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 sheâs with him, Zoeâs psychic powers fill her mind with enticingly erotic images. But her abilities have already cost her one mission, and she canât 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 dangerâand that is his destiny to save her?
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 projectâs 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 endedâor worse, steal the work and use it for nefarious endsâand from the Centauri Federation, which will do anything to stop humans from learning how to navigate the starsâ¦.
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 wasnât the time for her hormones to go into overdrive. Zoe was on a mission to find a piece of the star medallion, and she couldnât mess up. Not again. Not like the last time when an innocent person had suffered and sheâd 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 galaxyâs 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 Earthâs Time Raiders from recovering the pieces that made up the whole medallion.
Zoe wasnât sweltering, so it must be winter. She glanced past the templeâs 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 wasnât 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.
âExcuse me, sir?â 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, sheâd be lost in fourth century BC Athens.
He didnât 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.