rise, but he remained expressionless, even serene, on the outside. “You do not belong to this man, Julija. He has cast a spell, in fact it sounds as if he has cast more than one. We will defeat him together. You are incredibly strong. They made you fear Barnabas because they don’t want you to know how powerful you are.”
“He terrifies me, Isai.”
“I can see it on your face. Look at me, sívamet.” He waited until her overbright eyes met his. “He has done everything he can to conquer you. He’s used torture and sex as well as a combination of both. He’s used humiliation. He’s used spells. This man has done everything he knows how to do to defeat you and he has not. You may not know it, but he knows you are a danger to him.”
“I wish that was the truth.”
For the first time Isai could see hope pushing through despair on her face.
“I need you to know, I have not been entirely honest about my appearance. I have some scarring on my back and thighs. Pretty bad scarring, even on my arms. Sergey added to what Barnabas did. I covered those with an illusion.”
“Why did you do that?” He kept disappointment out of his voice. “There was no need. Did you think I needed you to have the appearance of smooth skin? I want the real woman. I want Julija, not an illusion of her.”
“I wear clothes, so no one sees my back or the back of my thighs. There’s some scarring on my breasts and one particularly bad scar on my left thigh.”
“Julija, I want the real woman,” he reiterated. “A lifemate, no matter age or appearance, is always the most beautiful woman possible to a Carpathian male. I do not know what women think when their lifemate claims them, but for the male, she is everything. He does not look at other women. There is only his lifemate.”
She bit down on her lip for a moment. “I heard the prince had a sister who was not with her lifemate.”
“It happens. There is a sickness that runs through certain lineages. It is in the prince’s lineage and a few others as well. It is not in mine and I can assure you, there is no other woman I find more beautiful or sexier than you. Whether that is reciprocated is another matter altogether.”
Julija pressed her lips together. “I should have known. I don’t think it’s vanity. That wasn’t the reason I didn’t want you to see, although I prefer looking my best around you. It’s just that if you saw the scars you would have asked me how I got them. I needed to find a way to tell you in my own time.”
“I appreciate that you did. If you hold Belle any tighter, you might strangle her.”
She looked down at the squirming cat she had a death grip on. A ghost of a smile lit her eyes briefly as she forced herself to let go. “I’m surprised she didn’t bite me. Shadow cats were raised to be vicious.”
“Your brothers used torture on your cats, various tortures, perhaps not sexual, but torture the same, which Barnabas taught in his class. You are not vicious, and neither are the cats.”
Her dark eyes searched his face carefully. “Isai, I don’t want you to think I’m always perfectly nice. I’m not. I have quite a few very negative feelings built up.”
“I am very happy about that. I do not wish to have a lifemate who is all forgiveness. I intend to destroy this man, Barnabas, as well as your family. If you do not have ‘negative feelings’—whatever that is—you would not support me in this endeavor.”
She made a face at him. “Sometimes, when you talk to me, the way you phrase something is so very off-putting, I’m not certain how to respond.”
“‘Yes’ is the proper response,” he teased.
He actually got a smile from her and that helped to reduce some of the coiling tension in him. He hadn’t realized that just getting her to smile could light up his world. He didn’t know how, after what she’d gone through, she could be the woman she was. Courageous, strong and someone who would reach out to another woman in the way she had Elisabeta. He even understood that friendship a little better.
“I don’t want you to take any chances, Isai. Before we do anything else, we have to recover that book. We can’t take the chance that it will