“So not every pair has to wait four-hundred years like Patrick did for Mary?”
“The length in which the immortal will wait is never known, although sometimes no, the separation between a pair is not as long. Take my sister Lillian, she found William only thirty years after she became immortal in 1840.”
The image of the light copper haired girl flowed into my mind. Her chestnut eyes seemed to glow with obvious clarity. “I knew she had to be connected. It made no other sense for her to be around William and Grace.”
“We had to create the pretenses well for humans to believe. Grace and William have enough main similarities, to fool humans from even noticing that he is actually, physically, two years older. But we couldn’t all be of the same family for it to still be believable.”
I heard a small laughter of amusement in my mind. Now I knew that the Alexanders looking older had nothing to do with genes. They looked older because they were older. All except for Lillian, who still looked to be at the edge of her teen years. It must have been the reason Grace couldn’t be seen with her mate. Because of the pretenses they created for him. My curiosity had started to get the best of me. I hated wanting to take the conversation in two directions, but I knew that I was already more than three-fourths into the original. Ugh.
“But wait, you said Grace found her other half—”
“Jacob,” Liam said.
“Yes, if she found Jacob two-hundred years later that means Lillian…”
“Found William first, yes.”
“But if Grace was created before Lillian, why didn’t she find someone before her?” I asked.
Liam nodded with acceptance of my confusion.
“There are two timelines for immortals. The coven and the pair timeline.” I made an involuntary sigh. “It helps to not look at it with seniority. It was already planned that Grace would join the coven first but that Lillian would be paired first.”
The subtle shake of my head brought a rise in Liam’s cheeks. I understood the way immortals were created but my human nature felt sympathy. No matter how it was put, it still felt unfair for Grace. Mary and Patrick were together, then it should have been her turn but instead she was passed over for Lillian and William. Grace had to be around them both for another two centuries before she was finally granted her own mate. I was glad for Liam’s unplanned existence. At least that way she had him for companionship while she waited.
“How will it work for you?” I asked.
“This is the very reason I am different,” Liam said. “When Mary created me against the plan of the higher beings, she threw it out of balance. There had and never would be another created with my polar opposite gift, no one for me to ever find. I would still join in saving humanity like my family but, unlike them, my eternal life would never be paired with another.”
Now, I could understand where the emotion came from. She had acted impulsively with a mother’s compassion but carried shame from the consequence that robbed Liam of happiness from another.
“So you have to settle for a human. That’s a bum deal.”
“Emma, don’t you see the whole point? I thought I was meant to never know love at all, and then I found you. And now I have learned that soulmates will truly find each other despite the bodies in which they belong.”
I gazed up into his eyes, watching as his emerald green brightly with mine. Yes, there I could see not Liam Alexander the immortal but Liam, my soulmate. I raised my right hand to rest on the side of his face. I could feel his soul bare itself to me within the silence. I lifted my cheeks simultaneously with his own.
“What does Mary think about that?”
“I think even with my forgiveness and Marius’s blessing, Mary will always be haunted by her decision,” Liam said.
“Marius?” I asked.
“He is the oldest immortal created from the new order.” Liam looked into my blank eyes. “Now that you know of my origins, I can tell of how we all came to be.” My lips shifted with my readied exhale. I knew how and why Liam was here but I was about to learn why all immortals were here. “After man was first created, the higher beings still continued to keep a watchful eye on them. As centuries past, they grew concerned with the ways of man. So the idea was formed of the immortal, a being that would help lessen the evil that had begun to spread among humanity. That was called the order.” I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something went wrong with the original order if there was now a new order. I held a patient gaze at Liam’s deep sigh. “The order thrived with the immortals who subtlety working to lessen the flaws of man around the earth. That was until around 42 BC, when an immortal pair by the name of Livius and Amara began to challenge their purpose. Instead of duty, they sought a new life without limitations, a life that embraced their creation to its potential and declared the earth to immortals. A selfish idea that disgraced the order forever.”
“What did they do?” I asked.
“Four decades after their new path, they began creating an army of immortal followers. Though none of them carried a physic gift, they were dangerous just merely by their loyalty to Livius and Amara.”
“How could the higher beings not see that coming, if they were the ones who chose them?” I said.
Liam curled his lips. “Even higher beings can make mistakes. My existence proves that.”
“How is it that you have your gift? Shouldn’t you have been like Livius and Amara’s breed?”
“I am merely the odd exception.”
I tilted my chin up to find his eyes locked with mine. He was just as mystified as me about his gift.
“What happened to the other originals? The immortals following the order?”
“Never had an uprising like this happened against the order. It was a time of great confusion and much chaos. As their territories became greatly outnumbered, some tried to instinctively protect the humans while other pairs abandoned their posts and fled for survival.”
“So you’re saying that those who weren’t killed by their own kind went into hiding?”
