Dark Illusion

by Feehan, Christine

  Julija watched him feed the big male. “He genuinely likes you.”

  She sounded surprised, and he deliberately shot up an eyebrow. “I am likable.”

  She made a face at him. “I don’t know, he hasn’t felt your hand on his rear.”

  He knew she was teasing him, but after discovering the things Barnabas had done to her, he didn’t want anything that even came close to reminding her of that poor excuse for a human being. He let the cat finish and then closed the puncture wounds with his tongue.

  “I must apologize to you for my behavior,” he said. “I had no idea you had this man treat you the way he did. I did not mean to resemble him in any way.”

  She looked genuinely horrified. “If you think that, you need to look into my mind. I didn’t want you to see the things he did to me, but your ridiculous little spanking wasn’t even in the same league. Believe me, I never thought that at all.”

  He stared at her, somewhere between shocked and amused, and with an urge to repeat his “ridiculous little spanking.” His woman had a mouth on her. He let the silence between them grow heavy until she realized what she’d said. Rather than react the way he expected, with chagrin or at least some tiny bit of remorse, she burst out laughing. He couldn’t help liking the sound. It filled the chamber, a soft, sexy little masterpiece he could listen to for the rest of his life. The sound also made him want to smile. It took a few moments to recognize that the unfamiliar emotion welling up in him was happiness.

  He sent a wave of water at her with the flat of his hand. Instantly she retaliated, turning her back and throwing up water with both hands. He cheated, easily building a shield while keeping up a storm of water until she collapsed back onto the seat, laughing. He couldn’t help smiling again.

  When the laughter subsided, she eyed him closely. “I really created this pool, didn’t I? No help from you.” She made it a statement, but there was a question in her mind.

  “No help from me. Now, when you decide to take to the air, there will be help and you’ll be very careful to do exactly as I say and follow my instructions to the letter.” He meant it. Absolutely. Then she nodded, her eyes going wide, and all sorts of ideas on instructions came into his head, making his cock jerk. He dropped his hand to the growing length, fisting it casually beneath the water.

  Her gaze followed the movement of his hand. “Do you think I could do that? Fly?”

  “Why not? I think you are going to be able to do more than most of us can, even when you are fully converted. I think your mage blood will remain just as Lycan blood does.”

  “A mage is more human than any other species,” Julija pointed out. “I don’t think of us as being more powerful. We’re well versed in the arts, both dark and light, but we appear and are the most human.”

  “Simply because you cannot shift into another form?” Her reasoning eluded him.

  “We live among humans, side by side. Our children grow up in the cities and towns. Most mages have married humans and turned their backs on their gifts.”

  “This does not mean that mages are any more human than Carpathians. Perhaps it is easier for you to assimilate into their society, but you have to have your own doctors, right?”

  She nodded. “Not that I ever went to one.” She ducked her head. “Especially after Barnabas. You can see the ugly scars on me if I don’t build an illusion.”

  He dropped his hand from his cock, unfamiliar fury building in his gut. He didn’t like it. The emotion was disturbing in its intensity and the fact that he was a very dangerous individual.

  “First, Julija, don’t do that.” He reached across the distance between them and lifted her chin. Her eyes met his and he felt the impact right through the swirling heat and anger churning in his belly. “You have no reason to be ashamed. That is part of their conditioning. They humiliated you and did their best to find a way to bend you to their will. They were not successful. You remember that. You stood your ground. You didn’t harm an innocent.”

  Isai allowed his admiration to show in his voice as well as his expression. He detested that her family had done these things to her, deliberately undermined her confidence and misled her so she had no idea who she was or even what she was.

  “You, sívamet, are odam wäke emni. In case you are not up on your Carpathian, it means ‘mistress of illusion.’ You are amazing when it comes to illusion, but it is because your illusions are very real, thanks to the Carpathian in you. They do not have to know you have become aware of that little detail. They are going to come at you and you will be able to defend yourself against any attack because you are both. Do you understand me, Julija? You are . . . extraordinary.”

  Her eyes met his with a hint of shyness. That surprised him. His woman wasn’t shy.

  “You make me feel extraordinary. I don’t know if I can do all the things you think I can, but I’m willing to learn, if you’re willing to teach me.”

  “You know more than you think you do. There’s one more thing we have to get out of the way before we go any further.”

  “Two,” she contradicted.

  He studied her face. “Two then. You go first.”

  “I want to know what your tattoo says. You said that belongs to your lifemate.”

  His heart gave a funny little stutter at the mixture of defiance, challenge and possession spilling into her voice. “Only to my lifemate. These words etched into my back are my vow to you.”

  He remembered every scar deliberately made on his body and how many times it had to be done to overcome the earth’s healing. The brethren had found that once the cut was deep enough, if they inserted the black color even deeper, the design would last on their skin. The creed of the brethren in the monastery flowed in their ancient Carpathian language from neck across shoulders and down their backs. Their creed and a vow to his woman.

  “You are the most important person in my life. You always will be. When I realized I had grown far too dangerous to continue hunting the vampire—”

  Her head jerked up, her eyes meeting his. “What does that mean? Why would that be?”

