He was in her head, careful to keep his touch light so she didn’t feel as if he was being intrusive. Her mind was in chaos and he could hear her weeping. At once he began to set that sound to the beats of rain in their song, the one he’d composed for her. The one he’d used to draw her from the safety of the earth’s embrace.
“Don’t look around you as I take you to our home, Elisabeta. We will cross the open space, but you can anchor yourself in my mind. I can carry you if you prefer.” He hadn’t wanted to embarrass her, but she wasn’t a modern woman who would worry about what others thought of her.
“Why are all those people staring at me?”
“They are my brethren. Julija has been waiting to see you.” He felt her instant withdrawal and then the self-loathing. “You are not a coward. You have already done far more than I expected this rising. They can wait until you are settled.”
“I don’t want any of them to feel as if I am rejecting them, especially Julija. She has gotten me through so much. Without her I wouldn’t have made it,” Elisabeta confessed in a small voice. She still kept her face tucked against his chest to keep from looking at the open spaces around them.
“I will tell them you are not ready yet and I have forbidden any contact at this time.”
At that, she pulled her head free from his shirt and looked up at him, her eyes searching his. He could see a breathless kind of hope on her face. Again, he couldn’t stop himself. He bent his head and brushed his lips over each eyelid before he lifted her in his arms, cradling her close to him.
I am taking Elisabeta to our home. She will not be visiting at this time.
He sent the decree on the pathway forged between the monastery brethren rather than the common Carpathian pathway. Sergey Malinov had once been a Carpathian and he would have access to that pathway. If, for some reason, there was a breach in their safeguards, there would be no chance that the master vampire would know Elisabeta had risen from the healing grounds.
The women have been waiting for some time to speak with your lifemate, Ferro, Isai said. There was no inflection in his voice. Not even one of protest.
Ferro. Lorraine had no problems objecting. You can’t keep her to yourself. This isn’t the Neanderthal days.
Ferro didn’t bother to answer. He gathered his lifemate into his arms and took to the sky. She muffled a startled cry and clutched his shirt, her face once more buried tight against his chest.
Did the vampire transport you through the air? He must have had you fly.
No. I would wake up in new places.
Ferro was not used to the emotion gathering in the pit of his belly, a dark ugly rage that simmered like an explosive volcano slowly gathering force. He breathed through it and let it go. Rage had no place in his life. Malinov was going to pay for the crimes he’d committed against the Carpathian people, and against Ferro’s lifemate, but his death would come from a place of justice as Ferro had been delivering for centuries. There was no other way.
He took his lifemate to the house his brethren had purchased for him, a property that had been added to the growing acreage of the protected compound. The site was nestled in between Isai and Julija’s property and Andor and Lorraine’s land. The hills were gently rolling and the land had groves of trees on it and, more importantly, water that added to the colors of all the various plants scattered around the property.
The house had been built by a famous architect, at least that was what Andor had told him, a man whose vision was to keep the landscape so pristine that the house would be difficult to see until one actually walked up to it. Andor and Lorraine had also bought property with a home designed by the same man. Ferro had viewed the property and home with an eye toward defense, escape and the ability to get to the ground undetected from anywhere above the house.
Now, as he brought his lifemate to the Spanish-looking home, he thought he should have consulted with the women to see if the house met with their standards. Elisabeta would entertain her friends there, make a life there. She might sleep beneath the master bedroom, but she would live within those walls. He set her feet very gently on the wide verandah, his hands on her waist to steady her.
3
There’s light in the darkness, waiting to be seen;
Just as I wait for you, a king for his queen.
Open your eyes, piŋe sarnanak,” Ferro said in his soft, commanding voice.
Elisabeta took a deep breath and forced herself to obey. She liked his voice, and no matter how afraid she was of her new life and the huge terrifying changes, so far, although things had been overwhelming and emotional, they had all been good. She loved that he called her “little songbird” or, even better, “his little songbird.” Those variations created a strange new feeling in her, an affection that seemed to be growing the more she was with him.
She found herself looking at a tall massive door to a house. Ferro stood directly behind her, his hands at her waist, holding her close to him. She was grateful for his presence. She had no idea why they were standing on that cool, wide verandah, but suddenly her heart was beginning to accelerate again. Something new. Something she was going to have to learn.
