I’m really trying to find out the difference. Ferro would go after her if she ran, wouldn’t he?”
He nodded only because he could hear the frustration and genuine interest in her voice. She was trying her best to understand their culture. “Ferro and Elisabeta are two halves of the same whole. Without Ferro, she will never be happy. Nor will he. There is no one else for either of them. Elisabeta will accept that. She may have been taken as a teenager, but she is well versed in the Carpathian rituals. She would have been told early, from the time she was a child, that somewhere her lifemate searched for her. Ferro knows this and would never allow her to run away from him because she was scared or was trying to prove something to herself.”
She was silent a moment, and he could see she was trying to understand. “Isai, what if she does need to prove something to herself? Isn’t that something he should take into consideration? Or maybe she just needs time to figure things out.”
Isai was fairly certain they had gone from talking about Ferro and Elisabeta to talking about them. “Mostly, little mage, she is afraid. Fear is an emotion that can paralyze one or have them run—the flight-or-fight response kicks in.”
She regarded him with great suspicion. “How do you even know about that? You’ve been locked up in a monastery, and yet you somehow can quote flight-or-fight response?”
“We have to absorb all knowledge quickly. It is a gift. It is also part of our culture to continue to learn. The moment we left the monastery, we had to transfer knowledge from other Carpathians to us. We also can gain knowledge from other species as well as through books and now computers. We absorb such things.”
“Then why didn’t you absorb the part where husbands do not spank their wives?”
He refused to smile. He didn’t dare, that could get him into a lot more trouble. They seemed to continuously circle back to that particular transgression of his. Still, he couldn’t help but like her little flares of temper. It was perverse of him, but every time she got that tone, his entire body reacted.
“If I am to be very honest with you, I will admit I did see that this was no longer an accepted practice. On the other hand, simply because we have that knowledge does not mean we must accept it.”
Her dark eyes picked up the candlelight so little twin flames flickered in her eyes. “You are beyond all reason, Isai. You knew you shouldn’t and yet you still did.”
“You knew you shouldn’t taunt me so disrespectfully and yet you still did,” he retaliated, refusing to take all blame.
“A war of words is not the same as putting your hand on someone. Especially someone you care about. Child or woman,” she informed him in her most chastising voice.
“That is what they teach you now, little mage, but what of the child who refuses to stay away from the water when he cannot swim? Or he runs out in front of a car, disobeying your orders to stay out of the street? How do you treat the unruly child who refuses to listen?”
She flung her hands into the air. “You are making me crazy. Crazy. I’m trying to make things right between us, but you are insisting on remaining that man from a distant century. Maybe spanking a child because a saber-toothed tiger might eat him would be appropriate, but we’re long past those dangers.”
“Drowning and getting hit by a car are equally as dangerous as getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Your argument has no merit.”
He liked that she wanted to make things right between them. Still, he had to disappoint her. He didn’t want to, but he needed to let her know the risk. “Julija, I think it is a good thing that you reach out and befriend Elisabeta. She needs that, and I think you do as well. Unfortunately, you have opened yourself up to Sergey’s scrutiny. He will be looking for the mage powerful enough to reach the woman he claims as his own.”
She frowned, her dark eyebrows pulling close to each other. “He can’t claim her. She isn’t his. He had no right.”
“No, he did not. As you well know, many people turn ugly for various reasons. Money. Power. Sex. Whatever the reason. They want something others have. Sergey and his brothers didn’t want to follow the prince. They felt they