Chapter 6 : Settling In

Theodora’s POV

“Is this up to your standards, Your Majesty?” I asked snidely as I stepped aside to let Javier into his room. It wasn’t much, but with a large bay window showcasing the stars and cosmos, it was my favorite room on the ship.

A freshly-made bed with his luggage sitting on top of it. Thank the stars for Ellie. If it was up to me, I would have made Javier put the sheets on the bed himself.

“I’m not royalty, Javier is fine,” he replied, stepping past me into his quarters. Once he saw the window, his shoulders slacked. “Wow. Look at that view.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked, staring out the window, noticing how the light from the multiple suns danced off of Javier’s golden skin, illuminating him in a breathtaking glow. Almost enough to make me forget he called my ship a rust bucket.

Not quite.

He glanced at me from over his shoulder, his eyes flittering down to my feet and back up again. “Breathtaking.” His honeyed eyes glimmered, ensnaring me with temptation. Like he was imagining me naked right then and there. As if he imagined pushing my jacket off my shoulders, feather soft strokes of his fingertips.

Parting my thighs and caressing my aching sex. He looked at me like he wanted to drop down to his knees in front of me.

I gulped down a hard lump.

I didn’t like how my thighs quivered at all. Damn him. Damn my reaction to him. My lips pulled downward as I grappled with the tingles erupting along my arms. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

“Not so fast. I think we should talk about the elephant in the room,” he said, stepping over to the bed to unzip his bag.

My cheeks flushed hot and I looked away, embarrassment seizing my confidence. “I’d rather forget about it.”

He sighed deeply, drawing my gaze back to him. Trim waist. Wide shoulders. The way his arms flexed as he filed through his belongings, finding something hidden beneath his clothes. Already, the room began to smell like him. Rich like soil from my dad’s farm. Musky and lovely. He smelled crisp like the forest. A man that belonged to land, not the emptiness of space.

“Listen, if I knew you were part of the royal family, I would have never come onto you,” I admitted. An honest truth. As sex-starved as I was and as charming as Javier was, if I knew his affiliation, I would have never fucked him. In the driver seat of a rover no less.

Javier’s brandy-colored gaze shot up to me. “I’m not a part of the royal family. That’s Cyrus’s domain.”

I tilted my head to the side. What did he mean? “I don’t understand. You’re the Emporer’s brother.”

Suddenly, Javier hit me with a burst of decadent laughter. The musical noise enraptured me for a moment, watching his lips turn upward in amusement. “Not quite. Cyrus is my younger brother, but I’m a bastard, conceived by a handmaiden, not a consort. I don’t even live in the Huaca.” He paused. “But I love my brother. And we take care of each other. I see what he deals with every day. I wouldn’t want it even if I was handed the golden key.”

“Then what do you want, Javier?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Right now I want to find my niece,” he replied, a moment of silence passing between us before he asked, “Why did you lie about your brother being the Captain? Seems like an odd thing to lie about.”

I shrugged. “Pretty simple actually. People are nicer to my brother and are fast to wave me off despite my title. Eventually, I just leaned into it. I don’t like being belittled.”

“I picked up on that,” he stated, shooting me with another dazzling smile. His tongue peeked between the subtle gap in his teeth. “I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“No,” I agreed. “Me neither.” Pinkness danced across my skin as a flash of the previous night plagued me again.

Javier finally found what he was looking for in his luggage. He stood up straight, striding over to me. “I need to return something to you.” I shrunk back against the door as he approached, head and shoulders taller than me, but still not as tall as Mads. But he definitely had wider shoulders. Broader with thicker muscles rippling across his powerful body.

I watched him with nervousness, my heart starting to hammer in my chest as he leaned in, breath puffing across my parting lips. For a moment, I wanted him to kiss me. I felt the magnitude of his presence so close to me I could taste it.

Then he stuffed a piece of sheer black fabric into the pocket of my jacket.

He drew back, stealing some of my breath as I reached into my pocket.

My entire body flushed red. I could feel the mortification touch my toes. I didn’t need to take it out to know they were my panties. I gulped, pulling on the frays of my confidence, putting up a front of indifference despite the thundering of my heart. “What? Didn’t want the trophy?”

Javier cocked a brow, expression unamused. “No. I didn’t. Typically, when a woman rides my cock, they don’t leave without so much as a goodbye.”

My gaze shot down the hallway of the ship, making sure no one was close enough to hear our conversation through the open door.

“That’s not my point, Captain Walker,” Javier continued. “Last night doesn’t matter. I want to make it clear to you that our relationship here on out is going to be strictly professional.”

His sentence should have relieved me.

So why did I feel so damn disappointed?

“Good,” I replied.

