Could you handle living forever, knowing you would watch your friends grow old and die?<br><br>These are questions newly minted Doctor Marco Sartori d’Argenzio must face when he and his partner Danilo Rosati celebrate Marco’s completed residency and Danilo’s most recent PhD with a vacation at Marco’s father’s home in the Duchy of Aragoni. There Marco learns about his family’s legacy: his father is more than two thousand years old, and he can expect to live just as long.<br><br>Marco inherits his uncle’s title amidst adventure and danger, but it breaks his heart to realize that he’ll live only to see the man he’s loved for a decade grow old and die. However, there is hope: Danilo is studying the unique DNA of Marco’s family in hops of discovering the secret -- because Danilo has no intention of leaving Marco alone for what could be forever.

The Path to Forever

TWO WEEKS LATER, Luciano arrived in Aragoni with Pietro Vassallo in tow. Pietro had blond hair (I wondered for a moment where that had come from) and a slightly stocky build. I wasn’t quite sure what to think of him, and I suspect the feeling was mutual. It wasn’t until we visited the baths that he became fully convinced that he was by no means unique.


“All these men are members of your family?” he said, somewhat incredulously.


“Yeah. If you will observe them as carefully as you can, without seeming to stare, you will see that most of us have a couple of things in common, including an absence of hair on our chests.”


“I can hardly believe it. I’ve spent my entire life thinking that I was a freak.”


“Now you know better. I’m convinced that we’re related, and as soon as Dani is back from the lab with the DNA test results you’ll have scientific proof.”


“And your father wants me to do what exactly?”


Chapter 83