Lucan: The Pendragon Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

inexplicably hard.

    She raised an eyebrow. “What about legends? Do you believe in them?”

    Legends?
He’d always been a sucker for a legend. Ever since he’d arrived on Pendragon, he’d been on the lookout for tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but he’d found only place names that teased his imagination.

    “Tell me a legend.”

    As if sensing his keen interest, Cael perched a hip against the nearest desk and settled in for a conversation. Her unique scent, sweet and crisp, broke through the odor of recycled air. He had the sudden urge to bury his nose in her hair and inhale deeply, but he squelched the instinct.

    “Perhaps
legend
is the wrong word. Haven’t you ever heard of the
Book of Jede
?”

    “Nope.”

    “The
Book of Jede
is a fairy tale.” She laughed, a warm, enticing sound that cascaded over him like a warm shower. “I heard it first from my grandmother when I was about three.”

    “I’ve never heard the tale.” He tried to imagine Cael at the age of three. Curly-headed. Tiny. Curious. But he couldn’t do it. The vibrant woman she was now dominated his thoughts.

    “You want me to believe in fairy tales?” Lucan grinned.

    Cael scooted her cute little backside onto the desk and crossed her exquisite legs. “What kind of childhood did you have?”

    “The usual.” He shrugged, keeping his voice down and glancing around the room. Rion was deep in discussion with a biologist. Quentin and Shaw were still arguing, albeit less heatedly. The rest of the team continued to pore over the laser’s schematics. Nevertheless, Lucan still didn’t want to speak about his false past and counterfeit identity.

    Cael peered at him, a stare that tried to pierce the soul. He held her gaze, a tad bit longer than he should have. “We need to get back to work.” Now, that was lame. But damned if he could think straight with her drilling him with that I-want-to-know-what-you’re-thinking look.

    She ignored his suggestion. Instead she stroked her throat, parting her tunic. He got an eyeful of her graceful neck and a flash of a metal choker with strangely familiar markings before her fingers blocked his view again.

    “When the universe formed,” she began, “there was darkness. Only darkness. Blackness from here to eternity. But then the Goddess seeded the universe with stars, bringing precious light and life.”

    “And what does that have to do with—”

    “Hush. I’m getting to that.” She shifted on the desk, her skirt rising to just below the knee, and as she slid off her shoe and rocked it on her toes, her calf tensed. The sight of her smooth, tanned legs made his mouth go dry and he swallowed hard.

    “Go on,” he urged.

    The sooner she finished the story, the sooner she would leave. And she most definitely had to give him some room.

    If he’d eaten recently, he would have suspected his food had been drugged, because every sense in his body had gone wacky. If he’d been alone, he might have sought release from the sexual tension and taken matters into his own hands. If he’d been on an uncivilized world, he might have thrown her over his shoulder and carried her straight to his bed.

    Lucan did none of those things, of course. But as Cael spoke, her words didn’t simply tell a story, they coaxed the blood in his veins to race double time. The seam in his pants had grown so tight he feared he might suffer a permanent indentation. And stranger still, he couldn’t have stood and walked away to save his life.

    “After the stars lit the heavens, the blackness faded. Worlds warmed, life grew. Animals and people evolved. But the blackness never lost to the light. The blackness only retreated. On Pendragon, a woman named Jede claimed to honor the Goddess, but in truth, in the search for immortality, she practiced the dark ways. To teach Jede a lesson, the Goddess sent her two gifts.”

    “Gifts are punishment?” He frowned.

    “The first gift was eternal life.