Matt looked down at Michaela as she led him toward what was possibly the most famous museum in the Western world. He wasn't upset about going, but he hadn't expected to visit until they'd had a week or so of wandering around Paris.

"Why the change in itinerary, angel?"

She tilted her fedora back and looked up at him. "You just love calling me that, don't you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. So why are we here this soon?"

Michaela pulled her fedora back down to shade her eyes. She used to wear sunglasses everywhere, but since they'd first started dating, she'd gotten less embarrassed about her looks. She wasn't ugly. She was as far from it as it was possible to be, really. Even when she looked annoyed, she was gorgeous.

"I can't help but thinking this is the next spot on our list that used to be an Imperial Museum."

"I think it may have been an Imperial palace at one point, but I'm not sure it was ever an Imperial..."

"You know something, I think it is possible to be way too serious and way too smart."

He glanced back down at her, only to find her grinning back up at him, amusement that was absent in her voice plain on her face.

"So, you're trying to get the jump on our mystery thieves?"

"Or thief, yeah. I figure if we talk with the authorities here, we might be able to at least keep him from getting his hands on the art this time. Do you think they'll listen?"

Matt thought about that while they walked closer to the glass pyramid at the front of the museum. "I'm fairly certain we can find someone to take our warning, but getting someone to listen? Probably not."

Michaela sighed. "Well, at least we can try."

***

Michaela looked up at Matt as he strode quietly through the museum. They'd spoken with a public relations staffer, then with a security supervisor. She knew how much it cost Matt to lean on his godparents' names or reputations, but he'd done so for the sake of her hunch. When he explained who Micah was, the security chief contacted his superiors, who arranged a brief meeting with the head of security.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

It had been a very brief meeting. The head of security was already aware of the robberies at the other Imperial Museums. Unlike Matt, who specialized in forensic science and only studied history when it intersected with one of his hobbies, Michaela knew that it actually had been an Imperial Museum. She'd been a security guard at the time. Sometimes Matt forgot how old she was. She found it endearing.

At any rate, the head of security was on alert, but he couldn’t do anything more than that. He had been grateful about the tip regarding all the artwork originally belonging to a single owner, but the Louvre's collection was so large that guessing about whether a particular ex owner of a particular part of the collection was the same as the mystery owner was a quick ticket to madness. He had at least confirmed that no parts of the massive collection had ever been owned by Koibito or Lubitlem.

That left them with the original purpose of their visit. Sightseeing. Michaela felt like they hadn't really done anything, but the museum staffer that had guided them through the bureaucracy had been grateful enough to outfit them with badges identifying them as security visiting from another museum. That wasn't quite true, but given the number of times they'd helped out in Micah and Phil's museum, it might as well have been.

"What are you thinking about, sweetheart?"

Michaela stopped, a little stunned, as Matt interrupted her woolgathering. He'd been so absorbed by the art that she thought he was completely oblivious to her.

"I'm never completely unaware of you, Michaela. You're... you're a part of me."

She felt the heat rushing across her face. She wished she was a poet, like David or Solomon, but that wasn't her gift. The angel from whom she'd inherited her name, memories and power hadn't been created to make things. He'd been created to fight. She was very good at that. So much so that at times she worried about being good for anything else.

For the second time in as many minutes, she jumped as Matt interrupted her train of thought, this time by slipping his hand around hers and lifting it to his lips as he knelt in front of her. After placing a feather soft kiss on her knuckles, he pulled her hand up to his temple and leaned against it. He stayed that way, eyes closed, for a long time. Eventually, just before she thought she'd explode if she didn't fidget, he opened his eyes, looked at her, and smiled.

"I've been looking around this museum for the past hour, and I've yet to see anything half as beautiful as you."

A surge of affection, mixed liberally with darker, headier emotions rushed through her.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

"No. Not yet. But I certainly want to do so at some point. For now..."

"Yeah?"

"Let's just savor the anticipation."