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  “Idara, I have never seen one of our kind glow with a black light before. I am guessing that you are getting thoughts that are not your own?”

  She nodded and swallowed.

  Harken lifted his cowl and settled it so that it shadowed his eyes.

  Idara did the same. She took the hand he extended, and his light flared and engulfed her as they stepped onto the world where all hell was about to break loose.

  “Why is it that no one notices our clothing?”

  “They are busy watching the royals. I am here to watch the event. Why are you still glowing black?”

  Idara looked around her as casually as she could manage. The woman that she had been sent for was standing in the crowd, close to the path that the royals were about to take.

  As smoothly as she could, Idara worked her way through the crowd and picked up a beverage off the edge of a cart. Wincing at what she had to do, she moved forward, tripped and dumped the beverage all over the woman who glowed black with the mark of the Orb.

  The young woman cried out, “Oh, what in the name of the living gods?”

  Idara apologized. “I am so sorry. Come here, there is some water, and we can try and get the stains out before the promenade starts. If they won’t come out, I will buy you a new outfit.”

  The woman was brushing frantically at her clothing and had tears in her eyes. “I will lose my place.”

  “Better to lose your place and look presentable when the royals come by.”

  Idara ushered her into an archway and made a show of getting some water from a nearby shop to dab at the stain that reached from her shoulder to her thigh. “I don’t even know what I spilled on you.”

  “Fermented makkaki juice. Where are you from, stranger?” The woman inclined her head and tried to make eye contact.

  “Far away. I did so want to see the festivities.” Idara was going to say something else, but a tremendous thunderclap shook the ground.

  Screams sounded and people ran in every direction. The young woman’s black aura faded and Idara breathed a sigh of relief.

  She looked around and spotted Harken walking toward her. The moment he was close enough for speech, she asked, “Did you see what you needed?”

  “I did. It is time for us to go.”

  The young woman was stunned and staring into the crevice a few feet from where she had been standing. “You saved me.”

  Idara coughed. “I did nothing of the sort. I simply spilled a drink on you and tried to make it right. The rest was coincidence.”

  Her mission was over. Idara turned and took Harken’s hand. He led her back Home without a backward glance, but she knew that his silence meant something else. She hadn’t avoided trouble. She had run right to it.

  Chapter Six

  He pulled them to her rooms and immediately questioned her.

  “What was that?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be there. She has a life to live, and she needs to live it.” Idara dropped her cowl and looked up at him.

  The stars in his eyes flared and swirled as he dropped his cowl. “That is not what we were there for.”

  She crossed her arms and went up on her toes. “It is not what you were there for, but for me, she glowed black, and my instincts told me that she was not supposed to be there.”

  He lifted her by her arms, “Do you know what they can do to you?”

  She kicked him in the groin and spun away from him. “Strangle me and throw me out a window?”

  She looked for a weapon and lifted one of the clothing boxes. “Try that again and you will be feeling it for a week.”

  He slowly stood straight, and she could feel him taking in her posture.

  Calmly, he crossed the room and sat at the table. “I will be ready to talk about what just happened when you are.”

  She blinked and stood from her defensive posture. With deliberation, she put her weapon down on the couch and joined him at the table.

  “What was that, Idara?”

  “It was a reflex. One I thought I had outgrown.”

  “I cornered a cat that had that look in its eyes once. It had been burned and beaten. Do you want me to look in your past via the library, or do you want to tell me?”

  She sighed and ran her hands through her golden locks. “I will show you, but I am not going to look.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. Around Home, you need to visit each place once so that you can picture it in your mind. We will walk to the library, and you can explain to me what you saw when you looked at that young woman.”

  She nodded and smiled weakly. “I can use the walk. I am not used to having someone near me who isn’t plotting my destruction.”

  “Since you came into Alliance space?”

  “Since I was born. Come along.” She got to her feet and left her apartment. She waited for him after he closed the door. “Which way are we going?”

  He gestured to the left, and they walked together.

  She felt bad for kicking him in the groin, so she reached out and took his hand. He turned his hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “I accept your apology.”

  She blushed at her transparency. “Thank you. It was a reaction that I could not control.”

  He nodded. “It was sensible considering that hours ago you were strangled to death.”

  She shrugged. “Well, when you put it that way, what were you thinking?”

  Harken laughed. “Point taken, Idara. I behaved foolishly.”

  She smirked, and they bantered on as they walked to a stately building with ornate designs carved into it. Idara started to tense as they walked onto the ramp inside and started winding their way up the slope.

  Harken paused and waved at one of the open frames that was taller than he was. “This contains the records of your life. When you became one of the Nameless, your memories were uploaded.”

  She walked to the frame and put her hand on the flat plate. “I will not watch what is happening. Tell me when you have seen enough.”

  With her eyes closed, she took the images back to her first memory of being struck. Her mother had hit her while her father watched.

