Jordan (6 page)

“So if a world isn’t an ally of the Tribes, they’re an enemy?”

Eyes grim, he nodded. “In one instant, they killed billions.”

He must have lost family, friends, and coworkers. No wonder he was bitter.

Resisting his magnetism when she was angry was difficult; resisting when she felt sympathy was almost impossible. “Oh, Jordan.
I’m so sorry.”

She wanted to reach out and hold him. Just hold him. Even though they’d been physical in the most intimate sense, this wasn’t
a relationship. Couldn’t be.

She couldn’t forget he’d lied to get the job as chief engineer, lied about being Chen. He was good at spinning tales.

As if sensing her doubts, Jordan actually volunteered information. “I joined Arthur to stop the Tribes. We almost succeeded.”

“Almost?”

“There’s an ancient galactic legend that says that when the Ancient Staff and the Holy Grail are united, only then will the
Tribes fall. By the time Arthur found the Holy Grail on Earth, the Ancient Staff had been stolen from me.”

“That Staff?” She pointed at the
Draco’
s power source.

He nodded. “I recovered it on a world the Tribes had enslaved.”

“Where did the Staff come from originally?”

“Dominus.”

“And you needed the
Draco
to unite the Staff with the Grail?”

He nodded.

“How did you pay for your half of this ship?”

“The city of Barcelona runs on solar power. But remember a few months ago when atypical rain caused rolling brownouts?”

“What of it?”

“I sold them power.” He jerked his thumb at the Staff.

That would explain his having the funds, but she still had doubts. “Don’t you think it’s a tad dangerous to bring that Staff
into Tribe territory? They already have the Grail. According to your legend, if they steal the Staff again, they win.”

“Uniting the Staff and the Grail is the only way to defeat them.”

She shook her head. “There’s always another way.”

“Captain,” Tennison interrupted as he floated around the threshold. “The engines look okay. Sean thinks they just overheated
but aren’t damaged. Gray said if you restore the power, we can recharge and turn the gravity back on.”

“Good work.”

Kneeling, Jordan pressed the crystal at the top of the Ancient Staff and the artifact began to hum and glow. He’d told her
it didn’t have an off button, but clearly he could adjust the flow of energy. But it was hard to think. Her scales undulated.
Her breasts ached.

God, no. Not again. She couldn’t afford to have her mind clouded by lust. Dealing with Jordan was difficult enough without
the added complications of sex. But her blood stirred. Her pulse kicked up a notch.

She stared at the Grail. “What’s going on? What is that thing doing to us?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” He shot her a piercing look. “You aren’t telepathic, are you?”

“If I could have read your mind, I would have stopped you from launching the
Draco
.” And she would have avoided ending up in that engine room with him. Avoided this desperate wanting.

“Turn down the power,” she whispered, trying not to sound as if she was begging.

“I can’t.” A shadow crossed his face. “We need everything we’ve got to power the
Draco.
”

All that we are is the summation of our experiences and thoughts.

—K
ING
A
RTHUR
P
ENDRAGON

L
et’s get the hell away from here.” Jordan stalked from the engine room. After over fifteen hundred years of mostly solitary
endeavors, he now had to become accustomed to working with others. But being around Vi was a major problem.

For one thing, she was independent and accustomed to doing things her own way. For another, every time he came near her, he
recalled her vivid memories from her mother’s birthday. Her excitement. Her childish joy.

Just reliving her happy memory had made him want to know the adult Vivianne much better. He groaned. Like the recollection
of how soft her skin had felt under his fingertips wasn’t tempting enough?

Their lust had caused a savage meltdown. One taste of her had only whetted his appetite for more. Being with her had been
one of the most memorable moments in his long life. Vivianne Blackstone was too smart, too bossy, and much too damn sexy for
him not to like her, but he couldn’t afford the distraction.

He’d made a solemn vow to stop the Tribes from doing to any other world what they had done to Dominus. While he hadn’t expected
that losing the Staff would delay him fifteen centuries, his resolve to stop the Tribes had never faltered. He wouldn’t allow
himself to get sidetracked.

Not even by Vi.

Although he’d love to know more about her, what made her laugh, what made her happy, what drove her to be such a successful
businesswoman, he could not afford to indulge his curiosity.

Floating through the corridor, he headed toward the galley. Holding the dog under her arm, Vi had no difficulty keeping up.
Yet her voice was breathless, no doubt because of the Staff’s effects.

“So that Staff is responsible for what happened between us?” she asked.

“The Staff’s more than an energy source.”

“And?” she prodded as if she sensed his reluctance.

“It can nourish all kinds of energy. Electric. Magnetic. Cosmic.”

“Sexual?” Her green eyes darkened with intensity, yet her voice remained calm and contained. Still, she couldn’t totally suppress
a hint of yearning that was the Staff filling her with desire.

“Sexual energy? Yes. But it can be
any
kind of energy. For example, when I live in a dragon’s shape it takes tremendous energy. Living as a human takes less. When
I don’t have enough to maintain human form, I can morph into a creature that needs even less energy to survive.”

“You can shapeshift because of the Staff.” A delighted grin lit up her face. “Are you saying you’re a dragonshaper, even though
you don’t have scales in human form? And you also can change to…?”

“An owl.” He damn well wasn’t going to tell her he couldn’t morph without the Staff nearby. But if she thought she could cleverly
pull a secret from him, she might go along with his plans more easily.

“Prove it,” she said.

“There’s not enough room to dragonshape here.” He halted in the middle of the corridor and gave her time to catch up.

“Show me the owl,” she requested.

Gray’s voice filtered through the speakers. “Warning. Gravity coming back on.”

