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)
“No one is around, piŋe sarnanak. It is just the two of us. We are going to practice shifting. For me, you will always be my little songbird. Your voice is magical. You have music in every note. I hear you when I sing to you each rising. When I call to you to come to me, I know you. That part of me, the only part that is not hard and battle-worn, feels the melody in you. I thought teaching you first to fly would give you a sense of freedom you have never known and that a bird would come the easiest. You have lived life in a cage, as some birds have done. I want to open that door for you. I also thought perhaps seeing through the eyes of a bird rather than the human eye, you would not have the same trouble looking at the world around you.”
Once again he wrapped his arm around her waist and locked her to him while his other hand moved to the back of her head to soothingly run his palm down her braid. “There are no expectations, Elisabeta. If you find you cannot do this, we will try another rising.” He poured truth into his tone so she would hear he meant it.
She leaned into him and daringly ran her palm from his belly to his chest. There was a hint of possession in her touch he doubted she knew was there. Already the threads between lifemates were adding to the building confidence she had in him.
“I want to do this, Ferro, so much. I thought about it all the time when I was in that cage. I knew I had been taught, but when I tried to remember, I felt such pain. My head would explode and sometimes there would be blood everywhere and I would wake up in the cage with the vampire over me and I could see he was worried and angry with me. I wanted to disappear. Fly away. Fade away. But it never happened.”
“Gary and I have taken down the barrier that he constructed to stop you from accessing your memories without pain, sívamet, but Sergey erased most of your memories, and what he couldn’t, he scarred over and distorted so you would not know truth from lie or be without fear. That was why you were so afraid of meeting your birth brother.”
“He really took everything from me.”
Her sorrow made him want to weep. Again, there were no tears on her face, but deep inside she wept for her lost relationship with her brother, especially after knowing he had spent centuries looking for her.
“The vampire tried to take everything from you, Elisabeta, but his success is up to you. You can establish a relationship with Traian and his lifemate if you choose. Traian is not only willing, but he wants it. He will follow your lead. The vampire did not steal my soul from you in all the centuries he had you. Your trust in me is growing faster than even I thought possible. He cannot take our bond from us. You are intelligent and an asset to not only me but our people as well, and he cannot take that. I could go on and on, but we do not want to lose one more moment of the night to him, do we?”
Elisabeta tilted her head up to him and his heart stuttered for just a moment at what he saw there. She looked at him with reverence, with a kind of worship he didn’t deserve. “No, minan hän sívamak, we do not. Please teach me to shift into a bird and learn to fly.”
She’d called him her beloved. She had not done so before. Strong heart, yes, because he was her warrior, but this was different. So very different. It was the way she said it in their language. That tenderness in her voice. She couldn’t hide the way she felt about him or the love creeping into her heart for him. For the first time he had real hope that she might love him as he was and they would really find their way together so in the end, when she became strong and confident, she would choose him, choose to stay with him.
“Just like when you open the earth above your head or you are dressing yourself, you must pay attention to detail. I will have an image in my head. I want you to take that image and study it from every angle. Put it in your head and make certain you see it all. You are good with details, Elisabeta, meticulous about them, but anyone, when they are eager to try something, can get overexcited. Take your time. Eventually, even shifting will become automatic to you, but this is the foundation and it must be solid.”