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  Idara has spent her life avoiding confrontation, entanglements and living for herself. When a work-related incident ends her life, a handsome dark elf is there to catch her and whisk her into a new one. Joining the Nameless is strange enough but finding out that the Orb of Time has a special assignment for her to mess with destiny, changes her from one of the guardians of time and into a prisoner.

  Harken felt her life resonating with his the moment that he restarted her breathing. Trailing after the shy Terran takes his normal duties from normal to ridiculous, and he couldn’t be happier.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Avoid

  Copyright © 2012 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-219-2

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books

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  www.eXtasybooks.com

  Avoid

  A Terran Times Tale

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Idara Queering paced calmly through the royal palace of the Skiilar, the message she was transporting clutched in her hand.

  Wearing the clothing of a servant of the prime family, Idara was given free passage through the entire structure. It was a requirement for an internal courier, as was the elaborate dressing and hair preparation that she went through every day.

  As representative of the Skiilar prime family, she had to look as elegant as she could at all times, and times like today when her clothing exposed her hips through clever draping, she really wanted to be back wearing the polyester uniform that she had worn back on Earth.

  With the document in her hands, she passed the guards at the edge of the Geenari quarters. They were a ferocious race who seemed to lack the very rudiments of decorum when it came to dealing with such a formal race as the Skiilar.

  When the guards barred the entrance to the quarters given to their contingent, she tapped her document. “I have a reply from the prime family.”

  Down the hall, shadows shifted and she saw the man who had been dogging her steps for the last month.

  He inclined his head and shifted back into the darkness that shielded him.

  She focused, but when the Geenari guards cleared their throats, she turned and entered the open door. Tusks, four eyes and foul temperaments were the Geenari traits, and she was carrying something guaranteed to make them unhappy.

  “What were the results of our request?” The king of the Geenari sat on a throne that he had his minions carry with him wherever he went.

  She bowed and handed him the document, waiting for the response, as ordered.

  She braced herself, and when he roared his displeasure, his hands closed around her throat, she clawed at his arms and fought for her life.

  The king of Geenari had proposed a marriage bond to the Skiilar, and the Skiilar had laughed themselves silly before penning an arrogant declaration of denial that they had handed to the least-welcome courier within the confines of their palace.

  Light flickered behind her eyes, and as she started to black out, she wished a thousand STD’s on the Skiilar princess who had decided that Idara was too pretty to be around the royals of the palace. Kiidorial was a vindictive bitch, and she was going to have to deal with the Alliance after the Terran courier was dead.

  Death was the only way for the Geenari to deal with the insults that had been pressed into the document. Idara was simply the luckless courier that carried the bad news.

  She fought as best she could, clawing, kicking and struggling for breath. She wounded him, there was no doubt of that, but as she fell completely into the blackness, she wondered at her travelling so far into space to die in such a stupid manner.

  * * * *

  Harken caught Idara’s body as the Geenari threw it from the window. He started to pour the power of time into her while he breathed air into her starved lungs.

  There was a series of shouts as he glowed and disappeared with his precious burden, and he wondered for a moment if he had left it too long.

  Harken had watched her for weeks. The Orb of Time had taken him to the time that the woman in his arms was in the most danger. The problem was that in the heightened political climate of the Skiilar palace she was always in danger.

  He had never thought that she would be in peril during the course of her duties, but when the howl of rage had come out of the chamber, he went where time directed him and caught her as she fell.

  When he stepped onto the floor of the medical centre, he called out, “New arrival, she has been strangled.”

  The medically trained Nameless jumped into action, and Harken carried her to the bed where they started to work to heal her.

  The man leading the team looked at her neck, “What did this?”

  “A Geenari. Strangled her with both hands by the look of it.”

  “Ouch. You work on the breathing, and we will work on her neck.”

  Harken leaned forward and exhaled into her mouth. Time energy was swirling around them, and when her lips parted slightly and she coughed, he backed away.

  Her breath came in with a wheeze, and her hands flailed up, smacking into the medical team that was assisting her.

  Harken held her down. “Idara, please, calm down. You are safe now. Relax and breathe. Just breathe.”

  She sucked in another breath, and he couldn’t help but watch her breasts rise and fall in the barely-there top that she was wearing. Whoever had dressed her definitely had more than the guise of a simple courier in mind. She was dressed like a Companion, and not an expensive one.

  He slid an arm under her and helped her sit up, easing her intake of oxygen. “Just breathe slowly, the healing will continue until you are completely well again.”

