Liv was now in bed, Mary singing softly and Donald sitting on the opposite side, holding Liv’s hand. Even as she drifted off, there were tears on her face.

I should be there with her, Charlotte reiterated, and her voice broke.

That little catch in her voice made his heart hurt. Sielamet. It won’t be much longer. We’re building something good here. I’m going to send you back to sleep and when we next wake, we can call the others to help in converting Liv. It was all he could give her. Her tears broke his heart, just as Liv’s did. The only solution was to bring Liv fully into their world. It wouldn’t change what happened to her, but it would give her other tools to deal with the trauma, and Vadim wouldn’t be able to get to her.

I would like to go on record that this paralysis thing is for the birds. Seriously, Tariq, the rest of it, even the blood thing and being in the ground, I can deal with, but not being able to move sucks. Anyone claustrophobic might have a real problem with this.

Just like that, Charlotte managed to push the harsh realities of his life away to replace them with a softness and warmth inside. With amusement. She was so perfect for him. For the children. For his fellow hunters, the ones she was a little afraid of, but still worried about and admired and respected.

You do realize it is impossible not to fall in love with you. He took his gaze from the screens and watched her face. The softness. The way she looked as if she might cry.

That’s how I feel about you.

Mary has a beautiful gift. She can sing Liv to sleep. If I could sing, sielamet, I would sing you to sleep, but I don’t have that gift.

He felt her smile, and it touched him somewhere deep inside. If it was possible to love a woman completely in such a short period of time, he was already there. He knew her intimately, inside and out, and she was everything he’d ever wanted.

Sleep now, my love. I will wake you in the soil so you can practice opening the earth and closing it over you.

I’m not certain I’m ready for that, Tariq, but I’ll try.

There it was again. One of a thousand reasons. It scared her to think about the soil closing over her head – a very human reaction – but she was willing to give it a try. For him. He saw that very clearly. But not just for him. She wanted to be independent, and she wanted to be able to take care of her children.

He added that to the already thousand reasons he’d fallen hard, and he sent her to sleep. He would wait until he was certain Liv had settled and didn’t need further aid. His greatest worry was that she would harm herself. He watched Donald and Mary slowly get up and slip out of Liv’s room, retreating back to their small cottage. They’d lived in their car so long that anything larger than the little cottage was daunting to them. They held hands all the way back to their home, strolling rather than hurrying.

The camera system was thorough, allowing him to see every square inch of his compound. He’d designed the defense system himself, working with Josef, the young Carpathian he considered a genius. He’d never actually met Josef, but they communicated regularly via computer and cell phone. The boy had ideas, a really good grasp on modern technology and how it could help living and working right in the city the way Tariq did. He liked the kid and wished he’d relocate to San Diego and help him and the other hunters track down the women in the database for psychics.

Tired, he took one last look at Liv to assure himself she was all right and down for the day. She appeared to be sleeping soundly, and then, just as he started to shut down the system, he saw her body jerk. Hard. Like a seizure. She thrashed on the bed and then sat up, shaking her head over and over, wiping her face with her hands as if trying to remove something from her skin.

His first thought was to call on the older couple again to settle her, but when Liv got off the bed, he saw her movements were jerky. Like those of a marionette. Or as if she was fighting for freedom. He’d taken her blood. He had taken that of all the children. It allowed him to know their thoughts and whereabouts at all times. It kept them safe as well as keeping the other hunters, Emeline and Blaze safe.

Tariq touched her mind very gently, always careful to be respectful. No one liked their thoughts monitored, especially a child like Liv. The moment he touched her mind, he knew she was asleep, yet fighting an unseen demon. Chaos reigned. The need to get up and go somewhere was a compulsion. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go, but she wanted away from her brother and sisters because… A low growl slipped out of his mouth. She had been directed to kill her brother. Her hand had even curled around a kitchen knife earlier but then she’d managed to turn the blade toward her own stomach and instantly the compulsion was gone, to be replaced by a stronger one. She wasn’t to harm herself.

Vadim. That answered the question as to why Liv didn’t want to sleep and whether the master vampire could reach the child as he did Emeline. They thought since she was receiving Vadim’s voice through Emeline’s dreams that he couldn’t possibly give her commands. Liv had vague, uneasy memories of dreams of the master vampire during her waking hours. She didn’t realize he was directing her to do his bidding while she slept. She just knew she didn’t want to sleep.

Donald. Mary. Liv is up again and I believe she’s sleepwalking under Vadim’s direction. You’ll need to intercept and stop her immediately.

Liv was on the move, this time leaving the house and turning away from the front gate. She looked at it several times and nodded her head, but then turned toward the main house. Was Vadim’s army out there right now? Waiting for Liv to bring down the safeguards? She could invite them in, but she’d have to get through the invisible labyrinth of corridors, and he doubted she could do so. In any case, Mary and Donald would stop her if she got close.

He felt the stirring in his mind. Donald getting out of his comfortable chair. Calling to Mary, who was in the kitchen fixing them a bite to eat.

While Liv stumbled toward the main house, he saw Emeline come out of her house and stand on her porch, looking around warily as she did each time she emerged. In the light of the sun, he could see how pale and gaunt she was. The trauma to her had taken its toll. She was a beautiful woman, by any standards, but there were dark circles under her eyes and she was so thin she shivered continuously as if she couldn’t regulate her body temperature.

Tariq swore softly in his own language. He wasn’t Emeline’s lifemate, but he felt responsible for her. More, he admired and respected her as did Maksim, Blaze’s lifemate. He was going to have to intervene soon. No matter that Emeline had asked for time; she was wasting away right in front of them. As with Liv, he would have no choice with Emeline, either.