by Lauren Smith
Jodie changed the subject. “So what did you and Mikhail talk about?”
She could tell her friend was trying to suss out any details of a possible romantic encounter. Ever since she and Jodie had flown to London a week ago, Jodie had been hell-bent on finally getting Piper laid. But she didn’t hold it against her.
I was the idiot who had too many cocktails at the airport bar, then told her I was a virgin and that I got turned on by a bit of domination. Smooth.
It was sweet, though, Jodie’s desire to help her get rid of her pesky V-card.
“Talk about? Oh, well, we talked about the jewels at the reception tonight.”
“Is he coming?” Jodie asked.
“It sounded like he is. I wonder how he got an invite. Only potential buyers and employees are attending.” Piper bit her bottom lip, thinking it over. Who does he know who could get him into the auction? She’d met many of the potential buyers and seen lists with names on them from the auction house, but she hadn’t seen any Barinovs on the list. Still, he might be a late addition, fresh off a private jet from Moscow or something.
“Maybe he’s connected to the auction house, but we just didn’t meet him before today?” Jodie suggested.
“There was something about him…” Piper murmured, once more thinking of Mikhail’s green eyes and how, for a second, she’d sworn they’d started to turn gold. How he’d acted like he knew the jewels personally, which was, of course, ridiculous.
“He was crazy hot. You need to jump his bones ASAP before he flies back home,” Jodie added and then brightened. “That’s it. We’re going shopping. We’ll get you something totally amazing to wear tonight. I could see he was into you from across the room.” Jodie seized her arm and hauled her out of the exhibit room. “We are so not missing this opportunity.”
She wasn’t really looking forward to shopping, but she did have a sudden urge to look her best for the sexy, mysterious Mikhail Barinov. She would’ve felt pathetic acting like this for any other man, but there was something about the man and the way he’d looked at her, the same way he’d looked at the jewels: with an intense hunger.
Was it foolish to hope he might be genuinely interested in her? Probably. But she wanted to take a risk. If there was a man worth risking herself for, it was definitely the man with bewitching green eyes and a Russian accent.
3
We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.
―Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
MIKHAIL WALKED up the steps to Berkley’s Club, his skin tingling. It had been a long time since he’d scented a virgin woman in her prime. He’d stayed away from humans for so long that he’d almost forgotten how the sweet, floral scent of a naturally beautiful woman could tease his nostrils. The little virgin gemologist was as ripe as a red apple hanging low on the branch, begging to be plucked. His body hardened at the thought of getting her alone, stripping her naked, and inhaling that intoxicating, pure scent until he was drunk with the aroma.
He gave his head an almost violent shake. No—he refused to be a fool for a woman again, especially a virgin. Piper Linwood was no different than any other female, ready to betray a man the moment it was convenient. It didn’t matter that she’d carried a loneliness in her eyes that called to his, or a hopeful blush in her cheeks when he’d leaned in close to her. It was a ruse and nothing more. His hands curled into fists as he rapped his knuckles on the club’s front door and waited, his mind racing with thoughts of the past.
The memories of that night when Queen Elizabeth had seduced and betrayed him five hundred years ago had left him filled with a quiet rage. When he’d entered the jewel exhibit an hour ago, his heart had stopped at the sight of his jewels on display for the world to see like common trinkets. But they weren’t.
The hoard was his family’s payment for a treaty with the Belishaws, an English dragon family. The Belishaws had received those same jewels years before Elizabeth was born as a payment from King Henry VIII, when he was a young and weak monarch. In exchange, the Belishaws had provided the Crown with their support and protection. Now those jewels belonged to him and his two brothers, Grigori and Rurik. To see the hoard on display like this had upset his dragon. A dragon’s hoard was supposed to be hidden deep below the earth in caverns where no one could steal it.
The door to the club opened. He took a deep breath as he stepped inside. A servant met him just inside the door.
“Good evening, sir.”
Mikhail handed the servant his black membership card. “I’m here to see Randolph Belishaw.”
The man’s eyes widened as he examined the card. “Yes, of course, right this way.” He waved for Mikhail to follow. They walked up a flight of gleaming, polished wooden stairs, softened by expensive carpets. Paintings of famous members from days long past lined the walls. He paused at the top of the stairs and noticed a portrait of a blond-haired man with laughing gray eyes. The man wore buckskin breeches and a blue waistcoat. The inscription beneath the painting read, “Charles Humphrey, Seventh Earl of Lonsdale.”
He’d met the man once in an underground boxing ring more than two hundred years ago. Lonsdale had been one of the fiercest humans he’d ever faced. Mikhail hadn’t stayed in London long after that match.
“You had one hell of a right hook,” Mikhail said with a chuckle. What had happened to Lonsdale? Had he slipped into obscurity like most other men of his day? The thought was a sobering one. Good men always died, while dragons lived on.
The servant had paused a few feet ahead, apparently believing Mikhail had spoken to him. “Excuse me?”
Mikhail smiled. “Sorry, just lost in the past.”
