“Must make your ego feel good that you’re right up there with a dictator and royalty,” Delia mocked. Jake was a magnificent specimen of a man, no matter what age he hailed from. And he knew it. He also knew how to make a woman sing with utter bliss as his hands and lips ranged knowingly across her body….
Slamming the lid shut on the memory of the many times they’d made love, Delia gave him a fierce scowl. “Get the hell out of here, Tyler. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“How about a little peck on the cheek? A good-night kiss?”
“I can’t believe how brazen you are.” Her voice rose a notch. “We’re brother and sister, in case you forgot our cover story. What if a slave walks in unannounced and finds you kissing me?”
Laughing, Jake said, “Romans would think nothing of it. They had very pliable morals when it came to sex, in case you didn’t know.”
Her mouth flattening, Delia growled, “Leave. Now.”
“Sure?”
“Tyler, you are pushing the limits.”
“Okay, okay.” He leaned over and caressed her jaw, so naturally Delia didn’t even see it coming. They had been lovers for two years. The best years of Jake’s life, if he wanted to admit it, but his ego wouldn’t let him go that far. Fingers burning from contact with her soft flesh, he straightened and saw the shock flare to life in her gold eyes. “But you’ll be in my dreams tonight, my Greek goddess….”
That did it. Delia found herself moving into his arms. There was no mockery in his eyes, just hunger—for her. She slid her arms around his waist.
“I’m jealous, Jake. I see how Servilia looks at you.”
Thrilled with her response, Jake wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “The only woman I have eyes for is you. Didn’t that kiss back at the lab tell you that? Two years might be between us, but what we have never died. You know that.”
Shrugging, Delia murmured, “I seesaw back and forth with you, Jake. I want you, but I want the intimacy, too. All you want is the good sex we share, but not the emotional sharing, the intimacy.” She saw his eyes darken. It was his past that had made him wall up and never be available to her in an emotional sense. Delia had held out hope for two years that he’d eventually dissolve those walls and let her in. But he never did. Would this mission help him do that? She didn’t know.
“Even if you see me as a goddess,” she whispered, reaching up and grazing his cheek that now needed to be shaved, “I want to see the man you are. All of you, Jake. Someday, I’d like to share what you hold in your heart for me….” She pushed up on her toes and connected with his mouth. Her world halted and warmed beneath the strength of his arms as he crushed her against him. The air rushed from her. His hand moved through her hair in a gentle, searching motion. How Delia ached to love him—all of him. The commanding strength of his mouth took hers. And she surrendered to Jake just as she always had. The past was now her present. As she kissed him eagerly, Delia realized that what they shared in the past was back—just as steamy, raw and intense as before.
As his hand moved down across her tunic to caress her breast, she moaned. Tearing her mouth from his, she stepped out of his arms. “Jake…”
Breathing raggedly, he rasped, “If we weren’t here…”
“I know,” she said, her voice hauntingly low with desire.
Looking around, he wrestled with his desire. Mouth tingling, the taste of Delia on his lips, Jake gave her a long, intense look. “I’m not promising to keep my hands off you any chance I get on this mission, Del.”
“We can’t allow our feelings to compromise the mission. You know that.”
Nodding, Jake forced himself to move away from her. If he didn’t, he was going to lift Delia up into his arms, carry her over to that bed and keep her a prisoner within his arms all night long. “I know. And I agree. Mission first.”
Chapter 5
Centaurian Constellation
“M y lord Kentar,” said a male voice from Centaurian Central Command, “we are picking up variations in the time sine waves in the fourth quadrant of our galaxy.”
Kentar stood in front of his wall of computers with two male assistants. He scowled, his black brows dipping into a V of displeasure.
“I see,” he murmured as he pressed the glistening screen, which popped and moved with images from around the galaxy where his constellation of Sagittarius was located. Only his kind, the Centaurians, had the Navigator genes enabling them to wear the headband and journey back and forth in time. They could also fold time to allow instant movement of ships throughout the galaxy in the blink of a humanoid’s eye. No one could time travel without a headband. And there were no authorized Navigators in that region. “Which system?”
