get to a place, Julija, where you fully trust me. I think we are there and then you retreat.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but then she snapped it closed. He was right. Her ear was over his heart and she listened to that steady beat. “They wanted a baby from me. A baby whose father was Carpathian. They discussed ways to achieve that goal. I overheard them talking. One of the ways was to deceive me into thinking that any Carpathian male was my lifemate.”
Isai rarely reacted to anything, but she felt the difference in him immediately. A kind of raw fury burst through him. He shook with it. Not overtly, but rather beneath his skin where no one would see, but she felt it. That fury ran like a river, very deep in him and anything or anyone caught in it was risking their life.
“I assure you, woman, I am your lifemate. There is no other and there will never be any other. There is no hoax. You are free to examine my mind at any time. I will hold nothing back from you, not even the things I have seen in this life that you should never see. If that is what it takes to convince you I am real, and you belong to me, then that is what we will do.”
Julija bit down hard on her lip. She had never seen Isai’s cool demeanor so intense, or electric. He meant every word. The sapphire eyes burned into her. Burned deep. She held her breath, thinking flames burned behind that blue.
“We have to be totally in sync, Julija. This entire lake could be a trap. The moment we bring that book to the surface, we will be attacked. We do not know who or how many enemies we will have coming at us. If we are not totally together, if you do not trust me implicitly, we are not going to survive.”
Julija looked up at his face. He looked a warrior of old, honed in violence, invincible. She couldn’t imagine anything or anyone defeating him—not even Barnabas. Her breath caught in her throat. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Her hand went up defensively, as if she had just committed blasphemy of some sort. She forced her mind away from panic. She’d been having panic attacks far too often and she was letting them get the better of her. Where was this coming from? She refused to think about the lack of air. She was Carpathian and didn’t need it. Instead, she turned her attention to her throat. Was there something there? A tendril of something elusive? A wisp weaving in and out of her throat.
She stroked her finger along her pulse thoughtfully, pulling the air from her lungs and forcing it through her mouth and nose.
“Do you think my ‘lesson in love’ started out in order to make certain if I did, by chance, ever meet you, I would be so afraid I wouldn’t accept your claim on me? If Anatolie went to Barnabas first and asked for his help, I think Barnabas would have agreed, maybe for a price, but he would have agreed.”
“That is possible, Julija. What are you thinking?”
“When you looked at me just now, I thought that you looked invincible, as if no one could defeat you. The moment I did, my throat started to close, and I recognized the touch of a spell. I think my panic attacks and my belief that Barnabas can’t be defeated have been spell-cast. I don’t know how or when it happened, or even if it was my father or Barnabas, but it’s there.”
“How do we remove it?”
That was Isai, back to his pragmatic, logical self. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hug him. She was already counting on that reasonable, rational, no-nonsense, sometimes annoying attribute in him. Instead she smiled up at him.
“We’re in sync, Isai. I may be under some ridiculous spell, but my feelings for you, apparently, are so strong that I am able to catch glimpses of how I really view you—and us—together. I feel so silly for allowing someone else to interfere with what I know is truth about you. Even with a spell on me, there is no excuse. Even though I overheard the ideas about trying to get me pregnant so they had another body with Carpathian blood to use, I know who you are in your heart. I know your mind. I do have