  She started to move the memories faster, stepping between her sister and an incoming fist, talking to people at the hospital while she explained what had happened, and after her lungs had been pierced by broken ribs, they finally found a relative far enough away to take her and her sister.

  Harken pulled her hand away from the frame, and she looked up at him, gauging his contempt.

  There was no contempt in his gaze, but tears streamed down his cheeks.

  With a trembling hand, she reached up and wiped at the tracks. “I made it through. The Alliance healed the irregularly knit broken bones, and I am now better than I was before I came to space.”

  His tears still fell, so she went up on her toes and kissed one side of his face and then the other before pressing a soft kiss on his lips. “Thank you for your tears. It means a lot to me. More than you know.”

  In her entire life, only one other person had ever shed a tear for what she had been through, and her sister had quickly learned to forget that anything had ever happened.

  With arthritis in the once-broken bones, her life had been pain and quiet servitude. When she entered the Volunteer project, her pain was removed, but the servitude was still part of the package.

  Idara lowered herself back to a standing position, but she stumbled forward when Harken pulled her to him. His kiss was not sweet or soft, but demanding and insistent. To her shock, she felt herself responding.

  A flare of light rippled around them, and she was pressed to the wall of her own apartment, her body held to the stone by Harken’s body and her balance maintained by her legs around his waist.

  She pressed against his shoulders, and he broke the kiss. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned and pressed his lips against her neck. “Courting you.”

  She squirmed against him as he licked, nipped and sucked his way fr
om the left to the right. “This is a courtship for the Admaryn?”

  He worked her suit open with the tips of his long fingers. “Since we are now as good as extinct, I would say that we were doing it wrong. What do you think?”

  He cupped one breast and thumbed her nipple while his lips continued to torment her neck.

  Idara stopped thinking as her body took over, arching into the hard ridge in his trousers. Admaryn were supposed to be compatible with Terrans, and she wanted desperately to find out precisely how compatible.

  Her breath was coming in and out of her lungs, and a high-pitched whine burst from her throat when he exposed both of her breasts completely and used his mouth on first one, then the other. The wet heat spurred her body into reacting, and her hips ground against him in a slow twist.

  His snow-white hair cascaded over her hands when she wove her fingers through it. The cool silk contrasted against the heat of his mouth, and she started a convulsive shiver that rippled through her and made her clench her hands against his scalp.

  Harken chuckled against her skin, and he lifted her away from the wall, walking through her apartment before peeling the bodysuit to her waist.

  She clutched at him when he tilted her back, but his hands swiftly unbuckled both of her belts before he peeled off the rest of her suit.

  Idara shivered as he removed his clothing faster than she could see.

  Ominous was a good word for a dark Admaryn when he was approaching with sex on his mind. His starry eyes were intense, the stalk of his cock was insistent, and it curved upward toward his flat, muscled belly.

  He moved to cover her, rubbing his skin along every inch of hers until his slick cock was wedged in her equally moist opening. He rocked against her, spreading the lips of her sex wide with each thrust.

  Idara stared up at him, wide-eyed as he began to work his way into her, inch by inch.

  Her lips twitched when she realized that there were a few more inches than she had bargained for.

  “How is the courtship from your end? From mine, I had not expected it to be so hot and tight.”

  She blushed. “There is more to this than I had anticipated. Much more.”

  He grinned and worked his hips against her until she moved with him in counterpoint.

  Together, they shifted, rocked, twisted and moved against each other until she was panting with each thrust, and his back was slick with sweat where she clutched at him for support.

  Banter was forgotten as they worked their way to release, and when Idara could not stand the twisting tension any more, she screamed and clutched at him, digging her nails into his skin.

  The noise that he made could be described as a roar, but it was audible triumph and nothing less.

  He shuddered and poured into her with short jerks of his hips. Harken slowly collapsed on her, rolling with her to one side and holding her close.

  She smiled, “Courtship, huh?”

  He laughed and stroked an elegant hand down her spine. “It is as good a word as any. You have been mine since the moment you dropped into my arms.”

  Yawning, she snuggled against him, inhaling the scent of their joining. “You say the sweetest things.”

  She was almost asleep when her skin took on a dark glow. In an instant, she snapped into alertness, and she sat up. “Honey, I have to go to work.”

  He grinned. “How lucky. It is take an Admaryn to work day. A quick shower and we will be ready for anything.”

  She got to her feet and headed for the lav. “You do know how to sweet talk a girl.”

  He followed her closely. “I know a lot of things. I look forward to sharing my knowledge with you at every opportunity.”

  “Only your knowledge?”

  Her shower stall filled with laughter, smooth touches and the most thorough scrubbing that she had ever received.

  Idara’s skin was smooth, tingly and ever so sensitive by the time she was in a fresh bodysuit and preparing for her assignment. Harken was right beside her as she lifted her cowl.

