Timeless (Immortal Love Series) by Amy Richie

be helping me. I couldn’t quite remember what they were helping me do, but I was sure they would know. If I could just get to that house.
    Without any warning the ground moved out from under my feet. I stared, unblinking, at the sky above me. My head lay on the cold ground. I could hear my heart echoing in my ears. I closed my eyes and then opened them again as if in slow motion.
    I had no idea where I was but I felt strangely peaceful. Where had I been running to? I knew it was important to remember but my thoughts couldn’t go further than the fluffy white clouds above me. I smiled groggily and sighed contentedly. The wind brushed ever so slightly in my hair. I titled my chin into the breeze, perfectly happy to lay there forever.
    I was vaguely surprised when the sun was blocked out by a massive black shape. I wasn’t bothered enough to move but I wished the shadow would move so I could see the clouds again. I pulled my lips down in a frown.
    “ Are you alright Milady?” the shadow asked.
    Milady? Was that my name? With brief panic, I realized that I didn’t know my name or where I was. The feeling quickly subsided though and I smiled again. I had never felt so light in my life. It was as if I could have flown away right then, but I had absolutely no desire to move.
    “ Milady?” he asked again.
    “ Mmm,” I moaned softly through my smile.
    There was a cold sensation on my arm. I turned my head lazily to see what it could be. There was a man kneeling beside me. My surprise came out in a slow, drawn out syllable, “Oh.”
    “ Are you ok?” His words were also unhurried and they sounded so far away. His voice was so kind. I reached my hand up, it felt so heavy and he was so far away, but I wanted to touch his face. I wanted to be sure he was real.
    With agonizing slowness, my fingers finally made contact with the kind man. I stroked his cheek gently, like there was nothing else in the world but him. A part of my consciousness was firing warnings at me but the fog was too thick for me to understand what it meant. Besides, it was wonderful to just lie there and look at that man. I wondered what his name was. I opened my mouth to ask, but no sounds came out.
    “ You’ll be ok,” he whispered, “I’ll take care of you.”
    My mouth curled up into a smile and I closed my eyes. Let the darkness take me, I didn’t care. I barely felt the sensation of the man picking me up off the ground. Right on the edge of the darkness I could barely make out the image of two men. They were laughing with each other and standing beside a strange looking machine. The machine was in the middle of a clearing, but it was out of place there. Out of the machine stepped a woman, a young woman with her hair tied back in a braid. Then everything went black.
    ***
    The colors kept changing. First everything was black but then there were flashes of red, then blue, green, black again, then white. But the white was actually a light, a light so bright that it hurt my eyes. I squinted and covered my face with my arm.
    As suddenly as it appeared, the bright light disappeared. I lowered my arm cautiously. I was in a forest. The trees were so thick that I couldn’t see very far ahead of me. I crouched down into a defensive position, but there was nothing threatening about the trees. I didn’t know if I should try to find my way out of the forest or stay where I was. Something wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be, but it wasn’t here.
    “ Eva,” a woman called out to me. I crouched lower to the ground. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, it vibrated off of every tree. The voice was pleasant, a sing-song like sound, but it didn’t belong here. She shouldn’t be here.
    I watched, mesmerized, as the woman stepped out of the darkness of the forest. This was no ordinary woman, I realized. She was the most beautiful woman in all of time, and she knew it. She walked towards me slowly, as if in a dream. And I wondered if