by Lauren Smith
Piper glanced at Mikhail, who still slept, and she couldn’t believe she was sitting in a Cornwall mansion, talking about dragons and magical rubies.
“Why do you think it’s dangerous?” she asked. She hadn’t noticed anything other than the purity of the gemstone and its stunning size.
“It’s just a hunch, more than anything. My family was happy to trade it to the Barinovs because we didn’t know the extent of its powers. England isn’t like Russia. When our dragon clans fight, it’s often deadly. You won’t see us burning down the city, but entire family lines can be wiped out in a matter of weeks when clans go to war. The Barinovs have only one family whom they see as a threat—the Drakors. We believed sending the Dragon Heart Stone with Mikhail back to the Fire Hills would be safer than keeping it here in England. But the treasure never arrived. That’s why I agreed to help Mikhail. He’s lived in exile for five hundred years. Far too long. Now that he has the Cheapside hoard, he can finally go home.” There was a hint of melancholy in Belishaw’s eyes as he said this. It was clear the bonds of friendship between dragons ran deep.
She scowled. “His brothers wouldn’t let him come home?” If they were that level of cruel, she didn’t want them anywhere near Mikhail.
Belishaw shook his head. “It was their father’s order to exile Mikhail, and he died more than twenty years ago, but Mikhail felt honor bound to continue his search. His brothers are eager for him to come home regardless.”
“Oh, that’s good. I didn’t want them to come here if they were the sort who would banish their own brother.” A wave of protectiveness for Mikhail had grown inside her the moment she’d found him unconscious on the beach. She knew her face was red enough that Belishaw could see because he laughed. He leaned back in his chair, seemingly more relaxed.
“You’re protective of him. That’s a good sign.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because he feels the same toward you. It’s good for two people to be protective of each other.”
There was something in the way he said it that made her sense he wasn’t telling her everything, but she doubted he would admit it.
She focused back on Mikhail. The worried, restless look on his face seemed to have faded a bit. “When will his brothers arrive?”
“Rurik, Mikhail’s youngest brother, is in Russia. He is staying put to protect their landholdings there. The Drakors give them trouble from time to time, and he cannot leave their boundaries unguarded. The eldest, Grigori, and his mate are in America. They should arrive in a few days.”
“So dragons mate with other dragons?” She felt silly for asking, but now she couldn’t help but be curious. She had been kissing a dragon, after all. She wanted to know if humans and dragon shifters were…compatible. Belishaw had mentioned something about mating humans, but she’d been so worried about Mikhail that she hadn’t been focusing on much of what the other man had said.
God, I’m an awful person. He almost died today, and I’m wondering whether we can have sex when he’s better.
Belishaw’s dark eyes sparkled like fractured topaz. “We do mate with dragonesses. But they do not like to mate with us. It is why we are slowly dying out as a race.”
“Why don’t dragonesses like to mate male dragons? That doesn’t exactly mesh with how evolution works.”
His lips twitched. “Because we are creatures of magic, not evolution. We are too dominant for the females of our kind. Our bed play is a little rough, and we like to…” He hesitated. “Be in control. Dragonesses do as well, and it makes sex less satisfying for the female dragons as well as the males.”
Wow. That put some serious mental images in Piper’s head. She couldn’t forget how Mikhail had so easily tied her wrists and held her against the bedpost. The memory made her thighs clench. She became even more aware of lying on her half-naked dragon shifter on the couch.
“But you do…sleep with humans?”
A slow smile spread on Belishaw’s lips. “We do indeed. And we quite enjoy it.” He rose from his chair by the fire and pulled out his cell phone. He started to walk toward the kitchen. “Which reminds me, I owe your friend Jodie Harkness a call.”
Piper cleared her throat. “Does she know about…what you are?”
Belishaw paused in the doorway, his face half in shadow. “No. If things become more serious, I will tell her. But it’s safer not to for now.” He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Piper alone with Mikhail.
Once more she focused on his face, on the beautiful shape of his lips and the marble-cut features that would make angels weep. A dragon. Who would have imagined? There was a part of her that still couldn’t believe it. Maybe her wild attraction to him came from the fact that he was a dragon? Maybe they were irresistible to humans? She wanted to think that his hold over her was something as simple as that, but deep down she knew it wasn’t a simple fascination or some magical sway he held. No, it was something deeper, something purer that she could not name but only feel.
Tonight he’d gone over the cliffs, and the beast inside him had tried to—
She shuddered. She found within her a new drive, not to reclaim her life in London, but to save his here. To prove to him that life was still worth living. She reached up to stroke his cheek and traced his brow with a gentle caress. She’d seen the beast he was, but she was not afraid.
“I’m here. You’re not alone.” She hoped Mikhail’s dragon could hear it too. “Stay with me.”
10
And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet I would remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
―Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
FITFUL DREAMS AND HAUNTED, shadowy nightmares chased Mikhail through the halls of his mind as he slept. The dragon stirred, trying to reclaim control as images of Elizabeth, his sweet Gloriana, betraying him played over and over. For five centuries his dragon had held the pain of the past at bay. But the moment Piper Linwood came into his life, the fortress around his dragon’s heart had begun to crumble.
