Dark Carousel (Dark #30) - Christine Feehan Page 0,127

but they weren’t present and couldn’t know that Vadim had woven so foul a safeguard. The memories held in the wood took Charlotte with them back to wherever they were born. That journey was dangerous, and if she stayed too long, she was without the ability to stay warm. The safeguard was simple enough in that it played on the weakness of the recipient. Already cold, Charlotte became freezing. More, the woven spell compounded the effect, twisting the internal organs into icy, frozen lumps.

The chants of the Carpathian males rose and Blaze joined them, standing beside her lifemate, Maksim, her voice adding a feminine note to the deeper voices rising in an effort to save Tariq’s lifemate. Val Zhestokly arrived, looking pale and even staggering a little, the signs of torture still very evident on his body. He wasn’t alone. To Tariq’s horror, Liv was with him, holding his hand. Standing on the very edge of what to the child had to look like a grave. Tariq closed his eyes. This was going to be bad. So bad.

16

Taking a deep breath, Tariq opened his eyes to look at the child. “Csecsemõ—baby—you cannot be here. This could go very, very wrong.”

“I would not have brought her if the message was not important, ekäm—my brother,” Val said, his voice rusty and without any emotion.

Tariq sighed. “You understand this is going to be bad. We could lose Charlotte.”

Liv stared down at him with her haunted eyes, shaking her head. “Emeline said to do exactly what you’re thinking. She does need all of us. Every single one of us. I told the others to help. Emeline said it’s the only way to save her, Tariq, and we need her. We need you. None of us will survive without you.”

He groaned softly, smoothing back Charlotte’s hair. “Don’t say that, Liv. You have Danny, your sisters and Emeline. You have Val. The connection is strong between you. He woke at your call.”

A shudder ran through Charlotte’s body when she’d lain as if dead. A block of ice in his arms. No longer shivering. Her spirit merely a faint, flickering light he’d surrounded and kept from moving down the tree of life. He whispered to her. In her mind. In her ear. Softly. Lovingly. Letting her know she wasn’t alone.

I am with you always, sielamet. Keeper of my soul. Of my heart. Where you go I will follow.

A frown flickered over her face. Her eyes moved back and forth behind her eyelids. A small shake of her head. Children. They were there in her mind, a worry that they couldn’t do without him.

I cannot survive your passing with honor, Charlotte. He gave her the stark truth. I must follow or become the very thing I have hunted for centuries. Dishonor. Forcing his fellow hunters to find and destroy him. He was ancient. Experienced in battle. They would have trouble, and he could as easily kill them as they could him. The idea . . . He shook his head. I go where you go, sielamet. Always.

“Tariq, we can save her,” Liv reiterated. “I know we can. Emeline knows things. She sent for me. She said you know what to do. We have to band together. One mind. All of us. We can do it.”

“Csecsemõ, she must go through the conversion. It is . . . difficult. I cannot take away the pain and she is very weak. It is not good for you to be here, to see this.”

Liv stuck her chin out, her fingers wrapped around Val’s hand so tightly they were white. “I know I’m ten. I know that, but I have gifts, and I know what is truth in someone’s mind when I touch them. I know what is in Emeline’s. She sees reality in dreams and she told me. She told me to run and get Val. She said to tell you that you were right to call everyone in even though it feels wrong. She said modesty or bravery isn’t important, just easing the conversion for her. You were right all along in your thinking for the children. She said that all the Carpathians and I needed to connect our minds with yours. Charlie needs to be in the soil, just like you have her. She said, ‘Hold on to her, Tariq.’ And then she said this is how to convert the others and me—all of us together—and you were the one who knew it; you were just afraid of losing any