One of them had died before Danny could ever get the creature back to her place. Apparently unable to handle the transition from predictable brutality to unprecedented kindness, the fledgling had so lost herself in a bloodlust attack she ran up against a wooden pin used to hold a saddle and staked herself. The other one had been executed by Danny herself.

She should have done them all at the same time.

Malachi eyed the lights of the plane coming in for a nighttime landing on his airstrip. Every vampire in the world knew you didn’t turn children. But when Lord Charles Ruskin had done so to cultivate his unique and diabolical pack of “hunting hounds,” Danny hadn’t had the heart to dispatch them the way she’d dispatched their sire.

Of course, the Vampire Council didn’t want to be involved, because they had the typically European attitude that Australia was the ass-end of the world, the least of their concerns. While Mal wasn’t any fonder of the Vampire Council than Danny was, their heavy-handed attitude might have taken care of this problem before it ever got to his door.

She’d been trying to civilize them, for fuck’s sake. Take the savagery out of them that Charles had exacerbated with torture and starvation. Malachi had cursed when she explained she’d used two of her household staff to help feed and manage them. She hadn’t needed to tell him the inevitable tragedy, one dead and the other violated and almost killed. At least she’d been smart enough to kill the fledgling that had perpetrated the crime.

The same female who’d been injured had insisted they keep trying, and, incomprehensibly, Danny had agreed. The Lady Daniela that Mal remembered looked like a fairy-tale character with her guileless blue eyes and golden blond hair, but she didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. She’d put her foot up someone’s ass in a heartbeat and kick their internal organs out their throat. Instead, in this case, she’d called Mal for help.

So in addition to seeing what could be done about this impossible situation, he had to manage this woman, this Elisa. He had to put up with her for only three days, though. Danny had said to give her that much time to provide background on the “children”—and to say good-bye. Then he was free to bundle her back on the plane with Thomas, if he thought that was best.

It would have been best if Danny’s human hadn’t come at all. Children. He snorted. That was part of the problem. Calling them that altered the true perception of them. Essentially unnatural, savage creatures with no sense of impulse control, or right or wrong. In any other environment except sentiment, they would be called monsters. Sociopaths, with fangs and superhuman strength.

By the time the plane began its approach, Elisa was composed again, her face washed. The children had traveled in a separate compartment, but she’d checked on them several times, assuring them and herself all was well. She hated the steel cages in which they were confined, but at least they were roomy enough for traveling. Each child had a bed and some stretching room. Malachi was supposed to have a secure facility for them that included a communal area.

At her latest check-in, Jeremiah had given her the closest thing to a grateful look. Leonidas spat at her. She hated the spurt of fear that had her hurrying by his cage, not meeting his eyes. The other responses fell somewhere in between. The two girls and four boys ranged in visual age from six to fifteen. Lady Danny had guessed they might be anywhere from a few months to ten years older than their apparent age. It wasn’t likely any child could have survived longer than that under what Lord Ruskin had inflicted upon them, even as turned vampires. From his bookkeeping, they knew he’d gone through at least fifty or sixty before this lot, the average life expectancy a horrifying two years.

Danny had said little about the vampire who would now be overseeing their well-being, except that he was a friend she had known some years, and that he was young for all he’d accomplished. Over a hundred and twenty years old, he’d operated this private sanctuary for predatory cats for the last several decades, and owned the island where it was located.

“He’s the quiet sort, Elisa,” Danny had explained. Giving her maid a straightforward look, her Mistress had added, “I expect you to obey him as you would obey me, particularly where these children are concerned. Remember what we discussed. Continuing this goes against my better judgment, but this is their last chance. If we don’t see improvement, if Mal determines it’s time to end this, we follow his direction. I’ve told Mal he may send you back with Thomas at the end of three days if he chooses, and then their future is up to him.”

“But—”

“You are getting three days. Consider it fortunate I’m allowing you to go at all.”

Elisa had wanted to argue, but a warning flicker in Dev’s expression made her bite her tongue. Danny didn’t pull the “I’m an all-powerful vampire” mantle of authority too often, but when she did, disobedience or argument wasn’t tolerated. Plus, this wasn’t easy for Danny. She’d initially decided to spare the children, when they’d found them at Ruskin’s estate. Now Willis was dead, and Elisa . . .

She tightened her chin. She was fine. Just fine. It wasn’t like she was an untouched innocent, after all. Willis would have wanted her to keep trying. She thought he would, at least. She knew for certain she did. She had to, because sometimes when Leonidas looked at her the way Victor had, rage surged in her such that her fingers itched for a stake herself. Especially when he scented her fear, and she heard him snicker.

