Dark Illusion by Christine Feehan Page B

jerked up. “What did you just say?”
    “I am betraying them and now they know it.”
    “They can’t know it. For all they know you were trying to get the book for them.”
    “We had a terrible fight before I left. At least, my father and I did. He sent me to my room and put a holding spell on it. The thing is, I’m good at spells. Not just good, very good. I can blow my stepmother right out of the water matching her spell for spell. Same with my brothers. My father is used to dealing with them and he underestimated the force he needed to keep me in. I’ve always been careful not to show all my abilities or power.”
    “You told him you would warn Mikhail?”
    “Yes. He wants the book in order to carry on Xavier’s work. They all do. It’s been their goal all along. I wasn’t privy to it because they felt I had too much Carpathian blood in me and might betray them. Xavier had forced Soren to be with a mage because he needed his own bloodline to be the more powerful of the two in Anatolie. They needed me to be more Carpathian so they could live off of my blood.” She gave a little shudder and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “All of them.”
    “Where is Iulian now?”
    She sighed again. “I was taken prisoner by Sergey. I would have broken loose when he wasn’t around but there were children and Elisabeta to free. I wanted to try to find a way to help them and I thought, even beinga couple of days behind Iulian, that I would be able to catch up. I’d been in his mind and I had a clear path to it. I just needed to find a direction.”
    “But?”
    She shrugged helplessly. “I did connect with him briefly and knew he had come this way. He likes the high places, the lonely places. He doesn’t want to be around people at all, not even to feed.”
    Isai frowned. He leaned closer. “Julija, that isn’t a good sign.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “He doesn’t expect to live or fight. If he thought he would need to fight in order to protect the book, he would stay where he could find sustenance. He doesn’t intend to have to fight. He lost his lifemate and he determined the book wasn’t safe where it was. He is taking it somewhere and he will suicide in order to stop anyone from finding the book’s final resting place.”
    She couldn’t tell what he felt. Before, she’d connected with him, but once he determined she wasn’t lifemate material, he’d withdrawn and put up some impenetrable shield. She knew, because she tried to get in. He probably knew she’d tried, but he’d kept her out. She didn’t like being separated from him. It made her edgy. Uneasy. Incomplete. Still, if she could best a powerful mage, she could best a Carpathian hunter.
    “Are you going to go after him?”
    “Of course.” Isai unfolded his long frame. “I have to find a suitable place to sleep during the day. Your brothers are most likely the two campers I saw not more than a few miles from here. If you want to try to outrun them on your own, that, obviously, is your right. If not, you’re welcome to come with me. You need have no fears. I won’t try to change your mind, nor will I try to have sex with you.”
    She should have reveled in his statement, but inexplicably she wanted to weep. She actually felt as if she’d lost something very valuable, and it wasn’t the sex even when she tried to tell herself it was. She detested that he had such a poor opinion of her. Again, he didn’t look at her when he spoke, and she wanted to remain silent, hoping he would turn those incredible sapphire eyes on her, but she couldn’t take a chance that he would just leave.
    “I’d rather go with you,” she said hastily. “I’d really like to know about the tattoo on your back. It’s different. I believe it’s in the ancient Carpathian language, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    He said it tersely. Clipped. That hurt, but she persisted. “What does it mean?”
    “It is for my lifemate alone. No one else.”
    She stuck her