The Challenge Read Online Free

had come up with a simulator that nullified gravity.
    “Put me down.”
    At her request, her body descended until her bare feet supported her once more. With the return of gravity, tension eased from her shoulders. While hanging in mid-air, she hadn’t been able to think of much more than her bobbing breasts, and though Kahn had kept his face mostly neutral, she’d seen his lip curl in amusement, telling her he wasn’t immune to her situation.
    But he kept his tone formal. “You don’t believe your own people. Perhaps you’ll believe your eyes.”
    “Would you like to visit Earth?”
    “Yes.” She eyed him warily. “You’ll let me go home? “
    “Of course. But you can’t stay,” he warned. “It would have been difficult enough for someone from this time to accept all the changes and difficulties ahead, but you have the added handicap of being a woman out of the distant past. While I don’t like taking you back to Earth, it’s necessary to make you understand that you have indeed traveled into the future.”
    She put the idea of time travel from her mind. He was taking her home, and she tried not to let her elation show. “Didn’t you mention a suit?”
    “But it will be a shame to cover such fine proportions.”
    She bit back a snarl at the word fine and held out her hand, palm up. “The suit?”
    Kahn opened a wall compartment and pulled out a black shiny leotard that had arms and legs, gloves for her fingers, and boots for her toes, and even a hood to cover her head. Tessa wasted no time donning the outfit, pleased to finally cover her nudity. Initially, the suit was too large, but the material quickly constricted to cover her like shrink-wrap. The catlike suit might cling to every curve, but at least she was covered. Progress.
    And then the entire garment turned transparent. Oddly, she could still feel the material clinging to her.
    “Damn.”
    He laughed, his tone full of rich amusement at her expense.
    Kahn didn’t give her time to ask more questions or complain about her see-through clothing. He tugged her into a moving corridor. Speechless with wonder, she glided past marvels of machinery that pulsed with light, crystal sculptures that served no purpose that she could see, amazing colorful metallic shapes, and unusual sounds that hummed, clicked, and emitted musical tones.
    A thousand questions zoomed through her head, but she picked the one most important to her immediate future. “Where are you taking me?”
    “This ship is too large to land on your world. We’ll take a shuttle down to Earth.”
    How considerate of him to take her exactly where she wished to go.
    As if reading her thoughts, Kahn spoke with conviction. “You won’t believe the truth until you see your world with your own eyes.”

Chapter Two
     
    KAHN’S WARRIOR skills allowed him to note the subtle tensing of Tessa’s limbs and the stubborn angle of her jaw that indicated this Earthling was no biddable female like his wife Lael, who had been sweet and uncomplicated and who had died way too soon. Tessa Camen might appear tractable, but her deep green eyes flashed with an intensity that indicated she believed she could escape her fate. While Kahn might find her exotic green eyes attractive and her proportions pleasing, he silently cursed the Terran leadership who’d sent him an unwilling candidate to train. Until now, all aspirants to the Federation’s Challenge had been volunteers, and he didn’t understand what the Earthlings had been thinking. Why couldn’t they have sent him a soldier or a male athlete instead of this weak female?
    Yet, so far, he had to admit she had spirit. And though small and soft, oddly, Tessa possessed a sleek muscle tone that surprised him and projected sensuality he didn’t want to notice.
    He escorted her through the orbiting starship’s corridors and into the shuttle that would take them to Earth. He piloted them through the opened bay doors of the flight bay, issuing voice commands