A shocking bite of pain flashed through her and then eased into something darkly erotic, a soothing blend of moist heat and rasping velvet. She gasped, realizing Ferro had nipped her neck right over her pulse and then pulled the injured spot into his mouth and sucked gently, his tongue stroking little caresses. He lifted his head, but as he did, his lips brushed several little kisses over the spot.
“Julija does not dictate to you what you are to be as a woman, minan piŋe sarnanak, any more than I should dictate this to you. You will find your own way in time. If you prefer my company and support and I do not object, and in fact like it, then it is no one’s business. Our relationship is ours alone.”
It wasn’t the first time he had said this to her, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. His advice had to sink in and take hold. She had to believe she was really free to choose her own way. Her brain refused to believe, and anytime there was a choice to be made, she shut down and became paralyzed with fear. Ferro didn’t seem to mind. He showed endless patience with her.
“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and slid her hand along his very muscular forearm down to his wrist, as if that could give her the necessary strength to take the step toward the door, and maybe it did. She forced one foot in front of the other. She expected him to let her go, and he did, although he turned his hand and caught hers in a tight grip, so they were still connected.
“I will go in first and you stay right behind me,” Ferro said.
The relief she felt was so tremendous that for a moment her legs felt rubbery. She dropped back by a couple of steps, allowing his larger frame to step in front of her. She kept her head down, not daring to look around her for fear of seeing too much and getting dizzier than she already was.
“Once inside, if the room is too big and you want to keep moving to a smaller one, you tell me and we will do so, otherwise we will stop there, sit down and just take small pieces of the room to look at and familiarize ourselves with. I want to attempt to remove the vampire’s barrier on your memories.”
Elisabeta reacted, both with fear and with hope, tightening her fingers in his, knowing he was in her mind, although his touch was so light she could barely feel him there.
“Sívamet, do not let your hope grow too much.” His voice was very gentle. “After so many centuries of not remembering, you most likely will not be able to on your own. Your brother, Traian, is here with his lifemate, Joie. He did search centuries for you, refusing to give up when everyone else did. He will return as many memories to you as he is able.”
She didn’t want to think too much on what her brother would expect of her and how much she would disappoint him. Instead she considered that it was twice now that Ferro had called her sívamet. His heart. An exact translation was “my heart.” For some reason that made her stomach do a slow-rolling pitch and then continue into a complete somersault. He was slowly stealing her heart when she thought she no longer possessed one. She thought Sergey had chopped her heart into little pieces and removed them from her one by one. He had taken her trust and stomped that into those pieces and then strewn them across the ground like so much trash because he had no use for such things. Somehow, Ferro was finding them. She didn’t know how he could do that. Just that he could frightened her more than everything else combined.
“Sergey is a vampire, Elisabeta, but in his own twisted way, he felt something for you. You provided him with some emotion, which is why he survived so many years when others completely failed. He needed your heart, sívamet, and your ability to allow him to feel if just a little emotion, twisted and obsessed as it was.”
She kept her eyes closed, one hand in his, the other fisted in the back of his shirt, matching her steps to his as they entered the house. It was cool inside, and she pretended it was just another cave. Another cage. She wasn’t lost, and a monster’s puppet with wicked serrated teeth wasn’t going to jump out at her and tear at her flesh and try to devour her alive while her master laughed in amusement.
Abruptly, Ferro spun around and swept her into his arms. “Elisabeta, you are breaking my heart. Why would this vampire treat you so cruelly to make you so frightened to enter a new dwelling? Your mind is consumed with terror. I feel every one of your senses flaring out, seeking his puppets, certain they will set upon you at any moment to try to rip as much flesh off you as possible before he calls them off. Why does he do this to you?”
She pressed her forehead to his chest, refusing to meet his eyes. Refusing to answer.
Ferro caught her chin and forced her head up so that she was looking into glittering iron-colored eyes. Those eyes had gone hard and scary. “He did this too many times. I command you to answer me.”
Elisabeta touched her tongue to her suddenly dry lips. “I refused to give him access to your soul. I told him I would suicide first. He allowed his puppets to consume children and I carried out my threat. He was barely able to save me that time. Twice more he did things to others I couldn’t tolerate, and I suicided. After that, he only punished me. I knew you would survive if I died. I would be reborn with your half of our soul intact, but if he was able to take it from me, you could be made his servant, and he would have been able to corrupt or harm you in other ways. I couldn’t take the chance.”
She rushed the confession, ashamed that she couldn’t think of any other solution than to suicide when she had been told the Carpathian hunters in the monastery had endured for centuries and locked themselves away because they hadn’t believed in meeting the dawn and giving up on their lifemates. That was only showing him once again that she was a . . .
“Do not.” He hissed the command at her in obvious displeasure. “If you persist in thinking you are a coward, I will insist on punishing you, Elisabeta, and I promised myself I would not frighten you. Still, it is there in your mind. I see the image as clear as day. You continue to view yourself as a coward in spite of my dictates to you. This is a clear rule I have set for you. One of the very few I have given you.”
