Reviewed by Tara

TITLE:  The Guardian’s Destiny

AUTHOR: Fil Preis  

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 48 pages

BLURB: Jarmal has been the Guardian of Scryer’s Well for three decades. Romantic liaisons with the warriors and wizards who come to the Well for mystical insight no longer satisfy a man who has grown old alone. His forty-seventh birthday is a hard reminder that he has not yet chosen a successor, and he’s never been granted a vision by the Well he’s spent his life guarding.

Fortunately, Jarmal receives a distraction in the form of the handsome foreign magician Tariq. Though Tariq’s beautiful body stirs Jarmal’s lust, his inexperience and tender affections move Jarmal’s heart. But Tariq is seeking the Well’s guidance as part of a quest to free his homeland from evil, and although Jarmal thinks he’s finally found someone he’d like to spend his life with, he can no more ask Tariq to stay with him than he can leave the Well to be with Tariq. The Well offers him a glimpse of his destiny, but no easy answers.

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2015 Daily Dose package “Never Too Late.”

REVIEW: This was a very well fleshed out world with insta love mixed in. I was a little apprehensive because of how short the story is since I love my stories to be long and angsty but despite of its shortness this read very well. Jarmal is a long time guardian of Scyer’s Well and he has been that for three decades after his predecessor was killed in battle. He has spent many of the years taking care of the different visitors to the well and has taken his dalliances as they allowed with many of the visitors. But it is his forty-seventh birthday and he has not chosen his successor nor has he ever seen a vision in the very well he guards. He is jaded and he doesn’t think that anything can surprise him anymore. He was wrong. Tariq is a beautiful magician on a quest to help free his land from its oppressors along with his sister and her lover. At his first glimpse of Tariq, Jarmal begins to see that maybe this man could be his destiny. He is different from all the rest and his story intrigues him greatly.

After realizing that he belonged to the order that without permission he could not be intimate with anyone, Jarmal believes everything is lost but as a loophole is revealed they spend the first night with Jarmal showing the inexperienced Tariq all the pleasures to be had with two male bodies. The dawning of the new day shows all three visitors visions within the well and Jarmal starts for the first time imagining abandoning his post for the new love he has found in Tariq. But just as all is lost and the two would be forever parted Jarmal has his first vision ever and sets to leaving a message of his love and intent in the saddlebags of Tariqs. But they leave and after 12 months Jarmal sees it as being yet another wonderful memory that will dim over time. But everything is not as lost as it seems and a rider over the horizon sets about the change that Jarmal needed desperately.

This was a cute story. The world was definitely vividly detailed and you got a great back story on the characters without it being too overwhelming. Even though you know it will be insta-love it was cute and endearing and you definitely were rooting for the old guardian to finally having his happy ending. Tariq was a good counterpart to Jarmal and you wanted him to stay with Jarmal despite of the mission. But he was honest and true just like Jarmal and you knew that they would eventually find their happy ending. The sex was not really described but the one scene that led into their burgeoning relationship was heartfelt and you can just envision the pair under the moonlit sky as Jarmal showed Tariq the first steps of man love. All in all a great read despite my aversion to short stories.

RATING:  

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