He slammed his fist through a puppet and shoved him off, uncaring that the blood was vampire enough that it burned like acid. A hybrid tried to stop him, to delay him, by swiping at him with a machete. Still not taking his gaze from Liv, Val hurtled the huge wall of muscle and flesh out of his way. Already the hybrid closest to the cage had yanked at the lock, breaking it and flinging it aside. The giant of a man reached in with his huge hands, caught hold of Liv and dragged her out of the cage.

Liv didn’t struggle. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter and lay limp while the hybrid shook her like a rag doll. He wrapped one hand around her throat, and then Val was on him, seizing his head between his hands and wrenching hard. There was an audible crack and he caught Liv before she fell to the floor.

“Keep your eyes closed, csecsemõ,” he ordered. “Pesäd te engemal.” He switched to English. “You are safe with me, kislány.” He crushed her body to his chest and began to make his way through the heavy fighting toward the door. One big hand kept her face firmly pressed to his chest while he raced through the warehouse toward the door Tariq and Dragomir had cleared. Around him the battle raged with the ferocious fury of the Carpathian ancients.

Lesser vampires snapped and postured at the Carpathian hunters, but they were out of their element and they knew it. Val didn’t bother to look at them as he took the child out of that hellhole and into the night. Whips of lightning rent the air and struck the asphalt again and again as Dragomir and Tariq cleaned the parking lot of hellhounds, vampires and tainted, venomous blood.

Charlotte stood off to one side, a bow slung over her shoulder and a sword in her hand. She looked a little worse for wear, hyssop oil all over her. She glanced up as Val strode out of the warehouse with Liv in his arms. Her face lit up, relief softening her features.

“Val, you have her.”

Tariq swung Charlotte into his arms as he and Dragomir closed ranks behind Val. They took to the sky, leaving the mop-up to the other hunters. Liv was in need of care immediately.

I didn’t get a chance to see her, Charlotte lamented. She’s hiding her face against Val. I don’t know if they hurt her physically. They certainly had harmed her emotionally. Liv was at her limit. She’d looked so small and fragile next to the hunter with his roped muscles, scars and monastery tattoos. Still, he’d looked gentle as he held the child, as gentle as a man such as Val could look.

Val says a few scrapes, but mostly they frightened her.

Tariq could hear Val whispering reassurances to Liv in their language. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if Liv understood him. She seemed able to assimilate languages fast, another gift. She didn’t answer him, remaining so silent that it worried him.

Val didn’t slow down even in the compound. He took Liv through the main house to the basement, where the mineral-rich soil was spread out and very deep. Tariq paused long enough to put Charlotte on her feet and make certain to bring the panic rooms of the other children, the Waltons and Genevieve back to the surface. If they woke from their slumber he didn’t want them frightened. Charlotte followed Val down to the basement and through the labyrinth to their resting place.

Tariq, his intention is to feed her. I don’t know how to stop him. There was panic in Charlotte’s voice. He’s having her take enough blood for an exchange.

Tariq was already on his way down and he put on a burst of speed. He entered the ring of decking overlooking the sleeping grounds. Below him, Val held Liv close to his chest, cradling her in his arms. She looked tiny and broken. Already he had opened a laceration over his heavy muscles and pressed her mouth to the drops of blood there. “Drink, csecsemõ. Take what I offer.”

“What are you doing?” Tariq demanded. “We have to make certain no harm will come to her before we convert her.”

“I keep my word, Tariq,” Val said without looking up. He pushed back the tangled silk of Liv’s hair. “She said she would live if I promised to convert her. I am keeping that promise. This is her second true exchange. When they get back to the compound, my brothers will gather and one of us will bring her fully into our world. You are her father and it is your call whether you do so or I do, but it will be done.” It was a decree, nothing less.

Tariq swore in their language. He didn’t like to be pushed into converting a child without a healer there. He knew it would take a while before one of the Daratrazanoffs arrived, so he believed he had plenty of time. The thought of harming the children kept him from bringing them fully into his world, although he knew he would have to do it. He might be her father, but a lifemate took precedence over that. It was Val’s decision, not his, and they both knew it.

“Val, she’s ten years old.”

“She’s a hundred,” Val said. “I cannot feel unless it is caring for her, not yet, but it is there, just within my grasp. I knew the first time I made the exchange with her in the tunnels, but I was so far gone that I did not acknowledge it even to myself. It is rare for a Carpathian to know before his lifemate is mature.”

He stroked her hair with gentle fingers as he fed her. Liv took his blood just as she had when they had been locked together in a cage.

“You realize what a complication this is.” Tariq had enough complications. “Liv is a child. I’m her father, and protector.”

“Now she has two protectors,” Val said. Very gently he inserted his fingers between Liv’s mouth and his chest. “Enough, csecsemõ. I must take your blood. Do you understand what that means?”

Tariq frowned down at the hunter holding the child. For the longest time she didn’t move, and he found himself holding his breath. When he tried to touch her mind, Liv had shut down. She wasn’t thinking beyond being converted. It was the only thing she thought about. Her entire being focused on that alone. He saw her head move, the slightest of nods and then entirely voluntarily, she turned her neck to allow Val to take her blood.

Tariq was first and foremost a Carpathian. He’d already claimed Liv as his daughter. He couldn’t help but be proud of the fact that she was already embracing their way of life. She had wanted to kill herself. She’d been so close to taunting the puppets into dragging her from her cage and killing her. Val had stated that he couldn’t survive without her, and even at her young age, without really knowing much about the lifemate process, she had endured those hours waiting for them to come for her. She’d trusted that they would.