whispered urgently.
“And that’s even more exciting for you, isn’t it?” He stood and stared into her eyes, while he slid his hands up from her ankles to her knees, pulling her knees farther apart, and then from her knees to her inner thighs, which were trembling. “We could be caught by any one of those aristocratic ninnies.”
Her breath caught. “What about Fairsby?”
“They’re gone, remember? Oh, what’s this?” His fingers found liquid heat. “Are you wet for me, Lady Fiona?”
She trembled in his arms. “All the time, it seems,” she confessed in a whisper. “If not mind control, what have you done to me?”
“The same thing you’ve done to me, I hope. And I plan to do it again, right now. Right here.” He kissed her again, then unfastened his pants and released his straining cock. “I’m going to fuck you right here in the middle of the British Museum, and you’re going to love it.”