  She looked up at him with wide blue eyes, and she whispered in a hoarse voice, “You.”

  Grinning at the woman he had watched for weeks, he winked, “Me.”

  * * * *

  Pain was rippling through her throat and lungs, but with each breath, Idara felt vastly better. “What happened?”

  She looked around, and the three persons who had attended her receded out the door, leaving only the man who had been watching her, staring at her with a curve on his inky-black lips. In fact, now that she could see him, all of his exposed skin was the same black velvet as his jaw line.

  “Who are you, and why have you been following me?” Her voice was a croak.

  “I will explain all of that in time. Do you wish to change clothing? I can obtain something for you.”

  She touched her throat and swallowed with effort. “Please. I don’t want to wear this livery after what they did.”

  Struggling to stand, she fought his hands and instead tore off the hated clothing of the Skiilar prime family.

  Her companion stared at her in shock. “Um, I will go and get you some clothing. There is a lav to the left if you want to have a show
er.”

  She perked up, “Real water?”

  He laughed, “Real water.”

  To her consternation, he glowed brightly and then disappeared.

  Naked, she pattered into the lav and scrubbed her skin from head to toe under hot water, removing all traces of the Geenari’s hands and the noxious perfume she had been forced to wear.

  Idara didn’t know where she was, but she was certain that her life had just taken a particular swing in an upward trajectory.

  Chapter Two

  Four boxes were piled on the bed when she returned to the room, wearing a towel around her and one on her head to dry her blonde locks.

  “Wow. Are those all for me?”

  Her companion jumped at her silent arrival and sudden speech.

  He cleared his throat, and his posture seemed a little nervous. She still hadn’t seen his face completely, but his body was built along lines she really appreciated. Tall, wide shoulders and narrow hips, he was a beautiful ideal, and if she could see his face, she would be better able to judge if it did justice to his body.

  His lips curved in a smile, “They are a selection of clothing appropriate to your species. Choose what you like, and the others will be brought to your quarters should you need them.”

  Bemused, she wandered over to the stack and opened the first box. It contained a bodysuit and boots in a lovely shade of navy blue with silver and bronze piping running across them.

  “Oh. That’s nice, but let’s see what else we have.”

  She hummed to herself as she opened a box with a lovely gown and another with a tunic and trousers set, the last was a gauzy wrap that would have appealed to her before the Skiilar incident.

  “Bodysuit it is then.”

  She dropped the towel and stepped into the suit, amused when he turned his back. “Are you shy?”

  He tilted his head. “That is not the precise word for it, but I am not used to women who remove their clothing without warning.”

  She snickered as she fastened the front of the suit. “In training as a private courier, we were given mixed-gender drills to get us used to changing clothing for differing events in one room. Embarrassment was soon a thing of the past, especially if you needed a second set of hands to complete the fastening of your clothing.”

  He shrugged, peeked and turned around. “I suppose that makes sense. It is a sensibility that not many women of my acquaintance share.”

  She snickered and sat on the bed, pulling the boots on one by one. At the bottom of the box there was a metal belt, and she fastened it low around her hips, smiling at the feeling of being a Terran superhero back on Earth.

  Idara looked to her companion. “What is your name, and why were you stalking me?”

  He blinked, then grinned and bowed low, “Harken, at your service. As for stalking, I went where time sent me. You lived a very dangerous life, Idara. It is a wonder you survived this long.”

  She scowled, “So, you knew he was going to strangle me, and you didn’t help?”

  Harken shook his head. “I knew you were in danger, and I had to take you here the moment that you were officially dead in front of witnesses.”

  That surprised her, “I was dead? If I was dead, what is this? This seems to be one crappy afterlife.”

  He laughed out loud. “Come with me. I have something to show you that might raise more questions than answers.”

  Harken took her hand and led her out onto a balcony that looked out over a fantastic landscape.

  The sky was full of whirling starscapes and she smiled as she looked out into an endless spiral that might have driven other folk mad. “It’s wonderful.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him flip his cowl back, and he turned to face her full on. “I am glad you think so, because those stars are in the eyes of all the Nameless, and you are here to join us.”

  He was a member of a race almost extinct. Dark Admaryn. His black skin had a velvety texture, absorbing light and reflecting nothing. His hair was a snowy white, fastened back in a snug braid, and his brows were white as well, framing the eyes that captured her full attention.

  The same stars that she had been admiring were within his eyes, the blackness of space with the pinpoints of moving lights gave her something to watch as she got used to the idea of staring at an elf from human legend, myth and fairy tale.

