"No one could have foreseen this." Dragomir all but growled it.
The others echoed the sentiment, absolving him, but did it really matter? There was no absolution. He had allowed her to go into a situation alone and unprotected. There was no feeling better about it, no loss of guilt or anger or fear. Terror. It was there. Grabbing him by the throat and crushing him under its weight. He couldn't lose her. Not now. Stay with me. Stay for me. I need you, Charlotte.
Tariq waved a hand and opened the soil, giving himself plenty of room. He floated, Charlotte cradled in his arms, down into what appeared to be a double grave at least eight feet deep. The minerals sparkled when the faint lights on the ceiling overhead illuminated the dark loam. Up on the decks above the soil, the Carpathian hunters formed a circle around the opening and began to chant. Hand and arm movements were coordinated, reversing what Vadim had done centuries earlier.
Charlotte tried. For him. He felt it. The rising of her spirit just briefly. The smallest of flickers, and then her light faded.
Tariq didn't waste any time. He sank his teeth into Charlotte's neck, that pulse that should have been tripping with fear, but was barely there. He took her blood fast. She didn't feel the bite or the drawing, so he didn't try to soften the effects. He just took enough for an exchange, watching her the entire time.
Her eyelids were so fragile, almost transparent under the fog of ice, eyes moving continually behind them. Her lashes were long and thick, lying in twin crescents against her pale skin. She shuddered. Labored for breath. Wheezed. He reached for her spirit even as he drank, surrounding that small fading light so that she couldn't escape him. His blood didn't warm her body as it should have. He'd encased the splinter, making certain it couldn't break free, but it was using her bone marrow as a resource to continue to infect her.
Between the splinter and the safeguards, Charlotte was in trouble. The moment he'd taken enough blood, he swept away his clothing and used his fingernail to tear a laceration over his chest muscles. Immediately he cupped the back of her head in his hand and pressed her mouth to the ruby beads bubbling up. Drink, sielamet. Drink for both of us. He pushed command into his voice, cursing that he'd allowed her to stay too long in the tunnels. She had no sense of time passing there, but he'd known she was getting close to her limit. He hadn't banked on Vadim's safeguards from centuries earlier, working to destroy her.
Her mouth barely moved. He scowled and pressed her closer, taking her mind from her, uncaring in that moment that he might have to face her later if she objected. Ruthlessly he forced compliance, even when her body was far too tired to obey. She had no other choice than to do exactly as he commanded. Her mouth began to move against him, drawing out the vital blood that would sustain her life and ensure that nothing would take her from him. Hot rich blood that would fill her organs, heat and reshape them. Change her. Transform her. Save her.
Don't let it be too late. Let me have her.
While she fed, he removed their clothes with a simple wave of his hand and encased both of them in the rich soil, burying all but their heads so that the earth could do its job and care for her, warm her. Bring back heat into her freezing body. When he was certain she'd taken enough blood for their third exchange, he held her close, using his own body heat, slipping into her body with his spirit to facilitate her body's ability to bring her temperature up.
Inside her, he found . . . ice. He'd been standing with her, his arms around her. The other Carpathian hunters had been touching her--hands on her--but they couldn't go where she led. It had happened so fast. Without warning. They could see the events unfolding in their minds, but they weren't present and couldn't know that Vadim had woven so foul a safeguard. The memories held in the wood took Charlotte with them back to wherever they were born. That journey was dangerous, and if she stayed too long, she was without the ability to stay warm. The safeguard was simple enough in that it played on the weakness of the recipient. Already cold, Charlotte became freezing. More, the woven spell compounded the effect, twisting the internal organs into icy, frozen lumps.
The chants of the Carpathian males rose and Blaze joined them, standing beside her lifemate, Maksim, her voice adding a feminine note to the deeper voices rising in an effort to save Tariq's lifemate. Val Zhestokly arrived, looking pale and even staggering a little, the signs of torture still very evident on his body. He wasn't alone. To Tariq's horror, Liv was with him, holding his hand. Standing on the very edge of what to the child had to look like a grave. Tariq closed his eyes. This was going to be bad. So bad.
16
Taking a deep breath, Tariq opened his eyes to look at the child. "Csecsemo--baby--you cannot be here. This could go very, very wrong."
"I would not have brought her if the message was not important, ekam--my brother," Val said, his voice rusty and without any emotion.
Tariq sighed. "You understand this is going to be bad. We could lose Charlotte."
Liv stared down at him with her haunted eyes, shaking her head. "Emeline said to do exactly what you're thinking. She does need all of us. Every single one of us. I told the others to help. Emeline said it's the only way to save her, Tariq, and we need her. We need you. None of us will survive without you."
He groaned softly, smoothing back Charlotte's hair. "Don't say that, Liv. You have Danny, your sisters and Emeline. You have Val. The connection is strong between you. He woke at your call."
A shudder ran through Charlotte's body when she'd lain as if dead. A block of ice in his arms. No longer shivering. Her spirit merely a faint, flickering light he'd surrounded and kept from moving down the tree of life. He whispered to her. In her mind. In her ear. Softly. Lovingly. Letting her know she wasn't alone.