“Yes,” Liam said.
“Why didn’t they form their own army? Put a stop to it all?”
“In those ancient times, immortals didn’t engage with other territories like they do now. No other bonds were formed. Each pair was for themselves.”
“How did the higher beings fix it?”
“Once they realized the flaw of Livius and Amara’s existence, the new order was created. Now, mortals would be left to the evil of their own kind as they were solely protected from a more dangerous threat. Immortals themselves. It was under Marius that the immortals of the new order finally brought an end to Livius and Amara’s chaos. Those of his army who weren’t killed went into hiding, much like the originals had before them.”
“What happened to Livius and Amara? Were they killed on the spot?”
“Amara was killed but Livius was exiled to imprisonment.”
“Why wouldn’t the higher beings want him gone too?”
“Because they wanted this punishment for him.”
“Why not death?” I asked.
“It would seem a crueler sentence to be alive and know that your mate could never be with you for the rest of your eternal existence.”
He was right, that was worse.
“Can’t he just escape or use his gift?” I paused with my neck’s turn. “Wait, what is his gift?”
“The same as mine,” Liam said.
“That’s who you meant when you said your gift was the one of two who had it.” He nodded. “Well I’ve seen the advantage of your gift so what’s to stop Livius from using it? Wouldn’t he be more dangerous alive if he wanted revenge for Amara’s death?”
“What stops him is the immortal guards, each of which holding a different physic gift to imprison him.”
The very idea that such an immortal was alive anywhere in the world gave me a chill. He was like an evil Romeo without his twisted sadistic Juliet. If I thought too much longer a
bout it I might have nightmares.
“Where is he exiled?”
“Only Marius knows,” Liam said.
“So is Marius some sort of king for the new order?”
I had to admit the words sounded silly coming from my mouth, but then it was all silly and ridiculous. That didn’t mean it was any less real.
“We call him the immortal guide, the only immortal selected by the higher beings to now be their direct link of contact. He receives their messages for each of us to find the chosen humans that will become an immortal.”
“How do you avoid the chaos that happened before?” I asked.
“Things were different with the old order. There were only immortal pairs created by the higher beings. But after the new order was formed the higher beings created something beyond the pairs. They formed covens, immortal families bound together in loyalty. Once Marius is given word of a new coven to be formed, he sends one of his children to create and teach the first immortal of that coven. It was his son Jarl that created Patrick. Afterward it is the responsibility of the new immortal, like Patrick, to teach the next of his chosen coven member.”
“Are all covens big like yours?”
“No, it all depends on the area the coven is chosen for.”
“How do you know which area you are chosen?”
“By following the path of each new coven member. The coven territory becomes permanent once the final member is found.”
“So there is never overcrowding of immortals in one territory?”
“Just as the very creation of each coven is predestined so is where they will be located. We are all like the stars balanced in the night sky.”
“What about the originals? The ones who had gone into hiding?”
“After he was created, Marius went acquiring those originals that were left, inviting them into his coven. Most joined but some remained in solitude, far from any humans. We still continue to keep a watchful eye out for them.”
“Where is Marius’s coven?”
“In Scotland, where it has been for two thousand years.”
My eyes shifted to the right, imagining the structure of a castle built within the backdrop of the Scottish Highlands.
“So with Grace finding Jacob that means your coven is now complete, right?”
“It is,” Liam said.
“I guess that means he was from North Carolina.”
I grinned at the thought. He didn’t have to move anywhere. The Alexanders were finally at their permanent territory.
“Yes,” Liam said.
“Does that mean the whole state is your territory?”
He grinned back. “No, just the east half, up to Raleigh. There is another coven that starts from the western boarder up to the Fayetteville line.”
“What happens if one of the immortals of a pair is killed? Do they get another?”
“The coven will gain another pair to accommodate for the loss but no, the individual loss of the pair can never be replaced.”
“They have to go on with their coven without their mate?”
“Yes,” Liam said. I could see in his steady gaze that even he saw the unfairness of that. But then again the immortal life he was given was just the same. In fact, it started out that way. Now, that was unfair.
I shifted my body back down to lay my head to his chest so that I could hear the array of hummingbird beats. The piles of information I had just learned seemed to be enough. Now that I understood his existence, I could go back to some of the curiosity that lingered of the Alexanders.
“I know yours, but what can everyone else do in your family?”
“Grace is an empath. She can feel and manipulate the emotions. There are a few others like her, one that guards Livius.”
“So I’m guessing they just make him feel like he wants to be there,” I said.
Liam nodded. “Lillian holds the gift of invisibility.”
My brow lifted. “She can be invisible?”
