scramble to her feet. She had both hands up as if to ward him off, but she was beginning to weave a pattern. Her strength was gone so she couldn’t get to her feet, but it didn’t stop her mumbling insults while her hands created a weave.
“No, Crina, how dare you,” Julija said, striding into the camp. Her hair looked as if it had taken on a life of its own, crackling with electricity. “You know he’s mine and yet you tried, pathetically I might add, to seduce him.”
She lifted both hands and pushed air toward Crina’s uplifted arms. At once electricity leapt from her palms to Crina’s arms, snapping and crackling as the sparks bit into her stepmother.
Crina dropped her hands and yelled profanities, glaring at Julija. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“What are you even doing here?” Julija looked around cautiously. She would never, under any circumstances, come here alone.
15
Julija, get off the ground. Isai was uneasy. She thought in terms of mages. It was very possible that Crina was in league with Barnabas, even probable, but so far, Sergey had not made his presence known. There was no way the slivers of Xavier had not felt the call of the book. Every vampire and mage for hundreds of miles would have felt that call, at least that was Isai’s way of thinking. So far, no one had felt the call of the book, not even Julija, and she was actively looking for it.
Julija floated into the air, keeping her gaze fixed on Crina. She noted that her stepmother was tapping her finger in a steady rhythm against her thigh. Julija zapped her immediately, sending little sparks embedding into her fingers. Crina yelped and glared at her, putting her fingers in her mouth.
“Calling for your friend will do you no good,” Julija said. “But call away. We will be more than happy to get rid of him as well.”
Crina’s head went up, glaring, her blue eyes filled with rage. “You always were so smug, Julija. Anatolie thinks you can do anything. You’re so powerful. What a crock. My sons are a million times more powerful than you will ever be. Anatolie just refuses to see that because he fears them. He knows that they will take all power from both of you.”
“They’re dead, Crina. Both of them. They came after me and I destroyed them.”
There was absolute silence. Crina stared at her, for the first time looking truly shocked. She shook her head. “That can’t be. You’re lying to me.”
“I’m not. I also removed Barnabas’s little surprise bomb from the shadow cat. Your lover didn’t do a very good job of securing it.”
“You’re lying, Julija. You could never defeat Vasile or Avram.” Her voice began to swing out of control.
“They are dead,” Isai said.
A peculiar noise much like the high-pitched shriek of a flock of birds or large bats moving fast through the air could be heard in the distance.
Crina smirked. “You’d better hope that you’re lying, Julija, although I can’t imagine that he would spare you.” She lifted her hands fast into the air and tried to shout a death wave.
Isai inserted his body between Crina and Julija with lightning speed, clapping his hands to reverse the direction, sending the shock wave straight at her. Her mouth was open, and the wave rushed down her throat, turning her insides to jelly, melting everything from organs to bones. A look of horror came over her and then her face collapsed in on itself. Her body followed suit, so that she looked like a shriveled paper doll.
Julija turned her face away. “Isai.”
“We have to go,” he said abruptly. He didn’t wait for her to shift. This was no training lesson. He caught her up and took to the sky. They needed shelter and he had marked but two places, neither of which he’d had time to examine. Inwardly cursing, he flew fast. There wasn’t time to think of the cats, he could only silently send out a call to them, warning of immediate danger.
Julija didn’t protest or fight him. She closed her eyes and lay quiet in his arms. She felt small, weightless but feminine cradled against his chest. Isai covered them with a concealing spell as he took her away from the lake where his brother had ended his life. There was no way to save the two hapless campers, both of whom he’d liked, not unless he got his woman to a safe place. He hadn’t spent