I am with you always, sielamet. Keeper of my soul. Of my heart. Where you go I will follow.
A frown flickered over her face. Her eyes moved back and forth behind her eyelids. A small shake of her head. Children. They were there in her mind, a worry that they couldn't do without him.
I cannot survive your passing with honor, Charlotte. He gave her the stark truth. I must follow or become the very thing I have hunted for centuries. Dishonor. Forcing his fellow hunters to find and destroy him. He was ancient. Experienced in battle. They would have trouble, and he could as easily kill them as they could him. The idea . . . He shook his head. I go where you go, sielamet. Always.
"Tariq, we can save her," Liv reiterated. "I know we can. Emeline knows things. She sent for me. She said you know what to do. We have to band together. One mind. All of us. We can do it."
"Csecsemo, she must go through the conversion. It is . . . difficult. I cannot take away the pain and she is very weak. It is not good for you to be here, to see this."
Liv stuck her chin out, her fingers wrapped around Val's hand so tightly they were white. "I know I'm ten. I know that, but I have gifts, and I know what is truth in someone's mind when I touch them. I know what is in Emeline's. She sees reality in dreams and she told me. She told me to run and get Val. She said to tell you that you were right to call everyone in even though it feels wrong. She said modesty or bravery isn't important, just easing the conversion for her. You were right all along in your thinking for the children. She said that all the Carpathians and I needed to connect our minds with yours. Charlie needs to be in the soil, just like you have her. She said, 'Hold on to her, Tariq.' And then she said this is how to convert the others and me--all of us together--and you were the one who knew it; you were just afraid of losing any of us, but it has to be done."
He'd lost control of his woman and she was dying. Now, he'd lost control of his child. Little brave Liv. Ten years old. She could already hear everything on the telepathic common path they all used. She was old beyond her years and far too young for the terrible things that had happened to her. Things he couldn't prevent.
He had to trust Emeline to know what she was talking about. He had to believe that she would never risk Liv. Never. She was trying to save the child as well as Charlotte,
although he would have preferred she come herself or talk to Amelia. He glanced up at Maksim.
Maksim raised an eyebrow, but Blaze nodded several times. "Emeline would never tell Liv to be here if it wasn't important, Tariq."
He didn't understand why Liv had to be a witness, but Charlotte's body suddenly writhed in his arms and he could think only of saving her. The soil kept her from moving or thrashing, but the wave of pain was so sudden, so intense, he was certain of its own accord her body would have curled into the fetal position. He turned her on her side, his arms holding her against him, the soil packed tightly to hold her fragile body in place while the blood reshaped her organs and got rid of the toxins.
All along, Tariq had been trying to think of a way to aid the children in their conversion. He'd thought of--and discarded--several ideas, but his mind kept returning to the idea of all the Carpathians together aiding the children as the conversion took place. They were far more powerful as a whole. No one had thought to try it.
A male turned his lifemate, and it was a grueling, difficult process, and most females would find it objectionable for any other to see them so vulnerable. Naked, sick, in most cases convulsing. Stripped of all dignity. No woman would want anyone to see her like that and no man would want that for her. Still, the idea, no matter how many times he'd dismissed it, kept coming back to him because it was logical. Together, they were extremely powerful.
Tariq would do anything to spare his woman pain. Even sacrifice her dignity. Now, when her life was at stake, he had no other option. He had to have the others there, and if Emeline had dreamt this was a success because the others were present, then he'd take that flicker of hope and hold on to it.
Pain slammed into Charlotte's body, nearly crushing her under its weight. He could feel it through her. Excruciating. Robbing her of breath. Of mind. Of focus. For a moment he wavered. How could she take this? How could any of them? A ten-year-old child, let alone a three-year-old.
The chanting swelled in volume and then the others poured into Charlotte through him, a lifeline like no other. Tariq was shouldering as much of the pain as possible for her and surrounding her spirit at the same time to keep her from traveling too far from them. The others took small portions of the pain, bites out of it until there was very little left for Charlotte to bear. Her body writhed and contorted under the onslaught of the conversion, but the soil gently held her along with Tariq. When her body expelled the toxins, the earth quickly absorbed them and whisked them away from her, leaving her clean.
Still, even with the power and coordinated efforts of all the Carpathians present, the healing chants and the unexpected, even shocking boost of Liv, Danny and Amelia, Charlotte continued to fade. They kept pain from her, but the toll on her body from Vadim's icy safeguard and the presence of the splinter in her body were impossible for them to counteract.
Holding her to him, Tariq realized he had no choice but to do something about that splinter. Vadim might not be able to go after her red blood cells, caged as he was, but the subtle influence was there. That influence was killing her body. She was already slipping away from him. Regardless of the danger, he had to take the chance.
Dragomir, she is still fading. Vadim's splinter remains within her. I think together we could extract it. I warn you, it will fight us.
He needed Dragomir to know they were in for the fight of their lives. As soon as the cage around the splinter was released, Vadim would do his worst. He would sense his prey was weak and would strike hard with everything he had at his disposal. To rid her body of the splinter in the middle of the conversion was madness, but Tariq had to go with his gut. Emeline had reminded him of that by sending her message through Liv.
