Chapter 40

Campbell Manor

When all the tales had been told, the experiences recounted, and the promises made to Declan that he would never, ever, tell anybody else, especially Hopkins or Fiona, the exact details about finding Declan with the nymphs, Christophe knew it was time to go. His friends had gone through a portal hours earlier, but he had been content to sit, holding Fiona as dusk's shadows claimed the corners of the room.

"I need to return to Atlantis and report in," he finally said, unable to put it off any longer. He opened his hand and they both looked at the Siren, so innocent and quiet in his hand. "This must be restored to the Trident immediately."

"You didn't give it to the others to return," Fiona said softly. "Why?"

"It's something I need to do. This mission, from beginning to end. Does that make any sense?"

She kissed him, hard. "It makes a great deal of sense. So call the portal and get it over with, and then come back to me."

"I've never made love to you in your office," he said, putting the Siren on her desk and filling his hands with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were infinitely more pleasant to hold.

"Oh, that is a terrible oversight," she agreed. She wiggled out of his arms and crossed to the door, locked it, and then turned around to face him.

"What exactly are you going to do about it?"

He leapt across the s.p.a.ce separating them and pinned her to the door with his body. "I believe there was a debt owed," he said solemnly.

"A debt?"

"A spanking."

Her mouth fell open. "Oh, no, you're not going to spank me."

He nodded, trying to keep a straight face. "Oh, yes. Naked."

She tried to answer, but her mouth got tangled up trying to tell him all the ways he was not going to spank her. He finally gave in and started laughing and she glared at him.

"Oh, you're going to pay for that, partner," she threatened him.

"Gladly." He bent his head and kissed her as if his very life depended on taking her mouth right that moment. Perhaps it did. All he knew was he had to have her. Now.

"On your desk?" he suggested, his voice raspy with desire and a primal need. "On the sofa?"

"How about in the air? On swirling water?" She flashed a wicked smile. "I'm always up for something different."

He started laughing, and then he called to water. "Yes, my naughty love. Let's play."

In seconds, she was naked, her body gleaming in the sunlight pouring through the windows. It was a matter of a thought for him to dispense with his own clothes, and then he lifted her into the air and sent ribbons of water playing around her luscious body. She gasped at the chill and then cried out when he concentrated harder and directed tiny fingers of cool water to toy with every inch of her skin.

"That's not fair," she said, gasping.

"Neither is this," he said, and he let go of her-with his hands. The ribbons of water held her, trapped, in the air, with her arms and legs spread out at her sides. He stepped in closer to her body and licked droplets of water from each tight nipple and then licked his way down her body. Just when he reached the pale blond curls between her thighs, he stopped and straightened before walking around behind her.

"A spanking, naked," he repeated. He rubbed her lovely, lovely a.s.s with one hand.

"You wouldn't dare," she said, turning to glare at him over her shoulder.

"Ask me not to," he challenged.

She tightened her mouth, refusing to speak the words. But a delicious gleam in her eyes told him she might not be as reluctant as she pretended.

"You only have to say one tiny word, my princess. Just say no."

She stuck her tongue out at him but said nothing.

He grinned, and drawing his hand back just a little, lightly smacked her gloriously round a.s.s. Fiona made a noise but it definitely wasn't a no no.

"A lady doesn't enjoy having her b.u.m smacked," she said primly.

His heart sank to his feet. Now she would hate him. "Mi amara, I'm so sorry. I was just playing-" I'm so sorry. I was just playing-"

"Lucky for you, I'm not a lady; I'm a ninja," she said, cutting him off, that deliciously seductive smile back on her face. "Stop with the water. I want you inside me. Now."

He did as she commanded and in seconds she was flat on her back on the sofa and he drove his c.o.c.k so far inside her they both cried out. "You belong to me, forever and ever," he said, barely able to speak through the knot in his throat.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Always."

"And I to you," he added, plunging into her warm wet heat, over and over, until her body arched up into his and she screamed his name. Then, and only then, he gave in to his own release and collapsed on the sofa next to her. "Forever."

Some time later, they managed to sit up and he pulled her on his lap and grinned. "So you like spankings?"

She glanced demurely up at him through her lashes. "How about I try it on you this time?" His c.o.c.k jumped a little against her hip and she laughed. "You naughty, naughty man."

"Oh, you have no idea the naughty ideas I have for you, Lady Fiona."

"A true warrior would demonstrate," she said primly.

And so he did.

It was nearly two hours later before he called the portal.

"I'll return as soon as I can," he told her.

"I know."

He hugged her again, put the Siren in his pocket, and stepped through the portal, knowing that nothing would keep him from her.

"It's still open, Lady Fiona," Hopkins observed. "Seems like a sign to me."

"When will you call me Fiona?"

"When you gather your nerve and go after him," he said, handing her paint box and a parcel to her. "I'll handle everything here. Please give this to the Atlantean, if you will."

"You always do handle everything. I love you, you know. I'll bring you to visit as soon as I can." She hugged him tight, and then, gathering her courage in one hand and her paints in the other, she stepped through to Atlantis and landed right on top of the love of her life, knocking him to the gra.s.s.

