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Air Force officer Marisol Vasquez was chosen for a dangerous time-travel mission for her ability to see through the eyes of animals. Sent back nearly six hundred years to the Incan empire, she’s committed to finding the precious alien artifact she’s been assigned to recover.
But Marisol’s mission hits a snag when she’s given as a gift to the emperor’s shaman, a mysteriously sexy man who is determined to seduce her. Suddenly Marisol’s devotion to her task faces an entirely unexpected threat: the hazard of fierce, all-consuming lust….
Contents
The Beginning
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
The Beginning
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 its 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
Marisol Vasquez fell into a grassy field feetfirst. Though she’d done everything she’d trained for in the Air Force Pararescue unit she’d been recruited from, the landing knocked the wind out of her.
She lay for a moment, rocks pressing into her sides, the colorful, woolen native dress she’d been given to wear hiked up around her thighs.
With her pulse pounding in her ears, she felt for the bracelet that was her only link to the twenty-first century, her only way back to her world, her time, her life. Not until her fingers wrapped around the cool metal did she breathe a sigh and push to a sitting position to take in her new surroundings.
The field was a small plateau nestled in the Peruvian Andes near the Urubamba Valley of what she knew to be South America. Below her stretched the center of the ancient Incan Empire, the divine city of Cusco, founded and expanded by the great Incan ruler Pachacuti.
Marisol stood up, her gaze taking in the view of the sprawling city below. Spread out before her, bigger than she’d ever imagined, was the reason for her journey across time and distance. She found Cusco’s sheer size and density to be much more intimidating than she’d originally anticipated. For the first time since Marisol had agreed to this extraordinary mission, she wondered if she was in over her head.
She’d traveled from Arizona to Peru and over five hundred and sixty years back through time in the blink of an eye. Marisol was a highly trained Air Force Combat Rescue Officer with a special ability to communicate with animals and “see” through their eyes.
“Now all I have to do is walk right into the city, locate Pachacuti’s palace and find what I came here for. Easy, right?”
“Depends on what you are looking for,” a voice said behind her.
Marisol spun toward the voice, crouching in a fighting position. Sure of only one thing—the language translator implanted behind her ear was working.
A man lounged across the lush green grass, a woven cloth spread with a variety of fruits, cheese and bread arranged before him. What struck Marisol wasn’t that he was a man but that he wasn’t what she’d expected to see in Pachacuti’s Incan Empire.
He wore sandals and a short wool skirt that exposed amazingly thick thighs. His top half was bare but for two large gold bands around his upper arms. He had a bright red cape slung across shoulders so broad they could have easily filled any modern doorway.
Marisol gulped at the breath catching in her throat.
It wasn’t his clothing or his jewelry that took her aback. The long, white-blond hair hanging past his shoulders and his ice-blue eyes captivated her. Where had this Norse god sprung from? The Spaniards weren’t due to arrive for several more years and even they weren’t as pale as this man who was a freak among the dark Incas.
“Who are you?” Marisol wondered if she’d landed in the wrong time or place.
He raised his eyebrows. “You are the intruder to my peace. Perhaps you should be so kind as to gift me with your name, first.”
Seeing no reason to withhold her identity, she answered, “Marisol Vasquez.”
The man tipped his head in a regal manner, a smile twitching his lips. “I am Gunnar.”
“That tells me a lot.” She cast another glance around at the hillsides and the metropolis stretched out before her. “Am I right in assuming that the city below is Cusco?”
“You are correct.” He remained in the supine position, tossing a mango in one hand.
“What business have you with the Incan ruler?”
Marisol’s eyes widened. “Do you mean Pachacuti?”
Gunnar nodded. “Everyone in the land knows of the great Pachacuti. It surprises me that you must ask. Are you a stranger from a foreign land?”
“Yes. I am.” She glanced toward the city. “I need to get to the palace.”
“Ah, yes. To find something.” He plucked another fruit from the assortment on the blanket in front of him. The muscles in his arm and shoulder rippled, sending corresponding waves of awareness through Marisol. His full sensuous lips closed around the fruit as he bit into the flesh.
Mesmerized by the slow, deliberate tasting, Marisol could only watch as the man called Gunnar consumed the sweet, his jaw moving as he sucked the juices out of the fruit.
