The vile little parasites sickened Dragomir. He found himself pushing emotion away. He hadn’t remembered how feeling could be both a blessing and a curse. The longer he worked, the more he felt for the child and the more he didn’t want to leave her alone. He had no idea how much time had passed but he was only a third of the way through her heart when light edged along the outside of it.

He wanted to protest as Gary moved through the tiny child. She was barely there, just developing, but the healer had no emotion, no sympathy. He was what Dragomir needed to be. Still, even knowing that, even knowing the child had to be vetted to discover whether she was a potential weapon Vadim could use, Dragomir wanted to stop the healer from examining the baby. It took a tremendous amount of discipline to stay still and let the Carpathian do what he needed to protect the others.

We must return to our bodies and be replenished.

The healer’s light was dim, his voice the same, but there was a single weary note in it. Dragomir couldn’t let himself think about exhaustion. It was wrenching sliding back into skin and bones, the pain overwhelming. It took seconds to block it out, but those seconds were pure hell. He breathed through them, his head down, his body slumping against the back of the couch Emeline rested on.

“Dragomir.”

Just his name. Her voice was breathless. Filled with tears. He knew he must look like hell. He’d been maintaining a façade, making certain the repairs the healer had made looked far better than they were. Several of his wounds had been extremely severe, bordering on deadly. He was almost desperate for blood. He needed an ancient. One from the monastery. He had a long way to go before he was finished. Even with Maksim and Blaze donating, it wasn’t going to be enough.

He lifted his lashes to stare into the healer’s strange eyes. Such a mixture. The blue was light, almost silver. Strange. Disconcerting. Eyes that saw far too much. Gary’s skin was so pale it looked almost translucent. The ancient shook his head and turned toward the wrist Maksim held out to him.

“Dragomir?” Blaze held out her wrist.

He took her wrist politely, his mind reaching for the one ancient he’d known as a young man. Afanasiv Balan was close. Others nearby included the triplets – Tomas, Lojos and Mataias – and Nicu Dalca as well. Valentine Zhestokly was gone. Dragomir could recall him, but not soon enough. He had known the men on and off over the centuries, but he wasn’t as close to them or as sure of their support as that of those in the monastery. None of those that had been in the monastery with him were sworn to the existing prince.

He needed the men who would have his back no matter what Carpathian politics were at present. Sandu had been in the monastery nearly as long as he’d been there. He had followed Dragomir to the States and was somewhere close by. Where some said Dragomir had ice in his veins, Sandu was thought to have fire.

I have immediate need, Sandu. A war is coming and my lifemate and I are at its center. He sent the call on their private path. He politely closed the laceration on Blaze’s wrist, afraid of taking too much blood from her.

“She is holding strong, Emeline,” he said aloud, turning his head to look up at her. She looked so scared he took her hand and tugged until she tumbled into his lap. His arms closed around her. “The healer examined her as did I.” Ferro, I have need of you. Ferro was a question mark, but he was close and his loyalty would be to those of the monastery. Ferro was the tallest of them, with wide shoulders and strange, iron- and rust-colored eyes. He rarely spoke and was a man few ever challenged. Dragomir couldn’t recall a single time over the centuries that Ferro had been defeated in battle. I have found my lifemate and we are in great danger.

He waited for Gary’s verdict, knowing the healer would tell the absolute truth about the child. As much as he wanted to protect Emeline and the baby, he couldn’t risk allowing Vadim to gain any foothold in the compound – or have any power over Emeline.

“I examined the child,” Gary said.

The moment he spoke, all eyes were on him. Emeline put both hands over her womb. Dragomir covered her hands with his as if they could protect the child from Gary’s findings. Emeline leaned her head back against Dragomir’s shoulder and pressed her lips against his ear.

“If you cannot save her, be merciful when you do it.”

Not the healer. She expected him to be the one to end the child’s life. He already thought of the baby as theirs. Emeline’s child with him – not Vadim.

“Have no worries,” Gary said. “It will take time. You must be patient, but her brain shows no abnormalities. We can continue to check, but both of us examined her carefully. We still have much work to do.”

Andor. If you hear me, I have great need of you. There is a war coming. If the healer could drive out the parasites from mother and daughter and replace their blood with that of ancient Carpathians, Vadim would be wild with rage. I have found my lifemate and we are in great danger. Reach out to Petru and Isai and Benedek.

“Are you saying you think you can drive out Vadim’s servants? You can keep him from hurting her?” Emeline asked.

“We are hoping to keep him from harming either of you.” Dragomir looked up at Maksim. “I have sent for ancients, men from the monastery. Their blood is…” He shrugged. “Should they come, please let them in. They will watch over us while you and your lifemate attend to the young girl.”

“Amelia,” Emeline supplied. “Blaze, check her closely. Take her away from the men and ask her if they did to her what Vadim did to me. Something terrible happened. She came to talk to me a few times. She claimed she was talking to Charlotte and it helped, but I don’t believe her. I don’t think she told them the truth. Let her know that Gary and Dragomir can help her. Or Tariq and Gary.”

“You think they might have done something like this to her? Impregnated her?” Blaze was clearly shocked. “She’s fourteen.”

“Age wouldn’t matter to a vampire,” Gary said. “They are incapable of feeling emotion. More than likely, she was terrified. Her terror would have given them the rush they needed. They feed on the fears of others. That’s why they torture before they kill. If she was very, very scared, they would have tried just to increase her fear.”

Blaze looked at her lifemate. He touched her cheek gently. “Go, o jelä sielamak, see to her. The moment the others come, I will aid you.”

Blaze nodded once, leaned down to brush the top of Emeline’s head with a kiss and hurried out. Maksim looked after her and then sighed. You realize, Dragomir, that many Carpathians may reject the idea of a child with any DNA from the Malinovs.

I am very aware. Dragomir knew he sounded grim. He felt grim. He was preparing to go to war with his kind, should they try to harm his lifemate or her child. He would have destroyed the baby if it was in any way evil, but it was innocent. She is female and has only light in her. Vadim couldn’t twist the child into something he could use as his tool.

Dragomir turned his head to study Gary. The Carpathian looked utterly impassive. He had traveled great distances, something that had to have worn him out, but it didn’t show on his face. He had taken part in the battle to drive the vampires out of the compound, yet that didn’t show, either. He’d spent hours healing Dragomir and more with Emeline, yet he simply sat waiting.

The Daratrazanoffs were a line of warriors with a connection to the prince’s line. They always acted as second-in-command to the prince. They were renowned as fighters and healers both, a natural balance that aided the Carpathian people when one was near. Gary had been human, which meant that to be accepted as a true Carpathian, he would have been taken to the sacred caves where the spirits of the ancestors could be called. To bring him fully into their world, he had to die and be reborn, his soul split in half at that moment of rebirth. Somewhere in the world a child had been born with his other half.

Dragomir couldn’t imagine what it would be like to carry the burdens of all those ancients that had come before him. Men battle scarred and weary. Men who had never found their lifemates. It was bad enough to carry one’s own burden, but to take on the burdens of so many? He would be the age of the oldest of the Daratrazanoffs. He would know every single skill and fragment of knowledge each of those warriors possessed. That in itself could be a tremendous burden.