by Lauren Smith
No one followed me.
Madelyn sighed in relief as she peered around the corner of the next street and watched the tourists mingling by the entrance to the Red Square. After two hours of dodging through streets and ducking into shop doorways, trying to look too interested in cheap touristy knick-knacks, she was fairly certain the guard from the library hadn’t come after her. Her heart was still beating hard, but the panicked quick breaths had slowed.
“You’re fine, everything’s fine,” she whispered. She smiled at an old man who pointed at some Lenin-shaped figurines, and she politely shook her head and walked away from his shop.
A young man selling food from a cart on the street caught her eye. She dug her travel wallet out and bought a bottle of water and a meat and cheese pie called a pirozhki. Her stomach grumbled as she took the pie and inhaled the tasty aroma. She’d been so focused on running she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. As she ate, she kept her gaze alert for the guard, even though she was fairly certain he hadn’t followed her. Even if he could find out her name from the library system, she hadn’t had to supply any other information. The hotel would be a safe zone.
I hope . . .
Madelyn licked her fingertips as she finished the last bite of her pirozhki. She crumpled the wrapper of her pie and tossed it in trashcan before she sipped the last of her bottle of water. Then she followed the crowd across a busy street to her hotel. She was still a bit on edge, but if she got into her room, she’d feel more secure.
The hotel was a bit shabby on the outside, with a grey stoned façade. The faux glass windows of the lobby were slightly fogged with age, but she had a budget to live on and couldn’t afford anything more expensive. She wasn’t sure how long she’d need to stay in Moscow for her Russian dragon research. She would have been lying if she hadn’t glanced at some of the more beautiful five star hotels when she’d been making her travel plans. They had taken her breath away with underground pools and fancy suites with endless amenities. It had been fun to dream about them, but she could never stay at a place like that, even for one night—no matter how incredible it would be to live like a princess in a king-sized bed and look out across the city from a deluxe room’s balcony.
She pushed the doors to the lobby open and stepped inside. A faint tingling started beneath her skin, the fine hairs rising on her neck and arms in response. The air around her felt charged with energy, like the moment before a storm broke out. Madelyn paused, trying to assess the feeling inside her body as it responded to the sudden change in the air . . . A queer pulsing sensation began to build inside her, and a headache started to beat against her temples. She’d been fine just moments ago . . . Was her fear from earlier just now getting to her and her body was crashing from the adrenaline high she’d been on?
Maybe I just need to go take a quick nap in the room and take some Tylenol.
A man in blue jeans and a dark gray T-shirt was leaning against the wall by the elevators, his head down as he texted on his phone. Was he waiting for an elevator? He hadn’t pressed the button . . . Madelyn tried not to look directly at him, as some men viewed it as an invitation. Her backpack was still full with pamphlets her mother had sent her about how to travel safely in Russian alone.
She couldn’t help noting his muscled arms and the general attractiveness of his body. When she joined him at the elevator, she glanced down at her shoes, staring at the scuffed black boots peeking out from her own jeans.
A little flush heated her cheeks as she realized how boring she must have looked. Not that she wanted this man’s attention. She didn’t, but she’d been all too aware in the last week how unremarkable she was. So many women here wore bright sexy clothes or sleek business suits. She didn’t fit into either group with her jeans and a cream colored Cashmere sweater. Not to mention she was a bit on the curvy side and Russian women her age were rarely curvy. They all seemed to be rail thin and ready for the runways and catwalks.
The metal elevator doors swished apart. She and the man both entered the tiny metal cubicle and she hit the button for the fourth floor. He continued to text and didn’t hit a button.
Maybe we are on the same floor?
The second the doors slid closed her headache got worse. It was like two invisible spikes were being driven into her temples. She leaned against the side of the door farthest from the man, struggling to breathe. It was as though something inside was trying to claw to the surface.
What is happening to me? Fear clouded her rational thoughts. Am I sick? Was there something in her water from the vendor? Had she been drugged?
