Elizabeth touched her tongue to her suddenly dry lips. “I refused to give him access to your soul. I told him I would suicide first. He allowed his puppets to consume children and I carried out my threat. He was barely able to save me that time. Twice more he did things to others I couldn’t tolerate, and I suicided. After that, he only punished me. I knew you would survive if I died. I would be reborn with your half of our soul intact, but if he was able to take it from me, you could be made his servant, and he would have been able to corrupt or harm you in other ways. I couldn’t take the chance.”She rushed the confession, ashamed that she couldn’t think of any other solution than to suicide when she had been told the ancient hunters in the monastery had endured for centuries and locked themselves away because they hadn’t believed in meeting the dawn and giving up on their lifemates. That was only showing him once again that she was a . .“Do not.” Fero hissed the command at her in ob
Fero didn’t try to reassure her, nor did he reprimand her for not believing in him. He didn’t seem to have any kind of ego at all. Elizabeth felt him moving in her mind, a more forceful presence than he had been, but not necessarily one that was taking her over. He was still gentle, but she felt him searching, making certain Levon hadn’t left anything of himself behind. She knew mages could take small slivers of themselves and plant them in others to use them as spies. Some vampires had learned how to do the same. Levon held the dark mage, Xavi, within him as well as his brothers. That gave him access to their knowledge, although, on his own, Levon had never accessed those slivers.“I am going to build a shield in your mind that he cannot penetrate. If by some miracle he managed to slip past all the safeguards woven by the warriors here as well as my brethren, he will not be able to get to you.”She moistened her lips. She had to confess to him. “When I was in the healing grounds, be
Fero nuzzled the top of her head. “You do not need to speak unless I ask you to. If you need to answer, you can speak to me on our path alone. No one else needs to hear the sound of your voice. You do not need to look at them. I will shield you at all times.”Elizabeth was shivering again and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She wanted to be brave for him, especially since he continually persisted in calling her courageous, but already she felt the power building around the dwelling. They were coming. It wasn’t one or two. There were several ancients and they carried power easily, so easily that the house and ground fairly crackled with it.Fero waved his hand casually toward the door and the heavy oak swung open. A tall warrior strode in. Elizabeth kept her head buried in Fero’s chest, her hand over her eyes, but she opened her fingers just enough to see him. His hair was a true black with strands of gray, much like Fero’s only not quite as long. His shoulders were wide
Fero wasn’t a trusting man. He had never been one to trust, not that he could remember. He had his brethren from the monastery, and even with them he was wary. Careful. Now, with Elizabeth to protect, he was even more so. He had thought to bring Isai there first, knowing that Elizabeth would be uncomfortable with visitors, but he needed to get to the bottom of how Levon had managed to reach out to her in the compound, in the healing grounds, when she should have been protected.He had that feeling of a threat coming to her from either Tensel or Gary, perhaps both. Now that he’d been in Elizabeth’s mind, he knew she was uneasy at the mere mention of the two ancients coming near her.He would have thought her anxiety was due to just being around others, but it was more than that. The healer had tried to examine her mind. He may have been trying to repair some of the damage the vampire had caused, but it would be unusual to do so without consent—and Elizabeth had closed herself off. Fer
“I have searched for anything Levon may have left behind and found nothing,” Ferro said, keeping his tone mild. He didn’t protest Tensel’s decree, but made it clear that Tensel was going to have to challenge his abilities. That would be difficult in light of the fact that he was an ancient and few could match his skills.He waited for the leader of the compound to make his next move. ‘There is no need to shake until your body falls apart, my little songbird. No one is going to harm you. My brethren are here to protect you. Look carefully around the circle. I want you to try to determine which stayed with me in the monastery in the Mountains.’Perhaps that would take her mind off the fact that Tensel and his guards were regarding his lifemate with piercing eyes, as if they could see beyond her flesh and bones to what lay beneath. She shivered again. He didn’t want to be like Levon, hiding her away in a cage from others, but he felt she was going to be sick if this kept up.‘Elizabeth
He would have liked it better had she referred to him by name, but at least he managed to get her cooperation, and her fear level had dropped tremendously. She was governed by rules—the stricter they were, the more she understood. It wasn’t right, but he was going too fast with her, trying to force her into a world she didn’t yet understand because he didn’t want to appear anything like Levon. He was her lifemate and he had to be what she needed. Right then she needed someone to tell her what to do and to allow her to lean completely on his strength.“She will submit to your examination, Gary, but only yours. I will be with you.” He kept his voice as neutral as possible, knowing no matter how he worded it, the threat was there.The healer didn’t hesitate, moving out around the others and coming closer to crouch beside Fero. The moment he did, Sandu came up behind Fero’s chair and Siv followed the healer to stand behind him. Fero and Gary both shed their bodies at the same time, becom
“Gary,” Fero said, still holding Elizabeth’s gaze. “But you will be merged with me at all times, healer.” He decreed it. If Tensel and Gary were looking for anything but what they were telling the others, or they planned on hurting his lifemate, he would be there to stop them. He glanced at Sandu, then to Andor. Both men were tied soul to soul with him.Fero felt Elizabeth’s unshed tears, but there were none in her eyes as she stared directly into his. He saw her make a tremendous effort to pull herself together. To still her mind. To let her heart calm along with her breathing. She took her direction from him, choosing to follow his lead. He was very proud of her, knowing how difficult it had to be and knowing she was doing it for him to avoid him having to fight their way out of the compound.Gary was already shedding his body, once more becoming a healing light. Fero didn’t want to leave her alone, but he didn’t like the idea of anyone entering her without giving her his protectio
No matter how hard Gary and Fero tried not to see the ugliness of Elizabeth’s life in order to spare her the humiliation of having others see things she didn’t want seen, there was no getting around it when shuffling through the years of her life. Fero found he couldn’t be as detached as he thought he could be. He’d had centuries of no emotion. He could switch emotion off to hunt, and yet he found when it came to his lifemate, it was nearly impossible not to feel.His gut churned, knotted, an unfamiliar sensation that made him very aware the woman was getting inside him, a dangerous thing for him when he might have to leave her and go to the monastery after she gained her independence. The ties between lifemates couldn’t be broken. He knew that. He understood what they were, but he also knew he wasn’t the same man born to be Elizabeth’s lifemate any more than she was the same woman. They had both changed over the centuries. He had to provide her with what she needed because everythi