Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Safia didn’t protest. She simply went to her brothers and grandfather, touched her lips to each cheek and forehead, murmured her love of them and came straight back to Petru, nodding that she was ready.
CHAPTER
21
Three weeks of mourning had taken a toll on the Meziane family, but it was impossible to keep them down. Petru found he respected them more and more with each rising. They were gentle with each other and allowed every family member the space to grieve in their own way while fully supporting one another.
Petru and Safia had stayed in the ground for two weeks to heal their wounds before joining the family. Benedek took more time than the other Carpathians, but he was out and restless, declaring he needed to continue his journey to find his lifemate.
Petru was gentle with Safia, waking her each rising and making love to her, giving her lessons in shifting before taking her to the family farm to be with her loved ones. They patrolled the harbor and town of Dellys, along with surrounding farms and forests, for any signs of Lilith’s return but found none.
Several times the Carpathians went with Aura to the gate, but Justice hadn’t been anywhere near it recently. Petru could tell that worried Aura. She felt he was testing the strength of all four gates and had devised some plan to escape. The gate appeared weak in some places, but the ancient wood was still holding. Something or someone had been chipping away at the safeguards and making headway, but it was a slow process.
Petru and the brethren added their weaves to Aura’s. Safia didn’t have the necessary skills yet to build safeguards, but she could consecrate the ground to keep demons from entering. That was the best they could do when there was no sign of the beast and they couldn’t assess accurately what was going on.
“I’ve got to go now. This evening,” Benedek insisted when they’d returned from the gate to the farm. “I feel a sense of urgency and I can’t ignore it.”
Petru glanced at him sharply. “Feeling? That’s an emotion, Benedek. You don’t feel emotion unless you’re feeling it through Adalasia or Vasilisa, and we’re too far from either of them.”
Benedek gave him a cool look from his midnight black eyes. “I am well aware.”
Benedek was a big man, light on his feet and lethal as hell. Petru had spent more time with him than any other being. There was no stopping Benedek from leaving once he made up his mind—and he was determined.
Petru touched his mind. Benedek didn’t block him. The urgency was there. A growing sense of danger and the need to be somewhere to stop it. Petru would have left as well. There was no doubt that emotion was tied to Benedek’s lifemate, just as Petru’s had been tied to Safia when he’d started out on the journey to find her.
“It is your lifemate calling to you,” Petru said with conviction.
“I believe she has need,” Benedek said. “I don’t know if it is her calling to me, but she has great need. There is fear.”
Nicu cleared his throat. “My lifemate may be close to his. I feel that same urgency and fear as well. A premonition of great danger, as if we’re running out of time.”
“Safia, I would greatly appreciate a reading from your tarot cards before I set out on my journey,” Benedek said. “Hopefully, the cards will give me direction, although I am already feeling a sharp pull.”
Nicu nodded. “I am also feeling a sense of urgency and the need to travel with you, Benedek. If you do not mind, Safia, I would like to know what the cards have to say as well.”
“Of course.”
Safia agreed readily, but Petru felt her hesitation. It didn’t show on her face, but still, it was there.
What is it, sívamet?
They have given so much for us and done so selflessly. I feel that same sense of urgency for both. I fear what I will see in the cards for them. I don’t want to be the one to give either of them bad news. Benedek is still quite weak. He would never admit such a thing, but if he faces more battles, and I fear he will, he will not be at full strength.
Petru knew she was right. He had given Benedek blood numerous times and tried to persuade him to spend more time in the ground. Benedek had refused but hadn’t given an explanation until now. Petru could see the need to leave was weighing on him. To find out Nicu felt the same urgency, and now Safia admitted she did as well, set alarms off. It was entirely possible Safia, being so empathic, was simply feeding off the two men, but Petru doubted it.
“We will travel with Benedek and Nicu,” Mataias announced. “We have heard the cards are capable of telling us if our lifemates are alive in this century.”