traps in places like this. The cats are programmed to find Carpathian blood. They crave it. Anatolie craves it. So do my brothers, and now, especially Barnabas. It is only a matter of time before they recognize that Carpathian blood is in close proximity to them.
Do you believe they are looking for you? Me? Or my brother?
Panic was beginning to fray the edges of her mood. She’d been so ecstatic, now she wanted to run for her life and take Isai with her.
We cannot leave these two with your brothers. They will harm human life as well as mage or Carpathian. If they are left to run free without direction . . .
Their direction is to kill. You. Me. Anyone they find. Come on, Isai. Let’s leave here. She directed her owl to circle above the cats, looking for anything that would tell her this was a trap Anatolie or her brothers—or worse, Barnabas—had set for them.
Take a breath, sívamet, they do not know anything about us. They cannot know we are lifemates.
She wanted to curl up inside the owl, small and frightened. She wanted to demand Isai listen to her. Mostly she wanted to gather up every molecule that could possibly be her lifemate and force him to leave whether he wanted to or not.
He knows, Isai. Anatolie knows everything. What he knows, Barnabas will know. I believe he has chosen Barnabas as his right hand. He directs and Barnabas carries out whatever it is Anatolie tells him. She kept a wary eye on the feeding cats.
Then Barnabas is not nearly as powerful as they want you to think. He needs your father’s direction and approval. Had he been intelligent, he would know, like your father, that you were the one with the power.
Isai kept telling her that. Over and over. He clearly believed that the Carpathian DNA in her body coupled with the mage had given her some advantage over everyone. She wished it was true. She was beginning, in the back of her mind, to believe him. Just a little.
Sívamet, look to the east.
She didn’t want to take her eyes off the scene below. Isai needed her as a guard. Still, she did as he directed and saw Belle and Blue running full out, in shadow form, two gray streaks moving in the darkness toward the cats on the bluffs.
Can you stop them?
Either one of us can. They will obey orders. I hope they can help us with these two. I have a plan.
Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. She wanted to shake him. I’m telling you, there is a trap here.
I believe you. I am not on the ground. I am studying the situation.
She heard the teasing amusement in his voice and she couldn’t help relaxing just a little bit. He could make her laugh, no matter the circumstances.
She gave an exaggerated sigh. What is your plan?
Plan? he echoed.
A small laugh escaped her. Our kittens are getting closer. What is your idea?
I am still thinking.
It will not matter if any of them come for us. I’m going to strangle you, Julija informed him.
She heard his deeper laugh brush through the walls of her mind. The sound was joyful. She loved that. She hadn’t heard Isai laugh often, and she hugged that moment to herself, savoring it, letting herself have those few heartbeats of time without worry. Without a negative thought.
She’d been brought up in a world where spells and magic were normal. She found Isai was the true magician. He was magic. She would follow him anywhere.
The owl suddenly jolted hard, pain spreading through the small body. She heard a loud crack as she fell, tumbling out of control, through the air toward the ground.
Float. You know how to float. It starts in your head. Float, Julija. Right. Now. Isai streaked toward her.
Julija closed her eyes to keep from seeing the ground rising toward her fast. In her head, she built the image of a bubble and instantly the velocity of her fall changed, and she was inside a balloon, carried on the wind. Isai snagged her out of the sky and took her balloon down to the surface, the floor of the bluff, a distance from the two cats.
She emerged from the bubble and waited until Isai was in his human form. He was ruggedly good-looking. Every line. He could have been chiseled from the granite they stood on. She stared at him for an eternity, her heart pounding. “You saved me.”