  “Ready?”

  He nodded and lifted his own cowl. “Ready. Where are we going?”

  She laughed, “It’s a surprise.”

  Chapter Seven

  Harken jumped at the first shriek, and Idara laughed. “Calm down, Harken. No one here will hurt you.”

  The stampeded of small creatures jostled them, and he gripped her hand tightly.

  Idara had to admit that the transfer was not as smooth as when Harken moved in time and space, but she was learning, and it was something that had to be hammered out.

  “Why are we here, Idara?”

  She looked at the playground that surrounded them, and the parents who had a careful gaze on their children.

  Idara smiled and looked over the children and their toys. A little girl was outlined in black and images of the child running into traffic and being struck by a vehicle.

  That accidental death would devastate not only the girl’s family but also the driver and all the witnesses. The Orb of Time was insistent that she keep that child from following that ball into traffic.

  “We are here to help control a disaster, Harken. Just stay close and be prepared to move when I say so.”

  They walked slowly, and she steered them to the point between the girl and the swirling vortex of blackness on the street. One child came up to her and asked, “Is that a jogging suit?”

  Idara nodded. “It is. I am also allergic to sunlight, so this is the only way I can go out during the day.”

  “You don’t have a kid.”

  The earnest crimson face was serious as the girl in pigtails spoke.

  Idara laughed. “I am planning a family and looking for play structures in the neighbourhood.”

  Her attention was split as the ball came tumbling toward her. Idara held her breath, knelt, caught the ball, pulled her knife and stabbed it.

  As quickly as she had killed the bouncing ball, she heard the child cry out, and she got to her feet and took Harken’s hand. “Time to leave, Harken. Those kids look mad.”

  He was staring at her as if she had gone mad, and Idara had to pull him into the light with a short, sharp tug.

  Stumbling back into her bedroom, she scowled, “You could have helped back there.”

  He started laughing until he was bent double and tears streamed down his face. “You…went…all…that…way…to…stab…a…ball.”

  Idara went to the dispenser and got a cup of tea. It took ten minutes before Harken was sitting up and she looked at him with one brow arched, “Are you finished?”

  He shook his head and got up with a wheeze. “That is the most perverse assignment I have ever heard of.”

  She grinned. “I think I am about to specialize in perverse.”

  He was about to respond when a chime emanated from a panel in the wall.

  Idara grimaced. “I am guessing that it is time to pay the piper, so to speak.”

  Harken stiffened. “I hope not.”

  Before he said anything else, he quickly checked on the tall spire off to one edge of the city. Grimly, he returned and wrapped his arm around her. “There is another level on the tower. Know that wherever you go, I will go.”

  She cocked her head. “How cheery. Come on. Better to get this over with, I have already been strangled once this week, I hope they mix it up.”

  He was looking down at her with amused surprise as he transported them to the council hall.

  “You have a peculiar way of looking at things.”

  “Now that my eyes aren’t focused on the floor, I am seeing things I never knew were there.” She grinned, patted him on the ass and sauntered into the council chambers where the seven were waiting.

  Only six of the seven were seated around the central icon on the floor.

  Ravikka was smiling grimly. “Idara, please come forward.”

  Idara stepped forward, but Harken was at her back. She could feel his warmth through her suit.

  “You have broken one o
f the cardinal rules of the Nameless. You have stopped a young child from losing her life in a stupid accident.”

  Idara played it dumb. “Did I?”

  Ravikka flicked her fingers, and the image of the child standing and wailing over her destroyed toy filled the screen. “She was supposed to die.”

  “I was sent there to follow the direction of the Orb. It wanted the disaster stopped, so I stabbed the ball. Where did I affect time and space?”

  Ravikka narrowed her eyes. “You know what you did.”

  “More or less.”

  She nodded and waved her hand. “You are hereby confined to the tower until such a time as the council rules on your actions.”

  Energy surrounded Idara and Harken was right behind, grabbing and holding onto her as she transported from the council chamber and into a huge room.

  Harken staggered slightly and released her. “Well, that is new.”

  She looked up at him. “You knew that would happen?”

  He blinked innocently. “I had a suspicion. Come on and let’s explore.”

  The entire width of the tower was at her disposal. There was a small communications node, a delivery panel that was a faint outline on the wall.

  “Okay, what is this place?”

  “This is the tower. By putting you here, the Council of Seven can pretend that you don’t exist, and therefore, you do not fall within their rules.”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter while he selected food from the digital screen. “You mean to say…”

  “That something is going on and you were sent here for a reason. There is something going on behind the council doors, and none of the Nameless know what it is.” His fingers glided over the dispenser buttons and soon there was a cup of tea pressed into her hands.

  She looked up at him and his earnest expression. “Why me, why this? Why am I seeing two branches of each life that the Orb sends me after?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “Sit down. This is going to take more than a cup of tea.”