by Lauren Smith
“You sacrifice comfort and passion, even your heart, believing things will be better as a result, but you are destroying yourself and hurting her.” The old woman curled her fingers over Charlotte’s, and a ghostly smile hovered about her lips, one born of sadness rather than joy.
She reached for the final card and turned it over, revealing a beautiful woman pouring water into a lake. Behind her a star shone brightly against the night sky. The old woman brought Rurik and Charlotte’s hands together and then spoke one last time.
“She is your star, your guiding light. If you forsake her, you will fall into darkness. Every shadow does pass, but if you go on without her, your light will die and so will the fate of your people.”
The hairs on Charlotte’s neck and arms rose, and sharp tingling raced like an electric spark along her skin. She sucked in a breath, almost afraid she wouldn’t be able to breathe. The fair-haired man on the Sun card looked like Damien as a boy, and the Emperor looked like Grigori. The Magician looked like Rurik. The High Priestess even resembled herself. How was this possible? Was she just seeing what her subconscious wanted her to see? An invisible energy seemed to vibrate from the table and the cards. The old woman moved, touching each card as though counting them in a soft murmur of Russian, but Charlotte wasn’t listening.
It felt as if she were facing a thin veil made of gossamer threads. The curtain in her mind rippled, whispers coming from the other side. But they weren’t loud enough to hear. She wanted to push the curtain aside and cry out to the voices, demand they speak in a way she could understand. The answers seemed so close, yet she had no way to move the curtain.
How long can you last? a quiet voice asked. How long before you fall? But she didn’t comprehend. Fall into what? Or where?
She came back to herself in a violent rush.
“Charlotte, are you all right?”
She looked for the woman, but she was gone and the cards had vanished with her. “Huh? Oh, yes, fine.”
“Lost in your thoughts?” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. She managed another nod. She felt open, raw, and vulnerable—from a tarot card reading, of all things.
“Yeah, I guess I was.” Charlotte wiped at her eyes, shocked to find tears coming away on her fingertips.
Rurik’s mouth softened into a smile. “You were shaken by the reading?” he mused. He ran his fingertips along the back of her hand.
“Weren’t you?” Her eyes burned with fresh tears. I am the guiding light for the man I plan to betray? Our brothers stand in opposition to each other, and we are the lovers who must overcome our opposite natures. It was all so close to making sense.
Her secrets weighed heavily upon her heart. The older woman had somehow known about the serum. The secret that, if shared unwisely, could upset the balance of the world. Who knew what the consequences of that might be?
Rurik smiled, but there was a bittersweetness to it. “Why don’t we go see the palace? It’s still snowing, and the view will take your mind off your worries.”
He’s trying to pull away. He’s afraid of whatever it is we could be together. So am I. But she could not imagine a world where she was apart from him, either. The old woman’s words trembled in her head like dew collecting on the delicate lines of a spiderweb.
Everything was connected, but she still couldn’t see how—she could only feel it.
“Come.” Rurik stood and held up her coat. She sighed and let him help her slide it on. Maybe he was right. She needed a distraction from the heavy weight she was carrying inside her.
As they left the restaurant, a light breeze rustled along the row of buildings facing the river. The wind played with her hair, tugging strands of it about her shoulders. Rurik stopped and watched her with a gleam in his eyes. Reaching up, he caught one of her loose locks, staring at the intricate snowflakes that clung to the dark-blonde strands without melting.
“You’re breathtaking.” He cupped her face, and his hands were warm even without gloves. “Just when I think I’ve gotten used to looking at you, it’s like the sun opens up and it shines on you all over again.”
Rurik, her beautiful scarred battle dragon, was murmuring sweet words that were breaking her heart. The serum in her purse seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. His green eyes glowed with an inner fire that mesmerized her. She leaned into his body, pressing herself against him. She didn’t care if anyone was watching. She was flooded with a hunger for this man, but it went beyond physical. It went to the farthest depths of her very soul. The truth was on the tip of her tongue. Could she tell him everything?
“Rurik…” she began, her voice breaking. Could she confess future sins to this man? Because she couldn’t deny it any longer—she was falling for him. Like a shooting star, she was burning up in his atmosphere, and there was no going back to the safety of the lies she’d spun.
“What is it? Are you cold? You’re shivering.” He curled his arms around her. The leather of his jacket was warm; his body heat defied the snow and icy wind. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, breathing in the scents of leather and man.
“I know.” The words shot out of her mouth.
He raised her chin so she had to look up at him. “Know what?”
“I know. I know what you are.”
His concern sharpened in an instant to a cold, almost feral gaze.
“What I am?” he said slowly.
“Yes. I know about you…and your brothers.” She drew a soft deep breath, her body shaking from fear. “You’re a dragon shifter.” There. It was done. Nothing could take the words back.
Rurik’s arms tightened around her. “How?” His eyes left her face as he searched the crowds on the palace embankment. He then jerked her away from the people. She almost tripped trying to keep up with him. When they reached the gilded gates of the Winter Palace, he stopped her hard enough that she fell into him.
“How?” he repeated.
