Home > Dark Song (Dark #30)(17)

Dark Song (Dark #30)(17)
Author: Christine Feehan

Minan piŋe sarnanak, I do not blame you for trying to protect yourself. You do not know me, and so far, you have chosen not to merge too closely in my mind. I can only reassure you that you are my true lifemate and I have bound us together with the ritual words. Those ties are sacred and cannot be broken. They not only affect you, but me as well. I meant every word I said to you. I am not abandoning you or playing some elaborate hoax on you. I am searching for a way to protect you from this monster. We will see if he can slip through the safeguards the ancients have woven without me. If he dares come, sívamet, you have only to reach for me. Call to me and I will be there with you.

Ferro sounded so sincere. So strong. So real. How did one know the truth? She had been deceived all her life, and she had lived long.

“We are ready, Ferro,” Tariq announced.

Ferro tipped her chin up and leaned his head down to brush his lips across hers. My brethren will protect you, and I will come the instant you call to me. That is all you have to do, Elisabeta. Simply call to me if he comes. I will drive him away.

She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know how to answer. She felt his withdrawal and then she was alone. He was gone from her mind, and she’d never felt so isolated as she did in that moment. She’d been alone for hundreds of years and with him only for that rising, and yet having him merged with her, even staying in the background, made her feel safe. She hadn’t known how much he was giving her until he was gone.

His physical presence was gone as well and she found herself sitting alone in the chair. She kept her eyes closed tightly and her hands clenched so tightly on the arms of the chair her knuckles hurt. She knew when his brethren merged with her, but it didn’t alleviate the terrible emptiness she felt. They shifted almost as one to the back of her mind and stayed so still she couldn’t feel them in her. She didn’t want to feel them there. They weren’t Ferro.

Her heart began to accelerate. She tasted fear in her mouth. Thunder roared in her ears. There was no understanding the passage of time because each second without Ferro was like years moving at a snail’s pace.

The sound of ugly laughter crept into her mind, one slow note at a time, as if the sender wanted to prolong the agony of suspense. The noise was grating and harsh, scraping deliberately along nerve endings, a vile, sickening sound meant to hurt—and it did.

He fears me, Elisabeta. Your magnificent lifemate runs like a coward from me, leaving you behind to face your punishments. You have accrued so many now with your stubbornness. Your friend Julija. The mage. I will tear the child from her body first and feed it to my puppets while you watch. While she watches, knowing you caused her the loss by your stubborn behavior.

Sergey sneered and threatened by turns, his voice quickly deteriorating more and more into a growling animalistic noise that could barely be recognized.

Elisabeta put her hands over her ears to try to drown out the ugly threats that kept getting worse and viler if she could even make them out, but it was impossible because they were coming from inside her head. In desperation, she reached out, hoping her lifemate had told her the truth.

Ferro. She couldn’t say anything else. Just his name.

Instantly, he poured into her mind. Strong. An untamed warrior. Utterly confident and invincible. He filled every lonely place in her mind, every tiny crack Sergey might think he could slip in and hide. He strode in, bigger than life, taking over, a fierce hunter few dared to cross. As Ferro merged with her, his brethren joined them, tracking the master vampire as he rushed to try to evade them, throwing himself out of Elisabeta’s mind.

Ferro and the other hunters followed. “He is in the room. He cannot leave with the safeguards intact. Be careful, he can strike at us, even from a distance. We need to shed light on him. It is only a small replica of him, but it is enough to diminish him if we destroy it. I will shield Elisabeta.”

She knew Sergey would try to hurt her by going after Ferro. She was so grateful she had insisted Julija leave the house. By weaving the safeguards, they had contained Sergey’s shadowy replica there in the room. She couldn’t stop shaking, her gaze darting around the room, forgetting to be overwhelmed by the amount of space.

The Carpathian males waved their arms to cast a brilliant light throughout the entire room, leaving no corner with so much as a shadow in it. Ferro stood in the center of the room as the ancient warriors spread out. He spread his arms wide, encompassing the entire room.

“Muonìak te avoisz te.” His deep voice was commanding, pouring centuries of sheer strength and control into his tone. Few could actually command a vampire to reveal himself, let alone a master vampire, but it was impossible to ignore Ferro’s absolute authority.

At once a dark shadowy form began to creep toward Ferro, stretching across the wall and then the floor in the shape of a tiny insect that began to grow as it slid down the wall and touched the hardwood floor. At once, Sandu, Dragomir and Andor hurled wooden darts carved from ancient wood, pinning the shadowy feet to the wall.