An image of those lips caressing her nipples flashed through Marisol’s mind, knocking her back a step. She shook herself, forcing back any sensual thoughts of the stranger, his lips or the fruit he suckled.
Long, broad fingers twirled the half-eaten fruit in his hand, his gaze on what he held, not her. “You will not get into the palace by walking in. There are guards at every entrance.”
She suspected the palace of a ruler would have tight security, but hearing a stranger tell her she couldn’t do something, coupled with her unwanted desire, got Marisol’s hackles up. “You don’t know how determined I can be.”
“As a woman, you’ll be challenged unless you have a proper escort.” He sounded bored, unconcerned about whether or not she’d gain entrance into the ruler’s inner sanctum.
Marisol wasn’t certain she could trust this stranger who seemed all too willing to share the palace details. Was he an enemy to the great Pachacuti? “Are you volunteering to be my escort?”
“Not at all. However, an escort is needed and if you want one, I do know how you can attain one.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Please, the suspense is killing me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Rather the suspense than the guards, pretty lady. They can be quite merciless to women of the Incan Empire.”
Marisol clenched her fists. She’d anticipated the lowly role of women in Incan society. Men ruled, women were relegated to day-to-day household chores, farming, general labor or sexual consorts. Some were not as fortunate, offered up as sacrifice to the deities the Inca worshipped.
Taking a deep breath, Marisol forced her voice into a pleasant tone that unfortunately bordered on insolent. “How can I enlist the assistance of such a fine and trustworthy escort?” Just because she found the man extremely attractive, she didn’t have to like him.
Marisol was all about the mission. The distraction of a man with the body of a Norse god wasn’t in the plan. Once she ditched the diversion, she could continue with her mission.
The man nodded his blond head toward a road below. The artery led from deep in the mountains down into Cusco. A group of men led llamas laden with bundles and baskets. “Those men are from the northern suyu, bearing gifts for the emperor.”
Marisol glanced down at the group. “You think they will agree to be my escort?”
The man shook his head. “No.”
Marisol glared at Gunnar. “Then why did you bother to mention them?”
“Do you see a young woman with them?”
Marisol strained to pick out a woman among the men. They were all big, brawny and muscular. “Should there be a woman among them?”
“The leader of the suyu sent word to Pachacuti that he was sending gifts to the emperor.”
“So?”
“One of the promised gifts was a woman of great beauty and purity.” Gunnar’s lips quirked. “Rumor has it the warriors escorting the ‘gift’ lost her. Or rather, she ran away.”
“Good for her,” Marisol said before she could stop herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth, reminding herself she wasn’t in the twenty-first century. Men of the fifteenth-century Incan Empire wouldn’t respond well to a strong-minded woman.
Again, Marisol wondered if she was the right woman for the job. Perhaps they should have sent a man. Men had more flexibility and maneuverability in the Incan culture.
“Are you suggesting I volunteer for the job?” Marisol’s eyes narrowed.
The Norseman stood, tossed the remaining fruit to the side and gathered the corners of the wool blanket, folding it over his arm. “If you want to get into Pachacuti’s inner circle, what better way than as a gift?” He nodded toward the men below. “Look, they are stopping to discuss their options. When their leader learns of their failure, they could be sentenced to death.”
Marisol found it hard to feel sorry for the warriors. What would Pachacuti have done with the beautiful virgin? Offer her as a sacrifice in some barbaric ritual? She stared down at the group of Incan warriors gathered in a circle, their voices rising with their anger.
“But I’m not a virgin.” She knew it, but would they? Probably not. If she wanted to get into the palace, this was as good a solution as any. She’d figure out how to avoid being sacrificed once she was in. Marisol sighed. “So, how do you propose I go about offering myself up as a ‘gift’?”
Marisol turned back to Gunnar, but the Norseman wasn’t there. With no better ideas for getting into Pachacuti’s palace, Marisol considered Gunnar’s suggestion. She must be insane to trust the stranger.
Straightening her dress, she pushed her shoulders back and marched down the hillside, her feet slipping on the grassy slopes until she reached the road below. As she worked her way toward the warriors, she concocted a story she hoped they’d buy. If they didn’t, what was the worst that could happen?
They could kill her.
Chapter Two
Marisol kept her head lowered, forcing her feet to shuffle slowly, hoping she appeared exhausted, lost and dejected. As the sun set, she stumbled into their camp from the west, the light behind her silhouetting her against the sky. She told them she had lost her parents to the mountains and had been wandering around, lost and alone until the sun god led her to them.
