"Her name was Cassandra. She was a human who died soon after I came here."

"How'd she die?" Yully asked.

"There was an era called the Schism, where the heavens and earth separated. A lot of people and immortals died during that time. The world was flooded in some areas and on fire in others with still other parts blanketed in outright war." His gaze grew distant. "She drowned. I was with my immortal brothers fighting the Others, the ancestors to your father."

"How awful. Do you miss her?"

"I did for many, many years. That type of heartache is rough, but I came to peace with it and was pretty happy with my expulsion, until a few days ago."

"When you met me," she guessed, frowning.

"You've been the highlight. There is a state of constant struggle between good and evil here on earth and a similar struggle in the immortal world between the Others and another faction called the Watchers. The leader of the bad guys on earth died and was replaced. It sort of wreaks havoc on the balance. All the Guardians, like me and Sean, your bartender friend in that pub where we met, lost our magic."

"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."

"What about Jule?" she asked. Yully lowered the weapon slowly. The man in the corner took that as in invitation to approach, and she moved behind the table her father used for laying out pieces of disassembled weapons in the center of the armory.

"I guess first off, is he alive?" the man called Darian asked. He stopped across from her. She had the sense of power shimmering in the air around him.

"As far as I know," she replied. "What are you?"

"I'm Darian," he said, though darkness crossed his features. "Jule was my closest friend until things went to shit. What are you?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" he echoed. "Never met anyone more lost than I am."