“It’s understandable to be concerned for your family.” Ava turned into his arms to hug him, “I know you are going to be worried and miss them. I will just have to work at a way to keep you occupied.”
She felt the laughter rumble through his chest as much as she heard it, “You think that you can distract me?”
Rising on her tiptoes she barely touched her lips to his, “I know I can.” Taking his lower lip in a quick nibble and release, she lowered back to her feet. This was not the time or place for extended displays of affection. There was too much going on, and so many of his family and friends were going to Earth.
In the end, the males going to Earth for the next six months from the male council were Kneus, Knollig, Kniam and Marcael. Staying behind to run things on Terraneu were Asteen, Ailech, Baylech, Thian and Knaleg. Although he had argued and stormed around, Kniam had insisted that not only did Knaleg have younger children, his twins Ella and Knayon were still school aged…but he was needed for the security of Terraneu. Knaleg had relented only when it was promised that he could go on the second six-month run, which would be more fraught with danger since the community would be integrating the government survivors with the rebels. The idea of tempering any fighting seemed to appeal to him and he quieted.
The females going were Gwen, Mairi, Amber and Brennae. There had been heated arguments on the males part, and in the end, the females held out. They were going and that was final. Ava didn’t worry for their safety. With that group of males in charge of their protection, she almost felt sorry for anyone that got in the way.
At the end of the day, with hurried goodbyes and hugs all around…the groups going to Earth went through the portal. The rest returning to Terraneu, headed that way. Through all the chaos, the native Antilleans were a huge help and Ava respected their contribution to the success of the day.
Tired and worn out their group landed back in Terraneu. Without Amber to organize the celebration dance usually held the next day, Catherine took up the reins and Ava found herself volunteered. Tomorrow was going to be just as hectic.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She had seen the celebration dance six months ago, but she hadn’t been with Knadyn to enjoy it. Now that she experienced it with him by her side, she could definitely say she had a whole new understanding of its appeal. Dancing with Knadyn in the park, surrounded by his friends and family. Lights were twinkling on every surface, with the banners billowing in the wind and music floating on the breeze. She would argue this was pretty close to heavenly.
“Everyone brace yourself. The gnowlers are coming through.” She heard someone yell then there was a flurry of movement as everyone hurried to the paths.
“What are gnowlers?” Ava was sure she had been told about them, she just couldn’t remember.
“They keep the grass from getting too high. They eat it and keep it trimmed. My mother calls them the equivalent of Earth lawnmowers.”
“I am familiar with those. When we came out of the bunkers, the overgrowth of plants was everywhere. We tried to get the machinery to work, including lawnmowers, but they were too rusted…” her voice trailed off as a swarm of small, furry creatures swept through the area. They were making a half-chirping, half-growling noise. “Oh. They are so cute.”
Knadyn laughed, “Yeah. Until you see that they have a million teeth.”
“Do they bite?” Ava was rethinking her previous opinion on their cuteness.
Knadyn laughed harder, “No, they are harmless. My sister and mother have a few as pets. Though no one else has managed it.”
“Their pets… this is terrible. Who is going to take care of their pets while they are on Earth?”
Knadyn pulled her back onto the grass, “They will have asked Jen or Aunt Cat to look out for them.”
“Oh.” Ava was relieved that the pets were taken care of. A small part of her had been hoping that she might get a chance to care for them. She had always wanted a pet. “That’s—”
“No Star! You cannot go after the gnowlers. Your mommy would be mad at you.” Ava heard Catherine yelling.
“Who is Star?” she turned and then froze in panic. There was a giant fanged, huge cat-dog like animal stalking after the furry grass eating fur balls. Then Ava noticed that there were more of them winding their way around the legs of the dancers, all of them heading toward the direction the gnowlers had gone. “Knadyn. What are those?” she whispered so that the man killers wouldn’t hear her.
“What?” He looked back at the crowd and his aunt wrestling with Star. “You did not get told about the Sacath either?” Taking her hand, he reassured her, “They are domesticated animals from Antilles. My parents had two, Cebat and Tabec. They passed from old age recently and mom…make that everyone was devastated. She hasn’t gotten a new one yet. They had babies though…Lady and Titan. They are both over there…the golden one and the brindle. They are getting up there in age too.” Looking around he waved his hand in the direction of two more, “The black one my aunt is wrestling is Star, she’s my sisters. That white fellow over there is named Jasper. He was a gift my sister gave to Marcael. They are hoping to breed them soon.” He turned his face back to hers.
“They are coming this way.” Ava went stiff as a board.
“Do you want me to send them away?” Knadyn pulled her closer, “They are very well trained.”
Sure Ava thought sarcastically, she could see that. With his aunt having to wrestle one to keep it from eating the poor gnowlers. Hearing a cooing sound from her feet Ava looked down. It was a gnowler. Her eyes went to the black beast stalking toward her, to the fur ball at her feet, and then back and forth. What was she going to do?
