The building he landed on several minutes later looked innocuous enough. It was one of the functional apartment buildings that had sprung up on the outskirts of St. Petersburg from the nineteen sixties to the nineteen eighties. They contained little character and were too flimsily built to offer much in the way of security, but at least they gave families the opportunity to live separately and away from the main and expensive part of the city.
Or so Vlad had informed them when they brought up a plan of the building online and all discussed the best way to approach and enter the building.
Deryk didn’t give a fuck whether the apartment building had the security of the Bank of England, he was going in there, and he wasn’t leaving again without Izabella.
Once again, he didn’t wait for the rest of the dragons before easily breaking the lock on the door into the top of the building and quietly entering the emergency stairwell. The apartment he was looking for was on the tenth floor. Number one-zero-two, to be exact.
The apartment he knew to be that of the brother and sister, Pyotr and Tanya.
Vaughn’s would-be lover.
Izabella’s ex-boyfriend.
Dragon hunters.
Chapter 12
Deryk was here.
There was no sound to alert Izzi to his presence either inside or outside the apartment where she now considered herself to be a prisoner, but nevertheless, she knew Deryk was close by.
Because of the deepening of the mating bond.
Deryk had warned that her senses would become heightened the more they were together, that not only would they need to be close to each other, but they would also be able to sense each other’s emotions.
Right now, Izzi sensed Deryk was filled with an icy, murderous rage in his need to find and protect his mate.
She could feel those human emotions through walls and floors, through time itself.
As she also sensed Deryk’s dragon wanted to rip and claw to pieces anything that stood in the way of him and his mate.
Tanya and Pyotr were standing in Deryk and his dragon’s way.
“You really need to release me now.” She tried one last time to reason with the Petrovs as they both restlessly paced the kitchen, waiting for the dragons to arrive. The brother and sister had made Izzi sit down at the kitchen table during that wait.
Pyotr gave a hard smile. “And why would we want to do that?”
“Because Deryk is going to kill you both if you don’t.” Izzi had no doubt about both the man’s and dragon’s murderous rage.
“How long did it take you to spread your legs for the inhuman English bastard?” Pyotr glared his disgust. “A few hours? A day?” he sneered.
“Deryk is Welsh,” she corrected. “And I’m his mate.” If Deryk was going to die today, then Izzi intended going with him, had no intention of waiting that three weeks of languishing without him before dying herself.
Everything had become crystal clear in her mind the past few minutes as they silently waited for the arrival of the dragons. As Izzi knew they would, if for no other reason than Deryk, once he discovered she was missing, would then search the city until he found her.
Her enhanced awareness of Deryk told her he had already found her. That any second now, he was going to burst into the Petrovs’ apartment.
Only to find her a prisoner there and his own life the price the Petrovs would demand for her release. A release they had already stated they had no intention of honoring, intending to use her as their means of escaping St. Petersburg altogether once they had disposed of Deryk.
The clarity Izzi now felt had nothing to do with the Petrovs and everything to do with her feelings for Deryk.
They might not have known each other very long, but Izzi now knew she had fallen in love with him, not only as his fated mate but as a woman. How could she not? Deryk might be arrogant and forceful, but he was also warm and loving, and he made love to her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. Because to him she was. How could any woman resist knowing the loyalty and protection of that fierce golden dragon, and the love and devotion of a man like Deryk, for the rest of her life?
Which, if the Petrovs had their way, wasn’t going to be for much longer!
But Izzi no longer had any doubt she was Deryk’s fated mate.
As such, she had no intention of allowing them to kill him.
She would fight to the death herself to prevent that from happening.
All was silent in the Petrovs’ apartment, but nevertheless, Deryk’s enhanced dragon hearing told him there were three people inside one of the rooms at the back of the apartment. Two of them he dismissed, but the third person he knew to be Izabella.
He knew his mate’s every breath. Every movement. Sensed she was sitting right now, while the two humans paced the room either side of her. Her heart was beating faster and louder than normal, but he believed she was otherwise unharmed. No doubt the increased heartbeat was caused by the fear of being kept prisoner by the Petrovs.
But not for much longer.
“How do you want to do this?”
He turned blankly to look at his two dragon brothers. Grigor the red, Bryn the bronze, although they were all in human form at the moment. Deryk’s anger and worry were such he was barely holding on to his own humanity.
“Your mating with Izabella means she now belongs to our clan, and the Romanovs have agreed to stand back for now.” Grigor explained their absence.
“They can all go to hell—” Deryk broke off to draw in a deep and controlling breath. “I intend to go in there and rip the Petrovs apart.” He answered his brother’s earlier question.
“In front of Izabella?” Grigor shook his head. “Not a good idea if you want her to go ahead with the mating. Watching her mate rip two humans apart in front of her eyes, people she knows and believed until a short time ago to be her friends, isn’t going to be something she easily forgets.”
Deryk’s nostrils flared with frustration even as he acknowledged the logic of that. The last thing he wanted was for Izabella to be disgusted or frightened by him. “Then what do you suggest I do?”
