God, she loved him for the way he trusted her. She loved that everything she said or did mattered to him. She wasn’t positive she’d ever fully get used to it.

She led him along the pipes through the vast kelp forest back toward the mouth of the river. Once she was there, they found the narrow opening that ran underground and connected to the river. She swam through it and then began to swim along the bottom of the river with Dragomir right behind her.

She was aware of him in the way she always was aware of him. It didn’t matter that this was a dream that she was sharing with him, her reactions to him were the same. Every single cell in her body alerted to him. She felt beautiful. She felt sexy. She felt safe. That was all new. In her previous dreams, she’d never felt any of those things – especially safe. She’d learned even dreams could be dangerous.

She showed him the arteries that ran beneath the ground. Deep canals that led all over the city, that led to the lake where Tariq had built his fortress. Those deep canals led to the underground city where she had helped to rescue the children from Vadim.

Show me the lake access.

She hesitated and knew he was aware of her reluctance. He sets traps for me.

She felt his shock. His fingers shackled her wrist, and he brought her up against him. One arm circled her waist and he tugged until her body was pressed tight to him. What do you mean, he sets traps for you? Vadim knows you dream of these waterways? This is his method of traveling beneath the city?

She nodded. I was too young to recognize the importance of hiding from him when I first dreamt of these waters. I didn’t know where they were or what the significance was. The map is in my head now, and I can draw it out. I’ve explored far more than he has. I’ve been to places all over, places that connect from one part of the ocean to vast amounts of land.

Why didn’t you tell me immediately? Why didn’t you tell Tariq?

She winced at his tone. It was a lash, and part of her felt she deserved it. Maybe she should have told Tariq, but then she wasn’t certain. She hadn’t made the connection between the pipeline and the lake. She had the underground city, but not the lake. She hadn’t realized the extent of Vadim’s empire beneath the ground.

I was a child when I accidentally discovered the kelp forest. It was a wonderland to a child without a home. A place I could escape. I dreamt of it as often as possible. When I first discovered the pipeline, I ignored it. Then I followed it. I had uncovered the catacombs, the dead suspended beneath the sea, in long rows of clear chambers beneath the pipes. It was something out of a horror film. I was around ten or eleven. I wasn’t certain it was real.

Sívamet. Just that one word of endearment. All the anger was gone from his voice, leaving it a purring caress.

She loved the sound of his voice and the way it brushed over her skin, on the inside of her mind, poured into her body.

I don’t know why I kept going back. I was drawn there. Every night I told myself I wouldn’t go, but I couldn’t stop myself. I would explore the ocean floor over and over, swim all along the pipeline, and then one day, when I was about fourteen, I saw him. He was in the chamber below the pipe. It was the first time I ever saw anyone alive. I was elated, thinking, at last someone that isn’t lying there dead. I almost came out from behind the rocks where I was hiding. Honestly, Dragomir, I’d been dreaming it for so long, I didn’t know if I made it up.

Her voice shook. She couldn’t help it. She would never forget those moments of her life. It was a dream, yet, for the first time she’d feared it was real. She’d known, as she’d walked the streets in San Diego, that just out from shore, where tourists dove and paid good money for locals to take them exploring along the kelp forests, a monster had begun to build a vast empire.

No one would have believed her had she told them. She’d tried to tell Sean McGuire, Blaze’s father, that there were vampires, and he’d told her she was having nightmares. That much was true, she couldn’t deny it, but the fact that she’d dreamt it hadn’t helped her cause.

Keep going. I need to understand.

I watched as he waved his hand and awakened a woman. I thought her dead, but she was sleeping. He smiled at her and held out his hand. Her fear was so strong it radiated all the way to me. I could feel her fear and his… delight. He needed her fear. He fed it. Amplified it and drank it in. I swear it was like an aphrodisiac to him. When he smiled again, I saw his teeth. He grabbed her and pulled her to him. She couldn’t fight him physically, but I felt her struggle. He felt it, too, and that made him ecstatic.

She shuddered and tasted fear in her mouth the way she always did when she thought of that night. She’d watched him sink his teeth into the woman’s neck and drain her blood. When he lifted his head, there was blood all over his lips and teeth. He left it there. He turned to go and then suddenly turned back and looked straight at me. I didn’t move. He strode to the glass and continued to look out. When he waved his hand, the kelp parted away from the surge, not with it. We stared at each other.

Dragomir stroked her hair, his hands as steady as his reassuring heartbeat. So he saw you. He knew what you looked like.

He was like a bloodhound sniffing my scent through the glass. He tried to force me to go to him, I could feel the pull of his commands, but I resisted. That shocked him. More, it aroused his curiosity. I don’t think many people had resisted his compulsions.

You would be correct. The fact that you were only fourteen would have really caught his attention. And you were in a dream. Controlling the dream. I can see why he searched for you.

She shivered again and pressed her face to his chest. To the steady rhythm of his heart. Her anchor. I backed up and got out of there. But I couldn’t stop going back.

He drew you back.

She bit down on her lip. Perhaps. I considered it. Eventually I began to see that he had access to so many places. I set out to find them all. Several years went by before I figured that out.

You mapped out the underground passageways, the arteries of his highway. You know where all his underground cities are. There’s more than one, isn’t there?

She nodded. When I came back from France to help Blaze find Sean’s killers, I considered going to the authorities, but of course, they would have thought me crazy, and Vadim has some sway with a few of them. He’d gotten in pretty deep with some of the crime families and was developing his own using male human psychics.

Why didn’t you tell Tariq?

I was taken to his compound after Vadim had me. I was terrified he would find out that I was pregnant. Vadim kept whispering to me that Tariq and all the other Carpathians would reject me. I was terrified to leave the compound. I knew if I left, Vadim would get me. I barely knew Tariq or any of the others, only Blaze, and I hid from her as much as possible.

Dragomir tipped her chin up. Why didn’t you tell me?

I was going to. I needed to figure out what it all meant. I can’t get that piece as much as I try. Day after day I would go out and find every passageway I could to try to find just how large his holdings were. I tried to stop dreaming at night.

He went very still. Tried? You still dreamt at night?

Sometimes, I couldn’t help it.

Did you have other encounters with Vadim?

I would see him in the dream, close it down and the next time avoid that area. So yes, there were a few encounters, but I always woke up immediately if I saw him.

Did he know about Sean McGuire and Blaze?

She didn’t like where the conversation was going. I don’t know what he knew about me, only that when we would meet in the dream there was always an exchange of something, I didn’t even know what. I just knew I could feel him before he was there, stronger and stronger after each encounter. But he never got close to me. He certainly didn’t take my blood.

You were afraid of him. He sounded matter-of-fact.

Of course she had been. Who wouldn’t be? She wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed of being afraid of a master vampire. She nodded, uncertain where he was going with his statement.

Very much. Every time I saw him, I was terrified. I kept thinking he would find a way to trap me.

But he didn’t. He let you move through his waterways. His personal highway. Emeline, he didn’t create the map, you did. He just watched you explore it all and followed you. You knew the ways to go before he did.