“My lord, it is Section 504. 2. A solar system with a small yellow sun surrounded by nine planets. The disturbance is coming from the third planet. According to my research data, it is inhabited by primitive humanoids.”
Brows knitting even further, Kentar brought up the solar system on the wall screen. “They call it Earth.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Looking at the data quickly downloading onto the massive screen, Kentar groaned. “This is where we lost that Navigator headband, isn’t it?”
“Yes, lost in a crash on a desert on one of their continents in 1947 A.D., by their time. There was a mission to capture fifty Earth women, but it failed due to the crash.”
Rubbing his square chin, Kentar studied the time ripple information. “Someone is utilizing that headband without our approval.”
“Yes, and it’s not the first time, my lord. The other occurrences were so swift that we couldn’t lock onto the energy of the headband to get real-time data. Since then, we’ve reset the sensitivity of our scanner, and caught him in the act.”
“I see the thief sent a person or persons back to 44 B.C., to a place called Rome in their Earth history. They managed to be successful in doing it. Julius Caesar was an emperor at that time.”
“Yes, my lord. It’s our first real opportunity to follow the energy on this time jump.”
Smiling slightly, Kentar nodded. “Indeed it is.” He knew that whoever was using the headband had the rare Navigator DNA required to work with this prized and precious device. Few peoples and cultures outside the Centaurians had that gene, but sometimes one or two humanoids would show up with it dominant. Kentar, as band stallion of his culture, made sure one of two things happened. His DNA allowed him to be immortal. Only his genes allowed that possibility among the Centaurian civilization. One day, when he was ready to relinquish his leadership, he would will himself to die and one of his handpicked sons would take over. But that time wasn’t now. Once found, such a humanoid either agreed to work for the Centaurian Federation, or was killed, to stop the potential passage of the special gene outside of Centaurian control.
“Do you want me to authorize a time jump to that planet by one of our Navigators? To have him go undercover and find out who has the missing headband, my lord?”
“Send Torbar Alhawa of the Desert Horse Clan. He’s had Earth missions before. Get Torbar as close as possible to the alien time-jump target zone. We can communicate with him when he checks in with command. We’ll identify the time jumper and trace him or her back to whoever has our lost headband.” Rubbing his long fingers together, he said with pleasure, “And then, we can finally retrieve what is ours.” It was to Kentar’s undying shame that the device had been lost on a mission he’d initiated. No one wanted that black mark erased from his family’s name more than he.
“Yes, my lord. I’ll get the mission underway immediately.”
Kentar went to his desk. His office was at the top of a thirty-story glass structure held aloft with gleaming silver metal from the mines of the Taurean constellation. The day was bright, the sun making the sky a kelly-green color. Two moons were slowly rising in the west above the Centaurian city of Pegasus.
On his desk computer he quickly sifted through information about Earth. Historically, a Navig
ator assigned to guide a Centaurian cruiser had chosen to get a closer look. He had taken one of the small saucer-shaped launches and entered the atmosphere of that planet, planning to check on female humanoids, who had strongly exhibited the genetics needed to operate the organic headband. The energy connection between it and the person became as one and therefore, organic. The Navigator was to steal fifty females and bring them here, to the Centaurian capitol, for testing.
“Didn’t work back in 400 B.C.,” Kentar muttered, checking the ancient mission notes. Centaurians were always looking for other species possessing paranormal genes to work with time travel. They had discovered in 10,000 B.C., on a routine mission to test humanoids in this quadrant of the galaxy, that females of Earth possessed such DNA. And in 400 B.C., a mission was launched to verify the fact. They had captured a hundred Earthlings and brought them back to Pegasus, to work with in their scientific laboratory.
“Bunch of animals,” Kentar growled unhappily to himself. The females were wild, violent, ignorant, and fought the Centaurians. They refused to work with them or even allow the vaunted Navigator band to be placed on their heads for trials and scientific tests. In the end, they had to be slaughtered and burned.