She tried to duck her head, but his hand under her chin refused to budge. It was true. He hadn’t really given her too many rules. That was probably part of the problem she was experiencing. She needed clear lines at all times. She couldn’t help trembling a little, wondering what her punishment was going to be. Ferro was a very big man and extremely strong.
The pad of his thumb slid gently over her bottom lip twice. “I told you what your punishment would be, piŋe sarnanak. Surely you listened to me.”
Panic rose. What had he said? Had she blocked it out because it was so terrible, she couldn’t face it? Over the centuries, Sergey had subjected her to so many punishments, she was fairly certain she had managed to encounter all of the nonlethal ones.
Ferro bent his head toward her, a faint smile in his eyes. “I do not think minan piŋe sarnanak listened at all,” he murmured, not sounding angry.
He sounded velvet soft. Like faint paint strokes brushing gently over her mind. Something else she couldn’t identify, something that turned her inside out. His lips brushed hers with such exquisite gentleness her heart turned over. Everything else in her froze. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then his teeth tugged at her lower lip and every nerve ending in her body leapt to life. She had never been so aware of herself as a woman. Her breasts ached and felt swollen and hot. Her nipples tingled and felt like hard pebbles. Lower, between her legs, she went damp and her sex clenched.
“Do not think you are a coward, Elisabeta. You are a very courageous woman. You are my woman. I am one of the most feared hunters on the planet. You are my lifemate for a reason. You are hän ku vigyáz sívamet és sielamet, keeper of my heart and soul, and you did just that. You guarded both for centuries under the worst of circumstances. I want you to remove my shirt, piŋe sarnanak. I have something to show you. Something that is for you alone.”
He stepped back and she actually felt the loss of both his strength and heat. Her hands went to the buttons, little squares she recognized as old-fashioned. Her li
femate hadn’t caught up with the times in his clothing as he had with hers. She pushed the little squares through the buttonholes and the edges of the material fell open so that he could shrug off the shirt. She took it automatically, rather than allowing it to fall to the floor.
He had tattoos scarred into his body, inked in the ancient language. He turned so she could read what he had so painstakingly put into his skin when Carpathians rarely scarred.
Olen wäkeva kuntankért. Staying strong for our people.
Olen wäkeva pita belső kulymet. Staying strong to keep the demon inside.
Olen wäkeva— félért ku vigyázak. Staying strong for her.
Hängemért. Only her.
Elisabeta read the lines several times, wanting—no—needing to commit them to memory. Seeing the words inked into his skin, knowing he had to have had them done repeatedly in order for the scars to actually take effect, nearly brought her to her knees. Staying strong for her. She had tried to stay strong for him. It was the only thing she had held out for. The only thing she had managed to keep from Sergey—Ferro’s soul. His light. She had that in her keeping and she had steadfastly refused to give it up no matter what he had done to her or to others.
Ferro slid into his shirt easily, and turned back to her, standing still, as if waiting for her to button it for him. Elisabeta did so with shaking fingers.
“That is the creed of our brethren, our code,” he said, as she slowly slid each button through the buttonhole. “It is what we sometimes chanted through the nights to keep ourselves from stepping off the path and losing honor. Always, our lifemates saved us. You saved me many times, Elisabeta, in my darkest hours. So many times through the centuries, I can’t even tell you. Never say to me, or to yourself, that you are a coward.”
She dared to look up at his glittering eyes. She’d never seen eyes so piercing, as if they could look right through her and see right into her— and she knew he could. He was in her mind as all lifemates could be. He was polite about it, gentle, but he was there, providing a shield because both of them knew Sergey was going to strike at her soon. He would know she had risen and he would insist she answer him.
Elisabeta shuddered at the mere thought of Sergey using her to bring down the compound and killing anyone there—especially the children.
“We will take care of that first. Come sit with me, here in this room. Do not try to look beyond this small area. I do not want you overwhelmed. This room is where our visitors will eventually come to see you. Julija and perhaps Lorraine.”
Lorraine was someone he really admired and wanted her to get to know. He thought of Lorraine as a sister. She was the closest thing he had to one. Elisabeta made up her mind that she would not only get to know Lorraine, but for Ferro, she would do her best to establish a good relationship with the woman.
Ferro took her hand and again walked in front of her, allowing her to keep her eyes closed in the large room. “You do not have to have a relationship with anyone, piŋe sarnanak, not for me. I am happy only with you. Others do not matter so much to me. I wish them in your life in order for you to be happy. If we left this place and went somewhere alone together, it would suit me just fine. I have no need of excess company.”
He sank into a large chair and pulled her onto his lap. One hand forced her head to his chest, tucking her face against him. “I am going to examine your mind and see what the master vampire has left behind that allows him a gateway, a path to reach you.”
“Centuries,” she whispered, appreciating that he rarely called the vampire by name. That would have frightened her more. Naming him would make her feel as if it gave the vampire even more power over her. “He had me for centuries. He knows my mind. He can find me anywhere.”
