Reaching up, she tightened her hair tie, ignoring the hard knot in her chest. He’d done her a huge favor. Any intimacy with Dathan Phoenix would be temporary. She knew she was just part of this adventure.
When the next adventure—and the next woman—came along, he’d be off.
She wanted more than that. She deserved more than that.
Enough thinking of Dathan Phoenix.Soon they’d reach Beta7. They needed a plan on how to uncover the colony.
When she stepped into the main part of the ship, she wondered if she had “Dathan just gave me a fantastic orgasm” written all over her face.
Her gaze was drawn to him. He stood at the doorway into the cockpit, a Sync in hand. His head snapped up, his gaze unreadable. But then she saw a flare in the blue and it made her tingle.
She deliberately looked away.
“Eos?” Niklas stood over a holo-table—a smaller version of what they had in Mission Control on Khan. “If you’re feeling better, how about you help me go over these records on the treasures of the New Louvre?”
She nodded, grateful for the distraction, and before long was immersed in the records.
“Some of these I’ve never seen before.” She tapped the table, looking at the scanned records. “Where did you get these? They should be in the Institute Archives.”
Niklas coughed. “How about we leave it at, you don’t want to know?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She studied his serious face. He was more rugged than Dathan, with a squarer jaw and a more studious look to him. “You really don’t miss the Institute?”
He paused, considering. “I thought I did at first. Mainly I was just angry.” His gaze flicked up to hers. “And no, I don’t want to talk about what happened. Let’s just say I had a falling out with the powers that be.”
“You’re better off without the narrow-minded bastards,” Dathan said.
Eos had always wondered what having a brother or sister would be like. Looking at the Phoenix brothers made her realize it was something special. They might be rogues, but whatever happened, they were there for each other. No matter what.
Niklas shrugged. “Besides, I’ve seen some pretty amazing things I would never have seen if I’d stayed at the Institute. I got to hold a starglobe in my own hands.”
Her mouth dropped open. “No.”
“Yes.” He looked down at the holo-table. “And I plucked an Egyptian canopic jar from the rubble of Selene City on Genysis.”
She stilled. “A canopic jar? From the New Louvre collection?”
“Yep.”
“Had to be a fake.”
“I authenticated it myself. The comet collision survivors said a man came to Genysis long ago and had it with him. He claimed to be a descendant from Earth, but they never believed him.”
“What happened to the jar?”
“We sold it.”
Her head jerked up. “What?”
He shrugged again. “To the Xi’an Museum. We need to eat and fuel our ship. I can’t keep everything.”
She tapped a finger against the holo-table. At least the Xi’an was a reputable establishment. “Okay, well, let’s see what else we might find hidden at Star’s End.”
She lost track of time. The records Nik had pieced together were impressive. Realizing how much closer she was to the treasure made her tremble. If she found it…the Institute would come crawling back to her. Groveling over their mistake not to back her expedition.
And she’d finally hold pieces of the history her mother had dedicated her life to piecing back together.
But even absorbed by history, she never lost track of Dathan. She felt so attuned to him, and every time he moved, she was aware. When he wasn’t looking, she watched the flex of muscles under his shirt.