Unfortunately, the Galactic Council got wind of the covert mission and Centaurians had been penalized as a result. According to the rules of the Galactic Council, no one could extract members of a species from their world for transport to another without approval.
Rubbing his chin, Kentar continued to frown as he reviewed other missions that had been initiated in order to keep tabs on Earth’s evolving humanoids. His people kept secret why they’d kidnapped the Earthlings. The council thought they wanted them as slaves and nothing more. If word ever got out that Earth females possessed the Navigator gene, it could mean the end of Centaurian power.
Band stallion leaders through the centuries had carefully kept silent about their find to the Galactic Council, of which they were a powerful member. In order for them to remain the prime traders, the Navigator headband had to be zealously guarded, available only to their species. The potential of Earthling females was a dangerous secret they harbored; if word ever got out, their empire might crumble.
Oh, it was true, Kentar sourly acknowledged, that populations of one or two other constellations might possess a genetic anomaly, and a humanoid would sometimes be born with the DNA required to work with the headband. In those cases, Centaurian spies traveling throughout the galaxy found these rare beings and urged them to join and be trained by the Centaurians. Most did, because it meant high status in the federation, great wealth and a chance to operate an organic spaceship responsive only to a Navigator. Those who didn’t died in mysterious circumstances, their killers never found.
These trading vessels plied the entire galaxy by warping in and out of the time sine waves, orchestrated by the Navigator wearing the headband. The ship, with the help of the headband, connected with the Navigator’s mind and desire. The organic melding between metal and human could only occur because of the combination of the Centaurian’s specialized DNA. That was why Kentar kept a sharp eye out for recessive gene anomalies becoming dominant among other species. The Centaurians maintained a stranglehold on the commodity market of inner and outer space travel. As a result, every constellation in the galaxy had to hire a Centaurian Navigator if they wanted to be in the galactic trade business. Journeys by obsolete spaceships plying outer space could take years or even centuries to complete. With a Centaurian Navigator wearing a headband, they plied inner space, taking only a matter of minutes to go from one point in the galaxy to another.
Kentar saw his second in command, Charl, a promising young stallion in his forties, approach his desk. Charl’s clan was the draft horse breed and he had the body of one: short, stocky and heavily muscled. His ancient family line hailed from the Belgian breed and he had the flaxen hair and chestnut-colored skin to prove it. “Yes?”
“My lord, this is an exciting discovery regarding that missing headband. Are you satisfied with sending Torbar? Perhaps you should go there yourself?” Charl knew the shame Kentar carried, from losing the headband on a mission he’d initiated. Charl saw this as a ripe opportunity to have his beloved leader boost his image among the populace. Who better to retrieve it than the lord of the band?
Kentar rubbed the back of his neck, considering the request. There was a thick ridge of flesh running from his hairline over his skull and down his spine to his tailbone. At one time in Centaurian history, millions of years ago, their horse ancestors had evolved into centaurs, half horse and half humanoid. Eventually, they’d become bipedal, their mane and tail atrophying to the point where only a ridge of thick, hard flesh reminded them of their equine roots. Across the galaxy, the trait identified them immediately as a Centaurian, for no other humanoid species had a similar feature.
“Perhaps, Charl,” Kentar said thoughtfully. “Follow the mission for now. Let’s see what Torbar can turn up in 44 B.C. If he fails, then I will consider going.”
Bowing briskly, his assistant turned and went back to work at the massive screen. The galactic business of the Centaurians flashed continuously across it, posting orders, updates, departures and arrivals in foreign star systems.
Kentar’s mind ranged back to the rebel on Earth who possessed their valuable Navigator headband. Torbar should be in position there tomorrow. What would he find?
