Dark Song

Lorraine leapt to her feet and paced across the room, all restless energy. “You horrible brute of a man. Don’t you dare threaten that poor defenseless woman.” She stalked right up to him, both fists clenched at her side. “I really am going to kick you in the shins. She needs care, not threats, Ferro.” She drew in air, clearly struggling to calm herself down. “I understand that you’re as old as dirt, but seriously, do you have any idea what she’s been through?”

“Lorraine,” Andor cautioned. “She is his lifemate. That means that they merge minds, just as we do. He knows everything that has happened to her. You are reacting as a human and thinking with your human mind. Think as a Carpathian. Lifemates must provide what the other needs. Ferro knows exactly what his lifemate needs.”

Ferro narrowed his gaze at his brother. You do not need to ruin all my fun.

Lorraine’s hands went to her hips and she stood in front of him for a long while, just staring down into the expressionless mask he wore. “You are such an ass, Ferro. You purposely let me believe you were forbidding her to talk to us just so you could see my head explode, weren’t you?”

“I do not believe you will ever find your Zen, woman. You jump to a conclusion before all the facts are in. My woman needs time to process things, including new people. Now she most likely thinks you are insane, although I did try to prepare her by telling her you are a hothead.”

Lorraine’s eyes narrowed on him. “You did not just call me a hothead.”

“It was difficult trying to get her to understand what that means, although now I’m certain she knows.” Ferro kept his tone droll.

Lorraine burst out laughing. “You’re so impossible. Elisabeta, I love this man like a brother, but I want to wring his neck most of the time. I hope eventually you can come to accept me as a sister in spite of the faults Ferro believes I have.” There was vulnerability in Lorraine’s voice, even though she was smiling.

Beside him, Elisabeta stirred. Ferro threaded his fingers through hers, hoping to give her courage. He could feel that she wanted to speak, but she was so timid.

I would wish you to reassure her if at all possible.

Ferro felt her steeling herself, gathering her courage.

“Ferro admires and respects you so much, Lorraine. He speaks very highly of you always and told me he regards you and has affection for you as his sisar. For an ancient without a lifemate to bind his soul to a woman, especially a human woman, it is a sign of the highest esteem.”

Tears shimmered in Lorraine’s eyes. She blinked them away rapidly and then turned to her lifemate as she quickly went back across the short distance to throw herself in the chair beside Andor. He immediately held his hand out to her and she took it as if catching a lifeline.

“Thank you, Elisabeta. That’s the nicest compliment. Ferro would never have told me he thought any of those things about me.”

“There is no need,” Ferro said. “You should have that confidence already.”

Lorraine shook her head. “Ferro, you, Andor and the others have all the confidence in the world. Women aren’t the same way, at least the ones I know. We try to be confident, but we need a little reassurance now and then.”

“You are Andor’s lifemate. That is enough,” Ferro decreed.

Lorraine made an exasperated sound that caused Elisabeta to give Ferro another little girlish giggle in their merged minds.

“Just because you decree something doesn’t make it so, Ferro,” Lorraine argued.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Do not listen to her nonsense, minan piŋe sarnanak. When I decree something, it makes it so for you. I set the rules and you must follow.” He knew rules made Elisabeta comfortable, where as they would really make Lorraine’s head explode. Just to make her really crazy, he kept going. “My word is absolute law to you.”

Lorraine removed her shoe and threw it at him all in one motion, proving she’d been working at the techniques Andor had been giving to her since he’d converted her. Ferro stopped the missile in midair, not taking a chance that it would come near Elisabeta.

Andor burst out laughing. “They are like this all the time, Elisabeta. We will have to be the sane ones. If Julija and Isai are around, it only grows worse. Julija takes Lorraine’s side, and Ferro taunts them all the more.”

Ferro didn’t have the relationship with Julija that he had with Lorraine, but for Elisabeta’s sake, he knew he would need to develop one. Something. She had to know that in the end, he had his lifemate’s best interests at heart.

I will tell them, Eisabeta assured. I do not like them thinking you are treating me in a way that is considered bad when you are really taking good care of me and doing what I ask of you.