“Good work, people.” Jordan believed in complimenting his team. It cost nothing and boosted morale.

Vi shoved her feet toward the deck. Jordan did the same, and then he morphed into an owl. His cells compressed. His limbs
shrank and his arms became wings and his skin grew feathers. His pupils changed from blue to golden, and his eyesight sharpened.
He lost some of his intellect. His clothing shrank with his body, the nanobots leaving him with only a collar. He flew around
her head, then humanshaped back into a man. And the nanobots quickly clothed him again.

“When King Arthur suffered a mortal wound, he feared the Grail would fall into the hands of the Tribes. So before he died,
we brought the Grail to the Pendragon Moon and placed the healing cup inside Avalon.” Jordan had spent his time on that moon,
trapped in owl form, unable to fight the Tribes. While he’d often accompanied each High Priestess, his abilities were severely
limited without his Staff. “When Lucan Roarke, your archeologist, made his journey home, I accompanied him and his wife Cael
from her Pendragon moon.”

“Lucan filled me in, but he never mentioned you were a dragonshaper.”

“He didn’t know. Neither did his wife, Cael. At the time, they thought I was only an owl.”

Her eyes lit with suspicion. “Why did you tell
me?
”

“Because you and I have to work together to recover the Grail from the Tribes.”

“You want
my
help?”

“It seems preferable to locking you up in a cabin for the duration of the voyage,” he muttered.

She cocked her head and petted the dog, not looking the least bit scared. But she should be. Ignoring his threat to her freedom,
she circled back to the subject. “So exactly why did we have sex when we don’t much like each other?”

He bit back a snort. She could speak for herself. He liked her plenty. He just didn’t
want
to like her. He had no time for a woman in his life. He’d had a few flings, but never had he allowed himself more than physical
gratification. There’d be no emotional entanglements. He needed to focus all his energy on stopping the Tribes.

“The Ancient Staff has powers that I don’t fully understand.” The Tribes had blown up Dominus before he’d been fully trained
in the Staff’s powers. “You saw me switch up the power by pushing the crystal?” he asked, certain she’d carefully watched
his every move. “There are two other crystals that serve as keys. We must find them to make the Staff fully functional.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re saying the Staff’s working on minimum power and may not be at full capacity?”

“Yes.”

“And if you find the missing keys, the Staff might be stronger?”

“Perhaps.”

She shook her head. “Suppose it increases our lust even more?”

He shrugged. “You’re free to get off at the next stop.”

“That’s a birdbrained idea.”

He choked back a chuckle.

“I don’t like that thing randomly messing with my libido.” Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it to control the quiver.

“I’m sorry. But we need to—”

“Don’t tell me what I need to do.” She raised her head and glared. “You only paid for half this ship. That means I still own
half.” He’d known this was coming. If she wanted to believe she was in charge half the time, he’d do his best to support her
theory—as long as she didn’t get in the way of his mission. “And we may be cocaptains, but I’m keeping my distance from that
Ancient Staff. And you, too.”

“If you must.” Keeping her distance wouldn’t help, but he didn’t have time to argue or explain. She wasn’t fooling him with
that cocaptains offer. Vi was too much of a control freak to share command. They’d be going head-to-head.

And perversely, he looked forward to it. He liked that she had a backbone. Enjoyed the way her mind worked. And he loved her
sexy ass.

It was a good thing she couldn’t read his thoughts, or she would have decked him. Hell, for his own sake, he shouldn’t be
thinking about how great she smelled or tasted or felt with those long legs wrapped around his hips. It was better for the
mission if he kept his distance.

He started to turn toward the galley. “You want to run systems checks while I figure out what those things were coming at
us in hyperspace?”

“All right. But do you have any idea where those missing keys are?”

He’d been trying to figure that out for fifteen hundred years. “During my first trip to Earth, I gave one key to King Arthur
for safekeeping, but it was stolen. Later, Trendonis, the Tribes’ leader, stole my Staff with the other two keys still embedded
in the bark. When I finally got the Staff back, all the keys were gone. I found the triangular one on Tor, but the others
could be anywhere.”

“The staff was stolen in King Arthur’s time on Earth?”

“Yes.”

“And you found it again on the same world where Marisa, Lucan’s sister, visited and found evidence that the Tribes are about
to invade Earth?”

“Yes.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “But how could that have happened?”

“One of King Arthur’s knights was a man named Gareth. Long ago, he betrayed me and all dragonshapers to Trendonis. Gareth
helped steal the Staff for the Tribes.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“The Tribes were very powerful in those days, and Arthur couldn’t defend every world. He had to make hard choices, like which
planets to defend and which to sacrifice. One of the worlds Arthur sacrificed was Tor, and Gareth blamed Arthur.”

“So Gareth made a deal with the enemy leader Trendonis?”

“In exchange for Gareth’s help to murder King Arthur and steal my Staff, Trendonis promised Gareth that Tor would remain free
of the Tribes.” Jordan sighed. “When I was last on Tor I found the Key of Space, in Gareth’s ancient home.”

“Key of Space?”

“The key changed a rusting ship into a shiny new one so it could fly through space. The other keys are Wind and Soil. When
all the keys are attached to the Staff, they create a fire strong enough to unite with the Grail.”

“But if Trendonis wanted to prevent the Staff and the Grail from ever uniting, why didn’t he destroy them when he had the
chance?”

“According to legend, the Staff and the keys are indestructible.”

She frowned skeptically. “So Trendonis scattered the keys across the galaxy?”

He nodded. “Without the keys, the Staff isn’t at full power and can’t unite with the Grail and utterly destroy the Tribes.”

“So why didn’t he drop the keys into a black hole?”