Dragomir could see creatures climbing out of the black, shiny water. Some shot out of the water into the sky. Matt and his team took aim from the relative safety of the blinds hidden throughout the compound. They could move freely to and from them via the tunnels Tariq had created for them.

Don’t go in the water, Tariq cautioned. I have a surprise for Vadim’s army.

Tariq spotted Vadim emerging, a dark figure, using two others as a shield. They didn’t call attention to themselves, but rather tried to move in the deeper shadows to shore. Dragomir realized Vadim was locked on to Emeline’s house. He was certain all the ancients were gone, hunting his cities, and lairs, chasing his army out to sea and leaving the compound unprotected.

Dragomir streaked across the lake, coming at Vadim from behind. He caught him, once again, by the play yard. He struck Vadim from behind, slamming his fist right through his back, utilizing his strength and power, breaking bones and tunneling through tissue to get his fingers around the heart. As if recognizing him as the one who had had the other piece of it, the organ leapt toward him.

Vadim shrieked in fear and fury. He whirled, shouting orders, caught off guard. His shrieks drowned out the sound of gunfire. The two vampires guarding him swung around just as Dragomir extracted the heart and flung it to one side. Lightning forked across the sky, lighting up Vadim’s shocked features. The attack had happened too fast, a blitz he hadn’t expected.

One of the vampires tackled Dragomir, knocking him back from Vadim. Lightning hit the ground just to one side of the vampire’s heart. The second vampire dropped protectively to the ground beside the fallen master. Dragomir recognized Sergey.

Sergey Malinov regarded his brother with sorrow on his face. Surreptitiously he reached out and covered Vadim’s heart with one hand while he wrapped his arm around his brother with the other. “I’m sorry, Vadim. We didn’t see him coming at us from behind. It’s too late now. He has your heart. Give me Xavier’s sliver and I may find a way to defeat him. Maybe even stop him from incinerating you.” He kept his voice soft and persuasive, gentle, kind even. Filled with grief.

Vadim shrieked and thrashed. Black blood spilled everywhere. Another scream produced a torrent of spittle. With it came a silver-gray splinter. Eagerly the small piece of the high mage recognized that the other vampire had another small section inside him. It entered him easily via his ear, sliding inside to find the brain, to find that other slice left of such a powerful man.

“That is good, Vadim. Let me try to stop him,” Sergey said. He kept his sorrowful look, even when triumph spilled through him like water over a dam. He looked up and beckoned one of Vadim’s idiot pawns closer. Glee filled him. His plans were coming together nicely.

The vampire hurried to his side.

“I need help with my brother. With Vadim,” he said softly, making certain that Vadim heard. “Dragomir has taken his heart and I must get it back, no matter the cost to me. You watch over him.”

Sergey stood, slipped away and then returned, coming up behind the vampire, who looked left and right, but paid no attention to what was behind him. He slammed his fist deep, extracted the heart, tossed it to one side and called down the lightning himself. He incinerated the heart and then the body before lifting his brother. He immediately employed a vanishing spell over both of them.

Now he had only to get his most prized possession back. He’d possessed her for hundreds of years. She belonged to him. She was probably terrified without him telling her what to do.

He shifted, molecules in the air, moving slowly so as not to call attention to himself while the battle raged around him, Vadim’s idiot army doing the bidding of a man already gone, already under Sergey’s rule, although they wouldn’t know it. He’d sent three of his best to kill Dragomir and their new healer, Daratrazanoff. That family was always sticking their noses in where they didn’t belong. He reached for Elisabeta, trying to connect with her. There was only emptiness. A void. He nearly panicked. She had to be there, somewhere in the compound.

There was no entering the house. He could feel the safeguards from a distance away. If she was in there, he would have known. She was part of him. They’d been together for centuries. He took care of her. She wouldn’t be able to function without him. He had no choice but to leave, but he would find her.

Dragomir felt teeth rip down his shoulder and arm. Talons tore chunks of flesh from his chest. He and the vampire tumbled across the ground, hit one of the stone dragons and came to an abrupt stop. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a vampire, Sergey, trap Vadim’s heart under his hand, then Dragomir was fighting for his life as a second vampire joined the one trying to kill him. The second one didn’t try to wear him down; he went straight for the chest, slamming his fist over and over, creating holes that bled profusely, weakening him.

He sank his teeth into the first vampire’s neck, ripping his jugular out, snapping the bones there before turning to face the second one. Catching the fist as it came out of him, he jerked the vampire hard toward him. At the same time, he snapped a hard punch deep into the chest. The momentum of the vampire’s forward lurch helped drive Dragomir’s fist deep. His fingers found the heart. As he extracted the wizened organ, the first vampire attacked again, leaping on him, raking with teeth and talons, pounding at his back with desperate fists.

Suddenly, the vampire was gone and Gary Daratrazanoff was there. He hurled the vampire from Dragomir and followed it up, not fast or slow, just a steady, relentless pursuit. Dragomir incinerated the heart and then the vampire. He looked toward Sergey and Vadim. The air crackled with electrical energy. In the air over the lake. Over the playground. Gary called for it. Lightning lit up the sky, turning the night into day. Dragomir could see ashes where Vadim had been. He knelt there on one knee, studying the ground, trying to make sense of it. Sergey had covered his brother’s heart and then incinerated both the heart and Vadim. He’d made his play and taken the crown.

Dragomir looked around carefully. Gary joined him. “Tariq has lit up the lake and electrocuted every vampire in it. Maksim and the security team destroyed the ones who made it to shore. Vadim must have grown so weak after losing those three splinters and a piece of his heart that he couldn’t think clearly and made poor judgments.” Dragomir gestured toward the ashes, already blowing away. “Sergey has taken leadership.”

“We knew it would happen.” Gary glanced toward the house and the healing grounds that lay underneath. “I reinforced the safeguards, above, below and all around her. Sergey can’t get to Elisabeta.”

“He’s trying.”

“He’ll keep trying. He’s addicted to her.” Gary sighed and shook his head. “You realize that Vadim had a splinter of Xavier in him. No way would the high mage allow himself to die by lightning. It’s in Sergey now. Two of them. He’ll have more memories and skills to draw on. He’s going to make an even more relentless and powerful enemy than he did when he had Vadim with him.”

Dragomir nodded. “We’ll just have to make it too difficult for him to continue to snoop around looking for Elisabeta. The woman deserves peace. You don’t think he can wake her and call her to him, do you?”

Gary shook his head, a slight smile curving his hard mouth. “I thought of that when I put her in the ground and commanded her to sleep. He can’t break that spell, not even if the high mage was working fully with him. She will get her rest. But when she rises, Dragomir, she will have problems you cannot imagine.”

Dragomir glanced toward the house where his lifemate waited at the window. She’d done what he’d asked of her and he knew it had cost her, but even with the brief battle they’d been prepared for, she’d stayed clear of his mind, allowing him to fight the vampire without having to divide his attention two ways. He was grateful to her and respected her strength even more.

I love you. He took a step toward the house.

Gary put a hand on his shoulder just as Emeline replied. Allow Gary to heal you. You’re a mess, and getting bloodstains off the floor is becoming difficult.

The love in her voice always did him in. He gave her a small salute and went with the healer.

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