Dark Song

“Elisabeta, you are my lifemate. Unless you decide you cannot be with me, I will stay by your side in this life and the next one. You will grow in confidence as you are each rising, and we will work together on building a relationship that works for the two of us regardless of what other couples think we should be.”

Ferro was always so steady, so calm and matter-of-fact. Some of that was beginning to make its way through her seemingly endless fears. He gave her the impression that he could always be counted on. That he was unchanging and no matter what happened around him, he would come through. She wanted desperately to believe that. She needed to in order to let go of terror, get out of survival mode and learn to live.

Very slowly, keeping her eyes open, she removed the bars one by one. At first, she took the ones in the middle off, allowing just a little more of the open spaces in. She waited a few heartbeats to see if she became disoriented or sick to her stomach. The outer bars helped to keep her feeling as if she were still in a smaller space.

Ferro’s arm, locked around her, tightened just a fraction, reminding her that he was there. She felt his warm breath against her ear. He stayed quiet, allowing her to work at her own pace, something she was beginning to value in him as a partner. He never hurried her, nor did he seem impatient with her. That trait in him gave her more confidence.

She drew in a deep breath as, for the first time in centuries, she was able to look at an open area without bars in front of it and not feel as if she were going to be sick or fall forward into space. It was exhilarating. A small step maybe, which no one else would even acknowledge, but for her it was huge, and Ferro had given that to her.

Elisabeta turned her head up toward his, looking over her shoulder. “You really are rather wonderful.”

His smile was slow in coming, but when it did, it lit his ever-changing eyes to that bluish-silver she loved. He bent his head and brushed her lips very gently with his. “I am honored you think so, as I believe my lifemate is rather wonderful.”

Heart beating fast like the little songbird he always called her, she turned back to examine the area in the corner, now much wider without the bars in the middle. She didn’t want to fail at the last minute, but she really wanted to take the outer bars of the cage down and be totally free of Sergey’s captivity. The vampire had done that to her. Forced her to look at everything in her life through bars. She was never a participant but always a watcher. Ferro gave her the opportunity to become a participant but only in what she wanted to do and at her own pace. She might be frightened, but he stood with her, giving her courage.

Gripping Ferro’s forearm tight, she brought down the last of the bars, the two on the outer edges of the cage she’d constructed in front of her eyes. First the one on the right side. With that curved bar down, far more space was allowed into her line of vision, or at least it seemed that way. She forced air through her lungs and pressed as close as possible to Ferro, refusing to close her eyes.

Her stomach lurched just for a moment but Ferro leaned down, his hair sweeping over her bare neck, sending delicious little shivers of awareness through her body, totally distracting her. His teeth scraped back and forth over the pulse pounding in her neck.

“You are so incredibly brave, sívamet. I think you should be called kont o sívanak instead of me.”

Strong heart. He thought she should be entitled to such a name. Her heart soared. Every time his teeth slid over the pulse in the side of her neck, she nearly forgot her own name, let alone to be disoriented by the space in front of her. Every nerve ending in her body was alive and entirely aware of him.

“I think we will leave that title for you,” she murmured. Encouraged, she brought the last of the bars down.

The view of the room in front of her opened wide, spreading out so she could see so much more that it seemed enormous, far larger than anything she’d ever been in that she could remember. Her first inclination was to close her eyes and turn to hide her face in his chest. Before she could, pain and pleasure burst through her simultaneously, so close together the two sensations couldn’t be separated. Then it was the most erotic feeling she’d ever experienced in her life, so much so it was overwhelming. She could barely think straight, let alone worry about what she was seeing.