Torbar Alhawa snapped the neck of General Marcus Brutus’s chief scribe, Seuso. The man, a Greek in his late fifties, uttered a sharp cry and sank like a bag of grain onto the blue-and-white mosaic floor. When Torbar had materialized, the scribe had looked up from his table, surprise and shock on his clean-shaven face. Possessing strength superior to any Earthling, Torbar had stepped forward and killed the scribe.
Thanks to Navigator technology and the thin gold band he wore around his head, Torbar knew all he needed to know. Stretching Seuso’s body on the floor near his chair, he arranged the scene to look as if the old scribe had fallen and broken his scrawny neck, thereby dying of natural causes.
Feeling a rush of satisfaction, Torbar straightened. In time jumps like this, he would often possess the body of someone close to the center of the action. When a second scribe came into the room moments later, Torbar immediately did so.
Settling into his stolen persona, Torbar quickly absorbed all he needed to know. Kapaneas was a scribe in Seuso’s employ—the number-two scribe to General Brutus, who had served Julius Caesar for decades.
Flexing his long, veined hands, Torbar quickly left the well-lit room and called out in Latin for help. Instantly, two Roman Praetorians, guards who protected Caesar and his staff, came clanking down the hall in their hobnail boots. Their armor was of hardened leather; the helmets were red horsehair crests. Each man had drawn his gladius, the short sword that was his main protection.
“He’s dead!” Torbar cried, pointing at the opened door. “I walked in and found Seuso dead!”
The guards hustled past him. Torbar stood in the semidark hall and smiled. He knew the drill: the guards would call General Brutus’s physician, also a Greek, and he would pronounce the scribe dead.
Pulling his black wool cloak closer to his body against the chill, wintry draft in the hall, Torbar headed toward Kapaneus’s own apartment, located in the peristylium. In the morning, he knew, General Brutus would declare him his chief scribe.
As he went, Torbar kept his mind open and receptive. A Navigator had many paranormal talents, one being an ability to read minds. Torbar felt the messy turmoil of the Roman guards finding the scribe lifeless on the floor. And he sensed the thoughts of several slaves lingering nearby in the passageways, nervously waiting to be called. So, he wondered, what did General Brutus have to do with Julius Caesar and this lost Navigator headband?
Telling himself to be patient, which was not his forte, Torbar remembered he was in the forty-year-old body of a Greek scribe. The man was too thin, and pathetically out of shape, but Torbar would have to d
eal with it for now. Another Navigator talent was the ability to subdue the spirit of a person possessed. Torbar could read the scribe’s mind and know what he knew, information that would come in very handy. And when Torbar finished his assignment and left Earth, returning to headquarters in the Centaurian constellation, the spirit of the Greek would come back, and the scribe would continue to live. However, Kapaneus would have no memory of Torbar’s residency in his body, or what had happened; it would all be a blank to him.
Yes, “possessing” was a unique quality that allowed Centaurians to maintain superiority in the galaxy. No one but a genetically advanced Navigator could accomplish such a magnificent feat. Again Torbar smiled.
Pushing open the wooden door of the scribe’s apartment, he entered the warm room, brightly lit with braziers. What would tomorrow bring? Who had the headband? And more importantly, what person had made the time jump back here, and why?
“By the gods,” Brutus snarled, “this is a curse!” Upset to learn his chief scribe had died of a stupid accident, he sat in the dining room scowling at his breakfast of warm milk, olives, goat cheese and bread. His slave attendants winced at the angry tone in his deep, thunderous voice.
The physician, Eusebios, nodded his balding head sorrowfully. “Not a curse, General, but old age. Seuso had complained lately of feeling dizzy, of the room whirling around him. He must have had a spell, then fell and broke his neck. I am sorry, my lord.”
Brutus, who was dressed in a wheat-colored wool tunic and thick yellow cloak, glared at the Greek. “So be it, Doctor.” He lifted his chin and glanced toward Torbar, who sat in a corner of the room, ready to record whatever the general wished him to.
“Kapaneus?”
“Yes, my lord?” Torbar said, keeping his head bent respectfully.
“You will now be my chief scribe.”
Time Raiders: The Seeker Page 6
