Avenging Enjel

by Viola Grace

  Myrik has done his time, and now, he is a Guardian in search of a Negotiator with privacy issues and a body to die for. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

  Myrik had been a disgraced Enjel with guilt issues. Now, he is a Guardian in the Nyal Imperium and he puts himself between the innocent and danger. He is part of a group sent into rescue a Negotiator with the power to start or end wars, and when she comes out of her shell he is delightfully surprised.

  Alexia is one of the Second Wave of Terran Volunteers. She went from basic training into Negotiator armour and now, she is kidnapped, tortured and waiting for a hit squad to end her security risk. The arms of an Enjel take her off to a new lease on life, but it is security that he offers and compassion that he gives.

  He will defend her with his life, but she hopes that it will not come to that.

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  Avenging Enjel

  Copyright © 2013 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-708-1

  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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  Avenging Enjel

  Terran Times Second Wave

  By

  Viola Grace

  Prologue

  “Myrik, you have a guest.”

  Myrik looked up and fought a chuckle. Brother Ekharian’s grey feathers were ruffled, so it must be a woman.

  He got to his feet and watched as the brother adjusted his wings and took over the class on meditation. When the class shifted its focus to their new instructor, Myrik headed for the entry hall.

  The visitor who waited for him was standing in a cloak and obviously female. She also did not have wings so that let out any of his family members.

  The woman turned as he approached, and he froze in place.

  “Miranda.”

  “Hello, Myrik. You are looking…taller.”

  He chuckled weakly and smiled. “You look amazing.”

  She inclined her head. “Thank you. Life with Osias is not always smooth but we are happy together.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No, I took a private skimmer. He might not approve, and I wanted to see you before you left.”

  He blinked, “You heard about my departure?”

  “Of course. I kept you warm for many nights, Myrik. I always have had your wellbeing in my thoughts.” She paused and put her hand on his arm. “I have worried about you.”

  Myrik straightened as heat raced up his arm and pooled in his spine, working its way up to his wings. “I do not deserve your worry.”

  “What happened was a lack of knowledge on my part and supervision on Osias’s. He knew you were close to your maturation. All three of us were to be held accountable, and he should not have broken your wing.” She tightened her grip.

  He fell to his knees, and she kept her grip on his arm while he fought a scream. His wing had been broken, useless and twisted as part of his punishment for violating the woman in front of him. His own guilt and his sentence here at the temple of Teness had been his constant reminders of his crime.

  When he felt the wing snap back into place and the blood surge into cells long deprived, he screamed. After the pain, a wave of warmth eased the nerves burned by psychic healing.

  “I am sorry for the pain. My talent changed after my third child.” She smiled brightly at him and helped him to his feet. “You should not leave Jela without being as whole as you can be. I want you to survive your life, be happy and live well. You deserve a new start.”

  Lady Miranda Aron gave him a hug and patted his cheek, though she had to reach up high to do it. “Go and find someone to love. Leave the past where it has fallen.”

  He flexed his white wings wide, curling them around her. “You truly have forgiven me.”

  “I have. I have a son now, and knowing what he will face makes me uneasy for his future, but here, he can be cared for. You had no chance. If Osias hadn’t come for you, it would have been much worse. I doubt that our owner would have paid for the repairs to my body. I would have been discarded, and you would have been sold yet again.”

  He blinked slowly. “You have a son.”

  “And two daughters, and one on the way.” She beamed.

  Light seemed to radiate from her, and it settled in his soul. She was truly happy; he had not destroyed her. A weight lifted from his mind, and he smiled.

  “There is that stunning young man that I remember. I wish you luck, joy and happiness. Now, get out there and kick some ass.” Her expression was the same as the woman he had first met eighteen years earlier, determined and patient but enthusiastic. Her love of life was what had drawn his guardian, and it was what Myrik thought he had shattered.

  “Thank you, Miranda. I am delighted beyond measure by your happiness. I will leave Jela with a lighter heart and hope that one day I will find happiness of my own.”

  Miranda hugged him again. “I am sure you will. Now, go on, your earlier screaming freaked out all the brothers. Go pat them on the heads or something.”

  Myrik laughed and headed back toward the sea of concerned faces, flexing his wings. He heard her shout, “And practice flying! You have probably forgotten how.”

  He flapped his wings several times until he was off the floor. He dropped with a thud. She was right. He needed to practice. He was leaving in a week and that was a week he was going to spend in the sky.

  * * * *

  Miranda stepped out of the temple and walked straight into her husband’s arms. She stood there for a long time, her children quiet in the skimmer parked on the small landing pad.

