by Lauren Smith
So far no one had been able to get close to Rurik. Direct contact was useless. Shifters didn’t trust the Brotherhood and always closed ranks the moment they appeared. They’d tried incognito female agents. It seemed logical, given his background and reputation, but he never let any of them get close enough to lure him to a secure location. He always seemed to sniff them out somehow. And bringing him in by force would only justify the distrust shifters had and make it even harder to get answers.
That’s why I’m here alone. Rurik won’t see me coming.
She grinned a little. She wore a light perfume she’d concocted that contained a bit of enhanced pheromones, a side project she’d been working on. If it worked, she would catch his interest and then go with him rather than try to lure him somewhere with her. That had been the tipoff, she assumed. The moment the female agents had tried to get Rurik someplace he wasn’t familiar with, the warning flags went up.
But Charlotte had a better way in mind.
Once she had him alone in a place he felt comfortable, she’d use her secret weapon on him: a drug that could incapacitate him long enough to call in the Brotherhood to help her transport him to secure facility where he could be questioned safely without anyone getting hurt.
The cabdriver hit the brakes as a car ahead of them swerved into their lane. Charlotte winced as she jerked forward and collided with the cab’s back seat.
“Sorry!” the driver muttered in heavily accented English. Then he flashed an obscene gesture at the driver ahead of them. At this rate, it would take them forever to reach the club where Rurik was supposed to be.
Charlotte slid back in her seat and tried to still her jittery nerves. She would have been back in her little lab in Detroit—safe and sound, instead of here dragon hunting—if it hadn’t been for her friend Meg.
Meg Stratford, a hunter for the Brotherhood, had secretly called on her to analyze a serum Meg had found in London—a drug that could subdue a dragon’s shifting abilities. Charlotte had unraveled the chemical composition in a matter of days. The product she’d synthesized essentially made them human for a period of time depending on the dose. She’d made samples that would last around twenty-four hours on an average-sized shifter.
But the drug was potentially dangerous. Not in terms of directly harming the shifters, but because of how easily it could be misused. In the wrong hands, it would threaten the balance that existed between the various supernatural factions. Even certain members of the Brotherhood, known for their overzealous nature, couldn’t be trusted with it. As a result, Meg had sworn her to secrecy, even from her own brothers.
A stab of guilt cut through Charlotte. She’d told Meg she needed more information on dragons to help her solve the mystery of the serum, but that hadn’t been true. The real reason she needed to know about dragons was because she planned to prove she was a worthy hunter just like her brothers.
She’d created a batch of the dragon-dampening serum for herself, and she had the vials tucked away safely in her hotel mini-fridge. She went over the list of what she knew about dragons in her head as the taxi drove toward Rurik’s nightclub, the Lair.
Dragons could grow old—like thousands of years—but for most of their lives they resembled men and women in their mid-thirties.
There were more than a dozen breeds, such as Russian Imperials and Nordic ice dragons. Rivalries were common between many of them.
Dragons could breathe fire as well as control it.
They had protective thick hides with scales. Those scales were often used in magical spells.
Dragons could shift between human and dragon forms in seconds.
They were obsessed with jewels.
For some reason they were sensitive to pure iron. It could both injure them and bind them. While they could be wounded by normal weapons, they healed fast, and only iron weapons could do lasting damage.
Charlotte studied the Moscow nightlife nervously as the taxicab came to a stop in front of the nightclub. Being out of America for the first time in her life, she definitely wasn’t used to the cultural differences. On the flight over she’d listened to some Russian language lessons on her smartphone, trying to learn some phrases, but it gave her a headache. It didn’t help that Russian was a notoriously difficult language, requiring a greater range of vocabulary just to reach a basic understanding. Luckily, the majority of the hotel staff and taxi drivers spoke English, something she was incredibly grateful for. However, once she stepped into that nightclub, she was positive it was going to be all Russian. The driver had warned her that this was a Russian-only nightclub, not the sort of place for tourists.
“Here is okay?” the driver asked.
“Yes, thank you.” She slipped him a few hundred rubles and then got out of the cab. There were several men lingering at the entrance of the club, one of whom whistled when he caught sight of her.
She clutched her cell, which contained an emergency number for the Brotherhood office in Saint Petersburg, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it. If things went poorly, she’d have to face her brothers and listen to them tell her “I told you so” about staying in Michigan, where life was safe but boring.
Please don’t let this be a bad idea.
One of the men by the door said something to her in Russian, but she didn’t understand him. She smiled but kept her head down as she brushed past them. One of the men slapped her ass as she walked by. She tensed and almost tripped.
Just stay cool, her inner voice warned her. She might not be a hunter like her brothers, but she’d taken enough self-defense classes to know how to take care of herself. If this guy wasn’t careful, she’d kick him in the balls so hard they’d snap up into his cheeks. But she couldn’t afford to make a scene. She needed to stay calm and not call attention to herself.
