Atlantis Betrayed (26 page)

Read Atlantis Betrayed Online

Authors: Alyssa Day

Perhaps it was why he never, ever sang.
“This stupid woman walked in as we were coming back to the cottage through the portal. She ran, screaming as if the devil himself were after her. My parents knew it was over, so they hurriedly gathered their few possessions, but—” He doubled over, the pain of it fresh after so very many years.
“Christophe? What is it?”
“It was my fault. I killed them.”
Fiona put her arms around him, tightening them when he tried to get away. “No. Shh. It’s my turn. Let me comfort you.”
He shook his head violently, his big body shaking in her embrace. “I can’t—”
“Let me be the strong one this time? Yes. You can. I owe you.” She stroked his back and murmured soothing words of comfort, much as he’d done for her in the shower. When his breathing slowed to normal, she let him escape her hug, but she kissed his cheek before he managed to pace away from her again.
“I ran away. Off to the fields to play or something. They called me and I thought it was a game, so I stayed hidden around the side of the barn. I remember the warmth of the sun on my head, and then nothing until a great shouting woke me up.”
“Your parents?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer anymore; in fact, she was desperately sure she did not. But she knew he needed to tell his story, so the least she could do was muster the courage to hear it.
“They brought the sheriff. Or magistrate. Or what the hells ever he was called back then. But he was none of those things. He was Fae. Unseelie Court Fae. The murdering bastard killed my parents.” He smashed his fist into his palm and the dark drive to seek vengeance was in every line of his face and clenched muscle in his body. He suddenly seemed taller and wider, and he was glowing again. Not the gentle blue-green of the energy spheres but the scarlet of fire and retribution.
She knew a little bit about retribution herself.
“He and his deputies dragged my parents out of the house. Then they sent the villagers away. I remember watching them go. It was so strange, how they’d come shouting and yelling down the lane to our house, but they ran away in total silence. They knew, you see. I figured that out later. They knew.”
She didn’t want to ask; more than she wanted to draw her next breath she so didn’t want to ask, but she knew she must. “They knew what?”
“They knew the murderers were Fae and that they’d kill my parents. They didn’t want to know, so they ran, but they knew.”
He fell heavily onto her bed and the crimson flame vanished. “I could see, you know. I never told anybody, but I saw it all. They told me—the warriors who came for me, later, more than a year later when they finally found me—they told me that my parents had gone away to the Summer Lands. Silverglen, where Fae danced and animals talked and all manner of beings lived in peace and harmony forevermore.”
“They lied? How could they do that? Who was it? I want to have a stern talking to with those men,” she said, fisting her hands on her hips.
He smiled up at her, just a hint of a smile, but it was encouraging in the midst of this horrible story. “So fierce,
mi amara
. So fierce on my behalf. I truly am blessed among men.”
“They told you, in effect, that your parents had abandoned you,” she said gently. “That’s a horrible thing to do to a child. Trust me, I know.”
“No, it didn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew what had happened. The Fae sucked the life force out of them until my mother and father were nothing but dust on the dirt floor of our barn. Dust mingling with dust. Of course, the symbolism was lost on a four-year-old child.”
“What did you do?” She came to kneel at his feet and covered his clenched fists with her hands.
“What could I do? I was a terrified little boy. I lost control of my bladder—still to this day I remember how ashamed I was that my father would know I’d wet my trousers. Then I curled up in a ball and closed my eyes, wishing as hard as I could that it was all a nightmare and we were still in Atlantis with my grandparents.”
Hot tears traced lines down her face and he followed their path with one finger. “Don’t cry for me, Princess. It was long, long ago, before even your grandfather’s grandfather’s day, more than likely.”
“If not me, then who?” She leaned forward and put her arms around his waist, resting her head in his lap. “I think I’ve earned the right to cry for that little boy.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to add sorrow to your heart,” he said, and he found that he meant it. He cared more for what pain he was causing her than for what relief the telling might bring him.
Possibly his first selfless thought in centuries.
The gods were definitely laughing at him now.
“What happened to you next?”
He sucked in a long breath. “I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, the woman who’d discovered us that morning was staring down at me, and her face was twisted up like a monster. When I opened my eyes, she screamed.”
“At a tiny child? What did she do?”
