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)
“Elisabeta will try to remember,” Ferro relayed. He found it interesting that Elisabeta elected not to talk to Gary when she was willing to speak with Tariq.
Gary contemplated starting the war by killing me in order to get you to turn vampire. That would give him ample reason to kill you and force the other ancients to aid him in defeating you.
She wasn’t upset with Gary for considering killing her—that was acceptable because he was protecting the interests of the Carpathian people—but it wasn’t acceptable to her that the healer was putting Ferro at risk to lose his honor after so many centuries of holding on.
“She is not happy with you, Gary,” Ferro couldn’t help but add. “Looking into your mind and seeing your plan did not sit well with her. She didn’t mind that you would kill her, but she did mind that you wanted me to lose my honor and become vampire.”
“Had he carried out his plan, Elisabeta, which would have been despicable, we would have lost the potential to know where the Malinov piece was,” Tariq pointed out. “A little short-sighted.”
“That is why I am not the leader of our people,” Gary said.
“Cornel and Dorin believe that you hold this piece at the night club. Tell me you do not,” Ferro said. “I do not wish to know where it is, only that it is not there.”
“It is not. It is nowhere they could ever get their hands on it.”
19
The cage has collapsed, the prisoner stands tall;
The battle is ours to end, once and for all.
Ferro didn’t know if he sang their song or if Elisabeta did when he first woke that next rising to find them blood. He only knew that much later, when she came to him in the sanctuary of their forest, she surrounded him with love. He felt so much emotion he was drowning, threatening to a centuries-old warrior who fought without a single sentiment for so long. It was beautiful. She made the colors of the forest, already so vibrant now that he could see them, even more vivid.
He had doubts for so long that she would never be able to live with him as he was, but the way she looked into his eyes, holding his body close, her hands pressing into his back, fingers digging into his shoulders and then down to his hips, told him she would stay for eternity. She made the earth move under them while the moon and stars seemed to spin overhead. Sounds of the ocean roared in his ears, a symphony of the greatest music the world could give them.
He threaded his fingers through hers, there in the forest, their favorite place of complete harmony, his body deep in hers, surrounded by fire, by her tight, silken sheath, knowing what he had been given and yet already her body was claiming his, driving out every sane thought until it was only the two of them going up in flames. Her breathy moans, the way she chanted his name, as if he were her only focus in the world. She made him feel that way.
He loved her with every stroke of his body. Every movement of his surging hips. Of his fingers clamping down so tightly on her hips, urging her to meet his thrusts. He had wanted to be her shelter, and yet she had become his. He found himself lost in her. The way she came so gently into his mind and memories, filling all those tears and cracks that had formed over the centuries from the battles and kills, the wounds he’d sustained. She managed, with her compassion and soothing nature, to find a way to repair every tattered rend in his heart, those terrible black holes that had stripped his humanity from him.
Ferro framed her beloved face with both hands and looked down into her eyes. “I love you, sívamet. You are hän ku vigyáz sívamet és sielamet, keeper of my heart and soul, and you have done so in ways I could never imagine. I am so in love with you, Elisabeta. I will make mistakes, and I will forget to tell you how truly beautiful you are, both inside and out, and if that happens, please remind me that there are very necessary things to say to you each rising.”
He bent his head and brushed kisses over each eye, her nose, the corners of her mouth and then her lips. He loved her mouth. The curve. The definition. The way she tasted when she parted her lips for him. The fire there. The love he found there. The true meaning of lifemate when she gave him everything that she was.
“We could just stay right here, piŋe sarnanak. You could practice your flying, although you have gotten quite good. So much so that I believe that last time you were showing off a bit.”