Dark Song

Elisabeta had been in the healing grounds for several weeks before her moans and cries had been overheard by Ferro and he had realized she was his lifemate. At that time, he had taken over feeding her, sleeping in the ground with her and weaving his own safeguards around her when he was hunting vampires. Each time he was with her, Sergey was unable to get through, or at least he had gone quiet. There was no evidence of him speaking to Elisabeta. On the occasions Ferro was gone, Sergey whispered more viciously than ever. Each threat became worse than the next, and with it, a memory of something horrendous he had done to her or someone else. Once, it had been the annihilation of an entire village.

Ferro wanted to wrap Elisabeta in a silken cocoon, and at the same time he wanted to become what he was born to be, the fierce predator, hunting the master vampire until he found him and destroyed him. Such a vile monster couldn’t remain on earth where, eventually, as his power grew, his insatiable cruelty would demand more and more victims.

Without Elisabeta, the decomposition of his body would begin to accelerate quickly. The memories of emotions would already be fading. If he didn’t have access to her, not even short visits to threaten her, he would unravel and become desperate to reacquire her. It was no wonder that he was stepping up his terrorization tactics. It was Sergey who was becoming frantic, but how could Ferro get Elisabeta to see that she was the one with the power?

Sergey had beaten her down for centuries, making her so dependent on him, taking all power away from her. She was Carpathian and yet she didn’t know how to do what even a young human child could do, let alone a full-grown Carpathian woman. Ferro had been told that as a young girl, Elisabeta had the reputation for bringing peace to the Carpathian males. Ancient hunters would often visit the Trigovise household just to be in the same room with her to get a respite from the terrible emptiness of their lives. She had no idea of the gifts she held because Sergey had made her feel as if she were nothing, and yet he had targeted her, kidnapped and imprisoned her for those gifts.

How is it possible he is getting to her? Can you see in her memories where he is getting in? This does not answer the question of how he is getting around the safeguards.

I am well aware of that.

Ferro could see that Gary was moving backward through Elisabeta’s memories, trying to find where Sergey could have planted something of himself in her to allow him to penetrate the defenses of the ancients inside the compound.

No matter how hard either of them tried not to see the ugliness of Elisabeta’s life in order to spare her the humiliation of having others see things she didn’t want seen, there was no getting around it when shuffling through the years of her life. Ferro found he couldn’t be as detached as he thought he could be. He’d had centuries of no emotion. He could switch emotion off to hunt, and yet he found when it came to his lifemate, it was nearly impossible not to feel.

His gut churned, knotted, an unfamiliar sensation that made him very aware the woman was getting inside him, a dangerous thing for him when he might have to leave her and go to the monastery after she gained her independence. The ties between lifemates couldn’t be broken. He knew that. He understood what they were, but he also knew he wasn’t the same man born to be Elisabeta’s lifemate any more than she was the same woman. They had both changed over the centuries. He had to provide her with what she needed because everything in him demanded he do so. Once that was accomplished, he would not be what she needed.

He stayed merged with Gary as they moved through her memories, and while Ferro was wrapped up in emotion, unable to distance himself as he should have, the healer remained completely without feeling as he searched to find where Sergey was able to break through the safeguards. He was positive Tariq’s second-in-command was searching for more than that, but if he found anything, it wasn’t anything Ferro could identify.

At once he found himself back in his own physique, weak, disoriented, a little shocked that he had all but been thrown out of Elisabeta’s body. He had gone from pure spirit back to his own ego, thinking of himself in that moment and the consequences of his actions. That had been enough to send him back to his own physical form. At once, Sandu was there again, giving him blood, as traveling as spirit depleted him.

Gary hadn’t returned, and immediately Andor shed his body and entered Elisabeta to guard her while the healer continued to sift through her memories.

Ferro? I can feel your sorrow.