“How about knocking on the door and simply asking for Izabella?” Bryn suggested dryly.
Deryk snorted. “You’re suggesting I do what civilized people do?”
“It would be best for both Izabella’s safety now and the future of your mating,” Grigor advised.
Deryk clenched his hands at his sides, ignoring the pain as the tips of his talons pierced his palms. “I want to kick the door in, not knock on it,” he growled.
“Then I’ll be the one to knock,” Bryn drawled as he stepped forward and did exactly that. “Once we’re all inside, you get Izabella out as quickly as possible and leave us to deal with the Petrovs.”
“If they have harmed Izabella in any way…” He knew Izabella wasn’t dead because his heart was now beating in time with hers, but that didn’t mean the Petrovs wouldn’t still try to hurt her.
“You will leave us to deal with them,” Grigor insisted. “Your only priority now is to take Izabella away from here.”
Deryk could now hear either the Petrov brother or the sister approaching the door from the other side. He also sensed his mate farther inside the apartment as she rose to her feet before moving across the small confines of the room she was in.
What the hell was Izabella doing?
Whatever it was, she had better remain unharmed, or Bryn and Grigor could forget any idea of Deryk allowing them to deal with the Petrovs. He would personally ensure they suffered the pains of hell before he dispatched them both there.
“How can you let one of those abominations even touch you?” Pyotr sneered as he watched Izzi closely. He had given her permission to stand up and take a glass from one of the kitchen cupboards before filling it with water, after she had claimed she felt faint.
Izzi continued to appear as if she was filling the glass with water, when in reality she held the glass several inches to the side of the
running water. “Deryk is a fiercely protective man and a magnificent dragon.” If anyone was an abomination, then it was Pyotr, not Deryk. The malevolent hatred in Pyotr’s eyes and the way spittle issued from his mouth every time he spoke totally disgusted her.
Pyotr snorted. “He’s going to die as you watch.”
If what Pyotr said about his parents’ deaths was true, then perhaps he was justified in his hatred of the Romanov dragons. If it was true, which she still didn’t believe. But even if it was true, neither Deryk nor any of his brothers had been a part of those deaths. Nor did Izzi have any intention of allowing Deryk to fight this fight alone. She was a dragon’s mate—Deryk’s mate—and she intended to act like it.
She didn’t have much time, could hear the murmur of voices coming down the hallway now, easily identifying the second guttural growl as belonging to Deryk. As she had predicted, he had come for her.
“Turn and look at me, damn it.” Pyotr took a painful grasp of Izzi’s arm, obviously intending to forcefully pull her round to face him.
She didn’t hesitate, smashing the glass on the side of the metal sink, as she had intended all along, before turning to thrust the jagged edges against a surprised Pyotr’s jugular vein. “Don’t,” she advised harshly, thrusting the jagged glass farther into his flesh as he would have made a grab for her wrist. She felt slightly sick when she saw the trickle of blood now dripping down his throat, but her hand didn’t so much as tremble as she kept the pressure of the broken glass against his bleeding flesh.
“What the hell—” Deryk took in the scene in the kitchen in one glance before placing his arm about the throat of the woman beside him and squeezing just enough to cause her to start choking for air. “It would seem my mate is no longer appreciative of your hospitality,” he noted with satisfaction.
Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t still angry with Izabella for having put herself in danger, first, by coming here at all, secondly, by attacking and subduing Petrov.
At the same time, he felt immense pride in his mate.
His dragon inwardly purred his own approval.
“Where are the Romanovs?” Pyotr Petrov’s eyes glittered with a fevered hatred. “Cowering in their palace, no doubt,” he added contemptuously.
“We are all here,” Vladimir Romanov said coldly as he stepped into the room to stand beside Deryk. “You will explain yourselves. Now.” Vlad’s voice cracked like a whip.
Pyotr Petrov glared his hatred at the other man. “Do not presume to order us about as you do your other human pets.”
Deryk heard Vlad draw in several calming breaths before speaking again. “Why did you attack Vaughn?”
Petrov’s gaze moved to the hallway, where the rest of the Romanov brothers stood with Grigor and Bryn, his top lip turning back in a sneer as he obviously saw Vaughn was among them. “He’s wanted to fuck my sister for weeks, and last night he believed he was about to succeed. Not quite the end to the evening you expected, was it, dragon?” he scorned.
“Why did you attack him?” Vlad demanded again.
Deryk’s attention hadn’t wavered from Izabella for a moment. He could see by the slight trembling of her arm and the pallor of her cheeks that she was nearing the end of her strength in keeping the jagged edges of glass pressed in warning against Petrov’s throat. “Grigor.” He gave his brother a pointed glance.
Grigor nodded his understanding as he stepped into the room to move to Izabella’s side. “You will leave this to us now,” he said quietly to her, careful not to stand too close to her as he raised his hand to relieve her of the glass. Deryk’s dragon was too close to tolerate any other dragon being near his mate.
Izzi flicked a glance at the eldest Pendragon brother. “You won’t harm them? I— They believe the Romanov dragons killed their parents ten years ago.”
Deryk glanced at Vlad. “Did you?”