  “You are Admaryn.” She blurted out the words.

  “I was. Over a thousand years ago I became one of the Nameless, and here we are today.”

  “I have never heard of the Nameless. What are they?” She couldn’t look away from his fascinating gaze.

  “It is a long story, but basically, when this universe began, what did it replace?”

  He was moving closer to her, step by step, until he was touching the front of her bodysuit with the leather vest and trousers he wore.

  She licked her lips, and his lids dropped for a moment. “There was nothing, wasn’t there?”

  “There was an old universe, a universe that gave up its space and everything in it for the sake of the new, but it kept a part of itself separate and planted seeds of hosting in a vast array of species throughout the new universe. Those seeds become ripe after time, and when you die, if one of our kind is there, we bring you here and restart you, but you have to officially leave your timeline first and that means witnesses.”

  “So, they all saw me die?”

  Harken quirked his lips. “They all saw your un-breathing body launched out a window. I caught you and brought you here after enough bystanders confirmed that you were actually dead.”

  “What happens now? I would really like to go back and teach that Geenari a lesson as to what a Terran can do when she is not restrained by fluffy clothing and etiquette.”

  “What of the Skiilar who sent you to your death?”

  “I already wished her a death via thousands of STD’s, so my work there is done.”

  The catalyst was not to blame. It was the intemperate fiend who had actually strangled the messenger just to make a point that she had a bone to pick with. Fate would take care of the royal.

  Harken chuckled. “It would be a just death, but think of the partners that she would infect on the way.”

  “True. But she really needs to get taken down a peg.”

  “Let’s get something to eat and discuss this further. There is always more to learn about anyone, and her early days might surprise you.”

  “How could I possibly know about her early days?”

  His grin showed amazingly white teeth, “That is part of what I am about to show you. Food first though. You Terrans seem to think better after food.”

  She shrugged and had to admit he had a point. “Wait, Terrans? How many of us are there?”

  “That is a topic to discuss while sharing a meal.” He wrapped his arms around her, his hands sliding over her hips a little too tightly, but there was a flare of light, and they were no longer in the same place that they had been before.

  “What was that?”

  “A directional shift. We moved in space.” He released her, and she could feel the reluctance in his body as they parted.

  The smells of food caught her attention, and it came to her that she had not had lunch or breakfast. She was definitely hungry, and it seemed that he was prepared to take care of her needs.

  He showed her how to manage the food trays and where to find coffee, a luxury that she had not had in years.

  With her selections weighing her down, she picked out a table away from folks gathered in clutches and sat with her back against the wall.

  Harken joined her and raised his snow-white brow. “You don’t like to socialize?”

  “I am not sure yet where I am or what I am doing here, so I will err on the side of caution.” She bit her lip and poked her meal with her fork before trying a few bites and swallowing reluctantly.

  “You don’t like it?”

  She smiled. “I do, but my throat is still a bit sore. Apparentl
y, I don’t bounce back as fast as I would like from being strangled to death.”

  Deep in her mind, she still wasn’t sure that this was a cross between a hallucination and a perverse afterlife that no culture she knew of had yet discovered.

  Chapter Three

  By the time she had eaten her entire meal in tiny bites, a few folk had come by to meet her and formally give her their greetings.

  When she was alone with Harken, she had to ask, “How do they know I am new?”

  His smile was blinding. “Your eyes. When you have met the Orb of Time, they will change from your charming blue to the same swirling darkness that we all bear.”

  She blinked. “Is that why you wore that hood while you were stalking me?”

  Harken looked innocent. “I wear the hood to keep folk from becoming alarmed by looking into my gaze. We all do.”

  “Aha! So you were stalking me.”

  “I went where the Orb of Time sent me. It was not my will to chase you around, but the fact that you noticed me time and again is rather flattering.”

  She exhaled noisily. “Men.”

  He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “What questions do you have about Home?”

  “What is that?”

  “Home is the ground that you sit on, the air that you breathe. It is a place outside of time and space, a piece of the lost universe that was here before our own.”

  Every television program about the big bang that Idara had ever seen ran through her mind. “So, there was a universe here before ours?”

  “There was. It knew the end was near and protected this piece of itself, making a haven for those who would bear its mind when the seeds had been sown.”

  “What about the seeds? How long ago were they planted in my body?”

  He shook his head, “Not your body, your mother’s mother’s mother back hundreds of generations. Over ten thousand years by Terran time measurement, back before my people tried to take yours by force.”