Dark Illusion Read Online Free PDF

vivid flow.
    Looking down, he saw cliffs, great mountains rising, bare of most vegetation, the rocks pushing upward to create beautiful formations. One kept drawing his attention back. He could almost see the shimmer of power emanating from what appeared to be three smaller rocks atop a bare slab.
    His heart did that strange stuttering he’d experienced just moments earlier. He’d found her. He examined the slab of rock carefully. There was no evidence of Iulian. The night was still young enough that if his brother was traveling with the mage, he would be close. Perhaps he’d gone off to find a camper, so he could take their blood.
    Making up his mind, Isai simply dropped out of the sky, right through the illusion the mage had woven for her safety, and straddled the sleeping bag, trapping her inside. Her eyelids flew open and he found himself staring into wildly furious dark chocolate eyes.
    “You are?”
    She clamped her lips together tightly and glared at him. She had expressive eyes, so he got it. She wasn’t happy with him sitting on her. He had muscle and no fat. She was very petite. Even beneath the sleeping bag he could tell she was small boned, so he could crush her. That didn’t stop him from sitting there.
    “I can sit here all night. In fact, if I get tired, I’ll just lie down on top of you. You’re in a great deal of trouble, just in case you thought you’d play innocent.”
    He made certain to keep her hands trapped. Mages had a way withspells. He knew most and could counter them. When he had come out of the monastery to reenter the world, learning new spells had been the first thing he made a point of doing. Mage spells. He had always been adept, and he knew advances had to have been made while he was locked away. He had studied everything the other Carpathians knew.
    She glared at him, her long lashes sweeping down and then back up to allow him to see her fury wasn’t abating.
    He couldn’t help himself. She looked . . . delicious. That was a first for him. He had no real emotions, no real feelings and that included sexual. None. Yet straddling her, he felt a stirring in his body. He went hot. He controlled temperature easily and instantly regulated it. That did nothing to stop the rush of heat through his veins. Flames, a fire racing through his bloodstream to pool in his groin. An ache that fast became an urgent demand and then a real pain.
    Isai stared down at the furious little face. Her skin was very soft. Her face oval. Cheekbones high. Her mouth was generous, lips full. Teeth very white. Eyes that dark chocolate color. Color. He turned his head away from her to stare out over the cliff into the mist, his breath catching in his throat. It couldn’t be. This mage. This treacherous woman? Nothing could restore color or emotion to him but his true lifemate—a woman who held the other half of his soul.
    He had been born centuries earlier. Far, far before this time. At birth, his soul had been split in two, giving him all the darkness, giving his other half all the light. He had lost all emotion and color after two hundred years and had begun the search for the one holding the other half of his soul. Endless centuries of . . . nothing. A gray, desolate world of violence. Time passed and more . . . nothing.
    He was feeling emotion now, and the first of it, rather than wonder, was anger. A slow, smoldering rage that boiled in his gut when he looked at the stubborn woman. There was no telling her actual age. Mages had longevity and aged extremely slowly. Undoubtedly, she was born in the wrong century. More than one wrong century. She was mage, a mortal enemy of his people. Already she had proven her treacherous nature.More, she kept her lips pressed together, denying him when she so obviously knew he was her other half.
    He leaned down very close, taking in the delicate scent of her. She smelled like peaches and cream. Like heaven. Strands of her hair caught in the dark stubble on his face