“Absolutely not,” the other dragon answered without hesitation.
“Liar!” Tanya bit out fiercely, trying and failing to break free of Deryk’s hold. “You ripped them both apart like the animals you are.”
“Take Izabella and go,” Vlad told Deryk as he took over holding Tanya. “We did not kill any humans ten years ago, nor will we harm these two,” he assured huskily. “You have my word, Izabella.”
Izzi believed him. She also knew by the way Vlad now called her Izabella, as Deryk did, that the eldest Romanov dragon had accepted and approved her mating to the Welsh dragon.
The question was, did she?
It had seemed so easy to know her future was with Deryk when she thought both their lives were in danger, but now the drama was over, all the differences between them came to the surface once again.
Deryk had lived so much longer than she had.
He was so much more experienced, in everything, than she was.
He hadn’t told her yet who this other person was who, in the past, he said had meant something special to him. Maybe a previous mate? Deryk had assured her there was only one true mate for his dragon, and she was it, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loved another woman before her.
Most daunting of all, Deryk was a dragon.
If they mated, would any future children they had also be dragon?
Whatever the answers were to those questions, Deryk didn’t seem inclined to talk at all during the taxi ride back to the palace. Once there, he tersely instructed her to collect some of her clothes, enough to put in a backpack, and to say goodbye, for now at least, to her parents.
One look at the grimness of his expression was enough to tell Izzi not to argue. That wouldn’t always be the case.
“Do you think Vlad will keep his word?” she demanded a few minutes later as she and Deryk went up the winding staircase onto the roof of the palace.
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere you’ll be safe,” he answered curtly.
“Deryk…” she appealed.
His expression remained coldly distant. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes, of course—”
“Then where we’re going isn’t important.”
“But— Why are you being so cold toward me?”
He looked at her with hard, gold-colored eyes. “You deliberately left the palace earlier after telling me you would wait for me in my bedchamber.”
The frown cleared from her brow. “I wanted to talk to Tanya and Pyotr before the Romanovs did.”
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “And placed yourself in danger by doing so.”
“I didn’t know that—”
“I suggest you prepare yourself to meet my dragon rather than merely see him,” he cut harshly across her protest. “And be aware, he’s no happier with you right now than I am,” he warned grimly seconds before the air around him began to shimmer.
Izzi’s eyes widened as she suddenly found herself in the presence of the twenty-foot-tall golden dragon that gazed down at her with Deryk’s hard and narrowed eyes.
The wisps of smoke escaping the dragon’s wide nostrils each time it breathed out told her Deryk was correct. Right now, his dragon was as angry with her as Deryk was.
Chapter 13
She should have known Deryk would take her to Pendragon Castle in Wales.
A medieval castle, which had once stood as bastion against English invaders.
Izzi wondered how it now felt about its Russian invader.
“This is beautiful.” She was in total awe of the rugged Welsh countryside and the mountain the castle stood on, set among a forest of trees. The valley below was a carpet of late-summer flowers, a small village visible in the distance.
She had wondered, after many hours of being carried by Deryk’s dragon as he flew quickly across the sky—a scary enough experience in itself—where they could possibly be going, as it was taking so long to get there. The novelty of being carried and flying with a dragon had worn off after a couple of hours, and she had even fallen asleep at one point.
&n
bsp; The air was warmer when she woke, and she knew as soon as they stopped flying over water and began to dip lower and lower as Deryk flew purposefully toward this beautiful castle set on a craggy mountaintop, exactly where they were going.
“I don’t even have my passport with me!” She turned to look at the still and silent, and once again very human, Deryk. She sighed. “Are you ever going to talk to me again?”
“Maybe once I’ve ensured your backside is so sore, you can’t sit down.” He nodded, unsmiling.
Izzi blinked. “What?”
His mouth was set in grim lines. “Did you seriously think there would be no repercussions for your reckless behavior in going alone to the Petrovs’ apartment?”
Her eyes were wide. “You intend to spank me?”
“I intend to do whatever is necessary to ensure you do not put your life so recklessly in danger ever again.”
“By spanking me?”
“Yes.”
She gave a dismissive snort. “I don’t think so.”
“Thinking does not seem to be your greatest asset right now.”
It was indicative of how angry Deryk was that he was talking so precisely, with none of the modern idioms usually present in his speech.
Izzi gave a shake of her head. “Spanking is classed as abuse in the twenty-first century.”
He gave a grin that could only be classed as predatory. “Neither I nor my dragon belong to this century. Besides,” his voice became almost a purr, “you might find you enjoy it.”
“I don’t think so,” she stated firmly.
Deryk’s gaze swept over her possessively. “The thought of you lying naked over my thighs, with your bare bottom raised and anticipating the sting of my hand, certainly arouses me.”
Izzi’s cheeks blazed with hot color. “That’s probably because you’re a barbaric throwback to the fifth century!”
Some of his coldness left him as he chuckled softly. “Let’s go inside the castle.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” Izzi muttered, not budging by as much as an inch. “And I’m not going anywhere until you promise not to spank me.”
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