I don’t like your world, Tariq. It’s terrifying. Still, she rested her head against his heart, letting the steady beat calm her. How else could this voice be speaking to me? Can he hear what we say to each other?

Tariq didn’t answer right away. She felt the push further into her mind and it was – intimate. Heat rushed through her veins. Her body went soft against his. She pressed her face into him and consciously tried opening her mind to his, knowing he would see everything. Her thoughts. Her doubts. Every fear. Every desire. It was both humiliating and exhilarating. He would know her better than anyone else ever could.

I love who you are, Charlotte. Every single thing about you. The parts of you that make you afraid of sharing with me, I’ll handle with care. I do not see anyone else in your mind, but if I stay here with you and he speaks again, I will be able to hear.

How could he do this? she repeated. Anxiety shook her. She didn’t want anyone else in her mind. Tariq was different and she accepted his presence even though she kept admonishing herself to marshal her thoughts.

He would have to take your blood or somehow get his blood in you. You’ve been with me. No vampire could get into the compound. There are safeguards there. Strong ones. All the Carpathian hunters wove a shield in order to protect Emeline and the children from Vadim Malinov and his brother, Sergey. Vadim exchanged blood with Emeline and we believe he or Sergey did with Bella and Liv. But you?

Relief swept through her. I’ve never been near either of those two vampires. Until you mentioned them, I’d never heard of them. She took a deep breath and looked around her. Maybe I conjured up the voice because the pain and suffering in this room is so horrific my mind is playing tricks in order not to fall apart.

His hand came up to cup the back of her head, pressing her face deeper into him. You have not conjured up anything. Dragomir was correct in saying you are very sensitive. I should have taken care of you, not allowed you to come here.

She didn’t like the word allow. She just didn’t. The rest of it, okay, that was all fine, but… Strike the word allow from your vocabulary.

Instantly amusement spread throughout her mind. I’m old-fashioned. Really old-fashioned.

I’m a very modern woman and if you’ve been in my mind you know I am. I carry wasp spray in my purse just in case. That should tell you something right there.

It tells me you’re strong enough to do this, and that you want to.

Maybe want was a little strong. She glanced around the room, took a breath and then stepped away from Tariq to lay both hands on the top of the table. Screams erupted in her mind. She winced but held on. There were four victims before the man. The male Carpathian. They have such glee that they were able to capture him. They lost seven of their best men and it took eight others to take him, but now that they have him, they can drain him of blood and keep him weak. He would be the base for the experiments.

She looked up at Tariq, her heart once again pounding. “I hear his voice. The same voice speaking. Did you hear it?” she whispered to him, afraid to speak telepathically now that she recognized that the man in charge of capturing a Carpathian and torturing him there on that table and in that room was the same man speaking to her.

Tariq nodded slowly, a muscle jerking along his jaw. “I recognize that voice. That was Vadim Malinov speaking. He’s the one giving the orders to his men. Are you absolutely certain that’s the same voice you heard warning you earlier?”

She nodded and moved on now that she had identified the strange voice in her mind. “Four women came before the captured Carpathian.”

“When you tell me what happened, use the common path so the others can hear as well.”

She’d forgotten that the others could hear her through her link with Tariq. She nodded. The four women were on this table before the Carpathian hunter. They were used at first for food; several vampires took their blood on a regular basis and they hurt those women for their own amusement. And then… She broke off. She hated this. Hated what was done to those women and what came after. They raped them and impregnated them. Each of them. One at a time. They forced the women to consume a mixture of blood from the Carpathian and from the oldest and strongest of the vampires. The one called Vadim. He wants children so they can rise up with him to take control of the human fodder as is their right. Her knees were shaking. She feared she might just fall down.

Tariq wrapped his arm around her to steady her. She pressed closer to him, grateful for the support. She felt each of those women’s emotions. The terror. The horror. The need to fight back. Submission. Despair. And then pain. So much pain.

The babies. She whispered it in her mind. Sharing that with all of them. The screams of the unborn as they twisted in the womb, on fire, burning, the acid eating them from the inside out, in the same way it ate away at the mothers.

Enough, Tariq ordered. Let go.

She shook her head. We need to know what they did to that man. What they wanted from him. The head guy… vampire… whatever… likes to talk. He talked to the women constantly, taunting them, making them aware they were nothing in his eyes, only vessels to carry something he wanted. He talked when he hurt them. He talked when he raped them. He would have talked when he tortured the Carpathian.

Tariq brushed his hand down the length of her hair. The Carpathian tortured is Val Zhestokly. He was in bad shape when Blaze found him. She set him free and Emeline gave him blood. In return, he hunted with us to get her back from Vadim. He is healing at the moment.

Charlotte shuddered at the thought of what Vadim wanted to do to Emeline. Even to be close to the vampire would be horrible, let alone to have him touch you, or sink his teeth into you. She needed to visit Emeline immediately and offer friendship if nothing else. Emeline needed to know she had friends, people she could talk with.

She pressed her hand into the table, right over the large spot of dried blood. She knew it was Val’s. The man had endured far worse torture than the women. It was as though Vadim and his friends were trying to find out just how much the hunter could endure before he died. Or cried out. He never made a sound. Not one single sound. The vampires systematically cut him almost into pieces. They tore his flesh open, and he didn’t respond. Who could do that?

The torture went on for more than a year – she couldn’t tell how long, but it was a very long time. Vadim or other vampires held him in their prison, keeping him so low on blood that his body nearly succumbed from that alone, but they knew how to keep him alive. They used every torture device known, modern and ancient, to break him. He seemed unbreakable.