An hour later
They’d cleaned up and
changed from the explosion’s after-math, and now all Fiona wanted
to do was take off for Lord Fairsby’s family home and find her
brother.
“Believe me. I’d be
all for it if it had a chance in the nine hells of working, but it
doesn’t,” Christophe said. “The entry to the Summer Lands moves
around, and never at the request of non-Fae. It’s like the portal
to Atlantis. It has a mind of its own. If we try to storm the place
early, na Feransel will make sure we never find your brother.”
A shimmering glow was
their only warning before the portal he’d just mentioned opened
right before their eyes. He pulled Fiona behind him and drew his
daggers, but then shoved them back in their sheaths, sighing with
relief, as Brennan, Bastien, and Justice walked through, one by
one.
“We hear you could
use some help,” Justice said, his long blue hair tied back in his
customary braid and the hilt of his sword rising above his
shoulder. He bowed to Fiona. “My lady.”
“You all came? To
help me?” Christophe couldn’t quite believe it. He’d spent years
shutting them all out. But then he realized what the real mission
must be. “Oh, of course. The Siren.”
“No, my friend,”
Bastien said, his voice rumbling out of the middle of his
seven-foot-tall frame. “We knew you could retrieve the Siren on
your own. We mostly wanted to see this woman who has finally taught
you some manners, according to Princess Riley.”
He, too, bowed to
Fiona.
She inclined her
head. “Welcome to Campbell Manor. This is my dear friend, Hopkins.
The plans have changed. We need to storm the Summer Lands to fight
an Unseelie Court prince who has kidnapped my brother, probably has
your Siren, wants to make me his brood mare, and claims to have
unfinished business with Christophe. Got it?”
A huge smile spread
on Brennan’s face, which still seemed wrong, somehow. The warrior
had spent more than two thousands of years with no emotion at all,
thanks to a really nasty curse Poseidon had thrown at him. Now that
he had regained his emotions and fallen in love, he often tried out
really terrible jokes on the rest of them.
“Christophe,” Brennan
said, still smiling. “I really, really like this
woman.”
“As do we all,”
Hopkins said dryly, shaking hands with each of them.
“Tea?”
“Guinness?” Bastien
asked, hope shining on his face.
“You need a clear
head,” Fiona said, looking way, way up at him. Then she sighed.
“I’m guessing you can metabolize a pint before
midnight.”
Bastien bowed again.
“Atlantean metabolism, my lady. We can only very rarely become even
the slightest bit drunk. It takes great effort.”
“Or great stupidity,”
Justice added. All three of them looked at Christophe.
“Nice. With friends
like you . . .”
“And the room floods
with testosterone,” Hopkins observed. “This way, gentlemen? I
believe Lady Fiona and Christophe have some issues to
discuss.”
He looked back at
them before following the Atlanteans out. “I have more help coming.
The stockpile.”
Fiona nodded, her
face brightening. “Of course. Hopkins, you’re
brilliant.”
He smiled modestly.
“Just doing my job.”
Christophe looked
back and forth between the two of them. “What
stockpile?”
“We’ve guns that
shoot lovely iron pellets. We’ve swords with iron blades. All of
the things that the Fae hate, in other words.” She smiled fiercely,
and suddenly he almost felt sorry for the Fae. “We’re going to hurt
him for daring to take my brother. We’re going to make him
pay.”