Free Avoid by Viola Grace Page B

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.