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)
She couldn’t possibly choose. There was no way. She hadn’t made a choice in hundreds of years. Not one single choice. She shook her head, refusing to look at him, refusing to answer.
Elisabeta expected him to be angry, frustrated, to lose patience with her, but his hand continued the gentle strokes in her hair. She realized her long, thick hair—hair that had never been cut—was clean, and as he burrowed his strong fingers into it to massage her scalp, the strands slid through his fingers free of tangles.
“I prefer dresses, but I am an ancient warrior, Elisabeta, not at all modern. I have not had time to catch up to this world. I do not want to color your choices with my own. Still, if you prefer me to choose for you at this time, I will show you two different dresses that I really like, and you can decide which one to wear this evening and which you will wear next rising. Is that acceptable to you?”
She would still have to make a choice, but he liked both dresses and, in the end, she would wear both of them. Her only choice was which to wear tonight and which the following rising. The thought of making that decision was still difficult but exciting. It was a decision. Her decision. Ferro was letting her choose.
“Yes, I like the idea very much,” she agreed.
“But it is still a little scary to you,” he said.
Of course he would know. There was no hiding her pounding pulse from him. She bit her lip and nodded slowly, daring to lift her lashes and sneak a peek at his face to see if he was exasperated with her. She wouldn’t blame him if he was. He looked so invincible, as if nothing in the world had ever frightened him. Nothing. How could he sit there so calmly in the middle of the healing grounds, taking his time as if he had nowhere else in the world to be but right there with her, sorting out the terrifying new world she found herself in?
“When you get very frightened, piŋe sarnanak, always remember that you have only to look into your mind and I am there with you. You can hear our song. It soothes you every rising. The sound of the rain calling to you to awaken. When you hear that, it is our combined heartbeat. No matter even if I am holding you, if you wish to soothe yourself first, our song is there in your mind. I will admit, I prefer to be the one to care for you, but I want you to know that you are capable of standing on your own two feet always. The vampire took that from you, but I intend to give it back to you. You are not without your own power, Elisabeta. You will learn, with time, to believe in yourself. To know you’re strong. I want that for you.”
She was his lifemate. More, she had spent centuries tuned to the slightest nuance of her master’s voice. His body language. His breathing. “You do want that for me, but you do not want that for you.” It was utterly daring of her to state what she knew to be truth aloud, to basically contradict him. Had she done so with Sergey, it would have earned her such a beating she wouldn’t have been able to move for a month. Maybe she was testing Ferro’s limit. The truth of his rules.
To her utter astonishment, he nuzzled her shoulder, turning his face into her neck, his breath warm against her wildly pounding pulse. “I am ancient, Elisabeta, and more, I have always thought my woman would obey my every wish. That is what you see in my mind. Having seen what this vile creature has done to my lifemate, I am determined that the two of us will learn more modern ways. We will not be as the others living in this compound, perhaps. We will find our own union, but we will not be as I envisioned long ago, because I no longer want that for either of us.”
She turned his statement over and over in her mind. He was willing to change. To grow into someone different. She had to find the courage to do the same. She took a deep breath. “I would very much like to see the dresses, um . . .” What was she supposed to call him? How was she supposed to address him?
“Ferro,” he supplied. “I am your wedded spouse. You will call me Ferro.”
She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. He was her wedded spouse. He’d said the ritual binding words and there was no going back from that. Not ever. He’d tied them together for all eternity. For whatever the reasons, they were bound together.