will need to think and act as Carpathian. Had you tried to come up with a spell to give you the ability to fly when you were falling, you would have hit the ground before you recited it, even in your mind. Visualizing what you need and having it take place immediately is an asset, odam wäke emni.”
“What are you calling me now?” she demanded, hands on hips, but she was looking at the peaceful scene below her. The blue lake, the mountains rising around it. The meadow with the wind creating waves in the tall, green grass.
“Mistress of illusions,” he interpreted immediately. “You knew the answer. You are learning more and more, taking what you need from my memories. The more you do that, Julija, those things you see in my experiences will aid you when you need them.”
“It feels a little like invading and stealing.”
He turned his head to look away from the scenery to meet her gaze. “That is why, right there, you are Dragonseeker. I am your lifemate. We share every memory—every experience, good or bad. I have opened my mind to you because there is no one in this world I trust more than I do you.”
She put her hand on his arm, needing to touch him, to feel close to him while she expressed her one concern. “You know that Barnabas and I exchanged blood. I didn’t look at it in those terms, but that’s what actually occurred. It was that exchange that allowed us to speak to each other telepathically. Can he still reach out to me and find me? Speak to me?”
“Before you went to ground with me, you said you had nightmares. Those nightmares were of Barnabas.”
Julija closed her eyes and leaned into him for comfort. Immediately his arm swept around her, locking her tight to his tall, powerful frame. He felt invincible and right then, when she was feeling fragile, she needed invincible.
“Yes. He was hurting me. Smiling while he did it. Happy to see my tears and very aroused. It made me sick. I would force myself to wake up.”
“He spoke to you.”
She heard the grimness in his voice. It was very rare for Isai to take that tone around her. He was always gentle, his voice like velvet stroking her skin.
“Yes,” she whispered as realization came to her. “He was reaching out to me, deliberately putting those things in my head, wasn’t he? It wasn’t so much a nightmare as Barnabas talking to me.”
“That is so. He cannot reach you in Carpathian sleep. He will eventually become angry, Julija, and you have to be prepared for that. As soon as he contacts you, and he will, if I am not with you, you must reach for me. We will share the burden whatever he says.”
Automatically, she shook her head, rejecting the idea before she could stop herself. “The things he proposes, the things he has done to me are too foul for you to know, to see.”
“I have seen them, my little mage. There is no need to try to hide these things. He made them public in his class. He did that to humiliate you, and in that he succeeded. He made you ashamed. He thought that would bring out the darkness in you, but there is no darkness. That was what he never understood. You had no recourse but to attempt to take your life.”
“He found me. There was so much blood. I thought it was an offering as I watched it flow out of me. I never had seen him like that before. He was frantic. Shocked. Almost beside himself. He stopped the flow instantly and forced his blood into me. He called for Anatolie and demanded he give me blood. Then my brothers. He held me.”
“Julija. It is enough.”
He wiped at her face with his thumb, little brushstrokes. She hadn’t realized she was crying again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so emotional. If I watch sad movies I cry.” She looked around for the cats. The animals always made her feel better. “They can’t kill off an animal in a movie or I completely fall apart.”
He laughed softly. “Naturally. You are very softhearted. Something I am not. I can deal with this dark mage, Julija. I know the things he did to you. He should feel shame, never you. He had to tie you to control you. Tie you not only with actual physical chains, but with his mage spells. He didn’t