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

Stalking an innocent woman in the alley was
a cakewalk, until the moment she said something she shouldn’t have
known. Jule’s wariness made his senses heighten. Again he felt more
was going on than the damn Watcher let on.

“
I would think less of you
if you didn’t try,” he said in a quiet voice.

She turned, her body tense and her large
green eyes swimming with fear and dread. Her flawless face was
flushed, her breathing quick. He held her gaze, struck by the aura
of power around her. He’d seen it from across the pub. Only
standing within its midst did he understand just how strong she
was.

“
This can go one of two
ways,” he said. “You can come with me quietly, or I can drag you
out of here.”

“
I’m not going with
you.”

“
Then take the first hit.”
He slung his arms open, giving her a huge target. With magic or
without, he’d won every brawl he’d ever been in, and he definitely
wasn’t afraid to fight a girl.

The woman took a step back. He wasn’t
surprised when she whirled and ran. He snatched her arm, and she
took a swing at him. He ducked her blow and grunted at the elbow
that found his midsection. He hadn’t expected her to know how to
fight.

An arcing kick forced him to release her. He
blocked it and the next two blows and then snatched a fist headed
for his face, twisted her arm, and spun her. He wrapped her arm
around her throat as he pulled her into his body and held her there
with an arm across her chest.

“
Please, please don’t make
me do this,” she gasped. “I don’t wanna kill anyone!”

“
C’mon, sweetheart. We’re
gonna have a little talk, then we’ll see who gets to kill who.” He
chuckled. She wasn’t going anywhere in her position, and her body
shook from cold. If he thought she wouldn’t run or try to kick him
again, he’d let her go fetch her coat.

“
I am so sorry,” she
whispered.

A blast of cold tore through him as she
directed her magic into him. His teeth rattled at the raw energy
coursing within his body. He wasn’t sure what her gift was or what
she was trying to do, but he’d never met a Natural with her unique
combination of power and strength. The magic faded, and she tried
to pull away.

“
You done?” he
asked.

“
You’re not a
rock.”

Fed up with the cold and rain again, he spun
her and slung her over his shoulder.

“
You’re not a rock,” she
said again, stunned.

“
I’m probably immune to
whatever it is you tried to do,” he said. “Don’t feel bad. You
probably would’ve killed a normal human.” He strode toward the end
of the alley, wanting out of the rain as much as he wanted to talk
to the intriguing woman over his shoulder.

He’d nearly reached the end of the alley
when the hair on the back of his neck rose like it did when a
Watcher was present, only this was no Watcher. He’d never forget
his single run-in with one of the Others, a group of Watchers
working to destroy the mortal world in favor of an immortal one.
The two types of beings had last brought their war to the mortal
realm during the time of the Schism, when they’d almost destroyed
the universe.

He turned, not surprised to see the small,
grandfatherly man standing deeper in the alley. Unlike the
Watchers’ tell-tale green eyes, the Others had unnatural purple
eyes. The hum around the Other assured Jule there was only one
person in the alley without any sort of otherworldly power. He
lowered the woman to her feet and pushed her behind him.

“
You’ve gotta help me!”
The woman directed her plea toward the Other and tried to push past
Jule.

“
You want nothing to do
with this guy, woman,” Jule muttered. He wrapped one arm around her
tightly.

“
He’s my father!” she
snapped, straining against him.

Holy shit.
Suddenly, he understood why the Watcher couldn’t
find her. She was under the protection of the Others. If the
Watchers and Others both sought this woman, something was very
wrong. Jule refused to release her, sensing more danger toward her
than to himself. She stopped struggling, apparently realizing how
futile it was.

“
Jule,” the Other said,
taking a step forward. “I see you’ve met my daughter. She knows
you’ve come to kill her.”

“
Just doin’ my job,” Jule
replied. The Magician smashed her heel into his instep. He shifted
her without releasing her. “I thought your kind hated
humans.”

“
And I thought your kind
had magics,” the Other said and cocked his head to the side. “What
has happened to you?”

“
Don’t need magics to kill
a woman.” Jule smiled despite his unease, not about to be caught
off guard by the creature. He pulled free a knife and flipped it in
the air, catching it. The woman in his arms went still as he
pressed its edge to her throat.

The Other’s gaze went to her. Jule waited.
Others despised humans, but the fact that this one hesitated to
abandon the woman to her fate told Jule more than the most discreet
of immortals probably intended. The woman’s fate was suddenly of
more concern to Jule than messing with the purple-eyed or
green-eyed trolls.

He sheathed the knife and pushed the woman
away. She darted to the Other and threw her arms around him. Jule
crossed his arms and watched. The Other returned the hug briefly.
The woman moved behind him, her confused green eyes on Jule.

“
Life for a life,” Jule
reminded him.

“
You’re not an immortal
anymore,” the Other snapped. “I don’t need to abide by the
rules.”

“
You haven’t killed me
yet, so you must want something from me.”

“
Daughter, go inside. Get
your coat.”

The woman hesitated.

“
Now!” the Other
barked.

In that moment, Jule pitied her. By the look
on her face, it wasn’t the first time the Other had raised his
voice at his alleged daughter. She hugged herself and hurried
towards the door to the pub.

Yully closed the door
behind her, shaking out of fear and cold. She started to the table
then stopped, unable to dismiss the feeling of the man’s arms
around her or what she’d felt when they touched. Her gift of
changing or transforming objects into others should’ve turned him
to stone. Instead, she’d touched his soul, and it’d laughed and
turned her magic away. She couldn’t describe the sense any other
way, just like she couldn’t determine why she still
felt
the connection to
his soul.

