He stiffened. His heart nearly seized. Carpathians didn’t dream. Well, as a rule they didn’t. Throughout history, a few had reported having nightmares, but no one took the phenomenon seriously. Now, his woman, the one Vadim wanted for her visions, could continue to dream after she’d been converted. He didn’t know which was more extraordinary – that she could dream or that she could reach out to him in her sleep beneath the earth.

Are you dreaming that I am in need of you? I will always be in need of you, lifemate. You are most important to me.

There was a small silence. He pictured her little frown. He found himself smiling instead of checking his body for levels of pain.

That is a good play on words, but I know you’re injured and those injuries are severe. If you allow me to wake, I can send the healer to you.

The healer will soon be on his way to me. I am sending for him. He loved being in her mind. He loved the way she thought of him. Her worry for him. He wanted to be with her. No, he needed to be with her.

Why didn’t you send for him on waking?

We have set a trap and if I call to him on the common path, everyone will know I am injured. I am needed to fight, not be bait. I took the healer’s blood, but he didn’t take mine.

She was silent a moment. He was in her mind and could feel her trying to sort out what that meant.

There must be an exchange to forge a unique telepathic link between two people. Her exhaustion beat at him. He didn’t want her to keep talking – or dreaming.

I can’t help my visions. This one was of you in a cave and you were being attacked by insects. Scorpions, I think.

He touched his legs, burning with a fire that shouldn’t have been there.

You lost a lot of blood.

The pads of his fingers found the puncture wounds in his neck. They felt raw. The rake marks down his back where talons had flayed his back open stung.

Your eyes.

His eyes hurt like hell. He touched the laceration that ran across his both eyes and his right temple.

You are not healing as you should. The earth and the ancients tried to heal you, but they cannot. I dreamt this, Dragomir. My visions are real. I know there is something that horrible vampire did to you, something you’re unaware of.

Dragomir took a deep breath and let it out. You’re dead, too. You know that, don’t you? I’ve killed you, Leon had told him. Stated it. Dragomir thought he meant no one could heal him or give him blood before the sun rose. Ancients could endure. They did endure. Even burning, the members of the brotherhood did what was necessary to save their own. Leon meant something else, something altogether different.

I need to know exactly where you are. I can reach Blaze and she can reach the healer. Tell me now, Dragomir.

They know. We set a trap. Tell him here. He sent her the coordinates. Maybe they were both wrong, but he didn’t think so. He’d never felt like this. He couldn’t move. He didn’t want to move. Lethargy had crept into his mind. His body felt like a furnace. He forced himself to lift his head enough to look down at his legs. They were swollen and blackened.

He is on his way. Her voice was soothing.

A cool breeze moved through the cavern and flowed over his face and body. How did you do that?

We are connected to each other through my vision. I can change things that have not already happened. I know where you are, I have the picture in my mind and I just added to it.

She made it sound so ordinary, as if anyone could do such a thing. His woman. Well worth the wait. Well worth all those centuries of nothing.

He knew the exact moment when the sun went down, giving the Carpathians back their world. Sandu, Andor and Ferro joined him immediately, shocked that he hadn’t risen when they had.

“Nicu and Afanasiv have gone out to hunt. When they return, we’ll go,” Andor said. “This doesn’t look good, Dragomir. I have not seen this before.”

“Leave it to Leon to actually find something no one else has done when he’s always been so lazy about everything else.” Dragomir attempted humor. “The healer is on his way. Be ready. Vadim will send others the moment they can rise. He will not want to lose Leon and his pawns.”

“Eugen escaped, Dragomir. He will go to Vadim and tell him we’re here,” Andor pointed out.

“Eventually. But he won’t want to admit he abandoned Leon. He will have found a resting place close. The dawn was breaking when he fled. There’s still a good chance Vadim will send a few others to aid Leon.” Dragomir closed his eyes, waiting. Feeling Emeline. She held the connection between them in her dream until Gary Daratrazanoff materialized beside him.

Be well, she murmured and faded from his mind.

At once he felt bereft, his mind seeking hers automatically. There was only a void where she had been. She was in the deep healing sleep of their kind – and she needed to be. He just wished he was right there beside her, his body curled around hers.

“Have you seen this before, Gary?” he asked.

The ancients retreated, all but Sandu. He waited in the shadows on the pretense of giving the healer blood should he need it. In truth, he needed to feed every bit as much as the others, but he stayed behind to protect Dragomir and the healer in case Vadim’s men got through.

“I know of it, yes.”

Which wasn’t the same thing. Along with battle experience and all the negatives Gary had endured from the ancients pouring into him, he had their healing experiences. He shed his body and entered Dragomir’s without hesitation or any thought of himself.

It took time. Time enough that outside, a battle had raged. Vadim had sent three more vampires to catch the Carpathians between Leon and his pawns and the ones Vadim ordered to fight. The ancients made quick work of them and brought blood back several times to feed Dragomir, but mostly to keep Gary from succumbing to exhaustion. He worked for hours until finally he deemed he had gotten rid of the poison that had found its way into the bones. The scorpions had stung over and over, puncturing the bone, making tiny holes. Those holes were deep and the venom went right in and spread.

It hadn’t been easy, but Gary had managed to turn the tide and rid Dragomir’s body of all venom. With ancients surrounding them, Dragomir and Gary returned to the compound, Dragomir to the healing grounds to finally lie beside Emeline. No one knew where Gary chose to sleep, and no one made the mistake of asking.

11

Emeline woke in a bed in her home. She was dressed in a soft gown, red with red roses embossed throughout the material. Before she opened her eyes, she realized she felt no pain. None. She inhaled and drew the scent of Dragomir into her lungs. He always smelled wild. Dangerous. Delicious. She would recognize that scent anywhere. Sliding both hands protectively over her unborn child, she smiled without opening her eyes.

“You’re here with me.”

“Where else would I be?” The deep timbre of his voice slid over her skin like a caress. “Open your eyes for me.” He always spoke softly. She loved the way he did that. His soft was commanding yet gentle.

She lifted her lashes, her gaze moving over him a little anxiously. She knew every wound on his body. She’d seen them in her vision. She’d experienced the battle with the vampires as if she’d been there. That world was so far removed from the one she’d been born into. She thought she was tough being a street kid, but Carpathians were on an entirely different playing field. She would never have had the courage to go there if it hadn’t been for Dragomir.

He laid his hand over hers. “Gary checked the baby, and she’s doing fine. I’m going to feed you. She needs blood every bit as much as you do.”

She winced at the word. Blood. She didn’t like the image, and she knew he used the word deliberately to get her used to the idea. She took a deep breath and sat up, looking down at the gown. “Did you do this for me?” She smoothed her hand over the silky material. “It’s beautiful. It feels beautiful.” She reached up to touch her hair. It fell in a thick braid down to her waist. “You thought of everything.”

“You’ll get used to taking my blood, sívamet. It will feel… erotic… to you.”

Her stomach did a slow somersault and a flutter started somewhere deep. Everything about Dragomir was erotic to her. His scars, the raw line across his eyes that told her he’d nearly had them taken out. The long salt-and-pepper hair that fell like a waterfall, every bit as soft as her own hair. That chest of his and his back with the tattoos drifting across muscle.