It was Sandu who opened the floor of Emeline’s house and showed her over and over how to open the earth and close it. He floated Dragomir down into the healing soil. Emeline managed to float down on her own but she landed a little harder than she would have preferred. Wrapping her arms around Dragomir, she filled the dirt in around their bodies, burying his head, but leaving her own outside the cover of dirt. She couldn’t quite make herself bury her body entirely.

“I can do it for you,” Sandu offered.

She shook her head, her arms tightening around Dragomir beneath that blanket of soil. Her breathing was coming too fast, her heart beating too hard.

Sandu ignored her, waving his hand to put her to sleep and then covering Dragomir and Emeline with the richest soil possible. He opened the earth above them, prepared to take on any enemy threatening them. Emeline was a Carpathian woman. Dragomir’s lifemate. She was also the vessel carrying another female child. That child held the fate of a Carpathian hunter in her hands. No one would harm her on his watch.

Spreading out beneath the house, Ferro and Andor took refuge in the soil. One to the right of Dragomir’s resting place and the other to the left. Afanasiv and Nicu slept beneath the house as well, one under the porch in the front and the other under the porch in the back.

When the sun came up, only the security company moved in the bright light of day.

14

Amelia’s so far away, none of us can reach her,” Dragomir told Emeline as he gathered her close to feed her. “Tariq is hoping you’ll try. The healer thinks she doesn’t want to come back. She knows Vadim used her to try to kill me, her sister and the other children. She knows he used her to try to reacquire you. Charlotte and Blaze have tried. Gary has tried; so has Tariq. Danny is at her bedside along with Liv, but nothing is working.”

They had to have the conversation about Dragomir imperiously preventing her from helping during the attack, but right then he sounded so distressed over Amelia that she couldn’t help reaching up to link her fingers behind the nape of his neck as she fed. He tasted delicious. Perfect. Truthfully, she was just thankful he was alive.

You throw yourself into battle without thinking of the cost to yourself, she pointed out. It’s terrifying, Dragomir. You almost died. That poisonous knife could have killed you. So many things could have killed you last night. You don’t weigh the consequences; you just do whatever it takes to save the day.

She had woken with her heart pounding and the taste of fear in her mouth. She’d been disoriented, reaching for him, afraid she’d lost him. He’d promptly proven to her that he was alive and more than well, his body moving in hers, sending streaks of fire radiating through her until she couldn’t think straight. He’d gone to feed, and in his absence, that same frightening feeling she’d woken with had consumed her. She hadn’t wanted him out of her sight, which had made her feel needy and dependent.

His hand stroked caresses down her hair, hair that she’d woken with free of tangles, he’d still brushed it – because he loved to, he’d said. She was certain it was because she loved it. She’d gone to sleep in the ground and woken in her bed. Naked. His mouth on her. His hands so gentle she’d felt the burn of tears. After, when they lay together, holding each other, he’d talked to the baby, his mouth against her stomach, sending waves of love and reassurance.

“I am a Carpathian hunter, Emeline.” His voice was as gentle as his hands had been, so at odds with the way he fought. With her, he was the complete opposite of the man she saw battling the vampires. She hadn’t found a shred of emotion in his mind when he’d been in the lake, not even for Amelia. Now, with her, he was all emotion. Gentle and thoughtful. “I hunt and destroy the undead.”

She ran her tongue over the two tiny holes in his chest, tasting those last delicious drops. She loved everything about him, everything about the way he touched her, the way he tasted, the man that he was, but she was beginning to think there was a lot about him she didn’t know. She had access to his mind, his memories, everything he was. Dragomir didn’t limit her ability to see him, not even his violent past, yet she hadn’t probed. She didn’t want to.

“I know you’ve always done that. Hunt vampires. I also know you’re a huge part of keeping everyone here safe,” she conceded, looking into his eyes. Those strange, golden eyes. “But the way you throw yourself into battle as if you have nothing to lose, as if you don’t care that you might lose your life, is terrifying to me.”

“I don’t know any other way.” He didn’t blink, and her stomach did a slow roll. He looked wild. Dangerous. All predator.

She turned his statement over and over in her mind. “What you’re saying is you will continue to battle vampires the way you’ve always done it.”

His gaze remained fastened on hers. She felt captured there, a prisoner. There was no looking away. They were locked in a battle she didn’t understand. It was as if he was holding his breath. Waiting. They stared at each other for what seemed forever.

“Dragomir, tell me.”

He was so still. Holding himself together as if at any moment he might shatter. That was so unlike him. He always had such confidence in himself. Confidence bordering on arrogance.

“There is no other way to fight the vampire and win.”

Again, his tone and expression gave nothing away. Nothing. He still waited, held himself too still, as if the axe would fall any moment. She was missing something important, something she needed to address immediately. She bit down on her lower lip, her heart beginning to beat out of rhythm with his. The moment that happened, he took her hand and pressed her palm to his chest, right over his heart.

“I need you to tell me what’s wrong.” Emeline whispered it. She did. She detested seeing him so upset. It hurt to see him so ready to believe… What? That she would be so upset with him that she would reject him? That didn’t make sense, but the nagging feeling stayed with her.

“You’re angry with me.”

“I’m not.” She wasn’t. How could she be? He’d saved Amelia, even when she told him he was her choice and even implied if he had to choose, to save himself.

“Sívamet.”

The endearment washed over her. Through her. His heart. He’d told her what it meant, and she loved when he called her that. It wasn’t just the endearment, it was the way he said it, the tone, that soft caress to his voice. He meant it when he called her that.

“You are angry with me because you think I go into battle without thinking of you and our child. You are angry with me because when I went into danger, I refused to allow you to accompany me.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but had to close it. He was right. He was so right. She hadn’t wanted him battling the vampire when he could have been killed. He’d been horribly wounded more than once. She also was angry on behalf of all women that he would lock her in a house while a battle raged outside.

“Okay, yes,” she conceded. “But I don’t understand why you’re so upset that I’m angry. It happens between two people when there is a misunderstanding.”

He shook his head, his thumb sliding over the back of her hand. “There is no misunderstanding, Emeline.” His voice was gentler than ever. Sad. There was sorrow in his eyes. “I have no choice. To come home to you, I must push you and our child from my mind and fight the way I always have. If I am divided, my thoughts with you, fear in my mind, I wouldn’t stand a chance against the undead. I know no other way.”

Her heart hurt. A physical pain. She forced air through her lungs. She wasn’t weak. She had tied herself to a man who would always be on the front line. Always determined to keep those around him safe. That was who he was. If she loved him – and she did – she had to accept that in him. She also had to accept how he kept himself safe.

She touched her lower lip with her tongue, soothing the tiny bite mark she’d made earlier. She didn’t like him throwing himself into battle with no thought for his own life, but if he said he had to fight that way to survive, then she had to find a way to accept it. He hadn’t looked away from her. Not once. She felt him moving in her mind. That was intimate, the way his mind brushed over hers, so gently, the way he touched her skin, that was the way he touched her mind.