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Gary said. He was seated at Tariq’s right hand. Lorraine looked closer at the two men. She could see a small shimmer arcing from one to the other, as if that seat of power couldn’t quite make up its mind.
She had one ace, and maybe it was time to play it. “It is even possible one of you, one trusted, would turn vampire, and you’re already inside. What happens when you go to tear apart one of the girls and the only ones here are the women? All the men went somewhere and you were left to watch over them. What happens then, Petru?” There was a shocked silence.
“This debate has raged in the Carpathian Mountains as well. My brother, Gregori, is categorically opposed to the idea. The prince, however, feels this is something that should be left up to lifemates. He feels forcing a decree, an absolute law, on everyone doesn’t account for individuals, and I have to agree with him. No two people are alike. Ivory is an incredible huntress. Blaze is good as well and an asset in a fight. I do not believe a woman such as Genevieve would be.”
“My feeling is that all women should be taught to defend themselves. The children should be taught,” Gary continued. “Vampires have evolved, and we have to evolve as well. We’re behind because we didn’t take advantage of technology. We didn’t believe vampires would ban together to fight us, even when we were presented with the evidence. I know it is because Mikhail was struggling just to keep the species alive. I was in that fight. I saw the cost to us, but this is different. If Sergey succeeds, we will be extinct very quickly. It is necessary to change in order to survive.”
They flew low and they flew high. Above and below. They flew clockwise and counterclockwise,” Isai pointed out. “A spell. Sun scorch those birds, it was a spell,” Sandu said.
“Stop,” Sandu called. “Lorraine, this is important. What were you feeling right then? Emotionally, what were you feeling?” “That I had to stop the vampire from getting back up.” “Why? What motivation did you have that was strong enough to make you disobey Andor’s orders to stay there?” Sandu persisted.
“After finding my brother, parents, aunt and uncle and their friends murdered, I’ve suffered panic attacks. I saw Andor fighting off a particularly difficult vampire and found myself panicking. I needed to help him.” Tariq raised his hand. “You needed to help him. Do you feel that need was so strong because you were lifemates?”
“It’s affecting me now, Andor.” Tariq and Gary both hitched forward instantly. Sandu was out of his chair and standing beside her as if he would fight off any enemy.
He cast a spell and had his crows carry it out. That spell played on my fears of losing Andor after I lost my family. Does that sound about right, Gary?”
Gary smiled at her. “I was there, sisarke. I should have caught this. He made certain each of us, those who would recognize a spell, was otherwise occupied.” It was the first time he had ever called her little sister and something inside her melted, just as it had when Sandu or Ferro called her that. She knew the ancients were hanging on by a thread, and she was grateful that they all considered her family when she no longer had any.
She felt guilty, afraid she shouldn’t be happy when she’d lost the people she loved so much. That was something Andor had often wondered about. His family had died around the same time his emotions had faded. Had that been part of his acceptance of the loss? He couldn’t feel that mind-numbing emotion of grief? He didn’t have that answer. Only he did know that just being happy didn’t say anything about forgetting those one loved.
“Sívamet. We take happiness when and where we can get it. One has nothing to do with the other. You know that. Intellectually, you know that is the truth. One can still be grieving and yet have a moment of shared laughter or passion. There is no guilt in living when you have lost so much. You live for them. You make your life count. You live to keep their memory alive. You live for yourself. It’s all wrapped up together. We are part of the universe and it is vast. We are small, insignificant in the tapestry, yet we are there. A part of something larger. One false pull of that thread and
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“It is a torment like no other. Val can see in color, although not bright colors. Liv recently turned eleven. It will be a couple more years before colors brighten for Val. His emotions are there, but not like you experience them. I think it is just enough to feel guilt that he cannot feel more.”
“Ferro plans to leave when he rises. He will return to the monastery. He will be accompanied by Afanasiv Balan. Everyone refers to him as Siv if you do not recognize the name. He was at the meeting of the ancients. Most consider him extremely dangerous. He will be the gatekeeper as long as he is able.”
