fall into Anatolie’s hands. Or my brothers’ hands. Or Barnabas’s.” She gave a little shudder when she indicated the last.
“Would they know how to open the book?”
“They would reverse the order in which Xavier closed it. He sacrificed a life from each species. There is some controversy over whether he only used dark mage, Jaguar and Carpathian, or whether he had a second ceremony before or after that one. That will cause problems, but they aren’t insurmountable if you’re willing to kill a lot of people.”
“You are saying that to open the book one must kill five people in the correct order.”
She nodded. “That’s the truth of it. The members of my family and Barnabas are very much willing to kill three times that many in order to open the book. And if Sergey gets wind of the book being so close—and he will eventually—he’ll do anything to recover and open it. He has tiny bits of Xavier in him. In fact, he would probably know precisely how to open it.” She tilted her head back, both hands buried in the cat’s fur. “We have to recover that book first, Isai.”
“We will,” he assured her.
“Why haven’t you ever questioned that I might be trying to recover the book for my family, or for myself?”
“It is impossible to lie to one’s lifemate. You can omit things, but lying will not work.”
She very carefully put the large shadow cat from her lap. “Thank you for believing in me, Isai. I haven’t given you that much cause to.”
“That is not necessarily true. You risked your life to try to help Elisabeta. You could have gotten away and yet you didn’t. You allowed Sergey to keep you prisoner so that you could aid her. Have you told her of your experiences with Barnabas?”
“Not exactly,” she admitted in a low tone. “She was held prisoner for centuries. It wasn’t nearly as bad for me.”
“You cannot compare the two, and neither will she. Sergey might have tormented Elisabeta, but I doubt that he tortured her. He wouldn’t want her to commit any act that would take away her innocence. It was her light he needed. He might have hurt her in order to get her to comply with his commands and to rely on him, but he wouldn’t have sexually assaulted her with the kind of pain Barnabas inflicted on you.”
Isai made absolutely certain that he kept his features perfectly expressionless. He didn’t want her to know that he was seething with the need to find Barnabas and then her family and one by one wipe them from the face of the earth. He did find it a little laughable that she thought an ancient couldn’t handle mages. He had learned so many things in his time on the planet and most of those had to do with battles and hunting vampires. Mages sometimes helped and sometimes got in the way.
He was careful, searching for the right words. She was already wounded. She needed to know she was worth something to him after hearing what her family had done to her. She felt shame and that infuriated him, but he made certain none of his growing anger showed in his voice. “Like me, Elisabeta will admire and respect you for your courage. You truly are worthy of being her friend and my lifemate.”
Her gaze jumped to his. For the first time since she’d decided to tell him about her past, she looked pleased. He’d said the right thing. He took a chance. “Perhaps it would be a good thing to talk to Elisabeta. If there is anyone who will understand and not judge you, it will be her. She is a woman of the light, just as you are.”
“She is so lost and wounded,” Julija protested. “She doesn’t need me to dump my troubles on her. She needs me to be there for her.”
“Maybe she needs to know she’s needed. Would you want to be the one everyone feels sorry for? Everyone tiptoes around? Helping you, even if it is just to listen to you, might be the thing she needs most to start healing.”
Julija looked down at her hands. “I don’t think it’s possible to heal after what she went through. I hate the idea that everyone thinks she’ll rise all perfect.”
“No one believes that, least of all her lifemate. They were born for each other. He will know how best to make her happy.”
Her chin went up. A challenge. “Do you know how best