The conversation between her father and the
man who should’ve killed her rattled around in her thoughts as she
returned to the door. Cracking it open, she peered out. She was too
far to hear them talk. An arc of lightning left her father’s hand
and slammed the stranger into the wall.

He crumpled, and she gasped. Her father
knelt beside the still body. Suddenly, they both vanished. Whatever
lingered from his touch faded without disappearing.

“
Everything okay?” Sean
asked from behind her.

She jumped and looked up at him. Unable to
find her voice, she hurried around him to the table where she’d
left her coat. Yully fled the pub for her car and opened the door
with cold, fumbling hands. She locked her doors and wiped rain from
her face.

Her father said the man came to kill her,
yet she was still alive.

She started the car and blasted the heat.
Part of her wanted to return to her home that very night, and
another part of her feared what she’d find if she did. Her father
had disappeared into thin air with the body of the man he called
Jule.

She wasn’t going home. If she’d had friends,
she would’ve gone to visit one. She drove to the bed and breakfast
instead, where the friendly woman who rented rooms had left the
back door open for her. Pacing in her room, she tried hard not to
think of what her father was capable of doing to someone he thought
was a threat to her. At last, she forced herself to lie down and
tried not to think of the man named Jule, whose soul still
lingered.

Yully slept deep and late despite the events
of the night. Her father had tried to call twice, and she tossed
the phone on the bed. She’d hoped sleep would remove some of her
confusion from her night.

She still felt
him.

Yully shook away her lingering fear. She
couldn’t dislodge the image of Jule from her mind. His panther-like
physique and tattoos gave him all the appearance of a threat, and
yet, he’d fended off her blows with gentleness he didn’t have to
show. Her father never would’ve shown such restraint. Jule could’ve
broken her in two and hadn’t.

She couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“
Yully,” the owner of the
bed and breakfast, Moira, called through the door. “I brought you
breakfast!”

“
Thanks, Moira,” she said
and opened the door.

“
You father called, dear,”
the woman said, holding out a tray of sausage, eggs, blood pudding,
and coffee. “He’s worried since you didn’t answer the
phone.”

“
I just woke up, Moira.
I’ll give him a call.”

The plump woman nodded and
hurried away, like everyone save her father did around her. Yully
ate quickly without touching her phone. She didn’t know what to say
to her father after last night. The way he and Jule had talked to
each other, like long-lost enemies, reminded her she didn’t know
much about her father. She’d always been grateful to him for
accepting her and her gift, but he’d always refused to tell her
what exactly
he
was and how he seemed to be able to read her mind sometimes.
Right now, she didn’t want him reading her mind. Instead of calling
him, she texted him.

Leaving now, Papa.

She gathered up her things and left out the
back door to avoid the small group of people gathered in the dining
room for brunch. The drive home was too short, and she reached the
large manor at noon. It still rained, but it wasn’t cold that made
her hands tremble as she left the car.

She still felt the man named Jule, and he
was here. The sense had grown stronger as she drove nearer. It now
felt like it had when she was in the alley: as if he were standing
beside her. She gazed up at the solemn façade of the manor before
jogging up the walkway to the front door.

The butler opened it when she approached,
and a maid stood waiting to take her coat. She shed it and her
boots quickly, wanting to escape to her room before her father
cornered her. She’d made it halfway up the stairwell when his voice
rang out.

“
My darling, I expected a
phone call.”

Yully drew a deep breath and leaned over the
railing to see him. He looked small in the middle of the foyer, and
he wore an insincere smile like he might any other piece of easily
removable clothing.

“
I’m sorry, Father. Last
night upset me,” she said truthfully.

“
I imagine so. That man
will never bother you again,” he said. “Remember I’m dining with
the McDonalds tonight.”

“
Father, may I go with you
someday?” she asked. She willed herself not to think of the man
named Jule trapped somewhere in the house. His nearness would drive
her crazy if she were forced to be alone with him.

“
We’ve discussed this. No
one wants anything to do with something like you,” he reminded her.
Her face turned hot. “You forget yourself, Yully. There’s one
creature who can tolerate you, and that’s me. Go rest for a bit. If
you’ve forgotten this, you’re tired.”

She nodded and fled to her room. Despite his
cold words, he’d left a present for her on the nightstand near her
bed. Sometimes he did this after he’d hit her or screamed at her
worse than usual. She dropped her things by the wardrobe and
crossed to it, softening. Her father was hard to read and often
unapproachable, but he cared for her in his own special way.

In the box was a small, simple necklace of a
bronze chain and faded bronze coin. She gasped, recognizing it as
the one he wore often, the heirloom passed down through his
ancestors. It was better than any jewels he could buy her, because
it meant something to him! Allowing a smile to escape, Yully pulled
the necklace free.

He cared enough to give her his most prized
possession, and he’d protected her last night against someone who
meant to kill her. Maybe her fear of her father was wrong.

She placed the medallion around her neck and
admired it in the mirror, vowing not to think of the man whose
presence plagued her.

Her resolve lasted until her father left for
dinner with their wealthy neighbors. She fingered the coin around
her neck as she lay before the fire. The sense that Jule was in the
house hadn’t left her. If anything, the nagging feeling was growing
stronger.

Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, she
waited until certain her father had left then rose. The stone
floors were drafty, so she put on slippers and padded into the
bright hallway of her wing of the manor. Yully concentrated on the
small itch in her mind that told her Jule was near. It gave her no
real direction as to where to go. She walked the length of the wing
and felt the feeling fade a little. Back toward the middle of the
house she went and down into the foyer. She roamed the bottom floor
until she reached the door off one of the kitchens.

He was down in the wine cellar. The spark in
her thoughts told her so. She opened the wine cellar and shivered
at the cool breeze but forced herself to descend. If he wasn’t
there, she could convince herself this was all some sort of
nightmare.