Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) (9 page)

“
Guardians are the good
guys,” she mused. “But you’re different than even Sean.”

“
You can sense that?” he
asked, eyeing her.

She nodded. “You’re different than my
father, too.”

“
That I am. I wish I could
remember why. Guess I’m just too old.”

Yully didn’t push him. He looked tired after
the talk, and there was a note in his voice she recognized as
caution. She hesitated, too comfortable with him for her own
good.

“
Jule, I can’t stay here.
My father will find us.”

“
Let him come.”

“
You’re too weak to fight
him,” she said, a smile tugging up the corner of her mouth. “And I
don’t want to take the beating I know is coming to me.”

“
Stay with me,” he said,
his gaze intent. “I’ll find a way to protect you.”

“
I can’t. You don’t know
how dangerous he is.”

Jule frowned and strained to sit. She pushed
him back down, showing him just how unprepared he was to deal with
anything.

“
You’re right. I am weak,”
he said. “Never happened before.”

“
If I go now, he won’t be
as angry with me, and maybe I can come back tomorrow.” The words
sounded hollow, even to her ears, and she rose. She avoided his
gaze.

“
You’re not coming back,”
he said. He was too weak to chase her down this time, and she knew
it.

“
Jule, I …” She cleared
her throat. “I need to go home. It’s better for both of us, and
it’s the only real way I can protect you from him. I can call
someone to come get you and then I think you shouldn’t try to find
me anymore.”

She pulled a pen and paper off the desk in
the corner and held them out to him. She didn’t think he’d answer
and glanced up at him. He took the pen and paper and scrawled down
a number before handing it to her. His gaze was intense as he
looked up at her. Finally, he spoke.

“
Sweetheart, I’ll find you
no matter what.” The resolution in his voice floored her. He was
too weak to stand, and yet he all but promised to find
her.

“
I can’t protect you,” she
said. “Please, Jule, please stay away.”

“
I’ll find a way to
protect you, even if it takes a while.”

“
I don’t want to lose you
already,” she replied. “I’ve never had a … I’ve never trusted
anyone else. I’d be happy knowing you’re safe.”

Feeling as if she’d said too much, she
turned and fled the cottage for her car and locked the doors.
Nothing of what Jule told her made sense with what her father told
her. If she had a choice of what to believe, she’d believe Jule, a
man she barely knew. She pondered what made her decision so simple
and touched her face again. She’d accepted her father, because
there was no one else who understood her. Jule had shattered her
carefully built world in a day, and he’d done it without the brutal
lessons her father resorted to.

What did she do when Jule came back for
her?

She started to drive home then thought of
the man she and Jule both tried to kill. Unwilling to fight
something that didn’t die, she drove to Doolin and the bed and
breakfast. Moira was surprised to see her but led her quickly to
her room, unwilling to spend much time questioning her. For once,
Yully was grateful for the almost allergic reaction humans had to
her.

She waited until Moira’s footsteps faded
before dialing her father.

“
Yully, where are you?”
There was urgency in his voice.

“
The bed and breakfast.
Papa, there was a man in our house who tried to kill me.” She kept
her voice low, in case the room next door was occupied.

“
I know, my darling,” he
said. “I took care of him.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I mean, he won’t be
coming back, just like Jule.”

Her heart felt like it stopped at the
mention of Jule’s name, and she squeezed her eyes closed, willing
herself not to think of him, lest her father choose that moment to
read her mind.

“
I’ve been waiting here
for you to call. Have you been there for the past two days?” her
father asked. “I’ve been trying to call your mobile.”

“
Yes,” she forced herself
to say. “I lost it when I was running from the man with the sword.”
Relief filtered through her; he hadn’t found Jule. He was lying to
her.

He was
lying
to her.

“
Come on home, dear. It’s
safe. I promise.”

“
Okay, Papa.” She hung up.
There were few things in life she was certain about, and one of
them was that she’d felt safer with Jule during their short time
together than she ever did with her father.

She pulled out the piece of paper Jule had
written on. It contained a name and a phone number.

“
Damian,” she read out
loud.

She tucked the number away and left the bed
and breakfast. She glanced down and realized she couldn’t return
home in clothing that was plainly not hers. After a quick stop at a
clothier to pick up a long wool skirt and sweater, she changed in
her car and drove home. Dread filled her as she drove up the
familiar driveway to the stone manor.

The car still smelled of blood, and her
thoughts went to Jule again as she exited the car. There was no
sneaking in with a butler and maid waiting at the door. She hurried
into the house and shed her boots and coat as fast as she
could.

“
My dear,” her father
called. He sounded pleased, unlike the moods he’d been in
lately.

She braced herself to face him
nonetheless.

“
You’re flushed. Are you
well?” he asked.

“
Just a bit distressed,
Father.”

“
Come with me for just a
moment, and I’ll leave you to the rest of the evening.”

She trailed him down the hallway towards the
guest parlor. She was surprised to see three people within, none of
whom looked like they fit in the refined, elegant spaces of the
parlor. A man with caramel skin, a woman openly armed with a gun,
and a man Jule’s size with unnatural golden eyes.

“
My daughter, Yully, has
had a trying few days. It appears as if either you, Damian, or you,
Jonny, sent someone to kill her. Look at her. What kind of creature
would hurt a woman like this?” her father asked. “I’ve killed both
the men who came for her and will kill any others. Gentleman, do
not underestimate me.”

Yully listened, dismayed by the lies
stacking up on top of one another.

“
It’s a pleasure, Yully,”
the younger of the two men said. “Rest assured, I didn’t send
anyone to harm you.”

