Avoid 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