Deliberately, she turned her thoughts to Jeremiah, because he gave her hope, soothing her mind like the vision of that perfect dining room. Looking about nine years old when he was turned, he was a slim boy with blond hair and serious gray-green eyes. None of them communicated in words, making only inarticulate noises as they fought past the demand of their blood that roared up at the sight of anything resembling prey or food. However, they’d made the most headway with Jeremiah. He’d been the very first to reach out.

At the station, she’d discovered a predawn routine that helped ease the children’s agitation. Dev’s bedtime stories calmed them, perhaps his voice reminding them of parents they dimly remembered. He’d sit cross-legged within a few feet of the semicircle of cages. Since the children found adult vampires unsettling, Danny would stay at the barn entrance, but she usually came to hear what story he’d tell, a slight smile on her face even as her gaze remained watchful.

Though Elisa was sure Dev was equally alert, he’d appeared relaxed that night as he told the story of the Three Sisters rocks in the Blue Mountains. While some of the children were hissing and growling low in their throats, she thought a couple expressions flickered with sparks of curiosity. Nerida and Matthew, the two youngest, mimicked his cross-legged posture.

“They tell this story several ways. Legend has it there were three beautiful sisters among the Katoomba people. Three brothers of the Nepean people fell so deeply in love with them, they knew they’d never be whole until they had them. So they rebelled against tribal law that forbade the marriage and planned a battle to capture them. Sometimes you have to capture sheilas before you can work on winning their hearts,” Dev added. At his broad wink, Danny gave him a raised brow that made Elisa hide a smile. “But as the day of the battle approached, a witch doctor of the Katoombas decided to turn the three sisters into rock to protect them. He figured he’d turn them back when the battle was over.”

Dev’s gaze flickered to the left. Jeremiah had put a hand through the bars. Just pressed his palm flat on the wooden slat floor, near one of the toys that Elisa had left close to his cage. None within reach, because the children shredded them, but it had been something pleasing for them to look at. This toy was a stuffed bear.

Leaning over, so he was on his hip and elbow, Dev pushed the bear closer, continuing the story even as the boy scuttled back. Dev kept that position, his shoulder propped near the bear. Danny tensed. He’d brought himself within reaching distance, and the boy’s gaze was too focused on the artery in his throat. Even Elisa could see him fixate on it, and wondered at Dev’s judgment.

“Unfortunately, the witch doctor was killed in the battle. So to this day, those three magnificent rocks stand in the Blue Mountains, the three sisters forever captured, because no one knows how to reverse the spell.” He tilted his head back to eye Danny, humor and something else there, something that made Elisa’s vampire mistress curl her hands into balls and give him an exasperated look. “Course, I’ve always wondered; if those girls could do it over and had the choice—to become three magnificent rocks for hundreds of years, or offer those three blokes a chance to be their husbands, despite tribal laws—how would they have decided?”

Danny pressed her lips together, about to move forward. Dev shook his head, apparently quite aware the boy had reached through the bars. With one hand, Jeremiah took the bear. With the other, he stretched toward Dev’s hair. One fingertip touched it, then another. A crooning noise came from the boy’s lips, garbled by the long fangs curved over his lips. Then the hand retracted and Dev turned his head to watch the boy pull the bear into the cage. As he held it against his belly, a curious look crossed the boy’s face. Jeremiah moved it back and forth, experiencing the soft sensation under his ratty T-shirt.

“There you go, mate,” Dev said. “You go to bed now, and have sweet dreams.”

Elisa had swallowed, trying not to clap her hands in victory over this small progress. In her joy, she of course had paid no attention to the crimson flickering in Victor’s gaze. The vampire who looked thirteen years old would be the one who, a couple months later, would take her and Willis by surprise in such a tragic way.

It was too bad Jeremiah wasn’t stronger than Leonidas, because if he had more authority with the others, it would go much better. Her most “gentle” vampire had terrible moments himself, though. Elisa had seen him fight the bars of his cage until he bloodied himself, his fangs dripping with saliva as he stared hungrily at any living thing. They all had such episodes, though Jeremiah’s and Leonidas’s seemed more intense. For no reason at all, they would become savage, as if they were going insane in their own skins. Those were the hardest moments for Elisa. She could sense their distress, their need to be touched and comforted, but the bloodlust in them wanted only to destroy. It was like watching paper dolls being torn in half.