Page 5 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

“I had the first-class seat next to yours. It’s kind of a shame we wasted the boarding champagne. But then there was Nico to think about. Flying to Boston and back would have taken time.”

My eyes roll into the back of my head. I take the black one-piece swimsuit from him. “Turn around.”

“Turn around?” He grumbles, but he does it.

My clothes are off and the suit is on. “Okay.” It fits surprisingly well.

His eyes flash, and it’s everything I can do to keep my inner mermaid from taking him up on it. He’s wearing a long shirt, a long shirt with nothing on beneath it. The sinew from his muscular thighs engages as he comes closer to me.

“We should go.” I hold my clothes up as a barrier between us. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“Put them over there.”

“Why did you throw my bag away, then?”

His lips thin. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you with the knowledge about the crypt.”

“But the walk changed your mind.”

He gives me a single nod.

“And now you do?”

“And now I do.”

There’s no time to ask him why. We’re outside, and the door closes behind us. He’s got the yellow device in one hand and the waterproof bag in his other hand. It’s a lot fuller than it would be if it just held my documents.

“Straight in. When you can’t stand anymore, shift, like you do. And I’ll give you this.” He holds it up. “It’s simple to use.”

“Sure.” I eye the thing like it might take off like a cartoon rocket. Because I might be smart, but I’m not graceful. “How far out do we have to go?” The memory of Nico holding me to his chest as we swam in the icy water of Boston Harbor races in. It can’t be worse than that.

The water is colder than the air, and it takes me a minute to get myself balanced with the waves crashing at my thighs before I wade in to my waist. Eros is already swimming in water deeper than he can stand, but he hasn’t shifted. His head bounces on the waves close to me. I duck down and swim underwater to him. It’s a moment, but then I realize I’ve shifted into gills and it kind of happened automatically. Not one wheeze, cough, or gasp for breath. The guys are going to be so proud of me.

I’m proud of you too.Eros is holding on to the propulsion unit.Come here, Sunshine.He pulls me to him. In the next beat, my hands are on the metal of the propulsion unit, and his hands are over the top of mine.

I glance back at his fluke. It’s a brilliant blue.

Handsome, isn’t it?

It’s blue.

Yes.His neck is above mine. In his arms, I feel safe. I’m turning up the speed now, or it will take too long.

An hour later, my arms are vibrating and my eyes are drifting shut.

Stay with me, Sunshine. I know it’s a long way, but the alcove for my solo isn’t much farther.

I don’t want to ask and sound like a toddler. But the phrase “are we there yet” is stuck in the back of my head, and I’m doing my best to shield it from Eros hearing it every two minutes.

We’re going fast enough that I can’t make anything out. And I’m just hoping that Eros is watching well enough to keep us out of jellyfish swarms and away from untamed sharks. Because I can’t keep my focus on anything but where our hands join the yellow-cased motor. This journey is something I’m going to remember for the rest of my life—as something I don’t want to ever do again. Not even if I have a fluke.

Eros switches the motor off.Okay, Sunshine, we’re here.

I pry my fingers off the unit. We’re nowhere near the bottom of the ocean—or the surface, either.Where are we?

Eros leans in. He hits a button on his ring, and a cloakedsolomaterializes. We were on top of it, and I couldn’t see it. Not like the sub when Nico and I had the encounter with the shark.

Encounter. It makes it seem so innocent, right? But no, hissolois right here, and unlike Castor’s, this one shimmers like the color of water. Even outside the force-field, it has a glow about it that makes it feel difficult to nail down, even when you’re looking directly at it. When I came to land with Castor and Holter, they’d used a biggeromada, one that had an airlock in the back that allowed us to leave without flooding the entire vehicle.

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