  “He was so torn up inside, Osias. It hurt so much.”

  Her husband rubbed her spine and murmured soothing words, sending her comfort along their link. “I am glad we came then. You needed to set him free.”

  She kicked him in the shin. “I needed to set him free a decade ago. You wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “He had to work out his sentence, and his sentence was five years and twelve. That has been achieved. Did you heal him?”

  She leaned back and looked up at his face in irritation. “Of course I did. Mind you, I was a little mean about it. I never did get to kick him in the groin, so I did the next best thing.”

  “Ouch. Fire healing. You have a nasty streak, beloved.”

  “I honed it living with you, pet. Now, let’s go home. He has all the energy I was able to give him.”

  She leaned against Osias, borrowing his strength as their seventeen-year-old daughter took the controls for a hair-raising flight back home. Teenagers…the same on every planet.

  Chapter One

  Alexia Under gritted her teeth as the electrodes were applied to the exterior of her suit once again. She fought the urge to scream, but a squeak ca
me out.

  Being a Negotiator was supposed to be the safest of all occupations. No one was supposed to be able to get anything into her suit. Supposed to was becoming a really old phrase for her.

  “It is simple, Negotiator Under. Merely sign the contracts that allow us access through Nyal space and this can all stop.” The voice was hissed and it came to her via the sensory systems in her suit.

  The language was one of the hundreds downloaded directly into her mind, along with their laws and trade sanctions.

  Alexia was the prime Negotiator for the Nyal, and she had a lot of clout, but after being kidnapped and tortured for a week, she was feeling a little delicate. Her suit had two weeks of nutrients left in it, but she was unsure that she could make it that long.

  The shocks came again, and she thankfully blacked out. They would still be there when she woke up, she was sure. They always were.

  * * * *

  Guardian Winger looked at his companions. “So, how are we going in?”

  Pulse smiled. “I am going to take out the main systems and jack the doors open.”

  Captain Strike nodded. “I will fire at these areas around the base.”

  The projection rotated and Theory blinked. “Winger needs to fly in and get her out. I hope you have been working out, that armour is not light.”

  Winger nodded, bemused as always that he had been a pariah in his own system, but in Nyal space, he could be a hero and change one life at a time. Today, he was on a mission to find an armoured Negotiator and get her out alive.

  The Guardian project offered him a chance to use the wings that every Enjel had and enhancements that made him stronger and faster than any of his people.

  “Can she get healing when we get her out?”

  Patches shook his head. “Not if she is in the suit.”

  Damn. They all knew that if she was in the possession of the Drafu, she was not going to be in good shape.

  Winger asked, “When do we go?”

  “The moon is rising, so we leave an hour before dawn. Those bastards hate the dawn.” Strike blinked both sets of lids and flexed his fingers.

  Winger paced in the cloaked ship and waited. To fly off their world was unusual. Whiccin was a charming place with a delightful populace that appreciated their Guardians. Finding this Negotiator was a matter of urgency. She held the keys to an entire system’s government in her hands, and they needed either to retrieve her or to kill her. It was just that simple. They needed her out of Drafu hands, dead or alive.

  Winger was going to make sure it was alive. He wanted no more blood on his hands.

  * * * *

  A noise brought her around again, but this time, it wasn’t her captors. It sounded like a storm but felt like dead air. She tried to move, but her suit systems weren’t functioning. Damn. It had been an EMP.

  Grunting, she pushed herself upright and congratulated herself on keeping in reasonable shape for someone trapped in a can.

  She heard the thunderclap again and shouts of dismay, but then, everything went silent. It was not a good sound.

  Using the wall, she got herself on her feet, and she stumbled toward the door. She was shocked when it swung open and stayed that way.

  Her cell was thankfully small, and as she dragged her feet, she balanced to make the structure of the suit take most of her weight. Another sound rang through the air. While her systems weren’t working, she could still feel the heavy beats in the air. Something was coming.

  She couldn’t see without the cameras, but she froze against the wall as if it would hide her.

  The heavy beat stopped, and she felt the buffeting of the wind.

  “Negotiator Under?”

  She moved her arm slightly, and the next moment, she was pulled forward into something solid and the beating was beginning again. Her feet lifted off the ground, and it was only the person holding her that kept her from striking the ground, or so she thought. It was really a guess at this point. For all she knew, it was a talking bird that was going to smack her against the ground to try to crack her armour once and for all, like a giant nut.

  It was not the first time she had been blind in the suit, but it was the first time she could hear air rushing around her and the sinking feeling in her stomach that indicated a rise in altitude.

