she should have been. She definitely didn’t like the separation. The two cats were pressing close to her, so she dropped her hands into their sleek fur and massaged their necks while she thought about Isai. Was it really so bad to have a partner? Would he be a partner, or would he turn on her?
How can you trust anyone again? Sergey was your friend. He wasn’t vampire when he came to you, yet you’re still willing to trust a man—a complete stranger at that—with your life. How do you do it?
I am still in the ground. There was shame in Elisabeta’s mind.
That admission humbled Julija. She saw courage in the other woman, while Elisabeta thought herself a coward, yet she was determined to rise and allow a complete stranger to claim her, a selfless act, to save her lifemate. Julija tried to tell herself that Elisabeta would do so because she’d been trained from birth to do just that—give herself up for a man—but she knew better. Elisabeta had been taken captive as a young teenager by a Carpathian male, one she’d trusted. One she’d believed to be her friend. Just like Barnabas had taken her, only Julija had been an adult.
She closed her eyes and leaned forward to bury her face in Belle’s fur. Sometimes, Elisabeta, I don’t know why someone as extraordinary as you would have me as a friend. I’m so selfish. Really. I want him, but the dream seems too good to be true. I’ve never had anything in my life be good. Everything that looked that way has been illusion. Sometimes, when I look at him, I wonder if I conjured him up—or if my father did.
The moment the thought was out of her head and into Elisabeta’s her entire body began to shake. She had let out her worst fear when she’d guarded it so carefully. Elisabeta, my father could do this. He is good at illusions. She hadn’t wanted to examine the idea too closely to tip her father off that she knew what he’d done.
There was quiet. Stillness. Elisabeta thought things over carefully. She didn’t just blurt out a denial, she examined the possibility from every angle.
He would create illusions of my mother coming to me when I was just a child. Sometimes I thought I would go insane wondering if he’d really killed her or if that was the illusion and he held her prisoner somewhere. I remember being a child and whispering all my secrets to my mother, all my fears, and of course, it was my father. I learned not to trust anything or anyone. Especially if they were nice to me.
Your lifemate spanked you.
He had done that. Would her father ever have risked that? Anatolie had never spanked her as a child. He was far subtler than that. Far crueler. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the one thing she was furious with Isai over was the one thing proving him to be real? She rubbed her cheek in Belle’s fur and then sat up, looking toward the slight crack leading to outside. She realized she wanted him to come back.
I can’t stop thinking about him, and that makes me more afraid than ever. I don’t like feeling like a coward.
Again, soft amusement flooded her mind. You are chasing after a spell book that could kill off an entire species as well as change the balance of power in the world if allowed into the wrong hands. I do not think you can call yourself a coward, Julija.
She could never live through the humiliation of giving herself, her body, her heart and soul to another man and have him be an illusion. It would break her. Totally break her. Sometimes she felt held together by the thinnest of threads. She couldn’t imagine what life was like for Elisabeta.
There was a faint stirring in her mind and she knew immediately Isai had connected with her. She held her breath and willed Elisabeta not to say anything more.
Are you all right? You feel . . . upset.
It was the last thing she expected him to say. She could feel his worry and it felt genuine. The way he came into her mind, pouring in slowly—like molasses, gently, so as to give her time to shut him out—that alone made her heart flutter. She was so susceptible to him. The way his voice was so intimate, stroking along the walls of her mind. He felt strong and protective—something she’d never known.