The man lifted his head a few inches, the fall of his brown hair still shadowing most of his features from view. The door opened to her floor and she stared at him. Was this his floor too? He still hadn’t pushed a button for a different floor.
Something was wrong. She swallowed and tried to stay calm.
“Excuse me,” the man waved her to go. “Please, go first,” he said. His voice low and soft with a musical accent.
“Thank you.” She took two shaky steps into the corridor before she realized that something was off. He knew she spoke English? How—she turned around to see him getting out of the elevator behind her.
Oh God . . . was he following her? She’d been warned before going to Russia that human trafficking was a risk and she had to be careful. She struggled to find her key, cursing as she walked to her door and trying not to look too panicked. Shooting another glance behind her, she saw the man was walking the opposite way down the hall.
She exhaled and sighed in relief against the door just as her hands closed around her keys. But she was still shaking and her legs were unsteady. The invisible knot of tension inside her was thrumming hard now, and every fiber of her being was on edge. That old instinct to run was whispering at her.
The key stuck in the lock and she had to jiggle the keys two times before the deadbolt slide back and she was able to get inside. The apartment was dark. Hadn’t she left the curtains open? I know I did . . .
The door clicked shut behind her and she set her backpack down on small desk. She took a moment to catch her breath, and let the last few seconds of fear subside. She was safe inside her hotel.
I just need to chill. Everything is fine.
Seconds later, the light next to her bed switched on. A man sat in the chair by her bedside table and lowered his hand from the lamp back to the arm rest.
Madelyn jumped, clutching her purse to her chest. Her throat worked but no sounds out. There was a man in her room. Oh God . . .
The light washed over his pale gold hair and the three-piece gray wool suit he wore. Her eyes tracked up his expensive shoes to the beautiful, masculine hands resting on the chair’s arms. A thick gold ring wound around the little finger of the man’s right hand. She squinted at it and then her heart leapt into her throat. The ring was molded into the shape of a serpent biting its own tail. It looked exactly like the ring in James Barrow’s book . . .
“Ms. Haynes, we need to talk.” The man spoke, his rich accented voice pouring over her like cognac.
She lifted her gaze to the man’s face and her heart stopped beating.
It was him.
The man from Barrow’s book.
Grigori Barinov. The melancholic look of an ancient king whose time of ruling had long since passed into the mists, like a Russian King Arthur. With blue eyes and blond hair, he was not what one expected of a Russian man. Most of the men she’d seen in Moscow had dark hair and dark eyes. Strength and virility rolled off him in waves with a dominant air of calm and control that came from years of mastering oneself. Something about that made her shiver deep inside.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her voice catching. Had she passed out in the elevator? Was she dreaming? There was no way this was happening.
He couldn’t be Grigori Barinov. Grigori was a man who had lived and breathed and died over two hundred years ago. There was no way he could be sitting in her hotel room looking like an intim
idating fantasy. She wasn’t sure if it was a fantasy born of secret desires or a nightmare. He had broken into her hotel room whoever he was and that wasn’t a good thing.
The man reached up to remove the leather bound book from his jacket. Barrow’s journal.
“I believe you already know who I am.” As he spoke his blue eyes seem to turn to yellow, then to red and then they glowed white hot.
“But . . . You . . . It’s not . . .” She couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was trying to tell her. It was insane. It wasn’t possible.
“Possible?” His full, kissable lips curved into a slow cold smile that sent fresh shivers through her.
“How . . .” she struggled for words, picturing the massive dragon perched on the edge of a cliff by a sea.
Her skin was almost on fire now, the pain making her want to scream but she didn’t dare move or speak.
“‘How’ is not a question I will answer, at least not here.” He rose from the chair and she stumbled back a step. He was too tall, at least six foot four. So much taller than her own five foot five. His height made her feel too small, too vulnerable. He could easily overpower her if she couldn’t find a way to get out of here . . .
