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 nodded his head decisively. “Yes, absolutely she can. He will be unable to resist answering her. He will come.” Gary was working on healing him. Three of the ancients had replenished his blood. All of them would need to be in their best shape of the night. Even better than they had been if they were going to win this next battle.
“Call to him, Elisabeta. Bring him to you. Sergey is unable to resist your call.” They stood together, Ferro and Elisabeta, at the very edge of the meadow. Before them was a long expanse of grass and flowers. The flowers looked asleep, petals closed, while the clouds moved across the sky overhead.
Her long lashes lifted, her dark eyes liquid with tears. She gave a small shake of her head, resisting his command for the first time. “You are injured, Ferro. He may not be the most intelligent of the Malinov brothers, but he makes up for it in both cunning and cruelty. He will smell your blood and crave it. That will spur him to greater heights of viciousness.”
“Call to him, minan piŋe sarnanak.” He was implacable.
“He has a sliver of all of his brothers in him. He has not one but two of Xavier, the high mage, within him. If you defeat him, the moment you extract his heart, all of those slivers will desert him and seek a host. They will scatter, tiny, very dangerous shadows impossible to track. They will find human hosts, possibly children. Each sliver is evil and will corrupt their host and lead them back to the nearest mage or vampire.”
The plea in her voice shook him. The liquid in her eyes spilled over and tears tracked down her face. Ferro wrapped his arm around her and pulled her beneath his shoulder.
“You should know me by now, sívamet. Would I go into battle without knowing what I face? I saved Sergey for last because I know what he holds. He cannot live. He will never stop trying to find a way to get to you. Bodies of innocent men, women and children will be nailed to the gates of the compound each rising. We cannot have that. Eventually, your kind heart will break and you will go to find him. Where is your faith in me? Your trust? More importantly, minan päläfertiilam, where is your belief in us?”
Elisabeta’s dark eyes drifted over his face. “You look so worn, beloved.” She sighed. “If you wish to do this, then we do this.”
He waited, letting her feel their combined strength. Their power. It rolled over the meadow, filling the air, impossible to contain. She had to feel it the way he did. It wasn’t his power alone, it was hers as well—the two of them together.
She straightened her shoulders and nodded. “You have a plan. I know that you do. Tell me what you want me to do once he arrives.”
She knew Sergey would come. Like Ferro, she had no doubt. Ferro smiled down at his little songbird who had finally escaped her cage and yet, with the cage door wide open, she had chosen him, chosen to stay with her centuries-old lifemate.
“You know the plan, piŋe sarnanak, we have practiced it a thousand times.”
Master. Elisabeta whispered the call in her mind, keeping her voice thin and fearful. Can you hear me? I have little time. He is not aware.
At once there was a stirring. A black malevolent presence poured into Elisabeta’s mind, thick like an oil, clogging every pore. Over the centuries she had developed false walls so that the master vampire believed he could search her mind and know what she had been up to. With the exception of having access to her lifemate’s soul, he believed he controlled her completely, when she had slowly built compartment after compartment, pushing him further and further out.
Now he saw only what Elisabeta wanted him to see. Terror. Fear of her lifemate. Of the Carpathian people. Of their demands on her. She understood nothing of their lives and they made fun of her behind her back because she didn’t know how to do anything for herself. Her lifemate was ashamed of her.
Why do you bother me? Sergey sounded disdainful.
Elisabeta hesitated. Retreated. The old Elisabeta would never have answered him or begged him to take her back. She would have been too terrified of the consequences of speaking to him.
He is drawing closer, she cautioned Ferro.
In the meadow she stood, appearing shaky, one hand half covering her face, taking several steps back into the deeper concealment of the trees, bending forward as if to peer out, looking up at the sky hopefully.
Why would he be unaware of what you are saying to me? Sergey demanded.
He was gone for a long time this rising. When he returned, he was wounded very badly. They called for the healer and several of the ancients to give him blood.