“Ferro.” She whispered his name in a kind of protest.
“No one is here. Just the two of us.”
“It is too big.” It was. The door was gigantic. For Ferro it wasn’t, because he was a big man. His shoulders were wide, and he would go through that door so easily, but she was thin and felt insignificant. The door was tall and wide and seemed enormous to her. What could it possibly lead to?
“This will be our home. You will be mistress here. Not a prisoner, Elisabeta, but mistress.”
Already she was shaking her head. She knew nothing of taking charge of a house. She couldn’t possibly entertain his friends. Or clean a place that size. How did one know what to do? When she was little, did she live in a house? She tried to remember, and immediately her head exploded with such pain it nearly drove her to her knees. She knew better than to cry out, but both hands flew to her head and she hunched in on herself.
Ferro instantly shielded her, taking the pain away and soothing her mind. “The vampire placed a block on your memories so the moment you try to access anything to do with your family or childhood, you experience pain,” he explained.
She had come to realize that some centuries earlier, but that hadn’t stopped the occasional times when, unbidden, she reached out to try to remember something important to her.
Ferro wrapped one arm around her shoulders, pulling her back to his front. “He took so much from you, Elisabeta. We will get it all back, but you need to be patient with yourself. He had you for centuries. This process will take time. Do not judge yourself so harshly. This house is merely that at the moment—a house.”
“But you want it to be a home for you.” She pressed her lips together and then tried again. “For us.”
“I lived in a monastery, a shelter of rocks in the Carpathian Mountains shrouded by the mists. This place we will claim in small increments, one room at a time. As for caring for it, just as you learned about walking and you will learn about dressing yourself, you will learn to clean each room, taking the information from my mind, or Julija’s mind. Whoever you are most comfortable learning from.”
He was so matter-of-fact. So calm. Ferro never seemed in a hurry or in the least bothered by having to reassure her constantly. He simply provided a solution in his gentle voice.
“You will make it a home for us. I have no doubt about that. I have every faith in you. There is no time period that you must accomplish these tasks in. This is our journey together and we will make it ours as slow and as leisurely as we want. We both have had centuries of dancing to others’ tunes. This is our time and our song. I do not want anyone to dictate to us what we should do or when or how we should do it. We do not even have to open that door if you want to just make the verandah all we explore for this rising.”
He meant it. There was no lie in his voice. He didn’t seem to mind in the least standing there staring at the door while behind them was perhaps a view of nature. She didn’t know because she was too afraid of wide-open spaces. That made her feel like such a coward.
He bent his head and, when he did, his thick salt-and-pepper hair slid over the side of her neck, making her shiver with awareness. His hair was very long and thick, tied with a cord, but it felt soft against her skin and the slide along her neck was actually sensuous. His breath was warm in her ear when he spoke.
“You are no coward and I do not want you to think this of yourself again, Elisabeta. This does not please me. I have told you: I find you brave to face an entire new world the way you are doing. I am your lifemate and my opinion of you should matter.”
Instantly Elisabeta looked over her shoulder at him, worried that she’d upset him. “Your opinion really does matter to me, Ferro, that is why I worry so much that I cannot do the things I think I should be able to do.” She took a deep breath. “I want to go inside.” She realized she had dug her nails into his arm. “I really do.”
He waved his hand at the tall door. “If it is too much for you, just tell me and we will find the smallest room in the house and start there. I imagine the room we are going into will be the largest because it would be the room company would come into. At least, in the houses I’ve stepped into, that is the way the layout has been.”
Elisabeta stared into the cool darkness beyond the open doorway and tried not to hyperventilate. She told herself it was no different than entering a cave, or even going underground. There were no lights on. It was dark inside and she could feel the cool air coming out of the interior. Ferro didn’t try to hurry her. He made no move at all, just kept his arm locked around her shoulders and his front supporting her back.
There was a part of her that knew she was far too dependent on him. Julija wouldn’t approve of that. She had talked to her about a new start, about being her own person, standing on her own two feet, and already she was a failure. She didn’t want to be without Ferro’s support. Not without his strong hands and his tall, warrior-like demeanor that gave her confidence, his body that gave her strength and his voice that directed her, by turns gentle and commanding. She needed those things from him as much as she wanted them.