“She spent the next year of my life trying to beat, starve, and torture Satan out of me. She came close to killing me, but even then, even so young, I knew I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. She would never break me.”
Fiona made a sound, and he realized he’d clenched his hands around hers so tightly he must be hurting her. He released her hands, pulsing a bit of magic into them to soothe any small pain.
“You were incredibly brave,” she said, rising to sit next to him on the bed.
“I was a fool,” he said, even now shuddering at the memory. “She broke me the first time she put me in the box.”
Chapter 23
A discreet knock sounded at the door.
“Not now, please,” Fiona called out, her arms wrapped around Christophe. He wasn’t making a sound, but his body was shuddering so hard the bed was shaking underneath them.
“I’m afraid the lady insists,” Hopkins said. “Lady Maeve Fairsby is here to see you and claims it is quite urgent.”
Christophe’s head snapped up, and all sign of the pain he’d been reliving had vanished, replaced by cold, deadly contemplation. “She may have news of why we were attacked. We need to see her. If nothing else, we can hold her hostage against her cousin.”
He jumped up and began attaching daggers to his sheaths.
“We can’t take my friend as a hostage, even if she is Fae.” Fiona stood up, wondering which of him was the real Christophe—the terrified boy who’d seen his parents murdered or the lethal warrior who so calmly spoke of abducting her friend.
Both, of course
, the answer sounded in her heart. What he’d endured as a boy had forced him to develop the cold shell over his emotions. His warrior training had completed the job. She felt a moment’s despair that she would ever be able to break through to the man inside those barriers.
“Lady Fiona?” Hopkins never sounded impatient, but this was edging close. “Your response?”
“Please tell her we’ll be down soon and offer some refreshments or something, Hopkins.”
“I have already provided tea and cakes, of course,” Hopkins said, and she could have sworn he sounded offended.
The world might be in jeopardy, but nobody insulted Hopkins’s hospitality or service. She smiled a little at the few constants she’d known in her life: the sun, the moon, and Hopkins.
“Thank you, Hopkins,” she called out, but all she heard was a hmph sort of sound.
She and Christophe showered and dressed quickly, and in fewer than twenty minutes they were heading down the hallway to the stairs. The door to one of the guest rooms opened, and Denal stepped out.
“Good night’s sleep?” Christophe asked, his eyes glowing a hot green.
Denal’s eyes narrowed. He clearly took the comment as a rebuke. “I patrolled the house and grounds until five this morning, when Hopkins took over for me. Then I had a nap and then lunch and stuff with Declan and Sean. This was just a brief after-lunch catnap.” His scowl transformed into a grin. “Speaking of Hopkins, that man can fight, for a human. He showed me a few moves that would disarm any intruder in seconds flat.”
“Hopkins has special talents,” Christophe said, relenting. “We’re going to meet a friend of Fiona’s who just happens to be Unseelie Court Fae.”
Denal whistled long and low. “That’s not good. Aren’t we forming an alliance with the Seelie Court through Rhys na Garanwyn and his scary brother Kal’andel? They won’t like it if we get tangled up with the Unseelie Court.”
“We don’t have any intention of getting tied up with them. We might tie
her
up, if she doesn’t cooperate.”
“Sounds fun,” Denal said, grinning wickedly.
Suddenly, the hallway felt full of far too much testosterone, and Fiona made a break for the stairs. “No one,” she said emphatically, “is tying Maeve up.”
Maeve sat on the white sofa, her elegant form arranged as if the furniture served only as a pristine backdrop to her emerald-green dress and her overall impeccable perfection. Fiona searched her features closely, looking for any hint of Fae, and suddenly a realization hit her.
“You’ve never aged,” she blurted out. “We’ve been friends for ten years, and you look exactly the same now as you did when we met.”
“As I will for the next thousand years, undoubtedly,” Maeve replied, carefully placing her cup on its saucer on the tea table. “Of course your lover has told you what I am.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Fiona felt inexplicably hurt. “All of these years of friendship?”
“To what purpose? So that you could think of me as strange or different, or someone to fear? I have plenty of subjects and sycophants to do that. What I don’t have—what I never had, until you—was a friend.” She stood and took a step toward Fiona. “Our friendship has meant more to me than you can ever imagine.”
“Stop right there, Fae,” Christophe commanded from the doorway. “Don’t touch her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fiona snapped. She took the next step and hugged Maeve, as she’d done so many times in the past decade. “She’s my friend.”
Christophe growled, actually growled, and she didn’t have to guess to know he was frustrated. Today was a great day, however, for him to realize he couldn’t order her around. Never put off a difficult task, Hopkins always said.

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