The servant looked older than him at forty or fifty years old, but Mikhail was over two thousand. It just so happened that as a dragon shifter he didn’t physically age past his mid-thirties. Only far older dragons, those five or ten thousand years old, would start to show their age, and even then their hair might just have a few silver streaks in it. Dragons didn’t grow old and wrinkled, but without purpose, many of the ancient ones simply remained in their dragon forms and buried themselves in caves deep in mountains and went to sleep, never to wake again.
It was why finding one’s true mate was important—it gave a dragon a reason to stay alive, unless of course one’s mate was human. He’d known many dragons who had given up on finding true mates and contented themselves to breed with dragonesses simply for the sake of continuing the bloodlines, but he’d never wanted that for himself. He’d been determined to find and claim his true mate—but that dream had been shattered centuries ago.
“The room is this way.” The servant led him down the hall and paused by the door. “Mr. Belishaw is inside. I shall send someone to bring you drinks.” The servant opened the door and allowed Mikhail to pass through.
The small private room was lushly decorated, furnished with leather chairs and a warm fire crackling in the hearth. A lone man with dark brown hair and aristocratic features sat in a chair, reading a newspaper.
“Belishaw,” Mikhail greeted him.
Randolph Belishaw—or simply Belishaw to his friends—raised his head and grinned. “Been a long time since you came to see me. Still hiding in that little cottage in Cornwall?” Belishaw stood and clasped hands with Mikhail with genuine warmth.
“Cornwall is right for me. You know I love the cliffs—excellent for flying. You’ve always been more of a city dragon.”
Belishaw laughed, his brown eyes twinkling. “True.” He was the eldest son of the Belishaw family—a noble line of English dragons—and one of Mikhail’s few friends.
Belishaw offered him a chair by the fire. For the first time in a century, Mikhail felt guilty for not coming to London more often. He liked to think he was all alone, but he did have friends here. I am too used to playing the martyr, I fear.
“You’ve seen th
e news?” Mikhail asked.
His friend grinned. “Of course. Bet you leaped at the chance to see the jewels for yourself.”
“I already have.” Mikhail’s smile slipped at the memory of how the pearls had looked. Once a bag of opalescent joy he’d carried in a large red cloth bag, now a pinkish-gray and sunken looking. It was enough to break a dragon’s heart. Jewels were meant to be guarded and cherished, not tarnished.
“Oh?” Belishaw looked surprised, and then it changed to a keen gaze of comprehension. “That’s why you’re here. You wish for me to bring you to the Thorne Auction House reception tonight, don’t you?” There was a flicker of pain in Belishaw’s eyes. It was clear that he thought he was being used.
Damn, I can be a bloody bastard sometimes.
Mikhail leaned forward in his chair and raked his hands through his hair. “Please, Randolph. I wouldn’t ask, but—”
“Say no more. If the promise of gems draws you out of your little cave in Cornwall, then consider it done. I’ll go with you, of course. I’m rather fond of the new American gemologist they brought here. I should like to see her again.”
Mikhail’s body went rigid. An American gemologist? His little virgin gemologist who smelled like heaven? The one he’d done a poor job of not thinking about for the last hour?
“Gemologist?” Mikhail forced himself to sound neutral.
“Oh yes. A succulent little creature with the biggest brown eyes and legs that go on for days, as the Americans say. I’d love to have them wrapped around my hips, if you understand my meaning.” Randolph grinned wickedly.
Brown eyes? Not pale blue? So it hadn’t been the woman named Piper Linwood. The small, curvy human with eyes like alexandrite, a bluish-gray that could change shade with whatever she stood close to. He’d taken one look at those eyes, and for a moment he was lost in fantasies of stripping the woman bare and draping jewels over her body. He wanted to see diamonds glinting across her stomach and strings of pearls rising and falling over the mounds of her breasts.
The fact that her profession was studying and understanding such treasures had made his dragon growl in pride and the man part of him hard as stone.
“So tonight we go to the reception.” He looked at Belishaw, who was still grinning as though he, too, was lost in personal fantasies.
“Indeed, but you’re going to need a suit.” Belishaw eyed Mikhail critically. “You didn’t bring one to London, did you?” Belishaw was known for his fine taste in clothing: the finest suits, the most expensive Italian leather shoes. Mikhail simply wore whatever was in his closet with little thought to it so long as it was dark in color.
Mikhail chuckled. “You know I did not. Rolling up a fine suit and strapping it to my leg during flight would have ruined it.”
Belishaw burst out laughing. “I forgot you Russian imperials are always so rustic. British dragons don’t fly anymore, not unless it’s an emergency. I only fly now when I need to clear my head.”
Mikhail shuddered at the thought of going so long without transforming. The dragon inside him could not go that length of time being caged inside his human body.
“I suppose I am more rustic.” He thought of the cliffs by his home and how often he leapt from them, allowing his body to elongate and his skin to turn into scales. There was nothing more glorious than flight.
A pang of longing for home—his true home in Russia, the Fire Hills—slammed into him. He hadn’t seen his brothers in two hundred years. He hadn’t spoken to them for that long, either. He wasn’t sure what to say to them after so long. The last time he’d gone home, his father and mother had been traveling the world. He’d defied his father’s orders of exile and come home for that year.
