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)
Gary and Tariq exchanged another long look and clearly another brief telepathic consultation.
Elisabeta assessed the two Carpathians carefully. They are both very unhappy. Uneasy. They are uncertain whether they can trust you, Ferro, because you have never sworn allegiance to the prince.
You are reading their actual thoughts?
No, more like their body language and the nuances of their eye movements along with the glimpses of images I’m picking up from their minds. I am more familiar with Gary through you and the others than Tariq, but Gary is very closed off and I cannot penetrate too deep without risk of detection. I hesitate with Tariq because it feels like invasion. Prying. He is a good man. A decent one. He has the good of the people placed before all else. Even confronting us is difficult when he knows we came to their aid.
“Why have you never sworn allegiance to Mikhail?” Tariq asked. “Few of the brethren have done so.”
“It has never been required of us,” Ferro said.
“That is so, but some have done so. Is there a reason you have not?”
“I have never met Mikhail Dubrinsky. I do not blindly follow anyone. His father ultimately betrayed us in order to satisfy his lifemate. She could not stand the idea of losing her firstborn son, even though he was sick with the taint of the bad blood. Vlad had enough precog that he saw the downfall of the Carpathian people. He knew what we would suffer. He knew what his younger son would face, the near extinction of all of us, and yet, to please his woman, he refused to have his second destroy his son.”
“And yet you continued to serve our people with honor.”
“Vlad continued to try to serve our people with honor. He was weak when it came to his family, with the people he loved. I did not have a lifemate. I had no way of judging what I would do if I was in his shoes. Perhaps the fault lay with his second-in-command. I have no idea how that pairing works or if Roman Daratrazanoff could have killed Draven without destroying the bond between the prince and him.”
Gary and Tariq again looked at each other before Tariq nodded his head. That feeling of imminent danger was beginning to fade just a little from Tariq, but Ferro wasn’t any less alert. He still felt Gary was the main threat.
Tariq feels he should share information that he believes I will eventually figure out. Gary is resistant and says it is dangerous to trust anyone with the information, especially one not sworn to follow the prince.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Ferro couldn’t help but feel amused. His woman was just a little too intelligent and perceptive for men in powerful positions. She had learned her observation skills out of necessity and honed them over centuries. Like Tariq, he had no doubt that she would eventually uncover whatever secret Tariq was hiding. Somewhere in the past, one of the Malinovs had to have mentioned it, probably more than once in front of her without realizing she was in the same room with them. Something would trigger that memory.
Tariq insists that I already know but just have to remember, and Gary says that would mean the Malinov brothers knew, and it was an impossibility that they knew.
Do you know what they mean? What is it that you might know, Elisabeta? Ferro knew he was pushing her when she really needed time, but Gary was clearly in charge of protecting Tariq as well as something huge, something very few in the Carpathian world knew of. Maybe a secret that could mean the downfall of the prince and therefore the extinction of the Carpathian people.
Tariq says not if their father was one of the members of the council.
The moment she repeated the word council to him she went silent, and Ferro felt her once again withdrawing to the past, searching for more information through those centuries of conversations she’d overheard.
He needed her to sort through those conversations fast. If Ferro and Elisabeta weren’t lifemates, Gary would be able to catch portions of their private communications. He already knew they were speaking telepathically to each other as Tariq and he were. As Tariq’s appointed second-in-command and guardian, he would fulfill those duties with honor whether he wanted to or not. He was uneasy and watchful. He knew engaging in battle with Ferro would start an all-out war with every ancient in the compound, and they would have to take sides.
Elisabeta, I need to know what Gary and Tariq are saying to one another. He detested pulling her away from her memories, but he had to be warned if Gary was going to attack. He had to get his lifemate to safety. Killing her would be the fastest way for Gary to defeat him. He should have had Sandu or one of the other brethren accompany him whether Tariq wanted it or not.