“
Thank you, Jonny,” her
father said. “Damian can’t say the same. Jule was one of
them.”

“
Jule,” the large man
said. “Jule tried to kill her.” His piercing gaze went to her, and
she felt compelled to answer him.

“
Yes,” she said. “Several
days ago.”

“
He killed a Guardian as
well,” her father said. “He was a bartender where my daughter
frequents.”

“
Jule wouldn’t kill one of
his own without good reason,” Damian said, plainly
unconvinced.

“
Sean’s dead?” Yully
asked, not expecting the news.

“
Yes, dear,” her father
said, attention on his visitors.

She felt even colder. Sean had been alive
when her father knocked out Jule and brought him here the other
night. If he was dead, it meant her father did it, not Jule, who
had been in the basement.

The man named Damian still watched her. “I
want Jule’s body,” he said.

“
It’s been sent to the
immortal realm, where it belongs,” her father replied.

“
Bring it
back.”

“
I summoned you here as a
warning that your interference won’t be tolerated. I don’t take
orders from your kind.”

“
If I remember correctly,
this realm belongs to Jonny and me,” Damian said with a spark of
anger. “You are the guest. You will bring me Jule’s body, or I will
invite the Watchers in to do with you as they please.”

“
If they could find me,
they would’ve by now, just like you’ll never be able to retrace her
steps back to this spot once you leave,” her father said, his voice
rising. “You don’t give me orders, Damian.”

Yully’s heart was pounding. Her life was in
danger, and so was Jule’s. She didn’t fully understand what was
going on between her father and these people. Jule trusted this
Damian, even though they were both the Guardians her father warned
her about. Yet it had been her father who killed Sean, not the
Guardian Jule. She patted the pocket in her skirt containing the
paper on which Jule had scribbled down the phone number of the
towering man before her.

“
I call bullshit on this
whole thing. No matter, I’m outta here,” Damian said. “Gimme a ring
if you have anything useful to say.”

She sensed this comment was directed at her.
Damian disappeared, followed by the man named Jonny and the woman
with him. Her father turned to her, anger and triumph on his
normally stoic features.

“
Father, what’s going on?”
she questioned. “Who are all these people, and why are they after
me?”

“
It’s a much longer story
than I have time for,” he replied. “Your magic gifts have
blossomed, and they’ve attracted the attention of others with magic
gifts.”

“
I thought there were no
others.”

“
There are. You are one of
what they call Naturals. Damian and Jonny collect Naturals for
their own purposes, mainly to battle each other. It’s like a chess
game, and the humans are pawns to be used and destroyed,” he
explained. “That is not the fate for you, my dear.”

“
What is my fate?” she
asked, absorbing the information that confirmed what Jule had told
her about the war between good and evil on earth. Her father had
just admitted there were more people like her, and she couldn’t
help her flicker of hope at the news.

“
To become the princess
I’ve always told you that you would be,” he replied. “I know this
is hard on you, but you’ll soon see where you belong in this mess.
Those two will continue to send people to kill you, just like Jule
and the swordsman.”

And Sean? What was his
crime?
She wanted to ask but
didn’t.

“
You pity a Guardian?” His
father’s angry voice was accompanied by a slap. She closed her eyes
and braced herself for another. “I’ll protect you as I always have.
I’ve killed hundreds to keep you safe and undiscovered, and I’ll
kill hundreds more. Don’t you ever second-guess what I tell
you.”

“
Father, I feel ill,” she
whispered.

“
You probably never
thought your father could kill a man before today. Know that I do
it because I care about you, Yully, and want to keep you safe. Also
understand that I’ll kill anyone who comes between us and my
plans,” he warned. “Do you understand me?”

“
Yes, Papa.”

He left. She sat heavily,
unable to fathom hundreds of people dying around her without her
noticing. Worse, what
was
she that hundreds of people were willing to seek
her out to kill her? Was her father a savior or a
murderer?

Jule’s a savior.

She suddenly felt more alone than ever and
rubbed her stinging cheek. No matter what, she wasn’t going to be
defenseless again. Yully forced herself to her feet and strode
through the house to the garage. Even if she couldn’t kill the next
swordsman that came for her, she could buy herself some time.

Her father’s collection of weapons had been
a source of curiosity for as long as she could remember. As she
stepped into the armory in the corner of the large garage, she was
struck by the care he took of the large collection. All his weapons
were kept clean and loaded, from the crossbows to the guns in the
gun locker. She’d thought his wall of swords, daggers, axes, and
other medieval weapons were for ceremony. In looking at them again,
she could see the time and effort that would’ve been required to
keep them cleaned and sharpened.

The armory was not the collection of a
wealthy connoisseur; this was the personal armory of a man
accustomed to killing often. He’d trained her to use many of the
weapons and encouraged her to visit the armory, even when she was
young and too weak to lift a sword. She’d never before wondered how
or why he knew so much about fighting. She’d assumed he’d trained
her in place of the son he didn’t have.

Even the crossbow she’d used the other night
was clean and perched where she’d found it, loaded once again.
She’d shot two men with it. She wondered how many other men had
been killed by the clean, neatly aligned weapons in the armory.

“
My name is
Darian.”

She whirled, her heart leaping. The man in
the corner was tall with eyes that swirled gold like Damian’s had.
She snatched one of the handguns out of the small arms chest and
aimed it at his head, fed up with surprises. Light and dark seemed
to bend to avoid him, leaving a haze around his body.

“
That won’t work. I’m
immune to lead!” he said and laughed. “Get it?”

She stared at him. He grew serious when she
didn’t respond.

“
Anyway, Damian sent me.
He said it’s about Jule.”