Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

he said. He returned her kiss, taking full advantage of the situation to thoroughly claim her mouth. She was dizzy by the time he stopped.
    “The only weapons that can survive transforming into mist with us are those made of a native Atlantean ore, orichalcum. It has the added benefit of not triggering metal detection, even masking other metals that are combined with it,” he murmured near her ear. She was pleased that his voice was ragged; this insane attraction between them was definitely two-sided.
    “Even the silver?”
    “Silver?” His eyebrows drew together. “What silver?”
    “You told those vampires your blades were tipped with silver.”
    His face relaxed into a lazy grin. “Ah, Truth Teller, it surprises me that you ask me this.”
    She blinked. “You lied?”
    “Call it more of a bluff.”
    It was her turn to laugh. She had been so worried about more important things, like not dying, that it had never occurred to her to listen for bluffs.
    “You’re devious, Brennan.”
    “You’re beautiful, Tiernan,” he whispered, and then he kissed her again, but only briefly, and she heard the voices heading down the hall toward them right after he raised his head.
    “Here we go,” she said. “Showtime.”
    Brennan let Tiernan turn to face the door but kept his arm wrapped around her waist, telling Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
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    himself it was because she needed the comfort of his touch. She would have called him on that lie immediately. His fear for her safety was spiking adrenaline and pure, primal aggression through his body so powerfully that he had to work hard to control himself. It wouldn’t be good for either Tiernan or their mission if he were the one to commit the first overt act of hostility.
    Litton burst through the door, reminding Brennan again of nothing as much as a hairless rodent, leading to an odd and utterly random curiosity about whether or not were-rodents existed. Seemed unlikely.
    Several men and women in lab coats followed Litton through the room. Litton gestured toward the large conference table and everyone took a seat, except for one man who hurried over to the equipment on a desk near the front.
    “Welcome to the place where the magic happens,” Litton said, sweeping his arms out.
    “Bit grandiose, isn’t he?” Tiernan said under her breath.
    Brennan’s rage calmed down several notches at the amusement in her voice. His mate was not afraid; that fact went a long way to dampen the fury threatening to swamp him.
    “Please take a seat,” the man at the equipment said.
    Brennan and Tiernan took the two open seats at the end of the conference table. They were farthest from the door. Brennan forced himself to draw in slow, deep breaths to fight the animal instinct of being cornered.
    The predator in him didn’t like it one bit, no matter that none of the humans between Tiernan and the door seemed likely to put up a fight. Lab coats could conceal a great many things, weapons among them.
    Even Brennan could not always outrace a bullet.
    Litton nodded, and one of the scientists, a female, distributed dark blue folders to each person at the table. She hesitated when she got to Tiernan, biting her lip, and she shot Litton a look, but he just nodded again and she put the final blue folder in front of Tiernan and then rushed back to her own seat.
    “You will find in front of you documents that detail a great many of our more important findings in the area of neurophysiological control,” Litton said.
    As Brennan and Tiernan opened their folders, an image flashed on the screen at the front of the room. A group of large, obviously strong men were working on a skyscraper. They were all happy and smiling for the camera.
    None of them was human.
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    “Those are all shifters,” Tiernan said. “You can tell from the way they’re hanging off the side of that building, or those two who are carrying huge steel beams with one hand. Only shifters would have that kind of strength and agility. But why—”
    “Correct, Ms. Baum,” Litton said, as if rewarding a prize pupil. “They are all shifters. But not just any shifters. These are all men who, just one month before this picture was taken, were hopeless derelicts. Leeches upon society. They’d taken the worst of the shifter existence—violence, dominance, bloodlust—and warped it even further, until they were roaming as a gang in