Atlantis Betrayed

The kid took a step forward, hand extended as if to shake, years of breeding and manners clearly coming to the fore. “Declan Campbell, nice to meet—Oh.” Declan stopped dead and shot a red-faced glance at the ninja. “Crap. Sorry, Fee. Oh. Sorry again!”

The ninja—Fee?—sighed and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Declan. If he’s in our house, it would be easy enough for him to figure out who we are.”

She tilted her head and considered Christophe for a moment, then shrugged. “Fiona Campbell. My brother Declan. And the overprotective one is Hopkins.”

Christophe grinned at Hopkins. “Just the one name? Like Madonna?”

Hopkins never moved a single muscle, just stood there in a shooter’s stance with that damn gun still trained on the space between Christophe’s eyes. “This is a mistake, Lady Fiona,” he bit off. “You have put years and years’ worth of work in jeopardy in a single evening. Congratulations.”

“Lady Fiona?” Christophe watched, fascinated, as a rosy flush swept up her neck and face. “You’re aristocracy and a cat burglar?”

“I assure you, I never, ever steal cats,” she said, a glimmer of humor underneath the frost in her voice.

“No, just dragons.” He flicked a glance at Raphael’s depiction of Saint George, then back at her. “That’s the original, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you—”

“You’re not just good,” he said, ignoring Hopkins and his gun and crossing over to the painting to study it more closely. “You’re scary good.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, almost able to taste the delicious possibilities. “Oh, yes. We’re definitely partners.”

“No,” she said flatly. “Not a chance.”

“Are you going to kill me, then? Or have James Bond over there do it? Because I know who you are, and you know I know who you are. So as I see it, we have several different options. One, I’m your partner. Two, you shoot me to keep me from telling the police and the tabloids that you’re the Scarlet Ninja.”

“And?” Her voice could have flash-frozen half of Atlantis.

“And what?”

“You said several options. You named two. What are the others?”

“Oh. I guess I was wrong. Just those two.” He couldn’t seem to stop grinning for some reason. The situation cheered him up. Hugely.

“I’ll be happy to shoot him, Lady Fiona. In fact, I’m quite anxious to do so,” Hopkins said.

“She already shot me,” Christophe offered helpfully.

The ninja glared at him. “That was a tranq gun. And nobody is shooting anyone. That’s . . . that’s my grandfather’s solution, Hopkins. You know I won’t go down that road. Not now, not ever.” The ice in her voice was gone, replaced with a white-hot rage that Christophe instinctively knew would sear anything it touched.

So why did he wonder what it would feel like to burn in those flames?

“I guess we have a partner, then,” Declan said, grinning.

“I’d much rather shoot him, but if you insist.” Hopkins put the gun down but kept it within reach. “So, then, partner. Who are you and what exactly do you want?”

Chapter 9

Fiona suddenly found it hard to breathe as her new partner stared into her eyes, a wicked grin slowly spreading across his face.

“Who do I want? That’s between me and the ninja,” he said, his eyes darkening from a pale spring green to a dark leafy color as his gaze practically burned the clothes from her body. Definitely not human. Human eyes didn’t do that. Unless he had a kind of magic she’d never seen before hiding behind that bad-boy long hair. The waves brushing his collar looked silken soft. If only she could touch them, she could discover—

Suddenly, the meaning of his words caught up to her fevered mind. “No! He said what do you want. What, not who.” She felt the flush rise up into her cheeks and had to grit her teeth against the embarrassment. “Stop that at once, or I’ll take my chances with the police.”

“Hey, you kissed me,” he said, still grinning.

He dropped that long, lean body into one of her chairs, and the floral print of the upholstery didn’t do a thing to diminish his aggressive maleness. He was a predator, no matter where you put him, and she needed to be very, very cautious, in spite of the part of her that wanted to crawl into his lap and bite his neck.

Hopkins cleared his throat. “You kissed him?”

“I—”

“Wow! Your first kiss in years and it’s a criminal? Sis, you’re going to have to watch out. You’ve got a thing for bad boys. Look at Sean.”

Her face was on fire. Surely the house sprinkler system would activate itself at any moment. Christophe’s avid interest wasn’t helping any, nor was the way he kept checking out her body whenever she moved.

“It was not my first kiss in years, not that it’s any of your business, and I—he—it was a distraction technique!”

“It’s true. She distracted me, and then she shot me,” Christophe offered. Then he leaned forward, and those amazing green eyes narrowed. “Also, who’s Sean?”

“Don’t help me,” she told him. “I don’t have a thing for Sean,” she said to her rotten brother.

“You adopted him!” Declan sputtered. “That’s what I meant. Not that you have a romantic thing for him. That would be gross. You’re so old.”

“I’m not old,” she gritted out.

“Not compared to me,” Christophe said cheerfully, relaxing back into his chair. “So long as you’re not kissing Sean, too.”

Hopkins picked up the gun again. “Now I’m definitely going to shoot him.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Christophe said, but he was either insane or had balls of bloody steel, because there wasn’t a hint of fear on his face.

“No shooting! I won’t have it,” she shouted, smashing her fist down on the desk, which accomplished nothing but hurting her hand. Everyone else in the room ignored her completely. Stupid men.

“Look, man, in all seriousness, if you mess with my sister, you’re going to have to face me,” Declan said, and he was only shaking the tiniest bit as he faced Christophe, holding one of the ceremonial swords from the display on the wall.

“When did you get that down? How—”

“Later, Fee,” Declan said, suddenly looking a lot more grown-up.

Christophe’s grin faded and an expression of total seriousness took its place as he slowly rose from the chair, hands held loosely at his side. “Declan, it is both courageous and honorable of you to protect your sister. I swear on my oath as a warrior not to do anything with her that she doesn’t want me to do. Does that satisfy your honor?”

Declan nodded uncertainly, and lowered the sword.

Fiona’s mouth fell open, and she stepped between the two of them, placed a hand on each of their chests, and shoved. “I. Am. Standing. Right. Here!” she shouted. “Bloody Neanderthals!”

Hopkins put the gun back down on the table. “Perhaps you might lower your voice before the housekeeper and the rest of the staff call the constables or rush down here to investigate?”

Christophe caught her hand in one of his, raised it to his lips, and kissed her palm before she could snatch her hand away. She had to fight herself not to give him the satisfaction of rubbing her hand against her pants to make the tingling feeling go away. His smile told her he knew anyway.

Damn the man.

“Look. Why don’t we all calm down? I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Christophe said. “We both want the Siren. I happen to represent . . . a consortium of very wealthy investors who will be happy to pay. So we steal it together,