Skyler wasn’t certain how to take that. She decided she’d treat it as a compliment. She gave him a little half smile. “Thank you. I didn’t realize you still taught school. I knew you had in the past, but didn’t realize you kept up with it.”
“At university level. It keeps me from being bored. I can’t spend every waking moment being the mage from hell.”
Who knew he had a sense of humor?
He is up to something, Skyler. Never take Barnabas at face value. He isn’t a nice man, and he doesn’t make small talk idly,Razvan warned.
Rather than laugh at his joke, which she wanted to do, Skyler raised one eyebrow, trying to portray being skeptical. It was Dimitri who laughed. The moment he did, Barnabas struck at him. Skyler felt his triumph, his absolute glee as he closed his hands around Dimitri’s neck to strangle him. At the same time, he ordered the demons to attack.
“I may not be able to get to you,” Barnabas declared. “But I can get to your lifemate.”
Power surged through her. Dark mage power. Dark, dark earth power so old no one could put a name to it. Carpathian ancient power. The power of the Lycan. TheSange rau—the mixed blood. The air crackled and snapped with electricity. The hair on their bodies stood straight up and out. The walls of the house bowed out, unable to contain the force.
The windows exploded, the shattered glass bursting outward, stopping in midflight and then reversing. All the pieces slammed into Barnabas’s body and buried themselves deep. His face, his chest, his neck and his throat. He screamed, raising his hands in an effort to shield himself, but after the glass came pictures whirling like missiles, hitting him with single-minded force. The walls of the room disintegrated into spears, penetrating his body from all sides, driving the mage first one way and then the next.
“How dare you touch him,” Skyler snapped. “You’re beneath contempt.” She disappeared in a stream of vapor through one of the many shattered windows.
Barnabas had let go of his hold on Dimitri in order to save himself. Hastily extracting his body from the spears, he began to rid himself of the glass when he heard the low laughter. He spun around. The male in the room with him looked familiar and yet not. He was not in the mood for puzzles. Barnabas snapped his fingers, sending the newcomer out to the demons and sure death—only the man didn’t move.
“That daughter of mine has a very bad temper when it comes to anyone trying to harm her lifemate,” he said.
Barnabas glared at him and tossed several shards of glass his way. The glass stopped in midair and then dropped to the floor. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m surprised you don’t remember me. We are related. Cousins, I believe. When you were being groomed by the three high mages and Anatolie, I was always in the room with you. Whether you were there or not, I was always in the room. While you were learning, I was learning. No one ever thought I would leave that place, so they didn’t think to worry about me soaking up every spell. I learned from every high mage. From you. From Anatolie. The worst curse I thought I had was that I could never forget anything. I have since learned it wasn’t a curse.”
Barnabas slowly dropped his arms to stare in utter shock at Razvan. “You are that girl’s father?” He stared out the window as if he could see Skyler in the night air or the fight that raged among Carpathians and demons. He didn’t seem in the least to care about the outcome of the fight. “You are Razvan.”
“I am.”
Barnabas turned back to face him. “How did you escape? Xavier was never going to let you go. You had Dragonseeker blood. He prized that above all else.”
Razvan nodded. “He did. I believe he still does. As does Lilith, it seems.”
“How is it he could never get the blood he wanted most from you?”
Razvan shrugged. “Why is it he’s so set on Dragonseeker blood? Now Lilith is following in his footsteps, or maybe it’s the other way around. Lilith most likely wanted the blood first, and that’s why Xavier thought it was such an excellent idea. He always did build his best ideas off the backs of others.”
Barnabas nodded his agreement, still pulling out glass slivers. “Xavier was so certain that Dragonseeker blood would allow him access to the secrets of the earth. All of the secrets. Lilith convinced him that if they could have the blood running in their veins, the earth would accept them and do anything for them. She’s got this beast she wants to control. It’s uncontrollable. Not even mage spells work on the thing. She’s worried because the gates are breaking down, and she doesn’t have control of him. If she loses him and someone else gets control, she loses everything.”
Razvan narrowed his eyes, watching Barnabas with a mage’s vision. Why was he removing the glass pieces one at a time rather than all at once? That made no sense, not when he could rid his body of all of them quickly. Mages never did anything without a reason. He was disclosing information because he wanted Razvan’s attention on the data he was so casually imparting, not on anything else. Mages weren’t helpful or casual. Razvan had just told his daughter this very thing. He had been Xavier’s prisoner far too long, watching him trick others who thought the mage was their friend, their ally, only to fall as fodder to one of his dark spells. Razvan had seen it all.
There was a distinct pattern to the way Barnabas pulled the glass shards from his body. With each one he tapped the glass first before he tossed it onto the floor. Every third word the mage shifted his body weight from one foot to the other. On the fifth word, he tapped his left foot gently, almost imperceptibly, on the floor. The cadence of his voice was rhythmic, but Barnabas lulled everyone he spoke with into believing his natural speaking voice was low, pleasant and relaxing to listen to.
Razvan began to subtly counter the spell the high mage wove withevery word and body movement. He had to keep his every gesture, every motion of his body, so minute it would be undetected by Barnabas.
“This beast you refer to...” Razvan trailed off.
“That’s the irony.” Barnabas sent Razvan a smile that didn’t quite hide the cruelty or underlying evil. “He’s a demon more vicious and cunning than any other. Nearly indestructible. And do you know where he comes from, Razvan? He was Carpathian. That’s the joke. No one can control him, not even Lilith. If he breaks free, he will kill everything—mage, Carpathian, human—everything. No one can stop him.”
While he imparted the information almost gleefully, he never broke from his pattern. Razvan continued reversing the spell Barnabas wove. A holding and strangling spell. Razvan recognized it from one of the more deadly spells Xavier had perfected over time. Many young assistants had suffered before he had made actual kills.
Razvan had spent so much time in chains learning to be absolutely still—never moving a muscle, or working on moving one at a time so he wouldn’t call attention to himself—that he became extraordinary at it. It was how he exercised even when Xavier kept him nearly drained of blood and so weak he could barely move. He practiced the art of observation. Checking and rechecking details. He forced himself to move each muscle in his body, no matter how much it hurt, until it was second nature to do so.
Razvan knew the spell, but mages often changed a spell to make it their own. With one as deadly as the holding and choking spell, Razvan wasn’t about to take chances. Sure enough, Barnabas began to weave added elements into the spell, incorporating the glass shards. It took a moment to realize what the mage’s intentions were. Not only was he planning to kill Razvan, but he was including Skyler in his spell.
Razvan took the deviation in stride. He had long ago been made aware of every kind of treachery there was. He wasn’t fooled or surprised by it. Barnabas enjoyed hurting women. He liked to lure them in with false kindness and then slowly show his cruelty, conditioningthem more and more to his sadistic ways. To have a woman best him at the smallest thing infuriated him. Razvan had felt Barnabas’s momentary fear of Skyler’s power when she flew into a rage at his attack on her lifemate. She was young and didn’t yet have control of all that power, but Barnabas knew that when she did, she would be a force he would want to avoid.
Never had Razvan paid such close attention to any spell as he did to Barnabas’s without seeming to.