feared it was a spell or drug. I had no one else in my life to turn to and he listened carefully and didn’t make fun of me. Or laugh. He was so caring.”
For the first time, Julija looked up at him and there was accusation in her gaze. That mixture of shame, sorrow and anger. He didn’t like her viewing him like that, but again made the decision to remain silent. What was the use of defending himself simply because he was a man? He needed to know what he was fighting against.
“I let him talk me into being with him. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wanted the burning to go away, and he was always amazing and sweet when everyone around me was cruel and ugly.” A sob escaped, and she jammed her fist into her mouth as if that could stop the flow of tears.
The air stilled in the cave and all at once it seemed impossible to breathe. Julija coughed, one hand going defensively to her throat. Isai waved his hand to send a small, cooling breeze through the chamber. He could see the fine sheen on her skin. Tremors rocked her body.
Isai couldn’t stand it. She was suffering needlessly. He wanted the explanation for her treachery, for her refusing to allow his claim on her, even more than he wanted his next breath, but her misery and grief were genuine. He couldn’t have that. He was so close to understanding her. So close, but there were things far more important than his understanding. Just her physical reaction told him she had a reason for refusing him.
“Julija.” He kept his voice low and compelling. “There is no need to continue. I do not want you reliving something that clearly is extremely disturbing to you.”
She shook her head, her gaze jumping to his and then back to the other side of the chamber. “You aren’t Barnabas and you deserve better. You definitely deserve a lifemate better than me.”
He started to remind her that there was only one lifemate, that she carried the other half of his soul, but there was no use. She was too far gone to another place—a place he didn’t want her to go.
“The whole thing was a setup. My father despised the fact that I refused to kill using my gifts. It’s a requirement in our family. Sacrifice animals. Sacrifice people. Sort of a rite of passage. He was deeply disappointed and embarrassed to have a daughter with the high mage’s mark refusing to kill.”
She rocked back and forth, a self-comforting motion that broke Isai’s heart. Twice she wiped her face along Belle’s fur and both times he was certain he caught the gleam of tears.
“All along, Barnabas was setting me up, with my father’s full approval. The tactic was to be really nice to me. Gain my trust. Become my friend. None of those things were hard for him because I didn’t have any friends. No one was ever nice to me. He became . . . everything.”
Isai winced. He didn’t like hearing that another man had been her everything, even if it was false. He should have found her. He should have redoubled his efforts instead of going into a monastery. Whatever she was going to tell him—and it was bad—was on him. It was his failure as her lifemate.
“I guess once he accomplished phase one, winning my trust, he was able to introduce the need for sex. By the way, that is a permanent spell. At least, so far, I haven’t been able to reverse it. I think he made it that way, so I would have to turn to him no matter what throughout the years. I didn’t. He is into extremely cruel, torturous sexual practices and he claimed he needed a subject to demonstrate on for his class.”
Isai pressed his fist tightly against his thigh. He didn’t want to hear anymore. What he did want was to go find Barnabas and let him know just how he felt about the things she’d told him already. He knew the mage was coming after them, her father had threatened her with him.
“He was still very much the Barnabas he was pretending to be that first time. Then when I said I wasn’t certain I wanted to continue the relationship, that I didn’t think it was fair to him, everything changed. He took me prisoner. He had a dungeon and kept me down there. It was a