He had brought the Englishman James Barrow with him. Barrow had been a friend and confidant. He had known what Mikhail really was, and rather than be afraid, he’d been curious. Fascinated. Barrow had been a naturalist, and exploring the world of dragons had been one of his greatest joys. Mikhail had worried that his brothers would not open up to Barrow, but they had been welcoming. Grigori, his eldest brother, was a man who lived for duty to his family, and the younger hotheaded Rurik was the Barinov battle dragon. Each brother had a duty assigned to him.
And I am the one who failed mine.
“I can see it, you know,” Belishaw said, his eyes peering deeply into Mikhail’s.
“See what?”
“Your pain. You came here to bring home a treasure to your family, but you were betrayed by a woman you intended to mate. I know your father blamed you, but you must stop blaming yourself.” Belishaw set down the empty glass he had been holding. “It’s been five hundred years. Your parents are gone, and from the way you speak of your brothers, they would take you back in an instant, yet you haven’t talked to them for two centuries. Who are you trying to punish, them or yourself?”
Belishaw always had a way of reminding Mikhail he had a tendency to play the martyr.
“You are right. It is time I returned home to them,” he admitted. His gaze drifted to the fire in the hearth, watching the logs pop and snap beneath the vermillion flames.
“So what’s stopping you?” Belishaw’s question was more of a challenge.
“Nothing. I will get those jewels back and return with my honor restored.”
Belishaw grinned. “Ah. Now things are getting interesting. What do you plan to do, exactly?”
A slow smile curved Mikhail’s lips. “My plan is to seduce a gemologist into giving them to me or aiding me in their retrieval.”
Belishaw tensed. “Not my brown-eyed creature.”
“No. It seems there are two here to help with the auction. You can distract yours all you like. I shall take the one with eyes like alexandrite.”
“Then we’d better get you one bloody good suit. No doubt it’s been a while since you’ve seduced a mortal. You’re bound to be rusty.”
Mikhail winced at the truth. His skills at seduction might be rusty, but from the way Piper Linwood had looked at him when he’d kissed her hand, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince the woman that he was interested in her. It would be his greatest pleasure to get Piper alone and show her just how good at kissing he really was.
4
But there, beneath those rings, beneath the talisman and gems and precious stones like blue eyes (lovers’ keepsakes) there still remains the silent crypt of sex, filled to its vaulted roof with flower petals.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
PIPER LINWOOD WAS SPEECHLESS.
The Thorne Auction House was nothing short of stunning. It was an old townhouse dating from the eighteen hundreds located on Curzon Street, and it had been converted into a boutique auction house and reception hall. The owner, Mr. Wesley Thorne, was an old English teddy bear who, as it so happened, looked a bit like Teddy Roosevelt, with ruddy cheeks, a bushy moustache, and rounded spectacles perched on his nose.
Piper and Jodie had come to the auction house earlier that evening and had been escorted to rooms upstairs where they could change into their evening gowns. He’d even offered to let them stay the night in case they had to work late. The reception was a black-tie affair, so she and Jodie had bought evening gowns at Harrods.
“Can you believe this place?” Jodie hopped onto the canopy bed, kicking her legs with a squeal of delight. “It’s like something out of a Jane Austen novel.”
Piper had to agree. She’d grown up in a small town outside of Boston and wasn’t used to the elegance and splendor of many of the places she’d seen in London since she’d first arrived. Mr. Thorne had told them that this townhouse had been in his family a long time, and he had been living here until recently. Thorne’s grandson was American and lived on the Gold Coast of Long Island, but he owned properties all over the world. Mr. Thorne was moving to America soon to spend more time with his grandson and his fiancée. It was so sweet.
She got to see a picture of the grandson and his fiancée, holding each other close on the porch of a beautiful ranch house
in Colorado, snow glittering on the ground. They looked so in love and so happy. Piper felt a little ache in her chest. She’d never had a relationship like that, not even close. She’d dated a few guys, but there had never been a spark. And she wanted that spark. She’d gotten tired of looking and had given up…until today.
One look at Mikhail Barinov at the museum and she’d felt it, the spark, and when he’d lifted her hand to his lips, an actual electric spark had jumped between her hand and his lips. The thought that a spark like that could be more than metaphorical had so shocked her that she’d just stared at him as he’d left the exhibit.
And he’s coming here tonight. Her stomach gave a fluttering flip for the hundredth time at the thought of running into Mikhail again.
It was a silly girlish thing to be obsessing over a man she’d known for less than five minutes, but damn… Any other woman would’ve been just as smitten with a hunk who had such bewitching eyes and a mouth that made her think of wicked things. And his gorgeous eyes had promised her that hint of edginess she desperately needed. She shivered.
“So…” Jodie’s voice cut through Piper’s thoughts. “We got you that knockout dress. Tell me you’re going to make the most of it when that Russian hottie shows up.” She sat on the bed, pointing one delicate foot like a ballerina. Piper wished she was more like Jodie, all elegance and effortless beauty. A man like Mikhail would want a woman who looked like Jodie, not her. She was just so normal.
“Piper, don’t you dare think like that,” Jodie suddenly snapped.
“Hmmm?”