one to face the tall blond man with swirling gray eyes who entered the anteroom.
“The Artifact has been waiting for your return and its chance to reenter the world,” he said with a courtly bow. “Just as I have.”
Chapter 61
Rune pushed Teresa behind him and drew his knife. Looking into the man’s Eternal gray eyes gave him a jolt of shock. But Rune didn’t recognize him.
He held the wicked blade out in front of him and crouched in a stance of readiness. Whoever the hell this was, he wouldn’t be getting anywhere near Teresa. “Who are you?”
The blond laughed and the sharp sound echoed weirdly in the chapel. “Your question tells you exactly who I am.”
“You talk in circles and you don’t belong here. Get out now.”
Instead, the man walked lazily toward Rune, giving the impression of a predator slinking up on its prey. Well, Rune was no man’s prey and he damn sure would make certain Teresa wasn’t, either.
As the man passed them, Rune began to edge Teresa toward the doorway and the chapel. He didn’t want a confrontation here in this small antechamber. There was no room for movement, and in close quarters like this Teresa stood a chance of being injured. She moved with him. Though he couldn’t look at her, he heard her footsteps on the stone and knew that she understood what he was trying to do.
He had another worry as well. He had heard from Torin how the Artifact had affected Shea when they had gone to retrieve her shard. How the dark magic had come close to overpowering her and how they had had to battle their own dark desires to keep from surrendering to the call of the black silver.
Now, with this … man interrupting them, Rune couldn’t give Teresa his support as she held the Artifact. Instead, he was forced to keep his entire focus on the immediate threat.
Straightening up to his full, formidable height, Rune continued to back out of the room, though he held up one hand with the palm facing the man and called on the fire in the same instant. Living flames engulfed his raised hand, swimming and burning over his flesh in brilliant colors. Shadows leaped on the historic stone walls and danced in his opponent’s eyes. “Get out now before this goes too far.”
Rather than being put off by Rune’s display, the blond man lifted his own hand and within a moment’s time he, too, displayed the living flame that danced across his flesh. “You have nothing to show me that I don’t already know, Eternal.”
“What the fuck—” Rune broke off, stunned and shocked.
From behind him, he heard Teresa gasp, but he focused on the surprising man opposite him. “What are you?”
“I’m you,” he said tightly, disgust clear in his tone. “Or I should have been. You Eternals. Belen’s chosen.” He laughed shortly, a harsh sound that scratched at the air. “Did you think that you and your brothers were the first time the god decided to play at being the father of a race?”
Rune studied the blond immortal, looked into gray eyes that were so much like his own and then reached back into the eons of time for a slip of a memory. When he found it, he shook his head. “Impossible. You can’t be. You’re all dead.”
“Not dead,” the being countered, flicking a glance at Teresa that was filled with both desire and determination. “We are the Forgotten. I am Parnell, one of many. We are the true Eternals. The first race created by Belen. The better race.”
“Rune?”
He heard the question in her voice and couldn’t blame her for it. Hell, Rune could hardly think straight himself. This shouldn’t be happening, but it made sense—in a twisted, truly fucked-up way. At least this explained how Elena had died and how Teresa’s aunt had been burned. At the hands of one who should have been an Eternal. A guardian.
He didn’t remember much. He’d had no cause to retain the details over the long centuries of his immortal life. The Forgotten were a part of the distant past. No more than a legend among the Eternals.
Speaking to Teresa, Rune kept his gaze on his enemy. “I told you that Belen created us from the heart of the sun.”
“Yes, but—”
“What I didn’t tell you was that Belen created others before us. They were meant to be your mates. To be your guardians. But they were flawed.”
“Flawed?” Parnell’s outraged shout rang through the rafters of the