His perfectly cut suit molded to his muscled form like a second skin and his throat above his collar was sun-kissed. How could he be even slightly tan in the middle of a Russian October?
“Look, I don’t want any trouble.” She backed up another step, glancing around. She needed to find her phone. It had some international minutes . . . but she had no clue how to call the Russian police. Never in life had she felt so foolish than she did in that moment. Why hadn’t she learned how to contact the police? Would it even matter? A panicked despair battled with her determination to survive.
“We are past that, Ms. Haynes. You’re a liability now.”
A liability? “But I don’t even know what was in that book that even matters—” She swallowed hard and took another step, praying she could get to the door, but then she’d have to beat him to the stairs, because the elevator was out of the question.
“Unfortunately everything in that book matters. You must come with me,” he said, taking another step.
Madelyn tensed, her hand searching for the doorknob behind her. When she found it, she wrapped her fingers around it and turned. The door opened with her body weight against it. Rather than fall into the open hallway, she bumped into something warm and hard.
“Going somewhere, malen’kiy tsvetok?” someone said from behind her.
“Ahh!” She screeched but the man behind her grabbed her around the waist with one arm and covered her mouth with his other hand.
“Little flower?” Grigori asked the man behind her.
“She smells sweet,” he replied gruffly.
Madelyn screamed against his hand but the sound was muffled. She kicked out her legs, knocking Grigori back a few steps. He clutched his chest and sucked in a breath, then lifted his head, scowling at her. She thrashed in the second man’s arms, but there was no getting free. Blood roared in her ears. Grigori’s eyes were blazing and he licked his lips before he spoke to the man behind her.
“Do you have her or not?” Grigori growled.
The man holding her tightened his grip and dragged her away from Grigori. How could he be a man from the past?
Grigori’s eyes were back to blue, a pure, unfaceted color that glowed like a lake reflecting the summer sky. Madelyn stared into the blue depths and her limbs became too heavy to move.
“That’s it, little one, let go,” Grigori breathed, never taking his eyes off her. The hand around her mouth disappeared and yet she didn’t scream or cry out. She was lost in his mesmerizing gaze.
“Let your mind go . . .” Grigori’s voice wrapped around her, and she suddenly was falling through space and time. As her eyes closed she saw a distant horizon, a memory so old she never knew she had it . . .
The grass was as soft as velvet as she toddled over toward her parents. They were sitting beneath a tall redwood tree. Her father had his back to the tree with his legs spread so her mother could lay back against him in the cradle of his body.
“She’s growing so fast,” her father said, smiling, but a tinge of sadness colored his gray eyes.
“Not too fast.” Her mother held out her arms to Madelyn. “Madelyn, come here.”
Her legs wobbled as she walked over the spongy grass. When she reached her mother, the feeling of being warm and safe made her sigh and nuzzle her face in the crook of her mother’s neck. Her father circled his arms around them both, holding them in an unbreakable trinity.
“Why can’t we stay here?” her mother asked wistfully.
“It’s too dangerous. We must keep moving.”
Madelyn didn’t fully understand the words, not as a child. She’d only known that they’d meant leaving the sunny fields and ancient redwoods.
“I wish she didn’t have to grow up on the run like us.” Her mother’s voice was soft with quiet grief.
“I know, honey, I know. Maybe someday she won’t live in fear as we do.”
The memory started to fade and Madelyn sank deeper and deeper into a dreamless sleep, Grigori’s face following her into the depths.
“Give her to me.” Grigori held out his arms and his brother handed him the unconscious woman. The feel of her completely in his control, made him relax as they left the hotel room. From the moment he’d picked up her scent on Barrow’s book earlier that afternoon, he’d been possessed of a wild need to find her. It hadn’t helped that once they found her, his brother had been the one to grab and hold onto her. His dragon had hissed softly inside his head.
