Кристин Фихан: Dark Song

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.

A shocking bite of pain flashed through her and then eased into something darkly erotic, a soothing blend of moist heat and rasping velvet. She gasped, realizing Ferro had nipped her neck right over her pulse and then pulled the injured spot into his mouth and sucked gently, his tongue stroking little caresses. He lifted his head, but as he did, his lips brushed several little kisses over the spot.

“Julija does not dictate to you what you are to be as a woman, minan piŋe sarnanak , any more than I should dictate this to you. You will find your own way in time. If you prefer my company and support and I do not object, and in fact like it, then it is no one’s business. Our relationship is ours alone.”

It wasn’t the first time he had said this to her, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. His advice had to sink in and take hold. She had to believe she was really free to choose her own way. Her brain refused to believe, and anytime there was a choice to be made, she shut down and became paralyzed with fear. Ferro didn’t seem to mind. He showed endless patience with her.

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and slid her hand along his very muscular forearm down to his wrist, as if that could give her the necessary strength to take the step toward the door, and maybe it did. She forced one foot in front of the other. She expected him to let her go, and he did, although he turned his hand and caught hers in a tight grip, so they were still connected.

“I will go in first and you stay right behind me,” Ferro said.

The relief she felt was so tremendous that for a moment her legs felt rubbery. She dropped back by a couple of steps, allowing his larger frame to step in front of her. She kept her head down, not daring to look around her for fear of seeing too much and getting dizzier than she already was.

“Once inside, if the room is too big and you want to keep moving to a smaller one, you tell me and we will do so, otherwise we will stop there, sit down and just take small pieces of the room to look at and familiarize ourselves with. I want to attempt to remove the vampire’s barrier on your memories.”