Time Raiders: The Greek Lover. Jocelyn Kelley
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Time Raiders: The Greek Lover
Jocelyn Kelley
MILLS & BOON
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The first thing Zoe Rousakis sees after traveling through time to ancient Greece is a naked man. Drakon, a servant of Poseidon, has a body to rival the gods and a kiss that commands her to surrender every part of herself to him. When she’s with him, Zoe’s psychic powers fill her mind with enticingly erotic images. But her abilities have already cost her one mission, and she can’t risk being distracted by a man this time.
Yet how can she keep Drakon at bay when his own dark visions show him that Zoe is in danger—and that is his destiny to save her?
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Prologue
Fifty thousand years ago, after discovering that human females carried a nascent genetic potential that might one day develop into the ability to star navigate, the Pleiadian Council planted a dozen pieces of a bronze disk across the Earth, hidden in darkness until mankind advanced enough to travel through time and find them.
And then, out of the ashes of the mystery-shrouded Roswell Alien crash in 1947 arose a secret research project called Anasazi. Its improbable goal: learn to use the recovered alien technology for the purposes of time travel. General Beverly Ashton was the last to command this project before a dozen time travelers were inexplicably lost and the project disbanded.
However, the recent discovery of an ancient journal, known as the Ad Astra, has given Professor Athena Carswell the information she needs to begin sending modern time travelers back through human history in search of the twelve pieces of the Pleiadian medallion which, when fully reassembled, will send a signal to the Council indicating mankind is ready to be introduced to the rest of the galactic community.
Project Anasazi has secretly been reactivated, and General Ashton, now retired, and Professor Carswell are continuing the project’s work. They are carefully recruiting and training a team of military men and women to make the dangerous time jumps. But threats loom on the horizon, both from humans, who would see the project ended—or worse, steal the work and use it for nefarious ends—and from the Centauri Federation, which will do anything to stop humans from learning how to navigate the stars….
Chapter One
The first thing Zoe Rousakis saw when she emerged through time into a Grecian temple was the naked man. In the smoky light of the oil lamps, he knelt and cradled a shallow black bowl in his two strong hands. She could see that his sleek skin was pulled taut over firm muscles that literally glistened.
She wished she was that bowl so that she could feel his oiled skin against her own. She longed for his intense gaze to look at her as raptly as he stared into the bowl. Warmth surged through her, unbidden and unwanted.
This wasn’t the time for her hormones to go into overdrive. Zoe was on a mission to find a piece of the star medallion, and she couldn’t mess up. Not again. Not like the last time when an innocent person had suffered and she’d been forced to resign her army commission and give up the law. If she failed now, the whole world would pay.
Once all twelve pieces of the medallion were found, Earth could take its place among other worlds. The Earth women who possessed the Navigator gene would learn to send space ships great distances in little time. It was the galaxy’s only hope against the Centaurians who controlled interstellar trade. Seven pieces had been found so far. The most recently recovered medallion fragment suggested another was connected to Agnodice, an Athenian midwife. But where in the city was Agnodice?
And if the fragment was here, she knew the Centaurians would be, too, determined to halt Earth’s Time Raiders from recovering the pieces that made up the whole medallion.
Zoe wasn’t sweltering, so it must be winter. She glanced past the temple’s huge columns. In the distance, she saw another building ringed with columns. The Parthenon! Not in ruins, but with its friezes brightly painted and aglow in the late afternoon sun.
She wasn’t here to sightsee. The sooner she located Agnodice and the missing fragment, the less chance there was of her polluting the timeline. Professor Carswell could fix small incursions, but Time Raiders needed to be cautious. First things first… She was a woman. She could ask for directions.
“Excuse me, sir?” she called to the man holding the bowl. She thanked the technology that let her speak in ancient Greek and gave her information about her surroundings. Otherwise, she’d be lost in fourth century BC Athens.
He didn’t acknowledge her. He continued to stare into it.
She walked toward him, and her long dress flowed around her ankles. A chiton, her mind supplied. The Greek dress consisted of a square of yellow fabric pinned at the shoulders and belted at the waist with a cloth girdle decorated with embroidered flowers. Her fingers touched the ESC band on her upper left arm, hidden beneath her sleeve. Once she had the fragment, she could push the gem in its center and it was bye-bye, Athens.
Zoe saw, as she got closer, that the man wasn’t completely naked. He wore an undyed garment wrapped around his waist. It dropped to his thighs, leaving his muscular legs and feet bare. Disappointment pulsed through her.
“Excuse me?” she asked, a bit louder. Then a lot louder.
He ignored her.
Hey, she wanted to shout, I’m trying to save the world here.
She squatted beside him. Now so near to him that she could smell the clean fragrance of his skin, she was awed by the breadth of his shoulders.
Focus! she told herself.
He hadn’t stopped staring at that bowl. What was he looking at?
Zoe shifted to see what he found so fascinating. It put her at an odd angle. She started to tip over and had to put her hand out to steady herself. Her fingers touched his and the bowl.
There was no transition. One second, she was trying not to fall on her face; the next, she was falling through water. She couldn’t tell up from down. Images flashed into her head, like underwater lightning. Where was the surface? She felt like she was drowning.
Zoe flung out her arms and felt herself being tugged against a hard chest. The man who’d been looking into the bowl. Now his silver-gray eyes were aimed at her. He looked astonished and annoyed at the same time.
He pressed his mouth over hers. If she’d had any breath left, his kiss would have taken it away. It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a command