it would be so terrible to be with a Carpathian? She had nowhere to go. Her family and most of those with mage blood would forever brand her a traitor when they learned she’d been on her way to warn the Carpathians. And yet, she didn’t know how to live as a Carpathian. She had the ability to take blood, just not to sleep in the ground.
Julija sighed. She didn’t know how to trust someone enough to fall in love. There hadn’t been one single person in her life that she could remember that she could trust. Not her father. Her brothers. Her stepmother. Not one of them. No friends. Certainly not the man she’d slept with. She had thought him someone special, her friend. Turned out, not so much. A shiver went through her body.
She wrapped her arms around her waist, suppressing the shiver, pushing the memory to the back of her mind where it belonged. Elisabeta? She needed . . . something. Companionship. Contact with another being. She was well aware she’d connected very strongly with Elisabeta because she identified in some ways with her. It wouldn’t seem so to anyone looking at the two of them, but that awareness of each other was there. Compassion. Empathy. Whatever one wanted to call it, they had it for each other.
She held her breath for the long moments leading up to the stirring in her mind. I am here. You have need? Are you safe?
Tears burned hot behind her eyes. Elisabeta was in the ground, healing from the terrible physical punishments Sergey had inflicted on her as well as the mental and emotional scars, yet she was instantly concerned for Julija. That said so much about the woman.
I just need someone to talk to.
We have to be careful. He is always listening at night. Trying to find a way to me.
That alarmed Julija. She knew exactly who Elisabeta was referring to. Sergey would only be able to call to her at night. Julija felt as if she could almost hear him whispering to her friend. She had all but forgotten Sergey in her rush to go after the book. Xavier might be dead, but the master vampire had slivers of the high mage embedded in his brain. She had no idea if those slivers could feel the book had left the relative safety of the Carpathian Mountains and was now vulnerable somewhere close.
I almost forgot that he’s doubly dangerous with the slivers of the high mage in him. He was already scary enough. I’m sorry, Elisabeta. I should have been more careful.
Even if the vampire didn’t feel how close the book was, it wasn’t like something as huge as the evil book of spells being stolen would stay a secret. Sooner or later, the news would get to Sergey and he would start his own hunt for it.
Will your father and brothers help him? Will they have other mages helping?
The anxiety Julija heard in Elisabeta’s voice was for her, not the woman who had been caged for centuries and forced to do a vampire’s bidding.
I don’t know. She hadn’t thought of that, either. She knew her father wanted the book for himself. He wouldn’t want Sergey to get near it. On the other hand, if it was the only way to get the book back, he might form that alliance. Those slivers of Xavier might actually seek him out to aid him; after all, Xavier was his grandfather.
Julija? If your father is Rhiannon’s grandson, he is part Dragonseeker. No Dragonseeker has ever turned vampire.
He is not vampire, but he is evil.
I do not see how that is possible.
Julija knew there was something that was supposed to be extraordinary about the Dragonseeker lineage, but she wasn’t certain what it was until that moment. He bears a mage mark, the same as my brothers. The same as me. But I was also born with a dragon mark low, on the left side of my body where my ovaries would be. When I asked my father and brothers, none had that mark. They couldn’t see my mark so they had no idea what I was talking about. It was like the dragon hid from them.
That had made her feel different, even more apart from the rest of her family when she’d already felt that way. For the longest time she’d thought she was treated differently because she didn’t have the same mother as her brothers and her stepmother was jealous of her dead