“How was she able to stay awake for so long?” Rurik asked. “You used to be able to knock out mortals in mere seconds. That took nearly two minutes.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he eyed the woman in Grigori’s arms.
The uneasy thought struck him too. A dragon shifter’s gaze could mesmerize and short-circuit a human’s mind and knock them out. But the little American woman had simply looked dazed at first. It had taken too long to affect her.
“Something isn’t right about her,” Rurik muttered as they entered the elevator and rode it down to the lobby. “She makes my skin crawl whenever I get too close. But she smells divine and I just keep thinking about how much I want to take her to my bed . . .” He leaned over and inhaled her scent deeply.
Grigori almost growled at his brother. This was his woman, and he had no intention of sharing her. Rurik was a charmer who never slept with the same woman twice. He had no right to bed this singular beauty and move on.
“What you’re smelling is her purity.”
“Her what?” Rurik crossed his arms, scowling in open confusion.
It was easy to forget sometimes his younger brother was so young compared to him. There were things Rurik didn’t know about their other halves, the dragons within.
“She’s a virgin. You’ve probably never been around one of childbearing age. They put off the most enticing sent. It’s irresistible . . . to some.” He didn’t want his brother to know just how intoxicating the scent was to him. Just a hint of it clinging to Barrow’s book had captivated him. Now that he held the female in his arms, her aroma enveloping him completely, he was addicted to it.
“A virgin?” Rurik practically choked on the word.
Before either of them could speak, the elevator doors chimed and slid open. They walked through the empty lobby and headed for the sleek black sedan parked outside. Rurik and the driver helped him get Madelyn inside. Only a few people in the streets dared to stare as they left. Most humans knew when to avert their gazes when in the presence of dragons. Some instincts were still strong in them, and they sensed that Grigori and Rurik were not to be trifled with.
The entire ride to Grigori’s apartment building he held Madelyn his lap, overcome by a possessive urge to never let her go. She was like a jewel, precious piece of gold that he wanted to secure in a safe haven and guard, even s
leeping with one eye open. He smiled as he drank in the sight of her face. She was even lovelier than he’d expected. The glimpse from the security camera photo hadn’t done her justice.
“Why are you smiling?” Rurik demanded suspiciously. “You never smile.”
Despite his frustration with his brother, Grigori didn’t stop smiling. “I don’t know, I can’t seem to stop it. But she’s mine. Do you understand? You’re not to touch her. Are we clear?”
Rurik’s brown eyes blazed to life. “Is that a challenge?” If he had been in his dragon form, the ruffled frill about his neck would have stood up in an opposing way to make him look bigger, fiercer. As a battle dragon, it would have been a deadly warning to anyone save close family.
“It’s not a challenge.” Grigori returned the warning with a growl of his own. “She is mine, end of discussion. You have an entire city of women who worship you. You do not need this one.”
Rurik huffed, the sound so similar to the disgruntled noise as he made in dragon form that Grigori laughed softly.
“It’s not as though I know what to do with a virgin anyway,” his brother muttered.
Grigori’s smile only widened. Rurik may not know what to do with a virgin, but Grigori definitely did. It had been so long since he had the pleasure of making love to a woman and introducing her to the sensual world that awaited her, but it wasn’t something a man forgot.
In that moment, he decided it didn’t matter what Madelyn’s plans were in regard to James Barrow’s book. He would discover that soon enough, but he was going to seduce her and possess her. While he had the strength to force her, he’d never done that to any female. Any man could take a woman’s body, but only a master could make them surrender to passion of their own free will. And he wanted Madelyn to surrender to him.
When they arrived at his penthouse, Grigori carried Madelyn to his bedroom and set Barrow’s journal on the night stand beside the bed. She was still unconscious and would be for several hours. It would give him time to make arrangements. He was going to take her home, to his house in the country. It was a place he could be himself and not worry about the city or the restraints it placed on his dragon half.