“I’m going to put my hand on the horse and scan it before you touch it,” Tariq said. “I don’t want to take a chance that another sliver could enter your body. The healer has been sent for but it may be some time before he can come.”

“Let me,” Dragomir said.

When the Carpathian spoke, Charlotte couldn’t help the little shiver that went down her spine. He spoke quietly, his voice pitched low, but that tone went straight into one’s body and mind. It was as if he could get inside a person, into their skin and bones and just take over. It was frightening, his voice, frightening yet very, very compelling. She wasn’t the only one to feel it. These men were not led. She knew that. Not a single one of them, yet they all looked at Dragomir with respect. Warily, but with respect.

“It is my duty,” Tariq said, his voice equally low. Not asking. Simply stating.

Dragomir shook his head. “Your first duty is to ensure your lifemate’s health and survival. Her safety. If this thing is cursed in some way by Vadim and his brothers, then you cannot chance being infected.”

The others nodded in agreement. Dragomir waited, and that told Charlotte he was equally respectful of Tariq. Tariq stepped away from the carousel, taking Charlotte with him. Dragomir, without hesitation, closed in on the horses and chariots. His larger body stood between her and the carousel deliberately. The other hunters pressed closer as well, forming a protective ring around her.

“The wood splinters the moment you touch it,” Charlotte dared to warn him.

He didn’t look at her. Not even a glance. Before, Charlotte thought the horses and chariots beautiful, artistic and historical. She had felt a compulsion to touch them, to run her hand over the flowing lines of the wild manes and stroke the smooth backs right to the long artistry of the tails. Something inside her had urged her forward, to take that step and touch. To feel. To sit on them. To be part of history.

Now, with the Carpathians standing with her, their dangerous power harnessed for her, she could look at the carousel and see its historical value, feel the pull of the beauty of such intricate carvings from hundreds of years earlier, but the need to touch them wasn’t so strong.

“I think that whatever was done to this carousel called to the splinter inside of me,” she admitted aloud. Instantly she wished she’d kept her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself. Every single male in the room focused on her again. She’d just been able to breathe, and now that single-minded concentration was back, their attention once more on her. “I felt it, a need to touch the wood when I was close,” she continued, because really, now that she’d started, it needed to be said. To protect Dragomir and the others.

“I feel no such drawing,” Dragomir assured. He ran his hand just above the horse and then the chariot next to it, shaking his head. “There is power here. Blood.”

He remained totally expressionless. His tone gave nothing away. His eyes were blank and cold as if he was no longer a man. He scared the hell out of Charlotte, sadly, more than Fridrick did. She detested that she felt that way about the hunter, but unlike with Lojos, Tomas and Mataias, who were as expressionless as Dragomir, she felt there was no redemption for Dragomir. He was too far gone. Too wild. Not vampire exactly, but something else, something not human, not Carpathian, but far too powerful for his own good.

“Can you touch it without danger?” Tariq asked.

Dragomir dropped his hand to the horse, smoothed his palm over the back to the tail. “This blood shrinks from me. It gathers together deep inside the wood, where it tries to hide from me, but I feel it.”

“Can you remove it?” Charlotte couldn’t prevent the hope in her voice. If he could, they could save the carousel.

He shook his head, crushing her hopes. “I believe if you wish to try to track Vadim it will be safe if all of us weave safeguards and hold the blood in the center of each of these objects.”

There was no doubt in her mind that Dragomir and the others could do it if he said so. He wouldn’t risk her. He wouldn’t risk Tariq. Whatever code of honor he lived by, and it was different from that of the others – that was certain – he believed in protecting lifemates.

“It’s up to you, Charlotte,” Tariq said, giving her the choice.

She loved that he left it up to her – and she detested it as well. She wanted to step right up to the carousel, to show courage, but to relive the terrible moment when Tariq realized the Malinov brothers had deliberately chosen to give up their souls and they had attacked the village where he stayed, killing the people he knew, would be terrible. Still. For Emeline. For Liv. For all of them. This had to be done.

Charlotte squared her shoulders, deliberately took a deep breath and drew Tariq deep into her lungs for courage. “We need to track him.”

“I’ll be with you,” Tariq said in a soft, quiet voice that always stunned her. Took her somewhere else. Wrapped her up and kept her safe.

She didn’t want him with her. She didn’t want him to have to relive his terrible past, some of the worst moments of his life; this time, he’d be able to feel. Through him, so would the others. She would cause that. Without thinking she shook her head. “No, just let me do this alone.” She stepped toward the carousel.

Tariq stepped with her, keeping her locked to his side, his grip unbreakable, his face set in stone. His eyes held hers and he slowly shook his head. Simultaneously, Dragomir, Siv, Lojos, Tomas and Mataias growled. The two others as well. Growled. Like wild animals. Her gaze jumped from Tariq to their faces. Maksim and the others crowded closer to the carousel, clearly not approving of her plea.

“Fine.” She wanted to pretend she capitulated to appease them, but she knew she really had no choice. They weren’t going to allow her to do this alone.

“Are you ready, sielamet?” Tariq asked, his lips against her ear, brushing so that he was kissing her even as he asked her.

She loved that about him, the little intimate gestures he made. She looked around at the men, all of them, even Dragomir, and she went from being afraid of them to feeling protected. They were predatory, but that danger was for someone else, never her.

“I’m ready. I have to focus. I need to…” She tried to step away from him, but his arm locked her in place, a steel band around her waist.

“Not without me.”

She had to rethink how she was going to do this. If she was going to track Vadim, she had to do so delicately, without thinking about Tariq or the cost to him. Or to the others. Her touch would have to be ultralight. She closed her eyes and blocked out everything but the thought of the carousel. How old it was. The historic value. How much she loved the past and the wonderful opportunity her gift gave her to visit that past and learn about the people who had carved such beautiful horses and chariots for others.