It is too dangerous. We should wait.
We have to do it now. He's attacking her. If we don't stop him he will win this battle in the end. We will successfully convert her with very little pain, but she will die. He put conviction in his voice. In his mind. He knew he spoke the truth. He was a good enough healer to get by, but not like Dragomir was reputed to be. Tariq would rather have waited for a Daratrazanoff, one of a line of legendary healers, but he had run out of time.
You hold your woman to you.
Unexpectedly it was Siv who intervened, a man much like Dragomir. He had also been in the monastery, a place where very ancient hunters retreated when all was lost to them. No memories. No emotion. No color. Not even the whisper of temptation. After centuries of hunting vampires, they believed it was cowardice to seek the dawn so they withdrew into the monastery to protect humans and Carpathians alike. Siv had left half a century before Dragomir, probably around the same time Val had left.
I will aid Dragomir while you hold her spirit in your hands.
The unexpected offer was humbling to Tariq. Like anyone else, he was uneasy in the presence of the three legendary hunters. Any male wearing the tattoo art of the monastery was unpredictable and extremely dangerous. He had welcomed them as hunters, as brethren, but he watched them closely.
I will add my strength to my brothers'. That was Val.
I will safeguard them and you while Maksim's woman and the others shoulder her pain, Nicu said.
There it was. Solidarity. What it meant to be Carpathian. They were far from the mountains of their birth. Far from their prince and his power. Still, they stood together as they always had in times of trouble. Protecting their women and children.
I will hold in mind the safeguards woven around the splinter to cage it in. Take great care that he doesn't attack one of you, Tariq cautioned.
Dragomir made a sound. A single note of disgust that spoke volumes. He had known the Malinov family--not Ruslan and his brothers, but their parents. Clearly he didn't think much of them or the threat they presented, and that was what worried Tariq the most. If those from the monastery, locked away while the world had changed so drastically, while their enemies had changed, underestimated the danger, they could fall. Tariq knew they used the ancient method of sharing information to catch up on everything they had missed over the lost time. All Carpathians did so, but the intricacies of technology, of the sophisticated weapons man had developed, the monitoring systems, the dangers of cell phones and cameras, all would be difficult for an ancient to understand overnight.
All the while Tariq held Charlotte close, feeling the shudders and contortions of her body, holding her waning light to him beneath their blanket of mineral-rich soil. I am with you, sielamet. Do not try to stray too far from me. You will feel the others enter. The light will be powerful. They are coming to aid you, to remove all trace of Vadim from you. He didn't want her to fear the others, and he knew it was a huge thing to her to get rid of any part of Vadim. Knowing that they were removing the shadow from her might help to keep her with him.
Her light had moved inches downward, journeying away from her body, bumping into the circle he'd created to contain her. I am with you, he whispered again. Softly. Intimately. Into her mind. Stay with me, Charlotte. With us. We need you. All of us.
Dragomir was so powerful that when he entered, pure spirit, it felt like an invasion. A takeover. More, his spirit wasn't pure light as all healing spirit was. Tariq had never witnessed a spirit so ravaged. It was more streaks than solid. More ivory than white, and that ivory was stained and worn.
Siv entered next and like Dragomir's, his presence was an intrusion of sheer dominance. His spirit was no longer white and solid, but a mix of silver streaks and white light.
Val was last to enter. His entry was slow and there was a brief flash of pain he couldn't prevent the others from feeling as he shed his body to become spirit. Like those of the other two from the monastery, Val's spirit was a different color than expected, more an antique gold, not in the least bright, but tarnished gold, with dark streaks running through the light.
Tariq had nothing to reference such spirits by, so again, he had to go with his gut and believe that all three were there to aid Charlotte before all else. He gathered her closer to him an
d felt the heat as they swept through her body, paying attention first to every organ, ensuring her body was accepting the conversion, and then speeding the process along.
The three lights, ivory, silver and gold, moved toward her rib cage and the barrier Tariq had constructed around Vadim's splinter. Ivory took the center, facing the splinter fully, while gold went to the left and silver to the right. They studied the situation carefully as they began unweaving Tariq's safeguards.
The splinters attack the red cells, Tariq reminded them. Charlotte had sent them the information on the common path, but he had found out before, when he was first examining the splinter's destructive path.
He has made himself a killing worm traveling throughout the ages. I have seen this done by a mage, but no Carpathian has ever done so. Dragomir's voice was mild, a deference to Charlotte's failing body.
These vampires have mixed with mages. That was Siv. He, too, spoke softly, including Charlotte on the common path.
We grew up with Xavier's father. He knew more than his son could ever know, Val said. His voice hitched just that little bit but enough for Tariq to know the out-of-body experience was costing him.
His name was Alycrome. As he reassured Charlotte, Dragomir and the other two hunters continued to take down the safeguards around the splinter. He had no problems teaching those of us who liked to learn. I sat at his knee when I was no more than four. I was but twenty when he showed us how to splinter off and send pieces of who we were into others.
Siv took over the instruction, murmuring all the while they spread healing light throughout Charlotte's body and yet still kept patiently taking down the layered safeguards.
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