Christophe rose up in one silvery ribbon of water from the bucket in which he’d hidden and promptly changed back into the shape of a very amused Atlantean warrior.
He took a deep breath and cleansed himself of the last traces of plastic and the faint bitter tang of cleaning fluid, shaking his hands to fling the droplets of water from his skin. He’d held mist shape too long this night, and it was tiring—a drain of magical resources—on the best of nights. Nights that did
He pushed his focus deep within, calling to the power that waited, tantalizing, always ready to seduce him. Formed the link in his mind that gave up the very atoms of his body to the universe; traded for the water magic that belonged uniquely to Poseidon and his people.
Soaring through the room, he performed a celebratory twirl of silvery liquid power before dispersing enough to slide smoothly under the door. The hallway was empty, the guards gone searching birds or ghosts or shadows. He followed the hall to the stairs and, careful to stay in the dark shadows masking the ceiling, he descended to the ground floor right over the heads of the guards pounding up, presumably to join their colleagues in a futile search.
Radios crackled with “all clear” and “headed for the roof access” messages, and as Christophe passed overhead, the headset of the guard directly beneath him sizzled with a loud crackling sound.
The man snapped out a guttural curse. “Damn radios. This one just shorted out in my ear.”
Christophe increased his pace. If he was already shorting out the electronics, stealing the actual sword might be a problem. He snapped an even tighter leash on his control. Atlantean magic and electricity didn’t get along, and he didn’t want to send the place into lockdown because the security system suddenly crashed.
One of the shifter guards paused and cast a sharp glance up at the ceiling, his keen gaze examining the area directly where Christophe passed overhead in the shadows. There was absolutely nothing to be seen, even to shifter eyes, since his form was so dispersed among the shadows, but the man’s instincts were good. Shifter instincts generally were. It was a good enough reason to have at least a few of them on Atlantis’s side.
Gaining the ground floor, he turned the corner and headed for the Treasury. Tonight was just for scouting. He wanted a look at the sword when there were no crowds, no moving walkways. He’d come back another night to take it.
No rush, after all. The quicker he achieved this goal, the quicker he’d be forced to return to Atlantis. More missions to the surface for vampire slaying. Cut off their heads, stake them in the hearts, jump back to avoid goop on the boots as they turned to nasty acidic slime. Same old same old.
He wanted something different. A challenge.
Rounding the final corner, he stopped moving, dispersing his mist form even more, and hovered as close to the ceiling’s shadows as possible. The five guards clustered in front of the open security door to the Treasury spoke in low tones, but their body language didn’t display any particular tension.
One of the guards, a shifter whose enormous arm muscles strained the seams of his uniform shirt, made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Probably a bird taking off and displacing a few pebbles. Certainly there’s nothing in here.”
Another one, a human, tapped his fingers restlessly against the wall. “As soon as Lefty gets out here, we’ll lock up tight and resume regular rounds.”
The others nodded and made varying noises of assent.
Christophe, still hidden in mist form, automatically cataloged the guards in his memory, but a whisper of unease shivered through him that had nothing to do with the handful of Tower Guards. Something—
The biting chill of magic broadcasting from the corner tasted nothing like the sea and salt of Atlantean power. No, this was of the earth. The tang of freshly turned garden soil and the faint scent of ripe apples in the fall. An earth witch? Seelie Fae?
How strong, he couldn’t tell. The faint ripples were as subtle as his own, which meant either a practitioner with very little power to project or one with enough power to be able to hide it from both Christophe and the shifters, who normally had some sensitivity to magic. It definitely wasn’t one of the guards. The light and shadows around that crowd broke normally, following accepted laws of physics.
But in the corner the shadows were . . . different. Just a whisper of a touch of difference, nothing that would alarm even the keenest non-magical observer, but to Christophe it was a beacon. A flare at sea from a drowning ship.
A sixth guard appeared in the doorway from the Treasury and nodded once, sharply. “All clear.”
“Thanks, Lefty. Better safe than sorry,” one of the older guards said, probably a familiar refrain from him, considering the carefully averted rolled eyes of a couple of the others.
As the guards began to disperse, heading in different directions, Lefty carefully slid an innocuous-looking information plaque on the wall to the left, revealing a digital keypad. He rapidly pressed buttons in a long sequence of numbers, pausing twice, either as part of the sequence or to think of what came next, and the security door began slowly to close. Christophe, soaring silently and quickly, traveled across the ceiling and into the room with seconds to spare before the door closed behind him with a muffled clanging sound. Several clicking noises sounded directly beneath and in front of where he hung, suspended, startling him, and he turned his attention downward.
Toward the . . .
Which startled him enough that he released his mist form, plummeted down from the ceiling, and landed on his ass. “What in the nine hells—”
The figure in scarlet whirled around and Christophe was treated to two more surprises: the shiny, deadly looking gun and the lovely curve of scarlet-covered breasts and hips.
The Scarlet Ninja was a woman—and she was armed.
“Who the bloody hell are you and where did you come from?” Fiona glared at the intruder, her gaze traveling up and up as he slowly stood, holding his hands out in front of him. He was a few inches over six feet of tall, dark, and sinfully gorgeous, and he had no right to be here in the middle of her scouting trip, never mind those astonishingly muscled shoulders and the dark waves of hair framing the most beautiful green eyes, sculpted cheekbones, and deliciously masculine face she had ever seen on a living, breathing man. Her breathing sped up, and her heart, which had already been racing faster than the lead car in the Birmingham Super Prix, thundered so hard it surely would pound its way out of her chest any moment.
She was a thief, standing in the middle of one of the most priceless collections of gems in the entire world, and yet she wasn’t tempted to look anywhere but at him.
Oh, yes. He was trouble.
Trouble blinked; long, dark lashes closing over emerald-green eyes so gorgeous they had to be illegal in most of Europe. Then he threw back his head and laughed, and shivers traced a delicate pattern down her spine. His deep, rich laugh was dark chocolate and champagne and silk sheets all presented in one wickedly mouthwatering package.
Oh, damn, it had been far too long since she’d had sex.
Her watch beeped. Glancing down, she saw that she had twelve minutes. Declan had hacked into the security cameras and put them on a circular repeating pattern or something equally complex and brilliant, but he’d warned her a dozen times that she had exactly fifteen minutes and not a second more.
She raised the tranq gun and used her best frosty, lady-of-the-manor voice. “I repeat, who the bloody hell are you?”
“You’re Scottish,” he said, quite unnecessarily.
“Give the man a gold ring. You have ten seconds to tell me who you are and why you’re here before I shoot you.” She raised the gun, hoping the first time she had to shoot a man while looking him in the eyes wouldn’t haunt
