softly. “Your friend Sandu healed the wound, but it was so severe that it left this scar. Sergey wanted to make certain I was killed, or couldn’t speak, so one more male Carpathian hunter wouldn’t have a lifemate.”
Isai remained silent. She hadn’t needed Sergey to do the very same thing, but he didn’t remind her of that. He could feel sorrow beating at her, but her emotions were all jumbled up. Shame. Anger. Sorrow. All three mixed together. She didn’t look at him but sank her fingers into Belle’s fur and rubbed one cheek down the cat’s spine.
“I thought I was in love once. A long time ago.”
Isai’s heart clenched. Not because she didn’t deserve to love someone, but because whatever had happened scarred her far worse than Sergey’s talon had. He wanted to put his arms around Julija and just hold her to comfort her but from the way she held herself so stiffly, averting her face from his, he knew better. She didn’t want to be touched. She was willing to share her body intimately, but not her feelings. She didn’t want to care about him or have him love her.
She rubbed her chin on Belle’s fur. “I was so alone. And so young. My stepmother was particularly nasty to me and my father was cruel. My brothers had each other, but I couldn’t even have friends. Anatolie made that very clear. In any case, who wanted to bring anyone home when you had the stepmother from hell?”
Isai remained very quiet. She rocked herself gently back and forth, unaware that she did so. That small action told him she needed the comfort she rejected. It took great effort not to go to her. He might not have claimed her, but she was still his lifemate and every cell in his body needed to make things better for her.
“Barnabas taught a seminar on medieval spells, useful ways to combine sex and torture to get your victim to cooperate any way you wish. I was the youngest student and the only female in the class. My father was adamant that all three of us, my brothers and I, go to the seminar. He said the understanding of pain combined with sex and how it could be used against one was needed by every mage. Afterward, Barnabas and I went for coffee. I was upset. The things he taught turned my stomach. He was . . . sweet.”
He could imagine how anyone remotely nice would appear sweet after the way her family had treated her. He remained absolutely still, afraid if he drew attention to himself in any way, Julija would stop sharing. She didn’t want to, and he couldn’t imagine why she’d decided to tell him about the man when she had made it clear she didn’t want to revisit what had to have been a difficult and painful time in her life.
Isai didn’t like the way she’d met Barnabas. Why would her father insist she attend such a seminar? That made no sense to him.
“We ended up dating for several weeks. Just meeting and going for coffee or a drink. I really liked him. He liked animals and just about everything I liked. We would sit and talk for hours. Oddly, I wasn’t attracted to him sexually, but I wasn’t that attracted to anyone. That didn’t seem to matter to him. He treated me like a friend and never once pushed beyond that boundary.”
He could have told her she wasn’t physically attracted to other males because she held the light to his darkness. Her body was waiting for his. He remained silent.
“In any case, somewhere along the line, I suddenly was on fire, desperate for sex.” She rubbed her chin along the cat’s spine again, her hands still in the fur. “I burned day and night. I was scared, because to go from being reluctant to have sex to thinking of it every waking minute, I knew a spell had to have been cast. That, or I was drugged, or both.”
She fell silent for a long time. Her hands trembled as she petted the cat. The animal was far too big to remain in her lap. He knew the weight on her small frame wasn’t good for her, but he kept silent, feeling privileged that she’d told him as much as she had about her past.
“I went to Barnabas because I didn’t know anyone else that I trusted. I told him what was happening to me and that I