This had been a mistake—she shouldn’t have told him. The rage in his eyes was chilling.
“A friend of mine saw your brother back in London. She knew he was a dragon. She—”
“Who is your friend?” Rurik snarled. His gaze turned from green to gold, and a fuzzy dizziness swamped her. She couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to. A compulsion to speak overcame her.
“Meg Stratford.”
“And how did she know what I am?”
“She’s a hunter.” She hadn’t meant to tell him that, but she bit her tongue before her brother’s name could slip out too.
“The Brotherhood?” Rurik’s face was pale, the dark scar turning pink on his cheek and forehead. The dizziness in her head faded slightly.
“Yes.”
He gripped her by the arm and started to drag her away from the snowy grounds of the Romanov palace. “You’re coming with me, right now.”
“Where are we going?” She tried to break free of his hand. Her heart beat hard against her ribs, and she swallowed the lump of panic lodged in her throat.
“We are going somewhere safe so I can get some answers. Do not scream for help. No one will come to your aid.” He glanced back at her, a fierce look that gave her chills. “You know what I am, so you know what I can do. If you cooperate, you won’t be harmed, but I will get my answers out of you—one way or another.”
Charlotte knew she was in serious trouble. The sweet, sexy man who’d caressed her this morning was gone. In his place was the dragon shifter she’d feared before she’d stepped into the nightclub. The intimidating enforcer from the Brotherhood files.
Telling him the truth had seemed so important. But now she feared it might cost her everything—perhaps even her life.
9
Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. ―Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
Damien stepped off the Boeing C-17 Globe Master m
ilitary transport, tactical gear backpack slung over one shoulder. His team followed behind him.
“Welcome to Russia,” Damien called out to the rest of the hunters and trackers.
They’d touched down on a private airbase run by the Russian military. After the end of the Cold War, the Brotherhood had created secret agreements with local military bases in every major country to have safe passage in and out of any region. The local military assumed that they were some kind of special forces, though the use of an American transport no doubt raised some eyebrows. The Brotherhood’s true identity was only shared with top government officials, and sometimes not even then, depending on the country’s stability. The last thing anyone wanted was for word of the supernatural to reach the general population.
“So do we get to try the local vodka?” Jason asked as they walked toward the four Mercedes SUVs waiting for them.
“Sure, between fighting dragons and saving your sister, vodka tastings are top priority,” Nicholas joked. Everybody laughed except Damien; his mind was firmly on the mission. Humor was good for morale, and Jason could always be counted on to make wisecracks. They all knew the danger of what they would be facing—it was part of the job.
Except this time his sister was involved.
Damien vowed that once he got her safely back to Detroit, he was locking her in her apartment for a month until she understood just how foolish she’d been.
Yeah, that will prove Meg wrong, his inner voice said sarcastically. She’d mostly kept quiet during the trip, but the way she’d looked at him… He couldn’t help but worry she was angry with him over what had happened with Charlotte.
They loaded their gear into the vehicles. Just as Damien opened the driver’s-side door, his cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. The number was blocked. He was used to getting unknown calls in his line of work. “Hello?”
“MacQueen.” A Russian man spoke his name with a familiarity that put Damien on guard. It wasn’t a voice he recognized, and he knew every hunter on the Saint Petersburg team.
“Who is this?”
“A concerned citizen. I thought you should know that your sister is being held hostage by Rurik Barinov. I trust you understand how dangerous that is?”
Hostage? Charlotte was a prisoner of the Barinovs already? He clutched the phone tight and tried to remain calm. She’d only received minimal self-defense training, nothing compared to what Brotherhood hunters went through.
“How do you know this?” Damien demanded. Jason and the rest of the team were watching him closely. If someone had figured out how to contact him on his secure cell line, it couldn’t be a good thing. If they had his number, they could know a number of other top secret things that could put his hunters in jeopardy.
“How I know doesn’t matter. I thought you needed to know. The Barinovs go too far and must be stopped. Check your phone if you don’t believe me. I’ll send you a picture. Make them pay for what they’ve done to your sister.” The call disconnected. His phone suddenly buzzed with a text message. A picture downloaded, and his heart leapt into his throat.
It was a photo of Charlotte being dragged to the ground by Rurik Barinov. Glass from a window behind them was shattered, and a look of terror was splashed over his little sister’s face.
“Who was that?” Jason asked.
Damien stared at his phone for several long seconds before he spoke. There was no way he was showing them the photo, especially not Jason. His brother’s temper was legendary. Jason was the shoot-first-ask-questions-later-maybe type, and the last thing Damien needed was to give him a reason to be trigger-happy.
“The Barinov family has taken Charlotte as a hostage. I assume they will use her to get information about us and then eventually contact us for some kind of exchange.”
Damien forced himself not to let panic take over. This was not the first hostage situation he’d handled, but this was different. This was his baby sister. The promises he had made his parents burned deep inside his chest, reminding him that he could not afford to fail. He’d already lost one woman he loved to this job; he wouldn’t lose his little sister as well.