“Knadyn, do something.” She pointed down at the gnowler, then at the animals stalking it. The white sacath had joined the female. Without thinking, Ava bent over and picked up the angry gnowler and it began to coo again. With the sacath right on her heels Ava yelled, “No gnowlers.” The sacath stopped inching forward their ears perked up. “I said no!” She set the gnowler down next to her foot and clapped her hands. “Sit.” Now that she noticed, there were a large number of sacath in front of her. They all sat at her command.
“Looks like we have Brennae’s replacement for the next six months.” A tall man with kind eyes had been walking by. “My name is Iesti. Stop by the sorrem holding in the morning if you want to work with the animals.”
Ava looked to Knadyn, “Sorrem?”
“Pack animals. Like Earth horses.” He explained.
“Oh, thank you for the offer.” She smiled thinking she might just have a job to do for the next six months. The sacath were not happy being ignored and had taken to rubbing against her. The fur was soft and the animals so friendly she was soon trying to pet all of them.
“Okay you pests. Go home.” Knadyn waved them away and they moved off. He saw the way she was worrying her lip between her teeth. “We can check to make sure they are all taken care of after the dance.” Seeing that she was still watching them he sighed, “We might have to request dual domes to take care of those sacath until the Earth mission is over?”
Ava stilled and looked into Knadyn’s eyes, “Do you want to move in with me?” They hadn’t talked about living together.
“I want you to be happy. If having your own space is vital to that happiness, I will stay in the dome next door and take half the sacath.”
Ava thought it over and smiled, “I think I will only be happy if we are living in the same dome. Let the sacath take the other side.”
“Do you mean it? I thought you wanted to move slowly?” Knadyn’s face shone with happiness.
“That is taking it slowly.” She laughed happily. In another six months see if they weren’t in New Haven with the other mated couples.
About the Author
On the front of new and exciting I can now say that I no longer have to trudge off to work. I am now a full time, stay at home, self-proclaimed professional writer/publisher/editor/social media mogul. (By
“professional”, I mean I don’t have a clue what I am doing, and every day is like riding a roller coaster trying to get my footing. Nevertheless, what a ride it is.)
I am going to use my time to try to publish a book every few months. I hope that the formula works for you, my readers and if things go horribly wrong, I can always slow things down if chaos ensues.
As always, my thanks go out to everyone whose support and kindness gives me the push to make every day matter, and to write, edit, and publish my stories.
I am still a one-day at a time, normal person. I have Mr. Stormy, my kids and a bunch of dogs running around keeping me grounded.
I wish all my readers the best in 2015! Please go out and make a dream come true for yourselves or check off something from your Bucket list. Life is too short and you do not want your “I wish I had done that” list to be too long!
There is a link on my webpage at http://www.stormymcknight.com/ if you want to send me your thoughts, or sign up to be on the mailing list for release updates and events. Also new covers, story ideas, book trailers and the latest news are posted on my website first.
Stormy
Keep reading for an excerpt
The first in my new series:
Maliuth: The Reborn
Chapter One
One minute she was driving along, minding her own business and the next thing…wham! She was being pulled into a bright light. Alea Wyatt was killed in a motor vehicle accident. Her energy left sitting in the void waiting for something she didn’t even know existed.
She couldn’t see her surroundings, but there wasn’t a sense of panic or fear going through her, so that was a good thing. All she felt was peace and calm. Into her mind popped the realization that she was dead. The knowledge didn’t cause her pain or despair, it was just a fact that she accepted. Her first thought beyond that was, why wasn’t she freaking out? She was only thirty-eight years old. She had a long life left ahead of her still. There must be something calming in this void to be keeping her from screaming and ranting. She didn’t know how long she hovered there in the stillness when she finally heard a voice.
“Do you have unfinished business?” The question boomed out of nowhere with a hint of impatience.
“I don’t think so.” Taking a moment to think she had asked, “I guess that would depend on what you consider ‘unfinished’…I mean there are a lot of things I would like to see—”
There was a resounding sigh then the voice came back, “That’s right you are Terran or as you call yourself…human.” She was suddenly flying through the light and landed with a thud in a seat. “Is this better?”
Alea opened her eyes to see that she was in some kind of DMV hell. There were thousands of small tables with paperwork on them as far as the eye could see. She was shocked to note that not all of the occupants of the room and their various seats were human. She noticed a large counting digital wheel with the words “Now serving number” over it. The thing was turning faster than she could keep up with and the number displayed was so large her mind couldn’t fathom it. Turning to face the “woman” in front of her, she realized that although humanoid, this creature wasn’t human.
“Well. Is this better?” She could hear the woman’s words but the mouth didn’t move.
