Awake by Viola Grace Read Free Book Online

living room had been taken over by a giant fairy.
    The man turned to her, his wings flitting in agitation. “So, the Orb finally chose a host.”
    “I do not know you.” She tried to give Odin the hint without speaking to him. She knew all the Nameless, support staff and council members now. They were all part of her thoughts.
    “No, of course not. I am the remainder of an age before the Orb had your kind killed before it would take them on.” He paced around the room, examining the fixtures. “I never thought to see this day.”
    “What day?”
    “The day when the Orb would finally move against us.” He gave her a look, and his eyes were a strange marbleisation of black and white. “It seems a shame that you are destined to die the same day you take up your post.”
    He moved fast, wrapping his hands around her throat. “If you are waiting for your guard, he is busy in the other room.”
    Kali gripped his hands with hers, and she pulled at the power in him that matched her own. She hauled away until his eyes were no longer supernaturally combined but rather a medium gold.
    He started to shake in shock and released her as he staggered back. “What did you do?”
    Kali moved toward the doorway cautiously.
    “I took back the power of the Orb of Time. You are resuming your actual age, and oh yes, your body is no longer tolerated here at Home. Goodbye.” She turned as his shaking became more violent, taking the corner as he exploded on the molecular level.
    There were three men attacking Odin, and each only had a fraction of the power of the one she had just dispatched. Odin was becoming physical and gaseous in turn, and she knew that his attackers had something to do with it.
    “Gentlemen, back away.”
    They ignored her, so she extended her hand and called to the power of the Orb within them.
    Odin wrapped around them swiftly, and they disappeared in a burst of light. He returned immediately and faced her with concern. “Are you all right?”
    She nodded and ran into his arms. “Are you?”
    “I am fine. I wanted to return them to their universe before they exploded.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t think of that. There is a bit of a mess in the living room.”
    He chortled and ran his hands up and down her spine. “I will summon Acquisitions. They will take care of it.”
    “They do housekeeping too?”
    “They do everything.”
    She sighed and rested against him. “Why do you think that they would come here if they could see their future?”
    What you see is not always what is shaped. They could not tell how you would react or that I had already given you the clues to destroy them. Four down, twenty thousand three hundred ninety-four to go.
    “I think that the future that we see is not always the one that we get, but we can hope that things turn out for the best.” His huge hands were stroking her spine slowly.
    She sighed and cuddled against him. “Can we go for a walk?”
    “Of course, any particular destination?”
    “Just out to where I can see the stars and think.”
    He straightened, took her hand and led her out the door that appeared when they walked toward the wall.
    “How does it do that?”
    “It does that only for you.”
    She sighed heavily as they walked up an arching path, aimlessly moving between buildings.
    “How did they get into our home, Odin?” Her words were quiet, but the Orb wasn’t offering an answer within her thoughts.
    “I would guess that they saw that moment in their future and simply transported themselves there. It is how most of the Nameless find new recruits. We see them, and then, we retrieve them.”
    Kali rubbed at her forehead with her free hand. “This is way too complicated.”

Chapter Nine
    The thing that struck Kali was that to her sight, the stars never moved. The nebulas hung in place and the swirl of galaxies remained in place like pinwheels in ice.
    She shook off the melancholy that the sight gave her and looked at the expanse of Home from