I do not need you to be anything other than who you are. I see the heart of you. I see your character. It matters little to me what bloodline, if any, you are from. You do have the heart of a warrior and a great capacity for kindness. You are both fierce and compassionate. Both good qualities. There is no deception in you and I admire that tremendously.

His heart leapt at the compliment. No one had ever said anything like that to him, let alone the most beautiful woman in the world. She could make the blood sing in his veins with just a smile, let alone such a tribute. She definitely was the kind of woman that could bring him to his knees much easier than he would have wished.

Her soft laughter brushed against his mind. His stomach did a slow somersault. He loved the sound of her laughter.

I’m beginning to grow too fond of many of your traits, Branka. It would be difficult to go back to the emptiness of my life without your laughter and the sound of your voice.

It doesn’t take much to make you happy.

He recognized teasing when he heard it. There was a secret brightness in her that pulled at him like a magnet. For an alpha like him, the idea that she didn’t show herself to others was even more of a draw for him. Everything about her was feminine, yet he knew deep inside that she was a woman who would walk beside him, fight beside him and go through every hardship laughing with him, if he won her love.

I am your lifemate.

That doesn’t mean you have to love me. I want your love, Branislava. Being my lifemate is wonderful, but that tie represents something else to you, and when we’re together I don’t want it to be out of duty.

There was a small silence. She walked back to the bed and sank down beside him. Or floated. He wasn’t certain which because there was no hint of movement even on the mattress. She slipped her hand into his.

Don’t ask Mikhail to have the ancients release you from our spirit weave.

If I die . . .

I won’t let that happen. We’re tied together.

“Branislava.” He said her name aloud.

For me, Zev. I’m asking this for me.

Branka, if things go wrong, I would take you with me to a place I have no knowledge of. I wouldn’t know if I could protect you or not.

It was Branislava who brought his hand up to her cheek. She brushed her satin skin over his rough palm.

If things go wrong, I know I can pull you back. You’re too strong to let anything take you as long as I’m tied to you. I absolutely know that about you. That’s what the ancients meant when they called you “strong heart” and “heart of a warrior.” You have a protective instinct in you I’ve never seen before. You won’t stop. It’s so strong, Zev, that you wouldn’t die when most strong Carpathians would have succumbed. I know. I was there.

“This is amazing if it’s true that you’re a Dark Blood,” Dimitri said. “Skyler can’t wait to see you, Zev.”

“Is she over our feud?” Zev asked.

Dimitri grinned at him. “One never knows with that woman. She’s got wolves now and she’s not afraid to use them.”

Zev cupped Branislava’s cheek with his palm and brushed the pad of his thumb along her jaw in a little caress. Her skin was softer than anything he’d ever experienced. “Skyler believes in retaliation if you are so foolish as to cross her sense of justice,” he told her.

“I doubt that she holds a grudge,” Branislava said. “She fought harder than any other to save you. Even when bullets flew, she didn’t even duck. She was amazing.” She flashed a small smile. “But then, she is Dragonseeker.”

Fen laughed. “What she’s saying is the Dragonseeker women are known for their retaliation if you get out of line with them. You might do well to remember that, Zev, old buddy.”

Zev’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you forgetting that your lady is a Dragonseeker? I’ve felt the singe of her fire when she got riled up.” He swept his hand over the top of his hair. Tatijana, Branislava’s sister, had broken up a Lycan attack with her dragon, raining fire on them to drive them away from the shelter where wounded Carpathians had gathered.

Fen looked a little hangdog. “Not really. She does have that same little character flaw.”

Branislava’s eyebrows rose sharply. She flicked her finger toward Fen, and water poured down over his head. “I beg your pardon?” she asked in her sweetest tone.

Fen yelped and jumped out from under the icy spray. The water mysteriously vanished as if it had never been. Fen stood there dripping wet, his clothes soaked and his hair hanging in long tails.

Dimitri snickered. “I can’t imagine what you were thinking, bro.” He bowed low and very respectfully to Branislava. “Allow me to apologize for my nitwit of a brother. There is no such thing as a character flaw in a Dragonseeker woman.”

She inclined her head, princess to peasant, keeping a sharp eye on her brother-in-law.

Well done, Branka, well played. I do enjoy a wicked sense of humor, Zev commended her.

“That was mean, Bronnie,” Fen accused, drying himself with a quick wave of his hand.

“What’s mean, my brother-kin,” she said smiling complacently, “is telling my sister what you said about her.” She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “I might have to tell Skyler as well. After all, she is a Dragonseeker, and you were referencing her.”

Fen held up both hands in surrender. “Tatijana told me you were the sweet one.”

“Are you implying she was wrong?” Her eyebrows shot up again.

“Zev. Do something.” Fen sounded a little desperate.

Zev shook his head. “You stepped into this one all by yourself.” He wiped his forehead, and his hand came away with tiny smears of blood. He tried to imagine it away as Fen must have the water.

“Lie back,” Branislava instructed. “Fen, will you and Dimitri give him more blood? I’d like to call Skyler and Tatijana in to aid me. We’ll take him down to the sleeping quarters and heal him there.”

Zev shook his head. “I want us to talk first. We need to settle things between us.”

“Skyler is with Tempest, Darius’s lifemate,” Dimitri said. “She’s playing with their son. He’s a beautiful boy and very serious, quite like Darius and Gregori. I’ll call her back.”

“She loves children,” Fen said.

“She’s worried that because we have mixed blood she won’t be able . . .” Dimitri trailed off, his gaze settling on Zev. “If your grandmother was Carpathian and became a mixed blood before she had her daughter, which she must have, that would mean . . .”