  As suddenly as the noise started, it stopped. She was laid flat and voices were murmuring quietly. Finally, she asked, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Negotiator, we thought you were unconscious.”

  “No, just in a dead suit. I need a med unit with the code for this thing. Is that possible?”

  There was more quiet murmuring.

  A male voice spoke clearly and precisely, “We are taking you to Whiccin. They have a medical facility that has been given the codes and protocols for your removal from this suit.”

  She nodded slightly. “Thank you. One more thing?”

  “What is it, Negotiator?”

  “Can you stay with me?” She put her heart and soul on the line with that one phrase.

  There was silence for a moment, and then he said. “I would be happy to. Would you like me to hold your hand?”

  “Please. I can’t feel it, but it will help me focus on something other than the darkness.”

  Her arm lifted, and he curled her fingers around his. He stayed with her through the night, after her suit blew the vents open to keep her alive. It was all night to her.

  Alexia focussed on the hand holding hers. She couldn’t feel his skin, but the resistance against the metal gauntlet was confirmation that it was actually there.

  The bed she was on shuddered, and then she could feel movement, and there was a change in the flavour of the air coming in through her vents. It tasted like green and flowers, two things she had not smelled or touched in four years.

  As part of the second wave of Terrans, Alexia had been delighted to be selected for the exclusive Negotiator Corps. Being assigned to the Nyal Imperium was exotic and dangerous. She had revelled in her status and enjoyed every new race she had dealt with until the Drafu. She had rejected their pathetic requests for a wide authorization and unlimited transport corridor access, and now, she was being wheeled into a med facility on a strange world while someone not trained for it was going to crack her out of her suit. It had to be a Monday.

  The suit removal had been relatively easy. The implants fought them, and since Alexia had to be awake, she experienced every twinge and tug of the nervous medical team.

  Lying on her stomach, she saw white feathers bracketing a pair of legs in snug black boots. It was all she could see, and she was a little embarrassed that he was seeing her pale grey-white skin and naked butt. It was not the first impression she wanted to make on her first Enjel.

  “Good afternoon, Negotiator. I am Patches, and I will be your healer today.” A new set of feet entered her field of vision.

  “Hello, Patches. I am guessing that I have been fired from my status as Negotiator, so the formality is not necessary. Please call me Alexia or Lexi.”

  “Alexia, I am an ice healer, so this will drop your body temperature. Winger is standing by to help you through the hypothermia. Are you ready?”

  “I am ready.”

  She clutched the medical bed as two icy hands stroked down her spine. She felt her body tense, and her nipples tightened while her body broke out in goose bumps.

  He stroked all of her skin, not only her implant sites. When he eased her over, her blush fought the chill. She blinked at the bright lights overhead while Patches stroked her from temples to ankle.

  “I have removed the dead and scorched skin caused by the electrical exposure. Winger will share his body heat, and if you require more assistance, we will call in a medical team.”

  Alexia was mortified as the Enjel came into her field of vision. He was lovely, half-naked and climbing into bed with her. A little bit of grunting and shifting later and she was wrapped in the embrace of
his wings and arms. It was like curling up with a bear and an eagle at the same time.

  She shivered against his chest and tried to ignore the slow stroke of his hands over her back and hips. “Thank you for this.”

  “It is my pleasure.” His voice was amused.

  She looked up, and he was smiling down at her. His face was framed by inky black hair, and his eyes were a vivid blue with gold irises.

  She shivered again, and he held her closer. She didn’t want to tell him that it was because of the look in his eyes. She had a feeling he knew.

  “How long do we have to do this?” She mumbled it against his chest.

  “As long as it takes. I am willing to hold you all day, but you can’t fall asleep. It is one of Patches’s rules.”

  She blinked. She wasn’t even allowed that escape from embarrassment. Damn. “Well, do you come here often?”

  He laughed and answered seriously. “No. We are usually at our base. With Patches around, we get most of our healing needs taken care of at home.”

  “Well, that is convenient.”

  “It really is. Answer me this. Are you naturally bald?”

  She blushed and pressed her forehead against his chest. “No. It is an occupational marker. I am assured that it will grow back. They just never say when.”

  “Do you remember what colour it was?”

  Lexi twisted her lips. “Do I still have eyebrows?”

  “Not really.”

  “Whatever colour they are, my hair is two shades lighter. They did mention a chance of my losing my pigment though.”

  “So…white?”

  “Or clear. I won’t know until I grow it out. Is there a groomer with a regenerator on Whiccin?”

  He laughed. “I will ask around. How are you feeling?”

  “Warmer. I think you can probably go now.”