“I am well aware of that, but better Ferro turn far from here where those he cannot feel love for, but that he knows he does love, are away from him and safer.”
It was not this severe. It was the combination of the ancients’ blood. So many of us, Gary explained. I should have considered this might happen. We have powerful blood. She has to be able to accept it.
Had he not had her in their sacred healing ground or the other Carpathians surrounding them trying to bear the brunt of the pain, Andor doubted if Lorraine would have survived.
Emeline’s conversion was not this violent and she had your blood as well as mine, healer. Andor seconded Dragomir’s opinion of the healer’s assessment. She did not have Ferro’s blood.
My father always told me to suck it up when I was in pain, but I never want to experience that again. Nor, if asked, would I ever recommend it. That was a distinct warning.
He sank into the rich soil, laying Lorraine out gently onto her back. He lay beside her and watched as the earth began to fill in over their legs. Her body moved. Jerked. Andor frowned and leaned over her. She should be in a deep sleep. There it was again, that same jerk, her back moving back and forth as if rubbing into the soil. Suddenly, her eyes went wide, lashes lifting. Shock was there. Horror. He had sent her to sleep, but she was experiencing fear. Not just fear. Total terror. Her eyes stared into his. “It’s loose, Andor,” she whispered.
“It was in his talons and he put it into my skin. Now it’s loose in the healing grounds. There’s no getting it back.”
“We’re talking specifically Sergey, not Vadim or any of the others, dead though they are.” “We hope they’re dead,” Gary said.
“Not necessarily completely. Suppose they were talked into giving a sliver of themselves to their youngest brother. The brother no one thought had any kind of intelligence when it came to battle strategy. Or any kind of courage. Suppose he cultivated that image from the time he was very young, and the others, individually, were asked for aid. They might help their youngest brother out. Each would do so without the other knowing. If they placed a sliver of themselves in his mind, he would have all of that amazing intelligence as well as the slivers of Xavier. That would make Sergey the most
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“So, we’re back to the original question,” Andor said. “What does he want most? He took Elisabeta before he ever turned vampire. He kept her from his brothers. He kept the knowledge of her from them. There was no trace of her in all those centuries, which means he had prepared places for her. He didn’t take her on a whim, it was completely planned out, every single step. I think Elisabeta is what he desires most.” “Is she his lifemate?” Siv speculated.
“This turns everything we know about vampires on its head.”
Did you know you were sleeping so close to Elisabeta? Andor asked curiously. Ferro sometimes knew things others did not. He could have had a premonition that Sergey would try to strike at her. I did so on purpose.
Why is Ferro so sad? Lorraine’s voice caressed him, brushed him with the velvet of her voice, the silkiness of her growing love for him. I do not detect sadness. He hides it from even himself. You feel exactly what he feels, which is nothing, but go deeper, Andor. He is very sad. A great sorrow. I don’t like it. Do you think he plans to sit out in the sun?
“She has to be Sergey’s lifemate,” Sandu said. Ferro shook his head. “That is impossible.” “Why would you say that?” Andor asked. “It fits. Why else would he target her even when she was a young Carpathian? She couldn’t have been more than a teenager when she disappeared. Her brother, Traian, was frantic by all accounts. Sergey must have had a reason for taking her.” “I believe he did,” Ferro said. “She has gifts. But she is not his.” “You can’t possibly know that.” “I can, because she is mine. Elisabeta is my lifemate.”
“As I understand it, Elisabeta’s cries were muffled beneath the soil, and he heard her voice then and knew when he went this last night into the soil to heal. He shifted his position to lie closer to her, in an attempt to give her comfort. That was why you felt such sorrow in him. He felt her pain. He shared that pain, more emotional than physical.”
“You cannot interfere between lifemates. That is a sacred law in our world.”
