Gabriel’s hard hold on her had to hurt, but she didn’t wince or try to pull away. Her father kissed the top of her head. “We thought you were dead, Skyler. All of us. Everyone. Finding you alive is a miracle.”

Lucian removed her gently from her father’s grasp. “You scared the hell out of us, girl,” he reprimanded. “Meaning no one can possibly get angry with you now that you’re alive.”

Skyler hugged her uncle. “That’s a relief. I was worried I might be locked in my room for a millennium.”

“Gabriel couldn’t lock you in your room for an hour let alone a millennium,” Lucian pointed out.

Even as her uncle teased her, the legendary warriors had their gaze on Dimitri. He didn’t flinch. He’d never been a man to be intimidated, but he suddenly wished he was in a little better shape. He felt Fen come up on his right side. Big brother playing the badass. Fen could look intimidating when he wanted, and right now he was staring the twins down.

Skyler extracted herself from Lucian’s arms and leaned into Dimitri, deliberately, he was certain. She kept her smile as she wrapped on arm around Dimitri’s waist. He felt the slight trembling in her body.

“I asked Dimitri to claim me before I rescued him. I was afraid if I wasn’t successful, he would die. I would have chosen to follow him and I would have been terrified without our souls being bound together.” She looked her father in the eye when she told him.

Gabriel began to shake his head as she spoke.

Lucian put a hand on his shoulder. “It is done, brother. There is nothing to be done for it now. She’s taken the matter out of all of our hands.”

“He could have refused her.” There was a warning in Gabriel’s tone.

“Would you refuse your lifemate?” Lucian asked softly. “She was right to do as she did. Dimitri was in trouble and she went to him. She’s his true lifemate, there’s no denying it.”

“There was every chance I wouldn’t get to him in time,” Skyler said. She reached out a hand to her father. “I can’t live without him. You know what that’s like. If something happened to Francesca . . .”

Gabriel shook his head again. “Don’t say it. Don’t think it.”

“Daddy,” Skyler said, for the first time sounding like a lost child. “I had no choice. You have to see that and understand.”

Dimitri stirred, every protective instinct rising fast. His heart actually ached for her. Skyler needed reassurance from Gabriel. She had done the right thing. All of them knew it, but her father didn’t want to concede that she was old enough to make her own decisions. He didn’t want to let the child go and acknowledge that she was a woman.

Dimitri gathered her closer into his arms, sheltering her body against his. Going openly against Gabriel ran the danger of putting Skyler in the position of defending her father. Still . . . he wasn’t about to allow anyone, even her father, to make her feel so terrible and guilty. Skyler had chosen to save her lifemate. She had been mortally wounded in the process and had undergone the conversion. She desperately needed her father to understand.

“No one else could find him,” Fen said before Dimitri could speak. “Not even me. Whatever they have together is something very special.”

It took a great deal of discipline for Dimitri to stand there silently and allow others to plead their case to Gabriel. He respected the legendary warrior, but he wasn’t afraid of him, and he didn’t feel he owed him an explanation. More, he wanted to lash out and tell the man to see Skyler for who she was, not the frightened child Gabriel had taken in, loved and nurtured.

The walls around them suddenly shimmered, nearly folding in themselves. The ground shivered under their feet and above them, the ceiling seemed to fall and then recoil back into place.

“We don’t have much time,” Tatijana said. “We have to leave tonight—soon.”

Don’t leave your daughter hurting when you know she did the right thing, Lucian advised his brother. You should be proud of her. She did what no other could do.

She’s my baby. Our baby. Francesca’s and mine. Our first. You know what her life was like. There was true pain in Gabriel’s voice. First I give Francesca the news that she lives, and I promised to bring her home, and now I must tell her she’s gone for all time. We had so little time with her. I feel cheated.

You feel fear for her. You cannot control her world or keep her out of harm’s way. That’s your fear, Gabriel. Every father must face it. Look at Dimitri. Really see him. You haven’t even looked at him. What he went through—for her. To stay alive for her. What other man would suffer such a thing?

For the first time, Gabriel allowed himself to look at his son-in-law. His kin. Dimitri’s forehead and neck had the links of chains burned into his skin, nearly to the bone. He could see one layer that had been wrapped around the forehead and three loops around his neck.

His entire body bears these marks. Tatijana and Fen told me that inside his body, every organ and bone was burned as well. He was starved for over two weeks—hung on meat hooks and swung from a tree. He stayed alive—for her. She would have followed him and he knew it, Lucian persisted. This is an ancient hunter of exceptional skill. All know his reputation. Now you see not only his strength and determination, but his love for your daughter forever burned into his body for all to see.

Gabriel brushed his hand over his face. He shook his head. He knew he was being unreasonable. Skyler was in good hands. Dimitri obviously loved her, it was there on his face. He might not be ready for Skyler to grow up, but somewhere along the line she’d done so, maturing into her own woman, gaining confidence and making her own decisions. He couldn’t fault her for that. He knew, as a parent, it was the very thing he wanted for her.

He stepped up to the couple and clasped Dimitri’s forearms, Skyler in between them. “Welcome, son. And thank you for saving her life. Few could have accomplished such a thing. Her spirit was so far from us, neither her mother nor I could find her.”

Gabriel looked down at his daughter. “You made us very proud, Skyler. No one would ever have conceived that you, Paul and Josef could accomplish what all of us failed to do. Mikhail sent out search parties, but no one was able to find a hint of the trail.”

Skyler circled his waist with her arms and laid her head on her father’s chest, the tension slowly draining away. “I’m grateful you understand that I had to find him.”