Home > An Immortal Guardians Companion(3)

An Immortal Guardians Companion(3)
Author: Dianne Duvall

A mirthless laugh escaped him. “Seth didn’t save me, princess. No one can.”

 

 

1

 

Some of you will recognize this one as the bonus scene included at the end of Rendezvous with Yesterday, The Gifted Ones: Book 2. (It wasn’t included in the audiobook.) I originally intended it to be a prologue for Night Reigns. Most traditional publishers, however, are not very fond of prologues, so I ended up cutting it. It takes place seven years before Darkness Dawns, during Marcus’s last days of friendship with Bethany, the woman he loved for so many centuries.

 

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR

RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY

(The Gifted Ones: Book 2)

 

In the quiet of the master bedroom on the second floor of Marcus’s modest two-story home, a rhythmic thumping and muted laughter filtered in from outside, breaking the silence. Drawing back the curtains of the window that overlooked his front yard, Marcus carefully avoided the scorching afternoon sunlight and remained in the cool shadows while he watched the activity below.

His lips twitched when the basketball Robert hurled toward the goal careened off the backboard without so much as brushing the rim.

Robert was appallingly bad at the sport and clearly grew frustrated. To a man who could throw an axe or a dagger with astounding precision, sending a rubber ball through a net must appear a simple task. But Marcus suspected Robert’s inability to master it was only partly responsible for the frown that drew his brows down.

While fall temperatures cooled northern states, temperatures in Houston still hovered in the midnineties. The heat index or feels-like temp was probably a good ten degrees above that.

Perspiration trailed down the sides of Robert’s flushed face and saturated his T-shirt. His arms and the thickly muscled legs—left bare by the shorts Josh had loaned him—were damp as well. The Earl of Fosterly was definitely having a difficult time adjusting to the new climate and had to pause frequently to guzzle the cold water Beth kept in the shade of the front porch.

While Josh loped off after the ball, Beth smiled up at Robert and offered him advice and encouragement.

What an unlikely couple they were. Born and raised eight centuries apart, they had nevertheless found enough similarities between them to fall deeply in love.

In deference to Robert’s medieval mind frame, Beth had foregone wearing shorts (Robert balked at her revealing so much tempting bare flesh to others) and instead wore jeans and a T-shirt. Even these, Marcus knew, had met with some disapproval. And he could understand why.

The jeans were a pale, pale blue and hugged her slender legs and firm, shapely ass like a second skin. They rode low on her hips, the waistband falling beneath her belly button, and allowed teasing glimpses of muscled abs and the soft skin of her narrow waist every time her T-shirt drifted up. Several damp patches darkened her red shirt, making it cling to her full breasts and small frame in alluring ways.

Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that jounced and danced with every movement. Damp curls had sprung loose and clung to her temples and the back of her neck. Her pretty face glistening, she caught the ball Josh tossed her, flashed Robert a grin, and effortlessly sent the ball sailing through the net.

Marcus’s hand curled into a fist around the loose curtain fabric.

She was so damned beautiful. Her laughter so musical.

And he had missed her so much the two years she had been gone. How could he withstand losing her again when she returned to Robert’s time?

“You can’t,” a voice said behind him, where seconds before no one had stood.

Marcus stiffened. “Can’t what?” he asked, abandoning the faux American accent he used around his neighbors and letting his native English accent color his words.

“Do what you are thinking,” Seth informed him somberly.

For many long moments, Marcus said nothing. He simply continued to stare at the play below.

Robert attempted another free throw and missed the backboard entirely. Sailing over the top of it, the ball hit the roof so hard it rebounded and flew clear across the street. Robert swore foully and began to stomp down the driveway after it. But he only made it a few steps before a smiling Beth leapt onto his back. Laughing, he stumbled forward, then tucked his arms beneath her knees and carried her with him, piggyback-style, grinning at her over his shoulder when she pecked him on the cheek.

“Would it be so bad?” he whispered finally, loathing the despair and vulnerability the question revealed.

Seth sighed, an unhappy sound. “You know you cannot tell her who you are.”

“I would not have to,” Marcus pointed out. He had thought it all through very carefully. How he could approach her. What he could say that would produce the desired results without exposing all. “I could—”

“Bethany is an exceptionally bright and perceptive woman, as you know. She may even yet figure out who you are. But you cannot tell her what you are or what made you what you are.”

“Then you go to her.” Desperation driving him, he glanced over his shoulder and located Seth lounging in the darkness just inside the doorway. “You were the one who took her back in time. She knows you possess knowledge the rest of us do not. She would listen to you. You go to her. Then she would not have to know who I am. She would not have to know what I have become. You could—”

“Marcus—”

“Let me finish!” Silence descended in the aftermath of his shout. Marcus closed his eyes and mentally swore.

One did not yell at Seth.

No one yelled at Seth.

The immortal’s power was incalculable. His true age, in what millennium he had been born, where he was born, remained a mystery. All anyone knew with any certainty was that he had lived long enough to have witnessed biblical events, and it was extremely unwise to cross him.

Yet Seth’s face, when Marcus dared to look again, remained impassive.

“Very well,” Seth stated softly. “Continue.”

Marcus strove to moderate his voice, present a calm argument. “As I said, you would not have to tell her who I am. She knows you are gifted, that you can do things and know things that others don’t. All you would have to do is go to her and tell her you have had a vision or a dream and that she should do all in her power to keep Marcus from journeying to London in September of the year 1213 or a terrible fate shall befall him.”

“If memory serves, she did attempt to prevent you from going to London—”

“Because she loved me like a brother and missed me whenever I was away,” he gritted. “If she had thought some harm would befall me, she would have fought tooth and nail to keep me at Fosterly. She would have chained me to the damned walls of the dungeon if necessary. Lord Robert would have, too. If you tell her now, they will do so.”

“And then?”

Marcus returned his attention to the scene next door. “And then all this will be wiped away,” he said tonelessly. “None of it will have happened. I would not be immortal, and…” He shook his head. “All would be as it should be.”

“You cannot change your fate, Marcus.”

“Why can I not? You altered Beth’s fate. She would have died that day had you not plucked her from the present and delivered her to the past. And there is no telling what would have become of Lord Robert without her.”

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