half believed that I was dead too.”
“What?” she asked with surprise. “Why?”
Magnus listed off the reasons one after the other. “The wound I clearly recalled receiving was no longer in evidence, neither were the other small injuries I had sustained that day. And even my scars were somehow gone, yet my body was wracked with agony. I clearly recalled that the eyes of the man I had bitten had glowed.” He shook his head, and smiled wryly. “I now realize he had been an immortal, but knew nothing about them then, and worried he might have been the Christian God, or embodied by Him, and that I too was dead and in that hell the Christians carped on about. That it was a punishment for taking part in the raid on his church, and killing his priests. That I was now cursed to walk the earth as the dead for my sins.”
“What did you do?” she asked, unconsciously shifting closer on the couch.
“What could I do?” he asked helplessly. “I could not sail any of the ships on my own, and the bodies were already starting to stink.” He grimaced at the memory, and then said, “And I was not really sure I was dead and cursed, so I started to walk inland in search of aid. However, I was alone, unarmed, and hurting, so avoided the trails and riding paths to evade the enemy. But I was in a bad way. I walked for a day and night at least, although I do not remember much of it. At some point I collapsed in a copse where I was eventually found by a farmer. He apparently recognized that I was different and delivered me to Alodia Kenric.”
“Who was that?” Allie asked at once.
“She is a very old immortal, and head of the Kenric clan of immortals.”
Allie blinked, and then said with disbelief, “Very old? Are you kidding me? You were born in 779. How much older could she be for you to consider her very old?”
“I am not sure,” he admitted slowly. “Even back then you simply did not ask a lady her age. But I would guess she was probably born in b.c.”
“b.c.? Like before Christ b.c.?” she asked with amazement.
“It is not as rare as you would think, Allie,” he said soothingly, and then informed her, “Victor was born in the second or third century b.c., and Lucian was born a good twelve or thirteen hundred years before that.”
Allie blinked twice at this news, somehow seemed to file it away somewhere in her mind where it was less troubling, and then shook her head and said, “Fine. Alodia was old. And immortal. And you were delivered to her. What happened?”
“She got me the blood I needed to complete the turn and—”
“Got you mortals to bite, you mean,” she interrupted him, and then pointed out, “There were no blood banks back then.”
“No, there were no blood banks,” he agreed mildly. “She must have brought me people to feed on through the turn and probably controlled me to prevent my harming them.”
“You don’t remember?” she asked, and Magnus shook his head.
“I do not remember biting anyone, or even the turn, really, other than bad nightmares,” he admitted. When she merely nodded with a grim expression, he continued. “I eventually woke up feeling rather amazing, but wondering where I was. Alodia came to me shortly after and explained about my being found and brought to her. She explained what I was now and offered to mentor me.”
“Mentor?” Allie’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly did that entail?”
“She basically adopted me into her family and taught me how to survive as an immortal. How to hunt. How best to avoid detection, etc.”
“Oh. Right, you were only fourteen,” Allie said now, relaxing a little. “Of course, she adopted you.”
Magnus didn’t remind her that he had been considered a man at that age, and that many of his friends had been married with a child or two under their belt by then. He merely nodded solemnly. “Family is important to immortals. They understand that it can make the difference between an immortal going rogue or not, so clans often adopt stray immortals when they come across them.”
She tilted her head. “Is she still alive?”
“Yes.” He hesitated and then admitted, “One of her natural sons, Edward, lives here in Port Henry. You will probably meet him in the next day or two.”
“How old is he?” she asked at once.
“I believe he was born in 1004,” Magnus