The figure’s mouth gaped wide in a silent scream. The empty eye sockets turned toward Elisabeta where she huddled as small as possible in the chair. Ferro took one step to place himself between the shadow figure and his lifemate so that it was impossible for the thing to see her. Benedek, Petru and Nicu formed a wall behind Ferro, standing shoulder to shoulder, making it doubly impossible for the shadow to even lay eyes on Elisabeta.

The moment she was taken from its line of sight, the creature began to twist and turn in desperation, seemingly not to get away from the ancients but in order to keep looking at Elisabeta. It stretched farther across the floor toward her, its shape thinning, until it looked like a ribbon of gray with nothing but feet and outstretched hands.

“What is it?” Tariq asked. “I have never run across such a thing.”

Sandu and Andor pinned the shadowy shoulders into the hardwood floor so it couldn’t move. Again, the mouth gaped wide but there was no sound. The empty holes where the eyes should have been darted back and forth. More than ever the creature resembled a cross between an insect and a vampire.

Gary crouched beside the shadow, touching it with one of the pegs made from the ancient wood Sandu handed to him. “It was referred to as a kod lewl kuly in ancient times—a shadow spirit worm or demon sent to devour souls or bring messages. It is brought forth from the netherworld, and the conjurer—in this case, Sergey—has to give it something of himself, some part of his own spirit, in order to give it any kind of direction.”

“It is fixated completely on Elisabeta,” Maksim observed. “Not on escaping.”

“Were you able to see how it got in?” Lojos asked. “With all the safeguards, how could it slip in?”

Gary glanced at Ferro and then he calmly took the ancient wood and plunged it into the heart of the creature, careful to avoid touching any part of the gray shadow. The thing wiggled obscenely and then slowly went still. The healer stood and brought the light to bear on the pinned worm. The edges of the shadow began to darken and curl. Flames licked at it and eventually consumed it. When the entire creature was reduced to ash, the door to the house opened and the breeze carried the ashes outside. The light in the room dimmed and then receded completely.

“What did you find?” Tariq asked. “How did the kod lewl kuly slip through our safeguards? The three of you were sharing her brain when he managed to penetrate Elisabeta’s mind.”

Ferro once more went to Elisabeta and lifted her into his arms, surrounding her with his strength. I am here, minan piŋe sarnanak, just as I said I would be. The vampire is gone. He cannot get to you. But you must be very brave and continue to believe and trust in me as you have done.

You know how he did it. Her heart began to beat harder in trepidation.

Ferro’s arms tightened even more around her, as if she would need even more courage to face what the healer was going to disclose to the others.

“Sergey has held Elisabeta prisoner literally for centuries. She knows no other life. No other keeper. He has terrified her all those centuries, and held her away from any other contact, vampire, Carpathian or human,” Gary explained to the ancients in the room. “Ferro is her lifemate. She has a strong connection with him and the belief instilled in her from birth that he will shield her, if necessary, from all harm. Through the centuries, when Sergey tried to force Elisabeta to give up Ferro’s soul to him, she refused, no matter what torture he subjected her to. She knew what strength it took for lifemates to hold out against evil.”

Elisabeta tilted her face up to Ferro’s. Why is he telling them these things? She was very confused. The healer had merged with her several times. He had searched her memories trying to find evidence of Sergey planting spies, so he had been able to see so much of her life in small vignettes, but she didn’t expect him to champion her or to reveal to the others anything about her.

There are things in my memories he found that no one here will ever accept. They will cast me out.

There is no need to be alarmed, Elisabeta. You are with your lifemate. I am keeper of your soul. Your heart. No one will ever harm you again. If those in this room cannot accept us, then we will find our way. Some of our brethren will travel with us, others may stay here. What matters is that we are together and that I can keep you safe.

He didn’t exactly answer her. She took a deep breath and forced herself to turn her head and look at the ancients who had merged with her. Sandu, Andor and Gary. These men were bound to Ferro soul to soul. They had tied themselves together, along with Andor’s lifemate, Lorraine, and the bond would hold until all of them had lifemates. Only then would they be able to break those ties. What happened to one happened to all of them. Now, she was a part of that brotherhood.

It was very difficult to look at the three men without the bars of a cage between her and them. The open space made her feel vulnerable but it helped that she could feel Ferro’s strength surrounding her. He was extremely strong and felt that way to her, like one of the ancient hardwood trees that was forever unbending even in the fiercest storm. He was back in her mind, merged with her but unobtrusive, just providing her with the confidence to stay there instead of running away.

   
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