Chapter 1

Of all the men he'd ever been, he thought he liked Nathan Ian King best.

He sat on the veranda, sipping strong Nepalese tea as the sun rose. Orange with a pink hue, its upper curve licked at the sky over the Atlantic. This veranda, on the back of his house, looked out over the sea from on high. It was the view that had made him choose this place…had made him want to stay. All that water…

It still seemed incomprehensible to him.

Nathan King was a collector and dealer in antiquities. He was an expert in his field, though few would venture to guess how he had come by his expertise. Even fewer would believe he had acquired most of the pieces in his personal collection long before they'd been considered old.

Nathan was at ease and content with his life. And why shouldn't he be? He had established his gallery in a "historic"—the term made him smile—two-story brick building on the narrow, cobbled streets of old Boston. Then he had purchased this estate, an hour's drive from the city. The house was a sprawling one, built of red brick in the Victorian style: flat roof, tall, narrow windows, endless rooms lining long hallways, all of it set on fifty acres of lush meadows and secluded woods against the backdrop of the mighty sea.

He had created Nathan King, and his kingdom, some ten years ago. He'd been tired, then, of caution, tired of living in anonymity, of keeping to himself, of moving around so frequently. Enter Nathan, who in a very short time had become known and loved by hundreds. Nathan, who contributed yearly to homeless shelters and scholarship funds. Nathan, who had even been known to speak to local students about various historical periods, at the requests of their teachers.

Nathan Ian King was a model citizen. He never so much as ran a red light. His life was so perfectly ordinary that it was almost boring.

Almost.

Too good to last, this persona. Already he knew his time as Nathan King would eventually come to an end. In ten years he hadn't aged a day. In ten more people would begin to wonder about that. And while he had cut off all contact with others of his kind, they were bound to find him out as soon as tales of a man who did not age began to surface.

Then again, he thought, lifting the porcelain cup to his smiling lips, there was always makeup. A drastic measure, perhaps, but possible. He was really going to hate to give up his mundane life as Nathan King. It had been peaceful, tranquil…and not a single immortal Witch, Dark or Light, had tracked him down in all the time he'd been living it. The past decade had healed some of his oldest wounds, he thought. Like an overworked laborer after a long vacation, he felt renewed. Almost…reborn. Which was a miracle in itself.

"Got the mornin' paper for you, Nathan."

Nathan inclined his head without taking his eyes off the spectacular sunrise in progress over the ocean. So much water. The abundance of so precious an element still amazed him, even after so much time. You could take the man out of the desert, he mused…

"Come, George. Watch this with me. It's incredible."

"Aw, you say that every mornin'," George said, obviously unimpressed but with a touch of humor in his childlike voice. He closed the French doors behind him and lumbered onto the veranda to take a seat at the round glass-topped table. He tossed the newspaper down in front of Nathan, but Nathan didn't so much as glance at it. Not yet.

The sun rose still higher, its neon-orange glow spreading now over the face of the water, reflected in a million glowing ripples. And higher still, beaming warmth onto Nathan's face, spilling light and heat over his body. "It's glorious," Nathan whispered.

A deep, booming laugh escaped George. "You say that every mornin', too."

"I do, don't I?" Nathan finally dragged his gaze away to look at George. As always, his right-hand man was dressed…interestingly. Today he wore a stylish brown suit from the Big and Tall Shop over a pink tie-dyed T-shirt that he must have picked up at a garage sale. Glancing down, Nathan saw the ever-present Air Jordans on George's size 12 feet. He managed not to smile. He wouldn't hurt the big man's feelings for the world.

"So tell me what's on the schedule for you today, George," Nathan began.

But before George could answer, there was a thump on the French doors. Nathan looked up to see Sheila, her pudgy arms weighed down by a cluttered tray, standing on the other side of them. Nathan jumped up and flung the doors open.

"About time, too!" Sheila huffed, handing him the tray. "A lady could die of old age by the time you two gentlemen got around to opening a door for her."

Nathan smiled at her. He knew full well her name wasn't Sheila. Not really. She used to wait tables at a diner where he liked the tea. Until they caught her stealing leftovers to feed the pigeons outside and fired her. Just an excuse, really. She was getting on in years, and maybe someone had learned, as well, that she hadn't given them her real name and that her green card was a fake.

Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Benson.