“Damien?” Nicholas’s voice broke through the rush of his panicked thoughts. “What are our orders?”
Orders—right. Get your head in the game, MacQueen.
He pocketed the cell phone. “We continue as planned. Converge on Charlotte’s last known location and secure the area. If she isn’t there, gain access to every camera and video recording in the surrounding area to track her down.”
Damien took his seat in the SUV. The rest of his team spread out across three vehicles and left the base. The distant lights of Moscow acted as a beacon, calling him to Charlotte.
I will find you, little sis. Just hang on.
Madelyn sat on the couch in her and Grigori’s Saint Petersburg apartment. “I think he really likes her.”
Grigori poured himself a glass of wine and his wife a glass of water. “I think so too.” He joined her on the couch, giving her a kiss before he handed her the glass of water.
Madelyn stared at the glass with contempt. “I miss wine.”
Grigori chuckled. He adored his stubborn little wife, but she had to be careful during her pregnancy. He was nervous, as was she. They were treading unknown waters, not knowing if a dragon shifter and a thunderbird could have children, or how it would develop. So far, the baby seemed healthy, but would it possess a dragon’s spirit or that of a thunderbird? Was it possible to have some kind of chimera, possessing qualities of both? No one knew. He’d hired the best doctors money could buy, those who knew shifter biology and could be trusted to keep the nature of Madelyn’s child and any unnatural test results secret. Even within their world, this was dangerous information.
“Is Rurik afraid of taking a mate?” Madelyn asked.
Grigori stared into the burgundy depths of his wine. “Our father was rigid in his ways, though he was a good man—mostly.” He amended the last bit quickly. Grigori’s father had killed Madelyn’s parents out of fear and the need for revenge. Thunderbirds had killed Grigori’s grandfather, because he had killed a number of thunderbirds in retaliation for the death of his grandfather…and so the cycle had gone for uncounted centuries. Now the thunderbirds had become all but extinct. It was a sobering thought, that Madelyn might be the last of her kind, and he prayed deep down that it wasn’t true.
“He gave us roles—one to lead the family, one to collect jewels, and one to defend us. Battle dragons are formidable at what they do, so most houses would kill them by killing their mates. Even the strongest dragon can’t survive a broken heart. My father convinced Rurik that he couldn’t take a mate. You remember Nikita, the human woman Ruslan Drakor killed a few months ago?”
Madelyn nodded.
“She was a potential true mate for him. It hurt him deeply to lose her, even though he never claimed her.”
Madelyn cuddled closer to him, her gray eyes filled with sorrow. “So if he gets too close to Charlotte, he could mate her by accident? I still don’t fully understand how dragons do that.”
Grigori chuckled. “Do you need a reminder of exactly how we mated?” He leaned in, kissing her and relishing her sweet taste. Madelyn finally put a hand on his chest and gave him a little push back.
“You know what I mean. How do you choose to mate someone at that exact moment?”
Grigori set his wine down on the coffee table and took her hands in his, lacing their fingers together as he tried to find the words to describe it.
“For me, mating was like…catching the wind with your wings and harnessing its strength. When I kissed you, it was as though I was spinning an invisible cord around us and binding us together. I opened up my mind and heart to you in a way I never have to another soul. I didn’t have to think about it, but I also couldn’t stop it. One’s true mate is a gift. I honestly don’t know how Rurik managed to resist Nikita.” Grigori squeezed her hands gently. “With Charlotte he’s alread
y falling hard. I’ve never seen him like this. If he continues to spend time with her, he will cave and claim her.”
“Is that bad?” she asked.
“I believe he will fight falling in love and hurt them both.”
Madelyn frowned. “That would be horrible.”
“He’s stubborn enough to hold out longer than me or Mikhail.”
His cell phone resting on the coffee table suddenly vibrated. The name showed that the ID was blocked. Nothing unusual there, given his family’s ties.
“Do you have to answer that?” Madelyn asked.
“It might be important. If it’s business, I promise to hang up immediately.” He reached for it and answered.
“Barinov here.”
“Grigori.” Dimitri Drakor’s voice was instantly recognizable.
Grigori growled. “What do you want? I thought we finished our business when we saw each other last time.” If Drakor made any threats, Grigori would kill him.
“I thought that given our peace treaty has been restored, you deserved a warning.”
“Warning about what?”
Madelyn sat up, eyes wide with worry.
“Your brother is romantically involved with a Brotherhood hunter. Did you know that?”
“What?” Grigori got up from the couch and started pacing.
“Your brother is entangled with a MacQueen, Grigori. Charlotte MacQueen. She’s a hunter. What’s more, she’s the sister of their leader, Damien.”
Grigori went still, his heart racing. The Brotherhood had never been on good terms with his people. In recent decades they’d left shifters and their kin alone unless they threatened human affairs, but that hadn’t always been true. Some were notoriously proactive, and it wasn’t that long ago, during the Cold War, that they had been especially unforgiving.
And Rurik was interested in MacQueen’s sister? Another truth hit him like lightning. She was Rurik’s true mate. How was that possible? It wasn’t. There was something else at play.