That is a very natural feeling. Especially given that Elisabeta was still a young girl. In Carpathian years, she was very young. Again, Julija wanted to wrap her arms around the woman and comfort her. Had anyone ever done that for her? It was Xavier who had taken Rhiannon. He wanted to be immortal. He was able through spells to keep her from calling out for aid, or to help herself. He had three children with her. Triplets. Soren, Tatijana and Branislava.
Elisabeta sighed. Poor Rhiannon. I had no idea Xavier was such a monster.
He kept the children and killed Rhiannon, feeling safer without her conspiring to find a way to kill him. He seemed to have tried to raise them somewhat as his children, but Rhiannon had already told them the truth. He imprisoned the two girls in an ice cave after they had shifted into dragons. At first, he did the same with Soren, but he wanted to use him, so he punished the two girls if their brother went against him. Soren quickly fell into line.
Elisabeta gave a delicate shudder. Watching someone you love get punished for your sins is very difficult. I was fortunate in that for a long time, Sergey didn’t allow anyone else near me. When he finally did, I found it was a nightmare. He liked the results because I could take his beatings for myself but detested when he hurt others.
Julija knew Sergey had employed that method often with Elisabeta, making her watch him destroy entire families and claiming it was her fault. The human puppets he created ate the flesh from living beings, mostly children. Elisabeta would do anything Sergey asked of her as long as he stopped them.
Xavier kept Soren separated from his sisters unless he needed to punish him. He allowed him to be with a mage, one of Xavier’s choice. She gave birth to a son, and they were told the baby died at birth. The infant was given to another mage to raise away from Soren and the birth mother was killed by Xavier in front of Soren because she had “failed” them. A few years later Soren married a human, I think her name was Samantha, another experiment, and Sergey didn’t want any children to be more powerful than Soren’s firstborn. They had twins, Razvan and Natalya.
Elisabeta gasped. Xavier is every bit as bad as Sergey.
I think they are close in their depravity. Soren’s firstborn son, Anatolie, was raised to be a powerful mage, one that would aid Xavier in wiping out their enemies. Anatolie married a mage woman of Xavier’s approval. It wasn’t a love match because I don’t think either knows how to actually love. They had twins, boys. The boys were to be their greatest asset, including giving blood to keep Xavier alive.
Mages have longevity, Elisabeta remembered. But they aren’t immortal.
Technically, neither are Carpathians because they can be killed. Still, to accomplish what they wanted, Xavier had to live, to be immortal. The twin boys were far more mage than Carpathian and their blood didn’t sustain the others. The three mages conspired to find a Carpathian female. They set the Malinov brothers on a Carpathian family, killing the male first and then the female. They took the girl. She was no more than sixteen. She gave birth to me. I’m mage and Carpathian. I fed them all with my blood. Apparently, my blood did sustain them.
Julija. Elisabeta breathed her name. She had given blood to Sergey nearly every day of her life since she was seventeen. She knew what it felt like to be used cruelly.
Julija stared up at the constellation. It was directly over her now and she felt as if a thousand eyes watched her. She stayed very still, part of the landscape. She was high up in the Sierras in a particularly rocky area. Large cliffs rose above her and more were below. Her “rocks” were just a few of many. She was usually very confident in her illusions but for some reason, maybe the conversation, she was a little anxious.
Xavier had this book of spells. He had recorded every dark spell possible. It was truly evil and held the means to destroy every species. The book was sealed until Xavier could get in place the powerful mages he needed to aid him. Soren stole the book and hid it in a bog. Xavier sent his demon warriors after him and tortured him to find out where it was. Soren’s daughter, Natalya, saw the entire thing in a vision and was able to find the book. In her vision from holding the ceremonial knife, she saw Xavier sacrifice a dark mage, a Jaguar and a Carpathian. The Carpathian was Rhiannon. Natalya thought that provided the entire seal. From things I’ve overheard, I believe she didn’t see anything more because she didn’t have access to all of Xavier’s prized ceremonial knives.
Elisabeta was silent a moment, trying to comprehend everything Julija was telling her. Natalya got to the book before Xavier.
That is correct. The book was given to the prince of the Carpathians.
And destroyed.
Unfortunately, no. It couldn’t be opened, which is a good thing, and it can’t be destroyed so easily. But the Carpathians thought it safe with Mikhail.
Elisabeta might not want to strike out on her own, but she was intelligent. She put it all together very fast. The shadow cats your brothers bred. They were bred specifically to get the book.