Ignoring the harsh laughter of the men outside, she slipped into the dark club interior. The energetic dance music enveloped her, and the bass pounded so hard against the walls that she could feel them shake as she skirted the club’s interior. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, even with the flashing white lights and pulsing strobes. Fog filled the bottom of the club, hiding a clear view of the dance floor. Everywhere people were dancing, drinking, and laughing. It was a hedonistic gathering where pleasures ruled the night.
Charlotte clutched her slender purse and headed for the bar. A dark-haired man with an intricate neck tattoo of a wolf howling was flipping bottles and pouring drinks. He took one look at her and retrieved a large rounded glass, then poured a dark red wine in it. He slid it across the slick wood surface of the bar to her. He chuckled when she caught the glass, which glided smoothly into her waiting hand. Then she took a sip.
Wow. The red was soft and dark with a hint of oak and…cherry? Yes, that was it. She smiled at the man, who gave a roguish wink before he turned to see to his other customers. A bartender who guessed your style of drink…that was certainly interesting. A guy like that would rake in tips in America. She studied his wolf tattoo more closely. Was he a shifter? Meg had told her all sorts of things about shifters over the years. Tribal tattoos were pretty popular among the wolf clans. But what were the odds that a wolf shifter was working in a dragon-shifter-owned bar?
She watched the dancers on the floor for a while, scanning the room until she saw what she was looking for. A back door. It probably led to some offices. That might be where Rurik hung out when he wasn’t working in the club. But she had no plans to barge in there and look. She would stay here and wait. Hopefully he would come out soon, and then she could start her reconnaissance.
The files she’d studied assured her that he always stuck close to Moscow and rarely went to his second residence, which was somewhere south in the country. She took another sip of wine and looked back to the dancers. Three of the men from outside the club stood in front of her, watching her with wicked grins. She froze. The man who had slapped her ass was talking to her again in Russian.
“I’m sorry—I don’t speak very much Russian,�
�� she told him, one of the few Russian phrases she could manage, and tried to turn back to the bar. One of them grabbed her from behind and dragged away from her seat.
“Let go!” She swung her purse, smacking him in the face. The heavy gold clasps thunked as they made contact with the man’s nose. He cursed, clutching his face as he waved his other hand at his friends, who rushed her.
Oh shit! She dropped into a fighting stance, praying she wouldn’t break an ankle in her low heels when she tried to roundhouse whoever made the first move on her. A man tried to grab for her hair with a meaty hand. She pulled herself back and countered. The man was too close for a roundhouse, but not a solid knee to the breadbasket. He dropped with a gasp, and Charlotte backed away, waiting for the next. But there were too many of them, and she doubted they’d oblige her by coming one at a time after that.
A deep bellowing shout thundered through the room and sent the men scrambling away like rats.
Panting, she held her purse, which dangled on its chain from one of her hands. She felt someone’s eyes upon her, a gaze as tangible as a caress along her skin, making her shiver. She looked around for whoever had scared the men off. Her heart thumped in a panicked beat against her ribs when she saw who had rescued her, standing behind her.
Rurik Barinov. He looked dangerous and sexy in jeans and a black T-shirt and especially those biker boots. If she was being honest with herself, those boots had always played quite a large role in her fantasies whenever she thought of him. Considering he was supposed to be her target, not the star of her most sensual daydreams, that wasn’t a good sign.
“Are you all right?” he asked. His accent, a deep, rumbling, slightly growling tone, did funny things to her insides. For a second she couldn’t speak—her brain had short-circuited.
“I…”
Rurik gently grasped her by the elbow. That got a reaction from her, as her first instinct was to pull back. But his response to this surprised her; he looked at her and said, “Please,” while holding out his hand. Something about his voice disarmed her, and she allowed herself to be led away. He took her into a dark, quiet alcove where the acoustics of the room couldn’t reach them. His eyes, a beautiful green, swept over her from head to toe. He pressed her back against the wall and cupped her chin, lifting her face. She shivered as his thumb caressed her bottom lip.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He tilted his head, still studying her in an intense manner. “American?”
“Y-yes.”
“You shouldn’t come to a club like this alone. It is too dangerous for a flower such as you.” He let go of her face, but he leaned in a few inches, inhaling deeply before he murmured something to himself in Russian.
“I’m not that delicate,” she replied stiffly. Sure, she wasn’t a kick-ass supernatural hunter like her brothers, but she wasn’t totally helpless.
His lips curved into a grin that made a storm of butterflies come to life in her stomach. “It is true. Some flowers have thorns, and you certainly showed yours.” The dim lights and the way he stood half in shadow exposed a thin scar that swept down his face across his cheek. It had a distinctive shape to it, as if he’d been slashed by something. Was it from another dragon’s claw? She had to admit she was fascinated. The Brotherhood files on the Barinov dragons were slim. She wished she knew more about him, and she had a feeling she was about to.
“Yet I think you are more delicate than you realize, little one.” He reached up to brush the backs of his fingers over her cheek. She shivered as a wave of arousal buzzed through her. She opened her mouth, even though she had no idea what she was going to say, but he placed a finger over her lips.
“Why don’t you leave your purse with my bartender and come dance with me?” He was tugging her away from the wall before she could argue. He slid her purse off her shoulder and tossed it at the tattooed man, who caught it in one hand and tucked it beneath the bar.
