Dark Song

He did smile. He had used words very similar when he was giving her lessons in shifting or flying. He’d made her practice hundreds of times. She was taking not just him but many centuries-old ancients to school. She might pretend she thought it was just her lifemate she was talking to, but she knew those he was connected to were listening and he was sharing with others.

Forgive my impatience, piŋe sarnanak.

At once he felt her instant horror that she had come close to rebuking him. She hadn’t considered that any others might hear them. No, Ferro, please forgive me. I feel stretched in so many directions, trying to reach out to find them, and I was not thinking.

He gentled his voice, cursing the entire situation, wishing he was a gentler man. You are doing fine, sívamet.

He was moving with the wind, letting his body drift toward the heaviest cover. There was a massive parking garage. There would be plenty of victims for the vampires to prey on there, but he doubted if any of the master vampires would want to be caught with concrete and stone hanging over their heads. They would want to be very close to the nightclub itself. Cornel in particular was certain the piece that he thought would aid him to rule the Carpathian people, or destroy them, was hidden somewhere in the building. Where? Where would he think Tariq would keep such a valuable item? His office? That just seemed too easy.

In the landscaping at the back entrance where the patios are on the ground level. There are heavy bushes there. Elisabeta seemed tentative, as if she’d lost her confidence.

Ferro couldn’t pour himself more fully into her mind without risking giving her away to Sergey or one of the others. He detested using her. The ancients were used to hunting their way. They shouldn’t need his woman to spotlight their quarry for them.

Sandu, Benedek and Isai had spread out, drifting like Ferro with the wind, looking to spot a single sign of the master vampires hidden in the city structures, the cars and parking garages, rather than the forests and mountains that were their normal hunting grounds.

Sedrick is in the patio itself. He has made himself part of the roof. Ivy grows along the overhang and hangs down the supports. Are any of you close enough to see if the leaves have withered? Elisabeta sought confirmation that she was correct.

Benedek answered immediately. I will work my way around to the patio, little sisar.

Ambrus has concealed himself just to the left of the underground club exit door, closest to the trees. He is working to bring down the safeguards over the door of the nightclub, not the underground club. While he works, he is in communication with someone inside. She was silent for a moment.

Ferro, as did all the others, felt the brush of pain, as if an electrical charge passed through their minds. He went very still. Elisabeta? Is Ambrus aware of you? Does he know that you are tracking him?

He is very powerful, and each time I touch his mind, he is wary. I told you, his instincts are more animal than human. He senses a presence, but has no idea who or what that presence is. He sent out a probe. I was slow in shielding all of you from his investigation. It can sometimes be painful. I am used to it and forgot you would not be. I apologize.

Elisabeta’s admission set Ferro’s teeth on edge. That sweet, gentle voice admitting that she knew Ambrus’s probe would be painful meant she had often reached for his mind and felt him trying to find if an enemy really might be close. Could he trust his senses? She didn’t flinch from the pain because that would give her away. Sun scorch the woman, she was going to be the death of him, not some master vampire. She was going to tear out his heart.