Exactly. My brothers took the cats to various countries to train them, so no one would put together what they were planning. They had other mages and humans set up just in case they were caught and in a couple of countries, that did happen, but my brothers were able to get away without ever being seen or suspected. When they were able to get the perfect cat, they sent him to get the book.
Something went wrong.
That guess was easy enough. Julija had told Elisabeta that she was on an important quest, one that was necessary, and now she was saying she wouldn’t make it back at the three-week mark.
A Carpathian warrior, one who had just lost his lifemate. Julija’s heart contracted remembering how she’d felt the warrior taking the woman into his arms and holding her. How he’d brushed her eyelids and mouth with kisses so gentle they were soul stirring.
His name is Iulian Florea. His intention was to meet the dawn and then all of a sudden, he changed his mind. I had the impression of the book. For a moment I thought he was going to try to bring his lifemate back to life. I didn’t want him to try. I knew, even if he could do it, anything coming from that book would be pure evil.
He took the book?
He wounded the shadow cat and took the book. I followed him here. I could feel his presence, that’s how I tracked him, but now I can’t.
She was suddenly very uneasy. The constellation remained right over her as if somehow spotlighting her. She had the urge to throw back the sleeping bag and run. The need to flee was so strong she found herself gripping the edges of the bag. The compulsion strengthened. She forced herself to breathe through it.
She couldn’t tell Elisabeta that she’d been discovered. She didn’t know who it was that had found her, but it didn’t really matter. Iulian, her brothers and any of their many allies, vampires and their puppets, or Carpathian hunters. They knew she was in the race to find the book. Even if she got there first, none of them would ever let up until they got her. The sensible thing to do was to join Elisabeta and help her. If the Carpathians already had gotten word she was mage and a traitor, she would look innocent helping one of their own.
Julija couldn’t abandon her mission. She wanted to, but it was impossible. She couldn’t allow her brothers to get their hands on that book. Not now, not ever.
2
Isai Florea stared up at the stars from where he sat on a boulder looking up at the clear night sky. It was beautiful. Without the lights from the city of San Diego, one could get lost in the beauty of the overhead display. After having been locked away from the world for so long, being thrown back into a society he didn’t understand—nor would they understand him—so many people and so many homes crammed together gave him a sense of not belonging.
He was given the unexpected duty of hunting for his own brother. He hadn’t realized Iulian was alive. He’d searched for him for centuries, long before he’d sequestered himself in the monastery, high in the Carpathian Mountains. He’d been certain Iulian was long gone from the earth just as everyone he’d ever cared about was.
He was grateful he didn’t have emotions, not when he was chasing after his only living relative. Not after finding out his brother had stolen something so incredibly evil as Xavier’s deadly spell book.
What would be the purpose? Had Iulian figured out how to open it? It didn’t matter one way or the other, he’d stolen something of great importance from the prince of their people. That was all Isai needed to know to begin tracking him. More, the little mage everyone had talked about, Elisabeta’s friend, wasn’t all she’d seemed. She was either hunting Iulian to take the book from him or had aided him in stealing it.
Isai kept his concentration mainly focused on the constellation in the sky. That long sweep of stardust spread through the bright stars. He had re-created it to perfection, every detail, every particle. In doing so, he could see the land below it, miles of wilderness set in valleys and high peaks. He identified campers, not ones on the main trails, but those venturing outside the normal trails within the range.
He was new to the Sierras, but he had studied the topography and devoured everything he could read or hear about the range. That also helped him to find the places he was certain his brother would go. The mage—she was different. He knew very little about her. He’d attempted to speak to Elisabeta, but she remained in the healing grounds, refusing to acknowledge anyone. Isai shrugged. Had he gone through what she’d been put through, he wouldn’t want to talk to anyone, either. Nor would he ever aid someone hunting a friend.
He felt it then. A sudden shift of energy. Subtle. So subtle he thought he might be mistaken, but when he stayed very still and allowed all his senses to expand, he felt it again. A steady flow. It wasn’t some natural phenomenon the range of mountains had produced. This was created by someone, not something. The energy was coming from somewhere and the wielder held great power. The flow of energy never wavered, not for one moment.
Isai couldn’t help but admire the efficiency. He focused completely on the energy to trace it back to the caster. Feminine. The flow held a light hand. Delicate almost. He found himself wanting to bathe in that flow of energy. In the sheer beauty of the work. It was unusual for him to react to anything, not like this. It was as if he was drawn to the flow, a compulsion to put first his hands and then his arms in, close his eyes and let the energy consume him. Move into him. Through him. Submerge him completely.