“Yes, she has the power to rearrange the molecules of her body and anything that touches it.” I had to say if there was a cooler power than Liam that was it. “She can also project a barrier with it. Because of William’s polar opposite gift of selective sight, he is the only immortal who can see in that form.” Liam found my narrowed eyes. I was certain immortals already had superb eyesight, so I was curious to know what selective meant. “Humans will call it X-ray vision.”
“Is that another one of your made up terms for us?” I said.
Liam chuckled with an obvious yes. “Mary can heal.” His finger traced the vein in my left hand. “But she is limited externally to only mortal wounds that break the skin.”
“So she could do nothing for you?” I said. Liam shook his head once. I could almost feel Mary’s regret through Liam’s eyes. I understood her desperation to keep him alive and the frustration of knowing her limitations, wishing Liam lay with a simple mortal wound from a gun or knife. “That must be hard.” I placed my right hand over his in a comforting gesture, not sure if it was for him or Mary. Maybe both, I thought. “Is that why she became a nurse?”
“It’s why she was, yes.”
“Was?” I asked.
“After what happened with me, she decided it was best to avoid the social contact with humans altogether.”
“Because she feared getting too attached again?”
“Yes,” Liam said.
I sympathized for all the Alexanders. In fact, I couldn’t see how Mary didn’t have more impulses to do what she had for Liam. How sad it must be to know you were going to live on forever while all of your friends and family would die. “It almost sounds like an unfair life.”
“It is not about what is fair and unfair. It is about what is right and what is wrong,” Liam said. “Whether we asked for it or not, this fate was given to us for a reason.”
I raised my chin along with my gaze to see the brightened glow of green staring at me. The eyes of a silent hero.
“I know how careful you are with exposure, but what happens if you are discovered?”
“It’s happened.” I wondered what would it be like as a human to be forced to keep such a secret, like I was now? Where there people out there who got together to talk about the rare beings they have met? Or was it a life of solitude? A life almost made worse by the lifelong secret they must hide from society. “But Patrick has the ability to modify human memory.”
I felt the gulp down my throat. Would that be me? Would I be forced to have the memories wiped from my brain? I couldn’t help the uneasy image of sitting on the floor of a padded all-white room.
“Is that what happened with Ross and Nick?”
“Yes,” Liam said. “Mary healed the boy’s ankle before Patrick modified his memory.”
“How do you just modify someone’s memory?”
“Patrick can manipulate short and long term memory.”
“So he did exactly what to Ross?” I asked.
“He erased the boy’s short term memory of my exposure, adding a false memory of my involvement.”
“Which means what… he believes you just punched him or something?”
“Something like that,” Liam said with amusement in his parted lips.
“What about Nick?”
Even though he had gotten away in his truck, surely they wouldn’t let him remember how he had been floating in the air.
“Patrick waited for him to fall asleep to modify him just the same.”
“How did you get them to confess to Sean? He said that all you did was walk by them.”
Liam grinned. “It wasn’t because of me.”
I squinted with confusion. “Then who did?”
“The morning before school as the boys approached your brother they had no intentions on revealing anything, even making pacts to take the night to their graves. But Grace could feel a small guilt within them, a guilt she merely magnified as she walked by the boys with me.”
“She made them feel as if they wanted to
share the guilt?”
“Yes,” Liam said.
Sean didn’t realize that it had nothing to do with Liam. It was the one he was walking with that influenced his former friends. Grace could manipulate your emotions without even looking at you, without even touching you. Yikes. “So you’ve never rescued someone and had them ask what you are? Have them ask to remember you?” He shifted his gaze away from me. “Liam?”
He looked down at me somewhat hesitantly. The brightness of emerald green was pulling me forward.
“They aren’t given the chance.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because it would be too much of a burden on a human to carry that kind of secret.”
“So that’s the rule? To never tell what you are to humans?”
It made sense. For a supernatural being that relied on living in the shadows of humanity, secrecy was a must.
“While that is the structure of it, the actual rule is not getting involved with a human life’s we are guarding. Immortals are meant to protect but never become deeply rooted with the lives in their territory. We should merely blend into the background of society.”
“To help the further risk of exposure?” I said.
“No, because it is a danger to you. The closer a human becomes attached with any immortal the closer they are of becoming a possible target.”
“You mean they could be used as bait by the other immortals.”
It sounded odd to say other but it’s what they were.
“Yes,” Liam said.
My eyes traveled away from him.
“That means the same should apply for me, right?”
“Yes. My very love is dangerous for you.”
“So you shouldn’t be with me, should you? It’s why you didn’t fight it when I ended things over a week ago.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t strong enough to stay away.”
“That makes two of us.” I sighed. My body lifted up to hold my eyes level with his again.
“I fear it will be the death of us both,” Liam said. I could see the true fear in his newly brightened eyes. I put my right hand up to rest my palm on his cheek for a comforting moment before I dropped it back down to rest inside the warmth of his hands.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
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