She wanted to know about those wood-carvers. What they thought and felt. What their lives were like. The people they knew and why they did what they did in a time that was all about survival. She pushed away thoughts of all knowledge of Tariq. She wanted the surprise of what and who he was then, not imposing who he was now on that man carving the objects to be used for the carousel.
She kept her eyes closed to block out the sights of the men crowding close – and they were up against her now, touching her. One hand on her. One hand on the carousel. Each of them. That made it much more difficult to block them all out. She knew which hand belonged to which man. Dragomir smelled feral. Danger radiated off of him in waves. The others were just as bad. Even Tariq. They were a pack of wolves waiting to tear into something. Fierce, experienced fighters. She was surrounded by them, needed space, and knew they wouldn’t back off.
Charlotte blew out her breath, exasperated. She had to think of a way around their protective instincts so she could do her job. She thought about the why of it. The who. Little Liv. Vadim had made her nights hell and the child was only ten. She had already suffered in a hell deep below the city, where insanity reigned. Emeline. No one but Emeline knew the horrors she’d suffered – and was still suffering.
There was Tariq. She focused on him. How did he get to be so strong? So compassionate? What would give a man such courage to face enemy after enemy for centuries? Without a family, a woman to call his own. She could understand why he wanted a woman for himself, but the children? What man would take on such a terrible burden as five traumatized children? Genevieve. Emeline. The Waltons. His family was growing, and all of them, in their own way, were broken.
She reached for a carousel horse, her palm hovering for a moment, feeling the pull of the ancient wood. Hearing the cries of children and their parents. Laughter. Sobs. Whispers. So much history. She needed to go deeper, to find the wood-carver. She caught his scent. She’d know it anywhere. Masculine. The forest. Primal. She followed that faint scent until she heard the sound of his voice.
Do you blindly follow Ruslan? What is wrong with you all? Do you know how insane this plan is? The Dubrinsky line is the vessel for our past and present. The power is what keeps our people alive. You can’t replace that because you don’t like the prince.
Do you blindly follow the prince? That was Fridrick’s voice. A sneer. Wiping out his family will do nothing but get rid of bad leadership. We should be the rulers of this world. Instead, we’re kept like prisoners in these mountains or forced to hunt our brethren. Our women grow scarce, and yet he does nothing. He protects that son of his, Draven…
The name was uttered and even Tariq winced, although she had no idea who Draven was, only that the loathing for that person was collective. She saw Tariq now. He was standing tall in the middle of several men – men he’d grown up with. Men he’d called his friends. They surrounded him, some with fists doubled. Their face flushed. Teeth clenched. A strange red glow to their eyes.
Draven should have been put down long ago. Any other with that streak of insanity, harming our women, betraying them to vampires, murdering them, would have been hunted down and sentenced to death, but he refused to do anything about him and now Ivory is gone to us. Dead. That was Vadim. She recognized his voice.
Tariq shook his head and ran one hand through his hair in agitation. Mistakes have been made, but to plot to assassinate our prince – not only our prince but his lifemate and the other children – is lunacy. Surely you see that.
At any other time she would have stayed and listened to history playing itself out. It was fascinating to catch a glimpse of Tariq’s world. Of the man he’d been then, standing up to his friends when he was the lone dissenter. Clearly he stood up for what he believed. Still, she had to find out what Vadim had done to the carousel horses and the chariots. That required adjusting the timeline. Already the cold was seeping into her bones, a warning she’d learned to heed after traveling into the tunnel. Shivering, she moved forward to the next night. It wasn’t safe staying too long.
The world was on fire. There was a terrible orange-red glow and smoke was thick, so thick she was afraid to take a breath. The sounds of weeping, of screams, rose on the wind while the smoke swirled and the flames crackled. She caught glimpses of Tariq fighting viciously, ferociously, his body in constant movement, shifting from one shape to another. He moved with blurring speed and his hand plunged into the chest of one man and ripped out the heart. It was the most gruesome thing Charlotte had ever seen.
She concentrated on the carousel. The horses lay on their sides, beautiful and colorful, but when she looked closer she could see splashes of blood on them. The chariots were scattered in the dirt, flung there by unseen hands. To her horror, she saw the leg of a child peeking out beneath one, streaks of blood on the calf and heel. Another covered a woman, facedown in the soil, her arms flung wide. There were cracks in the wood as if whoever had thrown them was in a rage.
Her breath caught in her lungs and she found herself jerking back involuntarily. She recognized Fridrick, but just barely. Just a day earlier he’d been handsome and fit. Now he appeared twisted. Evil. There was a maniacal cruelty in his eyes and his teeth appeared sharper and longer. Even his fingernails were longer. The man with him had to be Vadim. She recognized him from the earlier vignette.
Vadim threw everything in his path out of his way. Two men rushed him, both with swords. Charlotte wanted to scream a warning, but she stayed silent. This was history and it had to play out the way it had happened. Vadim laughed, the sound both evil and chilling. He slammed both arms down against the swords, blocking the blades and sending them spinning away, and then he grabbed both men by their heads.
Look away. That was Tariq. Her Tariq. Standing with her, watching all over again as the village where he lived and worked was destroyed and the people he loved were brutally murdered.
She did as he asked because he was suffering. He needed her to look away. She found him in the battle, whirling through the attackers, a lone man standing up to an army of vampires. How did you do it? There were so many.
They were newly made. I didn’t save many of my people.
My people. That was telling. It wasn’t true that he hadn’t saved many; already she could see the vampires retreating, killing as they went, but falling back, unwilling to engage the hunter as he cut them down.
Vadim’s movement caught her eye and she turned her attention to him once more. The two men he’d killed lay like broken dolls and he kicked their bodies out of his path. One by one his brothers joined him. Then Fridrick and two others. They cut their wrists and dripped blood collectively into the wood of each horse and chariot, a black spell spewing from their vengeful mouths.