He had dared to desire a mate once before, and it had cost him everything but his life. The dragon inside him didn’t want to take a risk like that again. It had nearly killed him. And Piper… She could be his mate. The chemistry was there, and the hunger in her blue-gray eyes when she looked at him made it all but impossible to keep his distance.
He had to have her. Even if it meant his death.
As the dreams faded into the recesses of his mind, he could feel the delicious heat of a woman’s body on top of his. The smoky scent of burning logs and the slight chill of his clothes all came together in a slowly building awareness. His body was still cooler than normal, but the icy dread that had been drowning him when he’d crawled from the water had receded.
A delicate scent, floral with a hint of honey, teased his nose, and he took it in deeply, like he was scenting a freshly poured glass of wine. Piper’s hair was spread out across his chest in wild tendrils. He moved one hand to twine a lock around one of his fingers. His dragon rumbled in confusion. It desired closeness, intimacy, but it was afraid after everything that had happened before.
He understood. More than forty years confined to an English prison, unable to transform, unable to escape, had almost turned his dragon feral. If he hadn’t been so devastated by Elizabeth’s death, he would’ve let his dragon go unchecked. London would have indeed burned to the ground from his rage.
Instead, when he’d seen her funeral procession, all of the fight in him had died. He’d had long years to think over what she’d said to him, and in the end she had been proven right. Though she had learned the truth, she had been powerless to do other than what she had. As a queen, she could not act upon her desires and what she wanted, only what she must do for her people.
He wondered for a moment about the man who had taken his place, chained and tormented in a tiny cell. Though there could be no happiness for Elizabeth and Mikhai
l, she had hoped there would be some measure of justice. Perhaps there had been, but it had not made his life any easier to bear.
Mikhail returned to the present, studying the way the firelight caught amber and bronze in Piper’s light brown hair. It was a beautiful mix of colors. He remembered that she’d tried to remove his jeans earlier and smiled. The time for that would come soon enough.
Familiar footfalls caught his attention. Belishaw came out of the kitchen and paused when he saw Mikhail.
“You’re awake,” Belishaw said, his eyes hard and serious. “We need to talk.”
Mikhail frowned. He did not want to talk. Not about the beach or how his dragon had tried to end him.
“Tomorrow,” Mikhail replied. “I assume you will stay here? Or are you going back to London?” He hoped his friend would stay, though Mikhail admitted he wanted Piper all to himself.
“I had intended to go back, but I think you need me here. Piper won’t be able to stop your dragon if it tries anything.”
It filled Mikhail with a quiet joy to know he and Belishaw had formed such a deep friendship over the centuries, but he didn’t want to be a burden.
“She is the key. The closer I get to her, the farther the past is pushed away. The dragon can’t fight her forever.”
His friend’s eyes filled with understanding. “You mean to mate with her?”
Mikhail glanced down at Piper’s sleeping face, her slightly upturned nose, kissable lips, and the gold-brown lashes on her cheeks. He nodded.
“I think I do.” His answer still came as a surprise. “My dragon and I both sense she is a true mate.”
“And the fact that she is mortal?” Belishaw asked.
“Elizabeth was as well, and I didn’t care,” Mikhail reminded him. “I never expected to live as long as my father. My brothers are still alive. They don’t need me to carry on the Barinov name. I would rather be happy for seventy years than alone for the next five thousand.” It was a decision all dragons eventually faced.
“Speaking of your brothers…” Belishaw cleared his throat. “I was able to track them down. Rurik has to stay in Russia, but Grigori and his mate are coming straight here. They were visiting her family in America.”
“Grigori has a mate?” The news shocked him. Strong, sensible, disciplined Grigori had never seemed like a dragon who would give in to his instinct to mate.
“He does.”
“Is she a dragoness?” he asked. Somehow he couldn’t picture a female dragon responding to Grigori’s overly protective nature too well. He must have found one very tolerant female.
Belishaw shrugged. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say. But if he mated a dragoness, I would have heard about it. Mating a Barinov would have been important news.”
Mikhail hoped his brother hadn’t mated a human. That would mean carrying on the Barinov line would be up to Rurik. Their youngest brother was a rough, wild man who would never settle down, and surely no dragoness would take him. Since only two dragon shifters could produce a drakeling, the Barinov bloodline would be doomed.
Mikhail wondered what had happened to his older brother since he last saw him. Clearly, he had changed in the last two hundred years if he had mated, especially if he had chosen a human. Grigori had always been the responsible one, dependable and in charge, the one who never took risks. Mating a human was completely out of character for him.
“You should go back to London,” Mikhail said. “You don’t want to miss out on time with your brown-eyed gemologist.”
His friend grinned. “I do miss her. She’s quite anxious for me to return.” He sobered. “She’s worried about Piper too and I must reassure her that all is well. I will go, but you must call me if you feel it taking over. I don’t…I can’t lose another friend. I don’t want to attend another blasted funeral.” The gruffness in the Englishman’s usually refined voice was a bit startling.
