Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) by Lizzy Ford Page B

slowed.
    The needle was smaller than she remembered
needles being, and she steadied her breathing before plunging it
into his arm.
    “ Still with me?” he
asked.
    “ Barely,” she said. “You
still with me?”
    “ I’m not lucky enough to
die,” he said with a faint smile.
    “ Good,” she said. She was
embarrassed by her half-laugh, half-sob that escaped. “I don’t feel
as alone when I’m with you. It would be a shame to lose you
already.”
    He opened his eyes. His gaze was fevered but
steady. The sense that had told her where he was intensified within
her, as if they were close enough for their souls to touch again.
The sensation intrigued her after a lifetime of rejection and
isolation.
    “ Not that I want you
around,” she added, not expecting her own words. She looked away
and fumbled with the needle and thread she’d found in a sewing kit.
“This might hurt.”
    Nervous, she stabbed him harder than she
intended to, and Jule groaned, closing his eyes. By the time she’d
made the second stitch, he was unconscious and she was sick to her
stomach. She forced herself to sew the arrow wound the best she
could then ran from the room, vomiting in the bathroom.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
    Jule awoke in a haze of hot and cold. His
body shook uncontrollably, and something warmed his side. He pushed
himself up, glancing at the Magician’s body. She was curled up
beside him in a tight ball. His tingling senses awoke him, but he
was too weak to do more than look around the room.
    A hand clamped on his
shoulder. Too weak to push it off, he let his head drop back onto
the cushion behind him. He couldn’t focus on the face, but he saw
the glowing red eyes. Vamp . Adrenaline spun through him,
and he staggered up, ready to fight it off.
    “ Easy,” the vamp said.
Maybe it was his delirium, but Jule thought the vamp looked larger
than even Damian. “You don’t remember me.”
    “ Fucking vamp,” Jule
slurred. His head spun, and his legs belted. “Wait one minute. I’ll
kill you.”
    The vamp chuckled. “No need. Look
closer.”
    Jule rested where he’d fallen and tried to
concentrate. The vamp wasn’t attacking. In fact, it sat calmly on
the couch across the room from him.
    “ I don’t know you,” Jule
said. “Should I?”
    The vamp frowned. “Yes, you should. We all
know each other.”
    “ Define we ,” Jule
replied.
    “ The
Originals.”
    Jule sighed. “You’re a dream. The Original
Beings are locked up. The Watchers said so.”
    “ What happened to you?”
the vamp asked, leaning forward in interest. Jule had the sense of
a memory at the edge of his fevered mind. He focused on it, trying
to recall why he felt he should recognize the vamp.
    “ Xander,” he said. “Your
name is Xander.”
    “ They wiped your mind,”
the vamp said. “I hope whatever you traded for your freedom was
worth living like this, if you call this living.”
    “ Cassandra,” Jule
murmured.
    “ No, she wasn’t why you
were exiled. No human could’ve caused this.”
    “ Original Vamp,” Jule
said, barely registering the creature’s words. His body was on fire
again, and sweat trickled down his face. Xander’s face faded in and
out of focus, and his thoughts kept drifting away. Jule tried hard
to follow the conversation.
    “ You freed all of us,” the
vamp continued. “It just took the rest of us a while to shake off
the bonds.”
    Jule shook his head. None of the vamp’s
words made sense. Darkness was creeping from the edges of his
mind.
    “ Find me when you’re
ready,” the vamp said. He stood. “The Oracle will know where I
am.”
    The dream faded, and Jule slumped to the
ground again, unable to fight the darkness.
     
    The sound of voices woke her. Jule had moved
and collapsed in a heap a few feet away. He was mumbling in his
sleep. Yully moved towards him and dragged his fevered body close
to the fire again.
    She worked tirelessly all night to clean the
blood off of Jule. She marveled at his muscular