Dark Song

She was determined not to detest that room. Eventually, it would represent something good to her, she was certain of it. Right now, it was just too big. She nodded.

“This is a good time for you to practice moving on your own from one area to the next. You floated from beneath the ground, so you know you can do that. I want you to practice walking once we’re inside the room. You have to be able to move both as a Carpathian and as a human with equal ease. No one will be in the house but the two of us, so if you have a misstep, no one will see.”

She swallowed hard. “You will see.”

His smile was slow in coming. It stole over his face, heating the iron in his eyes to a bluish-silver warmth that took the air right out of her lungs, leaving her unable to catch her breath. The way he looked down at her made her feel as if she were the most important person in his world—and for that moment, she believed she was. His hands cupped her face with such exquisite gentleness that her heart turned over. The pad of his thumb slid back and forth over her chin, mesmerizing her as his eyes looked down into hers.

“I will always see you, minan piŋe sarnanak, and everything you do. The way you try the things I ask of you pleases me. There will come a day, maybe soon, maybe a century from now, when I will have to hunt the vampire and you will be left to watch over our children, and I will go with confidence because of the tenacity and bravery you show me right here. You are terrified each rising, and yet with determination, you tackle every task put before you. I could not ask more from our greatest warriors. You humble me.”

She heard the sincerity in his voice, saw it in his mind, and it gave her the determination to learn the things needed to exist in the new world she was in. She wanted to do that for him, but also, because he was right; she would have to be alone with their children at some time and she needed to know she could do whatever was necessary. It didn’t seem possible, but Ferro was an ancient hunter and he seemed to have every confidence in her.

She nodded. “It is easier to walk without shoes,” she said, to try to cover the emotion welling up like a terrible raw burning sensation in her throat and eyes.

He bent his head and brushed her lips with his. It was a brief, barely there contact, but heart-stopping all the same. She felt the butterfly wings fluttering in the pit of her stomach and pressed her hand hard over the sensation.

“Nevertheless, since it is an accepted practice to wear shoes outside, it would be better to practice in the privacy of our home with them on.”

He lifted her into his arms, cradling her close to his chest. He felt enormously strong and, although she was tall like most Carpathian women, he made her feel delicate and small. He was a very big man. She knew Sergey had purposely kept her starved to prevent her from possibly growing too powerful, which was silly when she’d never had the chance to learn anything. Now, it seemed, her lifemate was just the opposite. He was willing for her to learn everything. He wanted her to have confidence and feel her own power. She was both exhilarated and terrified by that because she knew Ferro had expectations of her and she wasn’t as certain as he was that she could meet them.

Ferro set her down inside the front room of what would eventually be the home base they would live in when they stayed in the United States; at least, she could see that was in his mind at the moment. She kept her eyes closed tightly, afraid of getting too dizzy. She needed to put the images from the rising before solidly in her mind as a reference.

“You are in front of the chair where I sat with you,” he said, his hand sliding from her waist to her hip.

The gesture felt . . . intimate. He was never heavy-handed. His palm barely skimmed her body, so light over the thin material of the formfitting gown, but she felt that touch all the way to her bones. She felt branded. His.

“I am not facing the window, am I?” She felt very daring to ask him. In a million years she would never have asked such a question. Elisabeta still wasn’t certain whether she was testing her freedom or his reaction.

“No, sívamet, I would not make such a mistake with the one who is hän ku vigyáz sívamet és sielamet. I cherish you, Elisabeta, and protect you.”

She liked that Ferro called her the keeper of his heart and soul. She had kept his soul safe for so long, struggling against Sergey’s continual assaults, his trickery and tortures over the centuries, that she felt she truly had been and still was the keeper of his soul. She wanted to be the keeper of his heart as well. That was much more difficult to believe. His soul had been entrusted to her by fate. By destiny. But his heart . . . if she held it, that was given to her by him and all the more treasured for the freely given gift.