that cut through me like a knife. I couldn’t ignore it. I knew I should have continued after Iulian and the book, but the grief in her was so strong I could barely breathe. I had to do something.”
“You allowed yourself to be captured.”
“Something like that.”
“Exactly like that.”
She didn’t dispute it.
His woman. She sounded ashamed because she had stopped to help another woman, a perfect stranger, in need. Fully mage. Fully Carpathian. Two warning systems when it came to vampires.
“You are worth every single second of those centuries I searched to find you and didn’t,” he had to tell her, because it was the truth.
13
Isai woke to the familiar sounds of the night. He lay beneath the thin layer of dirt he’d managed to find in the chamber of almost pure granite. The rock surrounding them was solid in spite of the maze of chambers inside the mountain. Often, in caves such as these, there was plenty of fresh soil, usually filled with rich minerals unused for centuries. Not in this case. Dirt was at a premium.
Julija had protested moving from the comfort of the bed to the ground, so he waited until she fell asleep. Her body was exhausted from the hard-fought battle with Vasile. He opened the soil and stared up at the crystal-covered roof above their heads. In the shallow bed of dirt, his lifemate slept beside him. Curled around both of them were the six cats. While the cats and Isai had been totally covered, he hadn’t covered Julija’s face, not wanting to take chances.
He had insisted the shadow cats sleep in the soil as well. They had never done so and all were nervous, so once they complied and came to the bed he’d opened in the ground, he had sent them to sleep much in the way he had his woman. The cats wouldn’t mind. Looking them over, he could see the minerals in the soil had done their job, already working to repair the damage done to the abused animals. His woman, on the other hand . . .
Isai smiled to himself and rose, calling to Blue to wake. The cat responded immediately, lifting his head, immediately nuzzling Belle and then touching each of the other cats with his nose before touching Julija, as if assuring himself they were all alive. Isai dropped a hand on his neck, fingers moving in the thick fur.
“I need you to watch over them all while I feed. When I return I’ll take care of Julija, you and the cats. I believe there are campers around the lake I can visit.”
Blue’s intelligent gaze remained on his face, those amber eyes meeting his without flinching. They thought alike, two generals ready to go into battle when needed.
“Have you been around Barnabas?” He couldn’t help but be curious about the man Julija was so frightened of. She was afraid of her father and stepmother, but she was terrified of Barnabas. Isai couldn’t blame her, not after the stories she’d told about the man and what he’d done to her. Not after he’d been in her head and actually seen what he’d done.
Blue shuddered, his back arching, his claws suddenly digging into the ground. He is very bad. Worse than the others.
It took a moment for Isai to convert the images Blue sent to him into words. The cats could only use actual images to convey what they meant, but Blue was adept at it and his opinion only confirmed what Isai had already thought possible. This was a man who could deceive mages. Deceive a woman as powerful as Julija. If he could deceive her with his intent, was it possible he was also misleading Anatolie about his loyalty?
“Did you see him with Julija?”
He is very cruel. He liked hurting her and will not give her up. He is waiting. Biding his time. Waiting.
Blue’s impressions were very clear. He emphasized that Barnabas was the type of man who had the patience to carry out a long-term plan. It could take weeks. Months. Years. Centuries.
I watched him, and he watched her. When she didn’t know, he watched her.
Isai glanced down at Julija’s sleeping figure. She was curled up in a little ball. He realized she tended to sleep that way. Each time he’d seen her on the bed, she’d pulled her knees into her chest and made herself very small. Hiding. From Barnabas? Had she learned to hide from his cruelty? He taught how to use pain and sexual pleasure