AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her greenish-black eyes swirled. She shook her head once as if trying to awaken herself from a dream. Then shock melted into a wide, wide smile. She laughed that throaty laugh.
“Oh, Genevieve. I wouldn’t worry so much. Your casting is already at full strength. How, I don’t know. Simply amazing,” she marveled.
I couldn’t help but grin back at her. She inhaled a deep breath. “Your defense is more than ready.”
“Really?” I heard my voice squeak. “So I could shield myself entirely from demons finding me now in public?”
“Oh, yes. If you shield yourself in this capacity, they’ll only see a pretty girl, nothing more.”
I was beaming.
“Now that your defense is in order, tomorrow, we will work on offense. Yes?”
“Yes.”
As she told me farewell and sifted out of the courtyard, I decided I truly liked Kat. She was genuine and compassionate. I grimaced at her ability to disappear and go wherever she wanted. Like Jude. I wondered how someone got that power. That would certainly come in handy.
I stared at Eros and Psyche a minute longer, frozen in passion, then went to find Jude.
I was hoping he was watching television or something, but then I hadn’t seen a television anywhere in his house. What I didn’t want to do was interrupt another of his swordplay episodes in his training studio, all sweaty and half-naked.
Of course, that’s exactly where I found him.
Thankfully, he had his shirt on this time and was kicking a punching bag in the center of the room. Okay, kicking was putting it mildly. Tool’s “Schism” pumped through the room. At the end of each line, “I know the pieces fit,” Jude would kick the hell out of the bag. The bag fell all the way to the floor with each roundhouse, slowly righting itself before he’d smash it again.
“What did the poor thing ever do to you?”
He snapped up, broad shoulders tense, face guarded. He walked to the sound system connected to his phone and stopped the music. “How was the training?”
“Enlightening.”
He moved toward me in a smooth, slow manner. I’d seen that move before.
I watched this show on the Discovery Channel once where a lion walked into another pride to challenge the male leader and take over. His gait was sinuous, almost sultry, in his determined stride. I held Jude’s gaze, refusing to be intimidated. Well, trying anyway. He stopped only a few inches from me, totally in my personal space, where he seemed to like to be.
“Enlightening how?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that I was ageless?” I bit out the last word as if it were offensive.
“Because there are some things you are not ready for.”
“How old are you?”
“Very.”
“Ha. Something else I’m not ready for?”
“No. I just don’t particularly like your attitude at the moment.”
“Is there anything else you deem me not ready for?”
His eyes flickered down my body, slowing at my breasts and hips, and back up in a flash. “Yes. For now.”
“You’re infuriating, you know that? You’re really good at giving orders, making demands, and dragging my ass to every hellhole in town, but you can’t answer a simple question of mine.”
“Not can’t. I won’t. At the moment.”
I was fuming. My mind and mouth switched gears, continuing to attack. “Why didn’t you warn me about Danté?”
