were powerful enough to lead the Carpathian people. It isn’t about the kind of power they perceive, but they didn’t understand that and probably still don’t.”
“Would sex be the reason for taking Elisabeta?”
“Sergey could not make her his woman, not in the sense of raping her body. He could rape her mind. He could do things to her body, but he couldn’t perform the sex act with her in the accepted sense. I know vampires have tried to do so with victims they chose to torture further before draining them of blood, but it would have killed her and Sergey knows it.”
“Then why take her?”
“Because she is pure light. Elisabeta brings him what he cannot have for himself ever again. When making the decision to become vampire, a deliberate choice, he prepared by kidnapping her and making her his prisoner. He was very clever. She gave him emotion. She kept his body from decomposing. She gave him Carpathian blood, the strongest there is. Because of Elisabeta, he could take a back seat to his brothers and plot to become emperor. No one would see him as anything but weak. No master vampire would tolerate that kind of disrespect, but Elisabeta gave him that power.”
“Will Ferro spank her if she misbehaves?” Her voice was low, and she gave him a look from her dark chocolate eyes that should have melted him. It did, but it was his heart that did the melting.
Isai burst out laughing. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Absolutely not. You’ll be hearing about it until the day you die,” she assured him.
He wasn’t touching that one. “How about we drop this argument for a while and you tell me something about yourself.” At first, he had thought to keep his distance from Julija so when he left it wouldn’t hurt so much, but for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he really wanted to get to know her. Already, everything she said and did just made him want her more. His interest was genuine, and his sincerity came through in his tone.
“I love to play the piano,” she offered without hesitation.
He lifted his head to look her directly in the eyes. Her face lit up, and her eyes went bright. Her immediate answer was the last thing he expected from her. He didn’t know why. Maybe because of all things, music brought him a semblance of peace when he was so alone. It didn’t make him feel anything, so it had never made sense, but when he heard music, everything wild in him stilled.
“The piano?” Deliberately, he provoked her. He found he didn’t like Julija subdued. He infused skepticism into his voice. “You play?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You do know what a piano is, don’t you?”
“I certainly do, but am having a difficult time believing you do. It takes discipline to master the keyboard. You do not have discipline in abundance.” The moment the words left his mouth, he felt the sting of an insect on his left cheek, low, by the corner of his mouth. He clapped his hand over what should have been a bug but was nothing but air. He glared at Julija. She sat there looking innocent. Too innocent.
“Did you just zap me?”
She lifted one hand and inspected her fingernails. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The moment the words left her mouth, she felt the smack of a hard hand on her bottom, which was impossible because she was sitting. She jumped and glared at him. “We are about to go to war.”
“You fired the first shot, little mage.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, fine, I surrender.”
He was almost disappointed. He liked sparring with her better than he should have. “I was teasing about you playing the piano,” he conceded. “You’re very . . .” He searched for the proper word. Adorable. Cute. He didn’t use words like that to describe his woman. Fiery. Passionate. Sexy. He finally settled on, “I like it, and I shouldn’t have baited you.” She looked pleased and he sighed with relief that he got something right with her.
“I actually was teasing you a little bit, too,” she admitted. “I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of liked zapping you.”
“I knew you did it.”
She looked smug. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg in case you’re rethinking our truce.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Tell me what you like about playing the piano.”