Page 95

“Get up.”She yanked the covers off the bed.Xavier, who’d still been asleep on his stomach, yelped, his very nice ass clenching at the sudden exposure to the cold.

“Someone’s breaking into the archive,” she said, just to get them moving, because that wasn’t true.If they were breaking in, they wouldn’t have rung the doorbell.

Annie threw on clothes and was standing at the front door to Colum’s apartment waiting impatiently as they stumbled over, each in various states of mostly dressed.

She tapped through the screens of the security system, checking the camera, then opened Colum’s door.

“Jaysus love us!”

“Mon Dieu!”

Colum and Xavier hadn’t seen the security camera feed, so the man waiting outside Colum’s door with a gun on one hip and a sword on the other surprised them.

“Mr.O’Connor, Ms.Ward, Mr.Allard.”He nodded to each of them.

“Knight?”Annie nodded at his sword.

“Yes.”He glanced at the tablet she held.“I’m guessing you’re aware we have a situation.”

“I am.”

“Good.If it wasn’t clear already, I’m part of your Dublin security team.The Spartan Guards and I were on duty.We apprehended a team attempting to break into the archive.We need to question them but wanted to check with the archivist to ascertain the most appropriate location on the property.”

Xavier slumped against the wall, exhaling until the tension in his shoulders dropped.Colum stepped up next to Annie.“You’re just here to ask what’s the best interrogation room in the archive?”He peered at the knight, his glasses notable in their absence.

Annie dashed back to grab them, joining the men at the door just as the knight led them outside and up the steps to street level.

It took ten minutes, but they got the back door open so the Spartan Guard could haul in the two assailants they’d caught.Colum led them to a storage room at the back of the first floor that was lined with locked metal storage cabinets, the door of each carefully labeled with a series of numbers.

The sight of those handwritten, precise labels made Annie smile as she looked over at Colum, wearing the glasses she’d popped onto his nose.Xavier had straightened them while tucking Colum’s hair behind his ear.

Their Dublin security team was three people—one knight and two Spartan Guards.Like the assailants zip-tied to chairs in the center of the room, their security team were all in black, with the only notable item the sword Agravain wore.

She’d made a silly face at Colum after Agravain introduced himself, making his lips twitch as he recalled her enthusiasm on learning the knights in England changed their first names to that of one of the Knights of the Round Table when they became a knight.

Colum wasn’t smiling now.He looked more than just angry; he looked coldly furious.

Dangerous.

It was kinda hot.Scratch that, it was really hot.

“Why?”he demanded, standing in front of one of the would-be robbers.“What’re ye looking for?”

The man just smiled.

Annie had helped the Spartan Guard check them for weapons and ID before hauling them into the archive.The fact the men had nothing on them—no IDs, money, not even a car key—wasn’t a good sign.

Unlike the first attacker in Dublin, or the man in New York, these two were professionals.

Colum repeated his question, and the second man actually answered.

“If you want information,” he said in a smooth voice with an accent she couldn’t place, “you’ll have to torture us.”

Colum took a step back, some of the anger fading from his face and replaced with shock.The knight crossed his arms, and one Spartan Guard looked resigned, while the other tipped his head as if considering it.

Annie was past considering it.She knew how to access that place inside her where humanity was absent, and she could do horrible things.And if these two had come to hurt Colum or Xavier, she had no problem becoming that morally black person once more.

“Okay,” Annie said with a sunny smile, even as she whipped a knife from the sheath at the small of her back.“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”She winked at the man who’d spoken.