One of the guards, choking suspiciously, held out a hand, and pulled her up when she took it. Christophe just lay there, sprawled in the gra.s.s, staring up at her with his mouth hanging open. Through their bond, she could feel his exquisite joy that she'd chosen to follow him.

"Thank you, Marcus," she said.

"I really think I'm going to like you."

"You know," she said, puzzled, "when I'm around Atlanteans, I get that a lot."

On the ground, Christophe started laughing. "Does this make me Lord Christophe?"

"In your dreams," Marcus advised.

"Oh, no," Christophe said, grinning that seductive, wicked smile. "My dreams are far more exciting than that."

"Here," she said, holding the package out to him. "This is for you. From Hopkins."

Christophe opened it, still sitting on the ground, and then stared up at Fiona in astonishment. "Why on earth would Hopkins give me pajamas with barnyard animals on them?"

As they explored the gardens together later that day, Christophe suddenly lifted Fiona in the air and swung her around.

"Wait till our sons take up their first training swords," he said, eyes gleaming with antic.i.p.ation. "They will make us so proud. With magic plus might, they'll be the toughest warriors ever to set foot-"

"Oh, no. My sons are not going to go around sword fighting. They're going to be doctors. Or teachers. Or-"

"Daughters," he said, wrapping a long strand of her hair around his fingers. "Beautiful, charming daughters, just like their mother. And the boys will be after them-wait. d.a.m.n boys. I'll kill them. I'll kill any boy who so much as-"

"Ouch! That hair is attached," Fiona said, extracting it from his fingers. "Maybe before you get your pants in a twist over our future children, you could tell me more about just how we're going to go about getting all of these sons or daughters?"

He bent down and lifted her into the air, then shouted out his joy and swung her around. "Maybe I could show you," he said, bending to kiss her as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, right there on the path to the palace, in front of anybody who might care to pa.s.s by.

When they could finally breathe again, he pulled her a little ways off the path, into the palace gardens, and dropped to one knee. "I know this is the way they do things in your world," he said, every ounce of the love he felt for her naked on his face. Exposed and vulnerable, just like his heart.

"Lady Fiona Campbell, will you spend the rest of your life with me?"

Her answer shone like the bright Atlantean sun on her face and in her heart. "Oh, yes. Most definitely yes."

Turn the page for a special preview of Daniel's Story in the Warriors of Poseidon Series

VAMPIRES IN ATLANTIS

By Alyssa Day

Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

Chapter 1

Daniel looked out at the sea of red eyes glaring back at him in the vast chamber of the Primus and wondered, not for the first time, why the h.e.l.l he'd ever wanted to be the ruler of the North American vampires. Also, he wondered how long it would be until the vampire G.o.ddess Anubisa discovered his ongoing betrayal and slowly tortured him to death.

The G.o.ddess of Chaos and Night was really, really good at torture. It was her specialty, in fact.

"So, shall we call you Daniel, then?" the vampire from South Carolina called out from behind the false safety of the rich mahogany wooden semicircular desk. His voice was a bizarre hissing drawl; Deep South meets bloodsucker. "Or Drakos? Maybe Devon? You have so many ident.i.ties; we wouldn't want to use the wrong one."

"You may call me Primator, Ruler of the Primus, the third house of the United States Congress. Or Sir. Or even Master, if you adhere to the old ways," Daniel said, smiling. It wasn't a nice smile. He made sure to show some fang.

"Or you can call me the one who delivers you to the true and final death, if you continue to be an obstacle to these negotiations," he continued, still polite. No longer smiling. "If we cannot work amicably and peacefully with the humans, we will find ourselves back to the days of angry mobs and wooden stakes and flaming torches. Except this time, the mobs have missiles instead of pitchforks."

The South Carolinian sat down abruptly and clamped his mouth shut, with not even a hint of fang showing. Daniel's sense of victory was as fleeting as it was futile. They'd never agree. Humans were sheep to them, especially to the oldest ones. Predators couldn't become politicians, and he had no wish to continue in the role of trying to lead them. It was, as his Atlantean friend Ven would say, like herding seahorses: a task that would always fail and usually leave the herder with a severe case of insanity. Daniel's sanity was precarious enough already.

A flash of memory tugged at him: Quinn's face when he'd forced the blood bond on her to save her life.

Another: Deirdre's face as she lay dying in his arms.

It was the only thing he was really good at-failing to protect the women he cared about. He'd started that tradition more than eleven thousand years ago, after all.

Serai.

Daniel's a.s.sistant shuffled some papers on his desk and glanced up at him. "Shall we adjourn then, Primator?"

Daniel snapped out of his dark thoughts and looked out at the members of the Primus. Still glaring at him, for the most part. Undoubtedly planning a coup or some other evil manipulation. After all, they were were vampires. vampires.

He recognized the irony.

"Adjourned." He struck the gavel once on its sound block, but they were already up and streaming out the vaulted double doors. Not a single one stopped to speak to him or even looked back. Plotting, always plotting.