The warriors’ eyes lit up as they examined their “gift” from Inti. They promised her a home filled with riches and food if she agreed to go along with them to Pachacuti’s palace. Marisol agreed, schooling her face into a serene and grateful smile. All the while, she smirked inside. The men wouldn’t harm her as long as they hoped to present her to their ruler.
The night passed uneventfully. She even managed a few hours’ sleep. In the morning, she changed into the ceremonial dress the warriors had saved for their arrival. She hoped this stunt would gain her access to the ruler’s inner sanctum. Somewhere in the palace lay the next piece to the Pleiadian puzzle she was to find and return to the twenty-first century. When the pieces were found the bronze disk would be complete and give them the means to communicate with other civilizations across the universe.
When they reached the palace, the warriors were led into a great hall lined with nobles dressed in robes, adorned in beads and gold. Everywhere she looked, Marisol saw gold—statues, jewelry, urns, in hand-carved furniture, or pounded into the intricate designs on the surrounding walls.
At the end of the great hall was a gilded chair. A barrel-chested man with dark, swarthy skin and high cheekbones sat with his hands resting on the ornate jaguars’ heads made of gold. He wore a white tunic, with a colorful collar made of feathers around his neck. Gold disks the diameter of Marisol’s fists hung from the man’s ears and the grapefruit-size golden disk on his headdress marked him as someone of great power and influence. His brown-black eyes bored into her and the warriors who escorted her.
Marisol’s heart fluttered in her chest as she realized she was in the presence of one of the great rulers of history, a man who’d built a great empire during his time.
One of the warriors knocked into her, forcing Marisol to her knees. At first she resisted, her battle instincts kicking in. Then she remembered her mission. As she waited for the warriors’ turn to speak to the ruler, Marisol kept her head bent, letting her hair fall down over the sides of her face, casting a guarded glance around the room.
Other men dressed in similar garb stood around the emperor. Their gold headdresses were not quite as large or elaborate as their leader’s. A woman sat on a bright red cushion at Pachacuti’s right, her head lower in deference to the ruler’s status, her hand draped across his knee.
A presence nudged at Marisol’s consciousness and she shot another glance around the room, searching for the animal pushing into her thoughts. She closed her eyes and looked through the animal’s eyes in order to get a perspective of the room and thus pinpoint the creature.
When she tried to push into the animal’s mind, it shoved back, throwing up a wall of darkness Marisol couldn’t penetrate.
Strange. She’d never had an animal throw up a barrier to her. They hardly knew she was there unless she planted a suggestion. No, this animal sensed her and wasn’t allowing her in.
Marisol opened her eyes and panned the room again, her gaze returning to the ruler and his entourage. This time when she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed into the animal’s mind, she caught a brief glimpse of a woman on her knees in a brightly colored woolen dress, dark hair hanging down over face, her eyes tightly shut.
Marisol gasped, her eyes opening. The animal staring at her stood in front of her, among the ruler’s party. But where? Marisol lifted her head to study the group. No animal stood among them. Then she spotted the woman sitting beside the ruler.
Unlike the other women she’d passed in the city streets, this woman sat up straight, her head held high and proud. Her long black hair fell down her back in a straight black sheet. A gold band circled her forehead, the face of a jaguar imprinted on the gold emblem at the front. She wore a tawny tunic that almost matched the extraordinary gold of her eyes.
The warrior who’d led her little party into the city stepped forward. “Pachacuti, great warrior and leader of the Tawantinsuyu empire, our suyu leader sends word of his progress in the north and with it gifts befitting his great ruler.”
The warrior yanked Marisol up by the arm and thrust her forward.
Marisol stood with her head down, taking everything in through her peripheral vision.
Pachacuti chuckled. “Your leader sends me a scrawny waif? What use do I have for such a creature?” He pushed to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest, the power and confidence of his position emanating from every part of his body. He stepped down from the dais and crossed to Marisol. A man dressed in a white tunic and red robe stepped down with him.
The woman who’d been sitting quietly beside him, rose to her feet with the grace of a cat. Her long legs picked their way down the steps as if she chose each step with care.
