Dark Lover

“Now ye do,” he said flatly. “Yer a Rose. Yer cousin married my father. Of course ye’d hunt Hemmer now.”

Sam stared, finally somewhat diverted from his sexuality and virile appeal. Was he in touch with Brie? “Is the page the real deal?”

“The page?” Both dark brows lifted. “I don’t know. Rupert must think so.”

He sure must, to spend over two hundred million dollars on it, Sam thought.

“Are ye sure ye won’t have a drink with me? We can discuss our mutual interests.” His eyes sparked with amusement.

She looked at the bed behind him. “Really sure.”

“Ye’ll change yer mind.”

“If you say so.” She smiled at him, mocking him now. “Hey, Maclean? I’ll be the first one into the vault—when Rupert offers me a private viewing later this evening.”

He was amused. “Really? An’ what if I offer ye the viewing now?”

She went still. “Are you kidding?”

His long, thick lashes lowered briefly. “I want to make amends.”

For one moment, she almost believed him. She knew he was trying to play her, though, and that was as far as it went. But two could play his game. “Get me in and I might forgive you.”

His lashes lifted and his gray gaze met hers. When he didn’t move or speak, she pushed past him and he followed her into the elevator.

“A word of advice,” he said conversationally as the elevator began its descent. “I always get what I want.”

“Good. That makes two of us—we have so much in common!” The elevator was too small for them both. His big, masculine body was filling up the small space. But he was going to get her into the vault and that was what she needed to focus on. “How are the new digs, by the way?”

“Why don’t ye come by an’ see for yourself?”

She thought that worth a trip uptown. “Any interesting art you can show me? Maybe a stolen masterpiece or two?”

His smile returned. “So ye have been thinking about me.”

“It’s called homework.”

He grinned, pleased. As the elevator door opened, Sam walked past him, annoyed all over again. Maybe the real problem was his looks. He looked almost exactly like his father, Aidan of Awe, and that made him nearly irresistible. If he didn’t have that dark, thick hair, those pale, sizzling gray eyes, the deep dimples when he smiled and the features of an Adonis, his sexuality wouldn’t be so overwhelming. He’d just be a gross horndog.

But he did look like one of the gods he was descended from. She’d be a liar if she didn’t admit that he was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever laid eyes on—and she hadn’t even seen his body in the buff.

Well, she’d seen the one part that counted the most—in her book, anyway. She thought about the silver ring, her insides lurching, breathless all over again. That piercing had to have hurt like holy hell.

“It’s steel,” he said softly. “Not silver.”

Her gaze slammed to his. He’d read her mind—and proved just how telepathic he was.

She led the way to the vault, focusing on the task at hand but terribly aware of him behind her. The back of Hemmer’s penthouse was as empty as before. She paused, gesturing at the steel door facing them. “I can sense evil and good. Right now, I can’t feel a thing.”

He gave her a look she could not decipher, then reached for the heavy door handle. Sam had expected him to leap into the vault, taking her with him. “What are you doing?” she asked sharply, waiting for the alarms to start screaming. But an utter silence remained.

He smiled and turned the lever. The steel door opened.

He turned. “Come.”

“How did you do that?” Sam asked, surprised.

He slowly smiled. “It’s as easy as the leap through time.”

It was clear that Maclean had used his mind to unlock the door and turn off the sensors and alarms. Now that was an incredibly useful trick—especially for a thief.

“So that’s how you got the van Gogh?”

He sent her a modest smile, gesturing politely for her to precede him inside.

Interior lights had come on as the door had opened. Sam walked past him, her gaze wide, scanning the rows of stunning masterpieces on the two walls. The vault was like a long tunnel. “Who would want to keep their art locked up this way?” While she was not an art aficionado, she was damned sure she recognized the work of artists she’d seen at the Met, the Whitby and the Guggenheim. Hemmer had a priceless collection, if she did not miss her guess.

Maclean hadn’t answered and she glanced back at him. He had loosened his tie and was now unbuttoning his collar, as if uncomfortable. The temperature in the vault was carefully controlled. “Hemmer lusts fer art the way demons lust fer sex and death.”

“Is he evil?”

He gave her a look that said, “yes.”

“How much did he pay you for the van Gogh?” she asked casually, not missing a beat. Not that she could trap him into an admission he didn’t care to make.

His response was as immediate. “Thirty million.” He smiled, tugging at his collar again. “I gave him a deal.”

Sam snorted. She looked carefully around again. “Something’s wrong,” she said, uncertain of what she was feeling. She strained to sense what was tugging at her and she felt the faintest wafting of evil, drifting toward them. “Do you feel that?”

He nodded. “It’s within.”

Sam ignored him, trying to isolate the rest of her feelings. She felt a stirring of holy power. It seemed to beckon her. It was to her left. She turned, trying to follow it, and faced a huge landscape of a lush European countryside, probably from the eighteenth century. She started to remove it from the wall.

Instantly Maclean came over to help her. The moment they lifted it up, the page from the Duisean faced them.

It was framed and under glass, but the aged and faded parchment shimmered with power and light. Some of the written words seemed three-dimensional. “It is real,” Sam said harshly, holding up one end of the large landscape. “But the power is distant, somehow.”

“The power is contained,” Maclean said thoughtfully. “I think ye need a spell to unleash it.”

They looked at each other. Sam was thinking about Tabby when Ian said, “Hemmer.”

“Are you sure?” Sam didn’t hear anyone approaching and she didn’t feel danger. As they quickly set the landscape back, Maclean said, “My senses are greater than yours.”

“Then maybe we should hurry.” Sam rushed out of the vault, Ian behind her, aware now of voices farther down the corridor. Maclean pushed the steel door closed and she heard it automatically lock. The voices grew louder, and she could hear their footsteps approaching.

Sam didn’t think twice about what she had to do. She seized Maclean’s tie and used it as a leash to jerk him a few steps down the hall, away from the vault’s door. She shoved him against the wall, still holding his tie tightly in her fist.

He knew what she was about to do and he smiled smugly.