An Immortal Beginning

**duncan richie tessa and about anyone else in the highlander universe do not belong to me

and im borrowing them they belong to the creaters of highlander and Im borrowing them without permission

and so now on with the story**
**yes another note in this story Duncan does not know that Richie is preimmortal**




She still couldn’t believe this was happening, to her! She had just regained coniousness tied to a chair in a small, dark gloomy room. The last thing she remembered was a young armed intruder barging into the shop, knocking out Richie and bringing her here. *To use as bait! * She thought ruefully. *What if Richie was still hurt? What if that bolt of Electricity had killed him? Does Duncan know this is a trap? Will he come anyway? * Questions were all Tessa could think, but no answers.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice there was someone else in the room until her kidnapper had placed his hand on her shoulder. He had introduced himself as Pallen Wolf the other day. “Hello my dear” Pallen sang out, being obnoxiously cheerful. “Go to hell” quickly replied an angry Tessa. “Now Now is that anyway to talk to your host” Pallen queried and before Tessa could say anything more he slipped a gag over her mouth. Ignoring Tessa’s somewhat muffled comments about his parentage, he told her in excruciating detail exactly what he had planned for the Highlander. After one especially nasty remark about his family he lost his temper and knocked her uncocius with the handle of the sword that he was going to use against Duncan. Before she lost all conconsness she was almost sure she heard a car pull into the driveway *That’s Duncan* she thought.

As she was coming around she felt strong hands untying the rope around her wrists. Thinking it was Pallen behind her she started to struggle until the soft soothing words of her immortal lover reached her ears. “ Shh Tess, it’s alright it’s me” “Duncan!” she cried “ I thought you had been killed, How did you kill Pallen?” “I’ll tell you later dearest” the Scot soothed. “Right now you’re going home with Richie”. Until now she hadn’t noticed the young redheaded teenager leaning on the doorframe. “Why don’t you take me home Duncan? I don’t need Richie I need you!” she pleaded, but as she looked at the boy she immediately regretted her harsh hasty words. Richie’s face portrayed nothing, but his blue eyes, like a bottomless spring of pure water, were filled with the sadness of not being needed or wanted. “I need to find some of Pallen’s files, I’ll be back at the house as soon as I can…I promise.” he reassured Tessa. Then he threw the car keys to Richie, “take the t-bird home I’ll ride your bike back later”. “Okay. Come on Tess” the young man’s barely audible voice said, half pleading. As she followed

They were only a few feet from the car when a man no older than Richie jumped out from behind a bush. The only difference between Richie and the young man was the attacker had a gun, and it was pointed straight at them! “Give me your purse or I’ll shoot both of you!” the young man growled at Tessa while waving the gun around. She felt Richie grab her arm and pull her behind his back. She balked at the idea of Richie getting hurt trying to protect her and tried to move but the teenager held her arm with a strength she didn’t know he had. The gunman threatened Richie “Tell your girlfriend to hand over her jewelry, now!”. Tessa looked down at her bare hands and cursed herself for taking off her rings. “She’s not my girlfriend, and she doesn’t have any jewelry” Richie growled right back. “You Lying Son of a bitch!” the man yelled and fired his gun twice. Both bullets hit their mark exploding into Richies heart. Tessa screamed as she saw her young friend wrench violently from the force of the bullets and fall to the ground, dead before he hit the asphalt. Meanwhile the man looked at his gun as if just seeing it for the first time; he dropped his weapon and ran.

Duncan hearing the gunshot and the scream shot from his seat and ran to the sobbing woman. The sight he saw made his blood run cold. There lying on the ground, murdered because a street robbery went wrong. He put his arms around Tessa and held her close for what may have been 5 minutes or 5 hours he couldn’t tell. Finally an instinct in the back of his head told him to get Tessa away from this horrible display of violence. He herded her to the waiting thunderbird and started to drive home. As he slowly made his way down the empty streets Tessa asked “What about Richie? We cant just leave him there” like he was alive, sounding as if she would break down again any minute. “I’ll go back later, once your safe at home. Connors in the area he’ll come over” “Duncan, Please I don’t want to be alone again” her voice pleaded.

When Duncan was at the apartment and had safely deposited Tessa on the couch by the fire He called up Connor. Duncan told his clansmen what little information he had gotten from Tessa on the ride home.

*******************************************************

After Connor had promised to see to the matter he hung up the phone with a sigh. “They’re becoming Immortals younger and younger now days,” he thought out loud. From the telephone conversation that they just had it was pretty obvious Duncan didn’t know about the young mans immortality. Connor looked at his watch and frowned. He would have to hurry or Richie would wake up soon, alone confused and probably generally pissed off. As Connor got into his car he had to laugh as he got a mental picture of the look on Duncans Face when he showed up with the Scots new protégé.