His eyes narrowed and he moved closer. His chest brushed against her. “Not really. This is already more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I can pay you.”
One dark brow rose. “How much?”
She thought of the last e-creds in her account. It was more than most people saved in a lifetime, but she knew it was no fortune. “Five million.”
He snorted. “Not enough to tempt me.”
Eoshadto convince him. “I have more information that helps narrow down the location.”
His gaze was so sharp it felt like it cut through her skin. “I’m listening.”
She shook her head, ignoring the heat coming off him. “I won’t tell you until you agree to take the job.”
“That’s asking for a lot of trust, darlin’.” Dathan stepped closer still. They were plastered against each other.
Something told her he was seeing what would make her back away. She stayed where she was and lifted her chin. “I guess trust isn’t a commodity you have in abundance.”
Those intense blue eyes burned through her.
“You can trust us, Eos,” Niklas said.
She shook her head. “Trust the most notorious treasure hunters in the galaxy? Not with Star’s End and a Da Vinci relic worth a trillion e-creds.”
Dathan’s grip on Eos’ jaw tightened, the rough calluses on his fingertips abrading her skin. She felt like he was staring straight inside her.
“You have a location,” he said.
She swallowed. Niklas’ chair squeaked and Zayn straightened behind Dathan.
“Look at me.”
She obeyed, caught again by those eyes.
“You know the location of Star’s End, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER THREE
Dathan fought back the electricity winging through his body.
Star’s End. A repository of the most fantastic Terran treasure in the galaxy. It would be the biggest haul of his career.
TheMona Lisa. The one thing his father had always wanted.
But Dathan had learned one lesson the hard way: things that seemed too good to be true often were. The woman wasn’t telling him everything she knew.
She smelled good, though. Like some exotic flower from the hothouses of the planet Incensia. It matched her appearance.
Eos Rai wasn’t tall, her head topped out just below his chin. She had a curvy little body, but he saw the tone in her arms. She kept in shape and the boots she wore had scars. She wasn’t an astro-archeologist who stayed behind a desk or simply walked the vaunted halls of the stuffy-assed Institute.
Long dark hair with a hint of curl fell halfway down her back. Pulled back, it bared a face that whispered of desert oases and warm winds. Her skin was darker than his, a beautiful smooth tan that looked good enough to lick. Her eyes were large, tilted at the corners, and were the brightest gold of a stellar flare. Theymade him think of the ancient gold coins he’d discovered on the ocean floor of Aurum.
But most tantalizing of all were her markings. A trail of black scrolls wove from the tip of her longest finger up the back of her hand to wind around her delicate wrists. Intricate with a vaguely floral pattern, they were stunning. He also saw a hint of the same design on the side of her neck, hidden by her shirt collar. It made him insanely curious to know where it went under the blue fabric of her shirt.
Dathan knew that unlike his own ink, she’d been born with the markings. A trademark that gave away her race.