Mikhail nodded. “Very well.”
With one last farewell, Belishaw collected his coat and keys and left. He had a long drive back to London.
Several minutes passed before Mikhail took a chance and moved beneath Piper. When she didn’t stir, he pulled himself to a sitting position and rolled her sideways until she was cradled in his lap. Then he rose with her in his arms and carried her to his bedroom upstairs. He needed to get out of his damp clothes and to make sure she was no longer wet. The last thing he needed now was for her to get pneumonia.
He set her down on his bed and unwrapped the thick blanket. He touched her pants and sweater. They were still damp. She only stirred once as he slid them off her. He tucked her back beneath the blankets and loaded the fireplace with fresh logs, then held up his palm, and soon the logs began to pop and crackle with flame.
He returned to Piper and placed a kiss upon her brow before he stripped out of his jeans and climbed inside the bathroom shower. The hot water warmed his skin, and he sighed. Centuries of stress bled out of him and onto the warm, heated tile. He didn’t think about the jewels hidden away, or the icy chill of the ocean, or even Elizabeth. He closed his eyes and pictured Piper and how she’d felt in his arms the moment he kissed her in the antechamber to the ballroom at Thorne Auction House. How she’d tasted, like brandy and fire, burning from the inside out.
He couldn’t forget the flashes of her memories that had been passed on to him, either. When he’d kissed Elizabeth, he’d never seen the unguarded parts of her heart, only her memories that showed her moments of fear and mistrust of those around her. He’d assumed it was simply because she was a young queen in a dangerous court full of betrayals. Now he knew it was because her heart had never been open to him at all.
It wasn’t so with Piper. She had opened her heart to him from the moment he’d first met her. And he had responded, opening himself to her. How could he not? The passionate, determined, but shy woman who had pushed herself harder than anyone he knew to become the woman she was. He felt proud that fate had seen fit to give him a second chance with a woman like her.
His body hardened, and he couldn’t resist grasping his erection, stroking its length. By the gods, he needed a release. It had been too long since he’d—
A soft sound drew his attention to the shower door. Through the steamed glass he saw Piper standing there, wearing only bra and panties beneath the blanket wrapped around her like a cloak. She stared open-mouthed as he fisted his cock.
Did she want to watch? Her cheeks pinkened, but she didn’t look away as he continued to pump his hand. His balls ached with the need to release, and watching her watch him was hotter than hell.
“Like what you see?” He swung the shower door open with his free hand. Steam rolled out and wrapped around Piper’s frozen figure. She didn’t reply, but her grip on the blanket began to slip as he unleashed his seed. She gasped and the blanket fell to the floor. She wore only the bra and panties now, and he got hard all over again at the sight. He didn’t wait for her to think. He pulled her into the shower with him and shut the door. She jumped as the hot water splashed on their bodies.
“Wait, my bra—” she said as he dragged her deeper into the spray.
“Let me help you.” He slipped his fingertips under her bra straps and unclasped it from behind, then lowered them off her shoulders. Her bra fell to the floor with a wet smack. She covered her breasts and backed up until she had the shower wall behind her.
Mikhail’s instincts took over. He cornered her against the wall, placing his hands on either side of her shoulders and leaning in to kiss her. Her startled lips parted, and she opened up for his exploring tongue. Gods, he could kiss this woman over and over and never want to stop.
“Touch me,” he urged her. Her hands crept hesitantly up his arms.
“Not there…” He rolled his hips and hers, letting his shaft bob against her belly. “Here.”
When one of her hands curled around his cock, he groaned in pleasure.
“Like this?” she asked on a whisper. He managed a nod and began to rock his hips, using
her hand to build toward a new release. She seemed to understand what he wanted and gripped him tighter. He cupped the back of her neck, holding her still so he could kiss her fiercely. The water rained down around them, but everything seemed to be on fire.
He hissed out as the climax hit him like a freight train. His seed splashed on her belly, and he panted as it began to wash away. An animalistic rush of joy unexpectedly came at marking her like that.
Mine, the dragon growled inside his head, the word unmistakable.
Yes. Ours, he agreed.
He opened his eyes and stared at Piper as she uncurled her fingers from his cock and lifted her head to meet his gaze.
“Tell me you want me,” he said in a low growl. “Because I need to be inside you.”
Piper bit her bottom lip, her eyes luminous like a full moon, a bright, thrilling silver-blue that made him think of polished moonstones.
“Okay…but I’m…” She faltered. “I’m a…”
He brushed a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “I know. I’ll be gentle.”
She nodded, and he wanted to crow with victory. It was an ancient urge the dragon couldn’t resist, the need to connect to such purity, like they did with the gemstones. He turned off the shower and then took her by the hand, leading her out of the shower. He grabbed a fluffy white towel from the rack. After drying their bodies, he led her to the bed, and she sat shyly on the edge of it, her thighs clasped together and her arms crushed over her chest.
He smiled and leaned over her. She tilted her head back to welcome his approaching kiss. The sound of the fire and the distant roar of the sea felt like home for the first time, because he wasn’t alone.