Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Ferro let himself absorb her soft feminine form, the rightness of loving her, his body still in hers, his mind merged with hers, while their hearts pounded together. He didn’t try to think, he just let himself feel love for her. Feel euphoria. Feel one hand in his hair and the other gliding down his back. Hear the rain and their heartbeats.
He had no idea how long he lay there but it took effort to slide his body from hers and roll off of her, to lie beside her. Elisabeta lay sprawled out beside him on the fur, staring up at the silvery streaks of rain and the lightly rolling clouds. He threaded his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his chest over his wildly pounding heart.
Are you all right? He wasn’t certain he could get enough air to breathe, so it seemed much more prudent to use their telepathic form of communication.
I am not certain if I am alive. In any case, if I am not, I am good where I am. Do not send a rescue party.
He laughed, mostly in his mind, sharing her amusement. Sharing his joy in her—in them. He brought her hand up to his mouth and brushed a kiss to her palm before pressing her fingers to his lips. I think I might still be right there with you in outer space somewhere, riding the tail of a comet. He scraped his teeth back and forth over the pads of her fingers.
I think you should have started with that lesson, Ferro. Perhaps we could have dispensed with all the rest.
Elisabeta sounded very serious and thoughtful, but her mind, merged with his, mellow and serene, held that amusement he found so incredibly wonderful, mostly because it was so different from those first risings when he had sung to call her to him.
He drew his thumb back and forth across her knuckles. No doubt you are right, minan piŋe sarnanak. She was about most things. Who was he to say, especially on such an important subject, anything different?
Her soft laughter poured over and into him. When she did that, it always felt like a cleansing, like she filled every crack and tear in his mind that all the centuries of hunting and killing, all the centuries of living in a gray void, had caused. She filled him with love.
18
Once blinded by the wicked, now your eyes are clear;
Look inside yourself, there’s nothing left to fear.
Elisabeta can’t keep doing this every rising,” Ferro objected. “Gary, you see the toll it’s taking on her.”
Gary nodded. “There’s no doubt it’s hard on her. I still don’t know what’s causing the infection. I can heal the deep scoring to the brain, the one that results after the infection, as can some of the more skilled ancients, but none of us can actually take away the infection the way she can. I don’t know any other word to call it, although technically, it isn’t an infection. It isn’t bacterial or viral. If it was, I could heal it. I’ve tried to mimic her actions. She has a gift, Ferro. She’s unique.”
Ferro didn’t need to be told that his lifemate was unique or special or gifted. He already knew those things about her. He didn’t want to take out the frustration he was feeling at his failure to protect Elisabeta on Gary at every turn. He had hoped to give her female friends and a home, where she could slowly learn the things that would make her comfortable in their world, but instead, every rising she was called on to repeat the same duties, clearing up repeated infections.
Josef, Danny and Amelia were infected nightly, Tariq nearly nightly, the ancients the least. The numbers were increasing, although because everyone was scanned nightly, the scorching was much lighter and easier for Elisabeta to remove. Still, the number of people she had to help tired her, although she never complained. Sandu, Andor, Dragomir and Gary stayed closer, as concerned as Ferro about her health.
“We’ve been keeping track of what everyone has been doing throughout their days and nights,” Gary said. “Trying to find a pattern, something everyone has in common. Keep in mind, these are human, Carpathian, men, women and children. A huge mix.”
The door to Tariq’s large meeting room crashed open and Josef bounded in. Ferro tightened his arms around Elisabeta and swung her away from the entrance, shielding her with his larger body. Startled, the action took her out of Tariq’s brain, bringing her back into the mix with the various ancients who had come together to try to puzzle out what was spreading the infection.
Josef didn’t seem to notice the frowns or glares of the older Carpathians or the amused looks of the women. “I found it. I know what’s causing the infection. They were so clever. I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out sooner.” There was admiration in his voice. “Seriously. And by the way, Ferro, Cornel saying they were working on some new algorithm to track the hunters was a bunch a bullshit. He knew Sergey wasn’t going to understand whether he could or couldn’t do what he said. He wanted access to the computers. Although they do have a program that they started working on that senses energy if a hunter is moving in the air . . .”