Building From Ashes by Elizabeth Hunter

really bad time when I was a teenager, but basically, I had it pretty good. I always knew my family loved me. And that’s the most important thing.”
    “Me, too. I had a wonderful family.”
    “Really?” She grinned. “Your human family? You hardly ever talk about them.”
    “Oh, my parents were wonderful. And my sisters. I had four sisters. It was a very close family. Extended family, as well. When Efa and I married—our parents were dear friends, so it was arranged. Pure chance we loved each other. But it was a very close community.” He nodded. “That’s what saved me after I turned. I knew my children would be looked after, even though I couldn’t see them and their mother was gone.”
    “You never talk about her.”
    “Who, Efa?” Carwyn smiled when he thought about his gentle young wife. He’d been crazy in love with the demure girl. He could still remember their wedding night. Both of them young, fumbling. So eager and overwhelmed with love and excitement. Losing her years later had pierced Carwyn’s heart with a pain he hadn’t thought he’d be able to live through. But he had. And he’d survived without her for over a thousand years. “She was a very loving girl. I wonder, sometimes, if we would have fallen in love if we hadn’t been meant for each other. We were very different.”
    “What would she think of you now? Do you ever wonder?”
    He frowned. “Not really. It was so long ago. I think she would appreciate my faith and devotion to my family. Family was very important to both of us. But I was much more serious when I was young.”
    “Really?” Beatrice laughed. “Isn’t it usually the opposite?”
    “Not if you live long enough.” A sudden pain swept over him. “After about five hundred years or so, you have to laugh at yourself or you’d go mad.” He looked into the fire again, contemplating his human love, who had become such a faint memory. “Efa was a beautiful wife. Wonderful mother. Quiet. I wonder if she’d even recognize me now.”
    “Quiet, huh?” Beatrice grinned at him. “That’s probably only because she couldn’t get a word in around you, blabbermouth.”
    Carwyn’s sudden melancholy lifted and his laugh filled the quiet beach. “You’re probably right! I can only imagine.”
    “When you were gone, she probably had plenty to say.”
    “Tales of putting up with my obnoxious young self. Poor thing.” He smiled again and threw an arm over Beatrice’s shoulders.
    “Why haven’t you ever married again? You’re a good-looking guy. And you have one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever known.”
    He winked. “Besides the obvious, collar-type reasons?”
    “I don’t think God would get pissed off at this point. You’ve worked for him for a long time.”
    “And I’ll work for him until the day I leave this earth.” He squeezed her shoulders. “I don’t know. Just never found the right woman, I suppose.”
    “Ah.”
    “And who would put up with me, honestly?”
    “You can be pretty charming when you want to be.”
    He looked down and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Oh, really?”
    Beatrice burst into laughter and tugged at the collar of his garish Hawaiian shirt. “Yep, you’re a regular knight in flowered armor. You just need to find your damsel.”
    “Oh,” he groaned. “I don’t know. I’ve never really seen the appeal of the ‘damsel-in-distress,’ to be totally honest. I’m not really the damsel type.”
    “Well, maybe you need to find a knight, then.”
    He grimaced. “ Definitely never seen the appeal of those.”
    Beatrice leaned into his shoulder. “You’ll find the right one someday. I have faith.”
    Carwyn smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead as the rainbow pyrotechnics flashed in the distance. “Well, I’m glad one of us does.”

Chapter Four
     
     
     
    Dublin, Ireland
    July 2005
     
    Brigid sat stoically in the antiseptic air of the doctor’s office, only half-listening to the understanding voice of the