“Now, you don’t have to be worried about me speaking to your crew or sharing any personal information. I will stay out of your way and let you do your job, but I expect you to report to me so I can update Cyrus.”

“Fair terms. I have a few of my own,” I countered.

Curiosity glittered in his eyes as he waited politely for me to finish.

“Dinner among the crew is non-negotiable and I expect you to join us every evening. This is how we decompress after the day and if you are going to be on board, you will be present. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Captain.”

I nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now I will leave you to get settled. I’m across the hallway if you need anything.”

***

Javier’s POV

The shape of Captain Walker’s mouth plagued me after she left my quarters, closing the door behind her, taking that mouthwatering scent with her. That mouth was spiteful. But I knew it was also capable of passion.

Fiery indignance.

Lust so volatile I had thought about it all last night, long after she abandoned me in my rover.

She knew what she wanted and she took it. I couldn’t complain, even if I was left reeling in the driver’s seat in a post-orgasm fog, cock hardening again at the mere thought of her. The smell of her intoxicated me.

I wasn’t typically someone who invited random women back to my flat, but Theo had this magnetism about her.

She made me laugh. Drew me in with the sweet slender curve of her throat. Fire in my belly and an ache in my jaw. Hunger bubbled up to the surface, something I hadn’t felt before, but intrigued me too much to not pursue it.

So I had her, and took what she offered, even if I would have preferred to have her in my bed. Her dark hair splayed against my silk pillows, exploring her body with long strokes of my tongue. A foreign desire to taste her, flaring my dormant bloodlust, and know how her soft flesh felt as I sunk my teeth into her.

Daywalkers hadn’t fed from humans since we left earth, centuries ago, but the scent of Theo’s hair, the brine of her sweat, and the sweetness of her breath left me reeling.

I didn’t go after her last night, willing to take it as it was. Leave it in the past.

A casual fuck.

Then I saw her again in the Huaca Grand Hall, the slender shape of her waist, the flare of her hips. An unmistakable body, especially the single dimple that formed on one side of her face. I hadn’t seen the extent of her body in the darkness of my rover so I couldn’t help but imagine what she would look like in the light.

Bathing in sun.

Naked flesh dimpled around her hips, a soft stomach, silky and wet between her long, toned legs. Those fantasies were meant to keep me warm at night with the idea of her. I was never meant to see her again.

Heat beaded in my stomach, desire thickening my cock when I saw Theo again.

But I would never have her again. Even pursuing her would be incredibly inappropriate. Even so, my mind wouldn’t stop replaying our night together over and over again.

The purpose of this mission was to find my niece. The future Empress of Ilios. And I knew the longer she was gone, the less likely it would be that we found her.

I hated seeing my brother on his knees in the temple, praying for Sol to come home. The Gods never listened, but there wasn’t much Cyrus could do. Sol was his only child, conceived with the only consort he had ever loved.

But humans have such short lives. So soft and fragile.

Her death tore Cyrus apart and now his daughter, the only piece he had left of the woman he loved, was missing. I couldn’t imagine his grief. I wasn’t much older than Cyrus at 146, but sometimes he feels like he had lived much longer.

Regardless of that, I was far too old to have a fling with a hired gun. As tempting as it was.

I had called the ship a rust bucket earlier, but I didn’t mean it. I liked to push Theo’s buttons. See her face pinken the way that mine can’t.

Peacekeeper was different than Huaca. Not golden or polished to perfection, but lived-in. Homey even. It felt like a home. Not even my flat felt like home. Deep in my thoughts, I unpacked my clothes and prepared my supplements to quell my bloodlust, enough to last months on a mission.

My weapons stayed within reach. I didn’t think any of the crew was out to get me, aside from perhaps the wolf mechanic, but I still didn’t know these people.

Once I was done, I looked up to the window and noticed how the side of the ship glowed as it passed asteroids. Stars glimmer in the distance among all the black. It could go on forever. And still, just like the first time I saw it, it took my breath away.

I could see how space travelers fell in love with it.

It was magnificent.

Hypnotizing.

Star blindness.

I sat back on my bed, the mattress dipping slightly under my weight, and watched the stars. Even on Ilios, the night skies couldn’t compare to it.

Excitement buzzed in my blood at the unknown, ready for the first stop at Zeus 9. I still couldn’t wrap my head around why we were stopping at that slum. Riddled with crime as most of the Zeus space stations were.

Theo said it was a halfway point, but I think she was just blowing me off. The reaction of her crew told me more than she did. Even the mechanic seemed displeased as he left. The lack of information irritated me.

I’m supposed to be working together with Captain Walker to find my niece, but starting our mission with a lie didn’t sit well with me at all.

Perhaps I’d get more honesty at dinnertime, but somehow I doubted it.