Dark Carousel (Dark #30) - Christine Feehan Page 0,157
slow down even in the compound. He took Liv through the main house to the basement, where the mineral-rich soil was spread out and very deep. Tariq paused long enough to put Charlotte on her feet and make certain to bring the panic rooms of the other children, the Waltons and Genevieve back to the surface. If they woke from their slumber he didn’t want them frightened. Charlotte followed Val down to the basement and through the labyrinth to their resting place.
Tariq, his intention is to feed her. I don’t know how to stop him. There was panic in Charlotte’s voice. He’s having her take enough blood for an exchange.
Tariq was already on his way down and he put on a burst of speed. He entered the ring of decking overlooking the sleeping grounds. Below him, Val held Liv close to his chest, cradling her in his arms. She looked tiny and broken. Already he had opened a laceration over his heavy muscles and pressed her mouth to the drops of blood there. “Drink, csecsemõ. Take what I offer.”
“What are you doing?” Tariq demanded. “We have to make certain no harm will come to her before we convert her.”
“I keep my word, Tariq,” Val said without looking up. He pushed back the tangled silk of Liv’s hair. “She said she would live if I promised to convert her. I am keeping that promise. This is her second true exchange. When they get back to the compound, my brothers will gather and one of us will bring her fully into our world. You are her father and it is your call whether you do so or I do, but it will be done.” It was a decree, nothing less.
Tariq swore in their language. He didn’t like to be pushed into converting a child without a healer there. He knew it would take a while before one of the Daratrazanoffs arrived, so he believed he had plenty of time. The thought of harming the children kept him from bringing them fully into his world, although he knew he would have to do it. He might be her father, but a lifemate took precedence over that. It was Val’s decision, not his, and they both knew it.
“Val, she’s ten years old.”
“She’s a hundred,” Val said. “I cannot feel unless it is caring for her, not yet, but it is there, just within my grasp. I knew the first time I made the exchange with her in the tunnels, but I was so far gone that I did not acknowledge it even to myself. It is rare for a Carpathian to know before his lifemate is mature.”
He stroked her hair with gentle fingers as he fed her. Liv took his blood just as she had when they had been locked together in a cage.
“You realize what a complication this is.” Tariq had enough complications. “Liv is a child. I’m her father, and protector.”
“Now she has two protectors,” Val said. Very gently he inserted his fingers between Liv’s mouth and his chest. “Enough, csecsemõ. I must take your blood. Do you understand what that means?”
Tariq frowned down at the hunter holding the child. For the longest time she didn’t move, and he found himself holding his breath. When he tried to touch her mind, Liv had shut down. She wasn’t thinking beyond being converted. It was the only thing she thought about. Her entire being focused on that alone. He saw her head move, the slightest of nods and then entirely voluntarily, she turned her neck to allow Val to take her blood.
Tariq was first and foremost a Carpathian. He’d already claimed Liv as his daughter. He couldn’t help but be proud of the fact that she was already embracing their way of life. She had wanted to kill herself. She’d been so close to taunting the puppets into dragging her from her cage and killing her. Val had stated that he couldn’t survive without her, and even at her young age, without really knowing much about the lifemate process, she had endured those hours waiting for them to come for her. She’d trusted that they would.
Tariq knew Val didn’t feel anything sexual for his lifemate, it was impossible, but he would protect her with the very last breath in his body. He wouldn’t leave her for long and that meant Tariq had another elite hunter to help guard the compound and his family.
“She’s ours,” Charlotte murmured. “She may eventually belong to Val, but for