  He had forgotten, because she clearly was Carpathian, that there would be gaps in her knowledge. “We hunt our own brethren and we do so without color or emotion. In some ways, the lack of both is good because to kill someone we love and continue this practice over hundreds of years would damage us beyond repair. Still, one cannot live that way forever. At first you hear the whisper of temptation, to kill while feeding. If one does that, there is a rush caused by the adrenaline in the victim’s blood.”

  “Really? A Carpathian who had spent centuries being honorable would decide to give up everything in order to feel that momentary rush?”

  He nodded. “If you have not felt anything at all for centuries, that rush is a huge temptation. Think of all the males and females who cheat on their partners. It is for a momentary rush. They throw it all away, or at least risk it, for that one moment of nothing but feeling. If a warrior hasn’t had anything in his life but gray nothingness, that whisper of temptation grows louder and louder as the centuries pass.”

  Julija leaned back, forgetting nothing was there to support her but rock. He waved to provide a softer cushion for her, doing so without thinking. She looked startled and then she sent him a sweet smile that struck him like a fiery dart.

  “Is that what happened? Why you decided to go into the monastery? The whispers were becoming louder?”

  “I wish they had continued, but after centuries, and so many kills, they stopped. Killing, even without feeling, takes pieces out of us. Steals what is left of our soul. At least, it feels that way. Each vampire hunt stole more and more of me and then the whispers stopped and there was only silence. Complete silence.”

  Her dark chocolate eyes were veiled by long, thick lashes, but he could still read the compassion in them. She turned his heart over. How he thought she wasn’t worthy, he didn’t know. His woman was definitely worthy of being a lifemate. Everything about her screamed
courage and compassion.

  “I knew then that I had to end my days of hunting. Should I turn, with my knowledge and skills, it would take several seasoned hunters to slay me. I did not want to risk that happening. I had a few ‘friends,’ men I knew I could count on, and I told them I did not want to end my life, that if my lifemate was out there, I was subjecting her to cycle after cycle. Once I died, I would have to be reborn and still find her. Our life cycles could be far apart.”

  “Someday you’ll have to explain all that to me,” Julija said. “This lifemate thing is fascinating. After what happened to me with Barnabas, I didn’t think I would ever find someone to share my life with. Now it feels like we’ve always been together.”

  “Because we belong. My friends and I decided to go into a monastery. There was one high up in the Carpathian Mountains. The monks were old and slowly dying as no young men wanted that arduous, lonely life. They showed us the simplicity of the way they lived. It was quite beautiful in a way. We cared for them as one by one, they died. While they lived, we were careful of them, but we took their blood.”

  “Did they know?”

  He inclined his head respectfully. “Yes. We told them what and who we were. They could not communicate with the outside world without our knowledge, so it was safe to tell them. They were good men, very accepting of other cultures and ways, and in our case, other species. They helped us as best they could and in return, we did our best for them.”

  “I can hear regret in your voice.”

  “For their deaths. Humans die so young. You must have lost human friends.”

  “I wasn’t allowed friends. I mingled with them, lived among them, but we were always aloof from them. Even the more modern neighborhoods we lived in didn’t seem to want closeness. No neighborhood barbecues, that sort of thing. That’s probably why my father chose them.”

  Isai concurred with her conclusion. “After the last of the monks died, we chose the youngest of us, which is kind of funny because he was nearly the same age, just lacked by a quarter of a century, but we referred to him as the ‘boy.’” He sent her a small grin. “We did not feel, but we still used humor. We did our best to follow the advice of the monks and using humor, whether felt or not, was one of the things that was told to us. Sandu, one of the brethren, was the best at it, but we all practiced.”

  “You’re good enough,” she said, as if knowing he was telling her not to expect him to make her laugh, although he wanted to do so. He craved her smile and the sound of her laughter.

  “Fane became the gatekeeper,” he continued. “He was the youngest of us, although he was enormously skilled, and we trusted him as our gatekeeper. He was the only one of us to come and go from the monastery. He would find sustenance and then return to feed each of us. It was not an easy job.”

  “I can imagine, with so many of you.”

  “During our time there, others came and stayed awhile. That helped Fane. Some stayed half a century or more, others less than a decade. If the call to find their lifemate became too strong, they would leave. Not everyone is suited to such an austere lifestyle. Living there was like living without hope, yet at the same time, we were safe from killing.”

  “I just can’t imagine what that was like.”

  “We lived for our lifemates. I lived for you. We etched our creed into our backs.” He turned around to show her the Carpathian letters flowing down his back.

  Her fingers brushed over the first words. “Olen wäkeva kuntankért,” she whispered softly. “Tell me the translation, Isai.”

  “‘Staying strong for our people.’ We were there behind those heavy gates, the thick walls surrounding us to remind us that the Carpathian people were honorable, and we needed to be strong and fight against the nothingness. That gray void we all lived in. It was like a terrible abyss we had gone into, digging deeper and deeper throughout the centuries until one morning, we looked up and there was no way out. Honor was all we had left.”

  Her fingers brushed over the second line multiple times. Lingered. Cooled and soothed when he had felt no discomfort but now, forever, would crave the touch of her fingers.