Pachacuti’s large brown hand rose to cup her chin, turning Marisol’s face right then left. “Her skin is pale. Are you sickly?”
“No.” Marisol’s answer was short and sweet, the less she said the better.
“Open your mouth, girl.”
Anger rose quickly, and just as quickly Marisol squelched it and opened her mouth.
“She has all her teeth.” He dropped his hand to the swell of her breasts and lifted them.
“What do you think, Kentar?”
“Too old for virgin sacrifice, but not too old for other pleasures.” Kentar’s eyes narrowed.
“Her eyes are different. Not like the people of Tawantinsuyu. Where did you say you got her?” he asked the warrior who’d led her in.
On the spot, the man shifted his sandaled feet. “We brought her from the north.”
Marisol hid a smile. The warrior spoke the truth even if the north he spoke of was just north of the city.
“Eyes the color of jewels.” Pachacuti squeezed her breasts hard enough to hurt. “Hmm. And well-endowed. I might have use of such a woman in my bedchambers.”
The woman with the golden eyes laid a hand on Pachacuti’s arm. “You might consider sacrificing her to the sun god, Inti. Your Inti shaman seems unhappy lately.”
Kentar shook his head. “The shaman holds enough power already. Why credit him with more by offering a sacrifice?”
Pachacuti’s fingers squeezed again as he considered his advisor’s words. “I allow him only as much power as I deem necessary. After all, I am as close to Inti as anyone can come.”
Marisol inhaled deeply and let out the breath, closing her eyes to remain calm. Again a flash of her own image entered her thoughts. Much closer. Close enough to touch her face.
She opened her eyes and stared into the tawny gold, unblinking eyes of the woman on Pachacuti’s arm. Why? She’d never been able to see through another human’s eyes, until now. Why this woman?
“The Inti shaman’s displeasure has dire consequences. If he is happy he will continue to help you in your plans to expand your great empire.” The woman whispered into Pachacuti’s ear, her finger circling the large gold earring suggestively.
Kentar’s nostrils flared. “You listen to the ranting of a jealous woman?”
Red stained Pachacuti’s cheeks. “Imac is more than just a woman. She’s a trusted leader of my elite jaguar warriors. Dare you insult her?”
Imac’s hand dropped to her side and she shot a steady, challenging stare at Kentar, remaining silent. In her silence she won the first round between Pachacuti’s advisors.
Marisol sensed in Imac a deep anger and distrust of Kentar.
“No. I speak no ill will against the warrior. However, she is still a woman, prone to the womanly weakness of jealousy.” Kentar cast a condescending smile at Imac, the equivalent of patting a dog on the head before returning his attention to his leader. “Are you not the emperor of all of Tawantinsuyu?”
A flood of annoyance swept over Marisol, surging through her from another consciousness. Was Imac jealous? No doubt, the woman didn’t want Marisol as a prize for Pachacuti’s bedroom pleasure.
Pachacuti’s eyes narrowed, his back stiffening to ramrod straight. “I am the emperor of all you see and much you do not, and I do not need you, Kentar, to remind me. If I were not already satisfied with the woman who warms my bed, I would keep this one for myself. I am in need of a little entertainment.”
“I will show you entertainment,” Imac purred, her hand skimming over the bare skin of Pachacuti’s forearm.
Marisol’s stomach tightened. On the one hand, entering Pachacuti’s bedchamber might be just what she needed to find the medallion. Then again, she’d rather sneak in as a spy, not be forced into sexual intercourse with the Incan ruler in the name of the mission. And did giving her to the sun god mean sacrificing her in a barbaric ritual?
Imac’s lips quirked as though she could hear Marisol’s rampaging thoughts.
Warmth curled around Marisol’s insides, calming her.
Leaning into Pachacuti, Imac spoke in a low, sensuous tone. “You want to keep the Inti shaman happy. He has done much to further your cause. You cannot afford the sun god’s anger.”
The emperor’s gaze went out across the great hall as though seeing another place, another time. “Yes, we must keep the shaman happy. His abilities are undeniable.” Pachacuti’s hand dropped from Marisol’s breasts. His gaze panned over her body one last time before he turned and ascended to his golden throne. “Give the woman to the shaman.”
Kentar nodded. “Very well.” He clapped his hands and two of the guards standing watch at the end of the raised platform moved forward. “Take her to the chamber of the Inti shaman.”
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