Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

Hunches. The peripheral senses of shifters who trusted their own instincts—they’d come near to unveiling her more than once in the past. Her lips quirked at the idea of how unhappy Hopkins would be if her outrageous streak of good fortune chose now to desert her.
    She caught her breath and tightened her hand on the grip of her tranq gun as the shifter took a step toward her. There was no possible way she could outrun a wolf, not even one in human guise. It was the matter of a moment, anyway, for the more powerful shifters to transform, and these looked anything but weak.
    The guard with his back to her glanced over his shoulder at his partner. “What is it?”
    “I don’t know,” the one with the nose said. “Nothing. Something. Maybe.”
    The first one snorted out a laugh. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
    “I don’t know. But whatever it is—”
    The sharp sound of pebbles clattering to the ground interrupted him, and Fiona and the guards all turned their attention to the sky. Or, more specifically, to the roof of the building, from where the pebble shower had originated.
    “Maybe a bird?”
    “That was no bird.” The guard lowered his gaze and aimed one long last stare at the tree where Fiona stood—perfectly still, perfectly silent—with her gun at the ready. “But maybe what I thought I sensed over by the tree was.”
    “Or maybe we’ve got vamps playing games,” the other one snarled, as he turned sharply on his heel and started running back the way they’d come. “I warned those freaks the last time they tried to hang out here—”
    “Bloodsuckers don’t listen to warnings.”
    Neither do ninjas, Fiona added silently, as the pair vanished behind the building, presumably making for the particular side door that was the guards’ preferred entrance. But with just a bit of luck, they’d call in for replacements who might choose a different door. The main entrance not thirty feet away from her, for example.
    It took her fewer than ten seconds to make her way to the side of the double wooden doors and plaster her body up against the wall. Another ten seconds and the sound of pounding feet approached, and the Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
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    doors swung open, spilling out a new pair of guards. This time, they were both human, but their reflexes were almost shifter-quick.
    Fiona wasted no time in ducking under the arm of one guard to enter the building, seconds before he yanked the door closed. Still shadowed, she slowly stood, careful not to move until she’d scanned the area for further guards, either human or shifter. Glowing carriage lamps with modern bulbs lit up the dark hallway, their illumination dimmed for night but still bright enough for their light to pounce on any unwanted visitor.
    It was a familiar sight and one she’d toured often enough, usually with guests from elsewhere. A left turn would take her to the Hall of Monarchs with its various and sundry thrones and coats of arms.
    Glorious, but not really what she was after tonight. Nor was the cinema room with its video of Elizabeth II’s coronation, or Processional Way, with its walls of shining maces, or even the Temporal Sword of Justice. No, Fiona wanted a jewel from a quite different sword and it was in the Treasury. The jewel part of the Crown Jewels.
    One jewel in particular.
    And all she had to do was liberate William the Conqueror’s sword to take it.
    No worries.

Chapter 3
    The Summer Lands, in the forest not far from the Unseelie Court palace Prince Gideon na Feransel stared at Maeve and wondered, not for the first or tenth or even the hundredth time, how the smartest, most powerful Unseelie Court Fae prince in recorded history—himself, naturally—had been saddled with an idiot for a sister.
    “Maeve, if you’d quit playing with your hair and listen for a single minute, I’d explain this in words even you could understand.”
    Maeve continued brushing her silky blue-black hair and rolled her eyes at him. Which he hated—which she knew.
    Damn Fae princesses were astonishingly arrogant.
    “We tell the humans we’re cousins, because the closer relationship of brother and sister would involve certain expectations we don’t wish to entangle us.”
    She handed her hairbrush to one of the fawning males who always surrounded her. “Such as?”
    “We’d have to pretend to like each other.”
    Her delicate features screwed up in a tiny moue of distaste. As Fae, she could