  “Olen wäkeva pita belső kulymet.”

  Surprisingly, her pronunciation was excellent. He glanced over his shoulder at her. Her gaze was fixed on the dark scarring on his back.

  “The second line says, ‘Staying strong to keep the demon inside.’” Her hand covered the line. He felt the imprint of her palm like a brand. It felt a little as if she was trying to take the weight of his demon from him.

  He swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat. “Each of us in the monastery lives with our own personal demon. I know that sounds silly because all people do. The difference is, as the gray nothingness grew inside us, making up our world, it fed the worst of our traits, the killer inside us. Our demons are very real, and they are living and breathing, waiting for the moment we are so weary we are no longer diligent, and they can slip free. We vowed to stay strong, so those demons would never be unleashed. As brethren, we watched one another, just as the monks taught us to do, to help when needed. When one was at a very low point, we all pitched in to get them stronger.”

  “That’s amazing, Isai,” she murmured softly.

  Were her lips brushing those dark scars? Either he had a vivid imagination, or they were. If so, he wasn’t going to turn to see. He wanted her that close to him.

  “The monks taught us so much about working together. We had almost always worked alone, tracking and destroying vampires. We were not near our families, or even our people as time went on. We traveled to various countries. Alone. Now, we were living in close proximity to one another and we had to learn to live that way. The monks offered us so much and we were grateful to them.”

  “And the third line?” She ran her fingertip over it.

  He felt reverence in her touch. The lump in his throat grew. “That line is extremely sacred, Julija. To each of us in our own way, that line keeps us and everyone around us safe. When the demon rises, and we can’t beat it back any other way, we repeat that line. Sometimes, when it was particularly bad for one of us, we all sat in a circle and chanted that line from sundown until sunrise.”

  “Olen wäkeva—félért ku vigyázak,” she read. “What is the exact interpretation and why is it important?”

  “‘Staying strong for her.’” He glanced over his shoulder again and this time his gaze collided with hers. He didn’t look away. “For you. I stayed strong for you. When all else failed, I knew I couldn’t give in because you were somewhere, in this time or another, and you were more important than anything else to me. I might break under any other circumstances, but not as long as my lifemate might need me. I stayed strong for you.”

  She pressed her lips together and then leaned in to brush a kiss over the scars. “I understand what you meant when we first met, and I refused to open my mouth. I’m so ashamed of that, Isai. I swear, I’ll try to be worthy of all that time you spent alone.”

  “Don’t,” he said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. “Really, Julija. I would have been leery as well, knowing your background. Forgive me for jumping to conclusions.”

  She shook her head and pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades. “You don’t. Not ever. I don’t want you to apologize to me ever again for that. I won’t, either, if it makes you feel better, but knowing what you went through humbles me. I can barely comprehend it, let alone understand how you managed to survive it.”

  He turned once more away from her, looking toward the sliver of a crack in the rock. They were going to have to move soon if he was going to pick up the trail of his brother. Iulian had the book somewhere in the mountains and he needed to recover it and if warranted, send his brother to the next life.

  “The last line clearly says it all for every single one of us. We know what holds us to this earth. We know the importance of our lifemate.”

  “Hängemért.” She’d murmured the word softly. “That means ‘for her,’
doesn’t it?”

  “Such a simple word, but meaningful and beautiful. Hängemért. For her. That is everything, Julija. You are everything, and always will be to me. There will never be another, nor would I want there to be. As centuries went by, I became aware of you. Everything about you. The way we would fit together. The way your smile would be. The sound of your laughter. Your touch on my skin. The talks we would have, walking together, hand in hand. Each new idea that came into my mind made me realize the importance of you. The need to stay strong, to be honorable and to earn the right to be with you.”

  “Isai.”

  She’d whispered his name and he thought he felt the burn of tears dripping hotly down his back. He wouldn’t be surprised. His woman was emotional, and he found he liked it. He liked knowing she had a soft heart and that she showed her emotions when he could barely change expression.

  “It is true, Julija. The more centuries that went by, the more I understood that my lifemate was to be cherished. Treasured. Put before all things.”

  “I swear to you, I will do the same for you.”

  He turned then and drew her into his arms. “This is new for us, but we will find our way,” he assured.

  “We’re already in enough trouble just trying to find the book from hell, but now we’ve got my family hot on our heels.”

  He pulled back to look down at her face. “Your choice of descriptions is always interesting to me.”

  “I forget you’re really, really old.”

  He heard the mischievous note in her voice and he dunked her before taking the long step that would put him on the other side of the pool. He sank down onto the seat. There was one more thing he wanted to get straight between them before they went chasing after the high mage’s spell book and his brother, who by all accounts hadn’t turned vampire but had stolen something important that threatened the Carpathian people. Worse, he’d brought the book to the United States, in close proximity to Sergey, who had slivers of Xavier in him.

  Water sprayed into the air like a geyser, hitting his face as Julija retaliated by splashing him. Her laughter teased at his senses. He loved the way it made him feel. He had gone through his life occasionally hearing laughter, but not really understanding it. He was far too old to remember anything about his childhood or life in their village before he’d gone on his first hunts as a slayer.