“Sure. Yes.” Alea had never been one to question authority or rock the boat. If her food wasn’t prepared correctly, she ate it anyway. If someone asked to take cuts in front of her in line, she always politely let them. Even if that one person ended up being a family of twenty. She had always tried to do the right thing. Therefore, even though this room was totally overwhelming and hearing voices talking in her head wasn’t normal…she just said yes.
With a knowing smile, the creature held out a form, “I am your Universally Appointed Afterlife social worker. I need you to sign here.” With a pointy finger along the pages her social worker instructed, “and initial here…here…and here.”
“What am I signing?” Alea didn’t want to be rude, but she had always read the fine print before signing anything. It was out of habit that she had blurted the question and when her social worker looked exasperated, she almost just started signing.
“It is the release of our energy, currently in your possession, back into the system.”
“Your energy? You mean this form of my body. Back into the system to become what?”
“To become what it is meant to become.” The woman said cryptically.
“What if I don’t want to sign?” she was stalling for time as her mind processed what was going on.
“You don’t really want to know that.” Upon hearing that warning, everything went away. Alea knew this was what hell must be like. No sound, no hint of light…just a blank canvas of nothing.
“Okay.” She whispered frantically, “I get it.” Then she was able to see again and gave a sigh of relief.
“It works every time.” The voice held a hint of gloating and Alea wasn’t amused. Before she could react, there was a flash and a wild looking male stood there. He was tall and gangly with messy black hair falling across his oversized eyeglasses.
With a quick look at his clipboard he muttered, “Flaura. We have a huge bottleneck of Earth human’s and not one of them has learned anything. How hard is it to use the energy they have been given wisely?” He looked Alea over with disinterest, “The universe is clamoring for their energy. Why are you sitting here with that one?” He waved a hand at her. “Does she meet minimum requirements or not?”
“I don’t know Florian. She is such a…doormat.” Before Alea could defend herself Flaura went on as if she hadn’t just insulted her, “Don’t you have some Neutisians to process. I hear their star went supernova.” Flaura gave a longing look at Florian. “I would be happy to help with that.”
“They are going fast. You know how advanced Neutisians were. Their energy is a prime commodity and all of the good sectors are acting fast.” Seeing the dejected look on Flaura’s face he relented, “Give this one her three days and then come help. They are truly wonderful to process and your sector could use a few Neutisians.”
Grabbing the pen, Flaura pressed it into her hand.
“Why are the Nutisans so great?” Alea held the pen tightly in her hand.
“Neutisians,” Flaura corrected, “were almost to energy level ten.” She replied as if that explained everything. At Alea’s blank stare, she just sighed and added. “Most Earth humans are at a level three at the highest, if that gives you any indication of the different levels of advancement. Where Earth humans are prone to violence and closed-minded. The Neutisians were…well, the opposite. I have only ever gotten a few level ten’s in my sector, and none of those were ever wasted on Earth.”
Alea stared at the papers and at Flaura’s pointed look started signing and initialing where the woman had requested. “There. I’ve done what you asked.” She felt tears stinging in her eyes.
“Don’t go all weepy on me.” The woman held out some type of tissue. “I forget how hard Earth humans are to process sometimes.” Alea noticed the tissue she was using had gone from white to purple where she had blown her nose. For some reason this was amusing and she started laughing. This woman was going to have a purple snotty tissue to remember her by. She bet a fancy Neutisian couldn’t do that.
“That’s better. Now you have a few days to say good-bye and get any unfinished business out of the way. Look for your next assignment sometime before the three days are up. If you are needed before that, you will have to go early.” Giving her a stern look Flaura leaned closer. “This part is important, so pay attention.” Alea turned her full attention to what Flaura was saying. Emphasizing each word her social worker said, “Whatever you do…do not miss your window! If you do…you will become a lost particle and who knows how long that will take to retrieve you.”
“What is a lost particle?” Alea couldn’t help asking.
“What you call ghosts or spirits. They failed to go through their window and if enough
time passes, start to think they are still alive. In most cases we find them, but sometimes the energy fades to the point where they are stuck in the black void.”
Alea bit back a terrified gasp, “How will I know what I am looking for?” she would do anything to avoid that black hell!
“You will. Just keep your eyes and mind open.” Flaura gave her a small smile, “You held it together pretty well. For an Earth human you aren’t so bad.” With a flourish, she stamped the papers Alea had signed. There was a flash of light and she swore she heard the faint sound of laughter as the room she had been sitting in disappeared.
Other Titles available:
Terraneu Series
Kniam: A Terraneu Novel (Book One)
Knollig: A Terraneu Novel (Book Two)
Knaleg: A Terraneu Novel (Book Three)
Kneus: A Terraneu Novel (Book Four)
Marcael: A Terraneu Novel (Book Five)
Aquadomina Series
Raife: An Aquadomina Novel (Book One)
Knadyn: A Terraneu Novel (Book Six) Page 11