Ferro brushed a kiss on top of her head and then brought his hand down the back of her skull in a long caress, his strong fingers massaging her scalp as he did so. “Perhaps that is so, Elisabeta. But you have a lifemate, so you are changed. Your mind is changed. Your life is changed. You have accepted my claim on you and our soul is once more fully formed back together. I am older and more experienced than he expects his opponent to be. He will find it much more difficult to take on your lifemate.”
Elisabeta didn’t want her lifemate to have to take on a master vampire’s wrath. Sergey would never give her up and he had an army at his disposal. She knew his cruelty. Ferro had proven to be a kind man. She wasn’t certain if he could match Sergey’s ferocity in battle and she didn’t want anything to happen to him.
Ferro didn’t try to reassure her, nor did he reprimand her for not believing in him. He didn’t seem to have any kind of ego at all. She felt him moving in her mind, a more forceful presence than he had been, but not necessarily one that was taking her over. He was still gentle, but she felt him searching, making certain Sergey hadn’t left anything of himself behind. She knew mages could take small slivers of themselves and plant them in others to use them as spies. Some vampires had learned how to do the same. Sergey held the dark mage, Xavier, within him as well as his brothers. That gave him access to their knowledge, although, on his own, Sergey had never accessed those slivers.
“I am going to build a shield in your mind that he cannot penetrate. If by some miracle he managed to slip past all the safeguards woven by the warriors here as well as my brethren, he will not be able to get to you.”
She moistened her lips. She had to confess to him. “When I was in the healing grounds, before you came to me, he spoke to me every rising. He wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t make him stop. He told me to come to him or he would kill everyone harboring me.”
Silence met her disclosure. His body didn’t change in the least. He didn’t stiffen. His breathing didn’t change in the least, his hands didn’t tighten on her, but she was very tuned to him and she knew he definitely hadn’t expected the revelation.
Ferro’s hands came up to her hair again, stroking those gentle caresses, as if they not only soothed her but, in a way, brought him a type of peace as well. “That changes things a bit, sívamet. Anything to do with this vampire, or any of his suspected servants, you are to tell me immediately.” He poured command into his voice. “Immediately. First thing.”
“I’m sorry.” Clearly that oversight had been a mistake. She hadn’t wanted to think about Sergey let alone talk about him. She detested that she hadn’t said anything to Ferro. She had told Julija sometime earlier, when they had spoken in secret, but since then, she hadn’t communicated with anyone. Now she felt guilty and very distressed, almost as if by not telling Ferro, she had betrayed him in some way.
“There is no need to be upset. I did not think there was a possibility so I did not ask you or give you an order. That is my failing, not yours.” He was silent again. “You disclosed this information to Julija?”
Again, there was no inflection in his voice, but she had the feeling he condemned her friend for not telling him.
“She was sworn to secrecy. I spoke to her only on the condition that she never let anyone know I was communicating with her.”
“This was a matter of your safety.”
There was no threat in his voice. No understanding, either. A shiver went down her spine and she was uncertain why. She was suddenly very, very uncomfortable and a little afraid, not for herself but for her friend.
“What did the vampire say to you?”
Ferro’s arms slipped around her body, holding her closer to him when she shivered almost uncontrollably. She couldn’t stop the trembling. She never should have told him about Julija, although it hadn’t occurred to her to keep anything from her lifemate.
“He said to come to him or he would kill everyone. He repeated it over and over each time I was awakened to feed. I didn’t want to open my eyes and rise even to get blood. It was terrifying to hear the things he said, and his pull was very strong. I was so afraid all the time. I didn’t know what was expected of me. And I knew there were children close. He was especially cruel to children.”
; “What stopped his calling to you?”
“You, I think. Once you began sleeping close to me, I couldn’t hear his voice anymore.”
Again, there was a small silence while his hand moved in her hair and his arm remained locked around her, giving her strength. “That’s interesting,” he said finally. “I wove safeguards around the two of us, but you had safeguards around you at all times. I wonder what the difference was. Or is. I have to speak with Tariq about this.”
Her heart jumped. Did that mean he was going to leave her? Or would she have to go with him to face the unknown leader of the compound where the children were protected and she’d brought danger? There was no way he couldn’t hear her heart pounding. His hand slipped from her hair to massage the nape of her neck.
“Elisabeta, you have to have faith that I am going to take care of you. I will send for Tariq and also Julija and her lifemate, Isai, one of my brethren. Julija will be able to give us a clear timeline. It is necessary because with all the safeguards woven by so many of us, the vampire should not have been able to get through to you. We need to know when he was able to do so and why, for the safety of everyone here.” His fingers kept moving on the nape of her neck, feeling like magic. “You do understand that, right? And you know that I will not allow anything to happen to you.”
The last was a statement. It was difficult not to believe him. She had been lied to so much that she had stopped believing anything, but in a short period of time Ferro had managed to overcome every defense she had. He had shown her kindness when no one in her life that she could remember had, other than Julija.
Tentatively, because she was still afraid to do anything without express permission, Elisabeta wrapped her fingers around Ferro’s wrist. It was a strong wrist, a large bone covered with muscle and skin. She felt the connection of his veins, the blood running there, his heartbeat.
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