Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

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—someone—was playing with magic, and he or she was doing so in this very room. Very near the door. In fact, not six paces away from where the guards clustered around the door to the Treasury.
    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.
    Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
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    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 . . . ninja.
    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.
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    Her watch beeped. Glancing