“Hey—”
“Shhh.” Rurik pulled her against him as music wrapped around them, pulsing and thumping. His hands curled around her hips, the tips of his fingers riding the edge of her ass as they began to dance. He moved smoothly with a rolling gait, and the slide of his feet felt like he’d had tons of practice. She’d always been a terrible dancer, but with his hands and body guiding hers, he made it seem so easy. It bordered on surreal, being here with him, the lights of the club spinning around them and music pouring into her soul.
Maybe I’m just dreaming about him again.
It wouldn’t have been the first time since she’d seen his face in those files that she’d woken up in the dead of night, her heart racing and her body hungry for the touch of this man…this man who was also a beast.
Her plan to capture him was still on track. If anything, this could work to her advantage. But she could relax, enjoy herself for a few songs first, couldn’t she? Dancing was one of the few ways a man and a woman could speak to each other without words. Well, that and kissing. But she couldn’t let him kiss her, not after she’d heard Meg’s lecture about dragon pheromones.
As a biochemist, she was well aware of the drugging influences of pheromones in some animals, and that had led to an idea: What if she could turn the tables on him? Shifters were still essentially human, and while human pheromones did not affect people the way they did other animals, some samples obtained from a rogue dragon shifter the Brotherhood had had to take down had resulted in a minor breakthrough. The pheromones they gave off were still human, but they were supercharged somehow, amplified in a way that no human could do naturally, but she could reproduce it artificially. She was wearing a sample of it now, a field test to see if it might make her more interesting to Rurik.
But she was also worried about the reverse happening. She didn’t want to come under the influence of anything she couldn’t control, biological or chemical. Part of her worried that he might have already exerted some kind of subtle influence over her. There were rumors that dragons could compel humans with a form of hypnotism.
“You are enjoying yourself?” he asked in her ear.
His hands drifted lower, cupping her ass. A new flash of arousal hit her, and she couldn’t help but moan when he pressed closer to her. She was too aware of him, of his undeniable sexuality. At times like this it sucked being a virgin. She felt like a live volcano ready to blow whenever she got too close to someone with raw sexual chemistry like this.
“Yes, this is fun!” she shouted over the music.
What the hell, right? Life is too short not to enjoy yourself.
He spun her in his arms, grinding her backside against him. She watched the dancers around them. The club was modeled to resemble a cave, but it also had a hint of a dungeon about it, complete with women dancing inside cages. Iron-barred honest-to-God cages. For a second she pictured herself in one of them, Rurik outside the bars, hungry to reach her, unable to touch her, yet knowing he had caught her. It was… Holy hell, it was so hot just to think about it.
Rurik’s hand slid up her body from behind, not quite cupping her breast, but coming close. “Want to give it a try?”
“Try what?”
“The dancing cages. I can see that you’re tempted.”
She tried to shake her head, not wanting him to know she’d been way too turned on at the idea of him putting her in a cage. “No…”
He chuckled, his lips feathering against her ear. “Yes, you are.”
She ducked her head, hair falling in front of her face, trying to hide from him. But he brushed it back, tucking it behind her ear and over her shoulder.
“Come.” He led her toward one of the cages where a blonde girl was shaking to a dance rhythm that Charlotte would never be able to copy. He opened the cage door and jerked his head. The girl left immediately.
Rurik pushed her toward the cage. “Get in, little one.” She stumbled, caught herself on the bars, and turned to face him as he closed the cage door behind her. Then he leaned agains
t the door, his arm muscles flexing. He had trapped her in the cage.
“Now, dance for me, sweetheart.” Rurik’s green eyes met hers, and she seemed to spiral into them. Every worry, every self-conscious thought she’d ever had seemed to fade into the back of her mind.
“Dance for me. Show me your heart’s desire.” The words were his, but he hadn’t spoken them. It was as though she’d heard the words inside her head. An irresistible compulsion to do what he said came over her, almost as though she was drunk—only on words instead of alcohol.
Charlotte rolled her hips, feeling the beat of the music and letting it run through her blood like a current. She moved, spun, leaned against the bars and threw her head back, sending her hair in a cascade as she gave in to the wild part of herself. A part she’d always denied, ignored, or repressed.
All the while he watched, satisfied, the dragon with dark brown hair and bewitching eyes. The green of his eyes was intense like emeralds. His lips were parted, and his hands were white-knuckled on the bars. Was he restraining himself? Holding himself back? That only made Charlotte bolder, wilder. Dimly, she was aware that she was being very reckless, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
I’m playing with fire. She just prayed she wouldn’t get burned.
2
Stars would fall to their knees at his compelling vision. - Rainer Maria Rilke
“Come in with me,” she said, knowing he would hear her despite the pounding music. A dragon’s hearing was keener than any human’s.
They stared at each other, the bass of the music making her heart thud against her ribs. His gaze pulled a woman in and drowned her with its promise of dark, delicious things. Charlotte could feel every cell in her body humming with sexual tension. Would he join her? Would he touch her again in a way that made her forget her very name?