Behind him, he heard Charlotte begin an argument with her lifemate, begging him not to allow Dragomir near the children. She feared what he might do. She should fear the repercussions of such a grave offense. It angered him that Tariq hadn’t done more than confine the children to their home. Genevieve watched over them, which to him was laughable. She had succumbed to a sleeping spell already, so the children knew they could manipulate her.

“They may decide to fight for the children,” Sandu murmured.

Dragomir glanced at him, his features set and hard. He knew every scar on his face showed, every line depicting his many battles. “You do not have to accompany me.”

“I believe you are right in what you do. More than right. I will admit I know little about the human world, but these children live in our world. That means they follow the rules. They can’t have human rules and get away with a slap on their hands when we are dealing with life-or-death matters.”

“Then what?”

“Your woman lies beneath the earth and must remain at least for the night. Possibly longer. If we start a war and must leave this place, she will remain behind.”

Dragomir shook his head. “I thought of that. If there is a war, we must be the ones to keep this place. She needs the healing soil. The one that must be taken out before all others is —”

“The healer,” Sandu said. The others nodded solemnly in agreement.

Dragomir sighed. “He is good, too good. Strong. He holds the memories of many ancients. He is programmed with the knowledge of their battles and experiences. It is a heavy weight to bear, but it also makes him a deadly opponent. Clearly he has given his protection to Tariq. I think Tariq makes a good leader and is needed here, but those children are his weakness.”

Dragomir led the way outside and went straight to the side of the house where the cracks had been strategically placed in the wooden walls to allow the Carpathians to call down lightning when it was needed. He crouched low and sniffed the air, the wood and the dirt surrounding the flower beds. Flowers had wilted, some stalks yellow and drooping. The signs of lightning were right there, right where he was scenting that elusive odor he knew he’d caught just before the first lightning strike. The person who had given Vadim control when safeguards would have kept him out had stood right there, staring into the healing grounds, seeing Emeline, seeing him. She had allowed Vadim, aided him in attacking Dragomir’s woman. His lifemate. His child. This girl would pay.

Tariq had called the children out of their house and they came slowly, holding hands, looking both guilty and remorseful at the same time. Tariq and Charlotte stood to the side of the play yard where the children had gathered to hear what Tariq had to say. Dragomir strode into the center, between Tariq and the children, shocking them. Alarming them.

Danny stepped forward, pushing his youngest sister, Bella, toward the fourteen-year-old girl, Amelia. “Thank you for saving out lives, Dragomir. We know we messed up. We wanted to fly the dragons and we should have waited until Tariq said it was okay.”

Dragomir crooked his finger at the boy. Danny glanced at Tariq, but Tariq remained stoic. The boy shuffled forward a few steps, putting himself in jeopardy.

Maksim and the healer are behind us. Tomas and Lojos to our right. Mataias is to your left. I do believe they have us boxed in, Sandu said.

“Tariq, if you do not want a war, send your guardians elsewhere,” Dragomir said. “We can keep this to the finding of our traitor, or we can make it something else altogether.”

Tariq frowned and lifted his head, looking left and right as if seeking. “I didn’t ask them to attend. You were invited to this compound and I have not rescinded that invitation, nor do I intend to. You are needed here, as are the others. Vadim has declared war and we have to stop him. You are well within your rights to demand punishment for the children. They did open us up to an attack, and that could have ended badly. More, all of us want to find the traitor. That’s imperative. I trust that you will remember these are my children. As you love Emeline and your daughter, I love these children. I also know they must learn what their actions could have caused.”

Dragomir respected the man even more. Tariq was a born leader, a diplomat, but he was a hunter through and through. He understood language and words. He understood that by giving Dragomir carte blanche to punish his children, he was also tying his hands – just a little.

Danny straightened his shoulders and crossed the cement patio to stand right in front of Dragomir. “I lead my family, my sisters. If one of them did something, I will take the responsibility for it and the punishment.”

A collective gasp went up from the girls. Ten-year-old Liv shook her head and ran toward her brother. “It was me. I did it. I opened the safeguards so we could fly the dragons.”

Even as she stumbled over the last words of her confession, Dragomir waved a casual hand toward the child and she stopped in her tracks. She looked horrified. Terrified. The air shimmered for a moment and then a man materialized beside her. Valentin Zhestokly stood to the right and one step in front of the child, his body shielding hers. He didn’t say anything, but he looked grim. Liv ducked her head, not looking at him or Dragomir. She looked as if she might burst into tears any minute.

Dragomir knew the expression on the child’s face – one of absolute remorse – should have moved him, but it didn’t. Emeline’s silent cries were in his head. The sound of the baby screaming in helpless pain echoed through his mind.

“I accept that you are responsible for opening the safeguards and allowing the evil into the compound,” Dragomir told her. “You knew what you were doing, didn’t you?”

She nodded, lifting her head up so she could look him in the eye. “I did.”

“You knew that the vampires waited outside the compound.” He made it a statement. The children had laughingly referred to their new home as their prison. They had a roof over their heads, food day and night, playgrounds, movies, every luxury Tariq could give them, and every pleasure, including swimming in the lake.

Liv looked confused. “I didn’t think they could get here so fast. There were so many. They were everywhere.”

“Did you know that we lost two members of our security force?” Dragomir was relentless.

Danny turned as if he might help his younger sister, but Dragomir waved his hand and, like Liv, the teenager couldn’t move forward or back.

Charlotte gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth, looking toward her lifemate. Tariq shook his head at something she said telepathically, but he didn’t protest.

“Those men had families.”

Valentin placed a hand on Liv’s shoulder, but he didn’t do other than that. Dragomir admired him. The man knew what Dragomir planned. It was a tactic they often used with Carpathian children.

He waved his hand again and replayed the screams of the unborn child. “This is my daughter. Vadim is torturing her and she is yet to be born.” He allowed her to hear the cries of the families of the two men killed in their defense. “These people, mother and father, wife and children, will never hold their loved ones again.”

Tears streamed down the child’s face, but she remained standing, looking at him. Waiting. Knowing. He gave it to her then. “My lifemate, suffering the pain of what he did to her.” He allowed Emeline’s screams, the ones she kept so silent, to be heard by Liv. Then he did what all Carpathian ancients had done before him. He played out the scenarios of what could have happened: Emeline being taken. Danny, Amelia, Bella and Lourdes dead on the ground in front of her, their dragons dead or dying from the many wounds inflicted on them. The sounds of the battle, the screams of the children, explosions, fire, chaos reigning. She saw it all. He made certain Danny and Amelia saw it as well. Only the three-year-old was spared.

The three children sobbed, eventually putting their hands over their ears to try to block out the sounds of what nearly had happened.

“Do you understand now?” Dragomir asked Liv. “Do you know why the rules are in place? The elders don’t put them there just to hoard their power. The rules keep everyone safe.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Amelia burst out, tears tracking down her face. “Those things didn’t happen.”