by Lauren Smith
“These are the last days of the Barinovs. You’re dying out. Someday you’ll be just a memory, like the Romanovs.”
With those chilly words, Dimitri hit the button to close the elevator and vanished from view. Rurik joined Grigori at the closed elevator door.
“Don’t worry. I will train you,” his little brother promised.
But that wasn’t what worried Grigori. Dimitri had revealed his plans. The Drakors didn’t want to just take over Russia. Their goal was to wipe out the Barinov line.
Chapter 9
Noble dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.
―Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
“Grigori?”
The sound of his name on her lips had him turning to Madelyn in time to watch her tentatively step out of his office and walk towards him.
He couldn’t resist the need to hold her. He pulled her into his arms, taking comfort in the way she hugged him back. The sweet scent of her filled the senses, calming him and his dragon. He relished that she embraced him back, didn’t fight him. He may be old-fashioned in his wooing, as Rurik had often teased him, but he loved a woman who melted in his arms. A long moment later, she pushed back from a bit and spoke.
“What did he mean? About the Romanovs? Not . . . the Romanovs?” She raised her face and he gazed down at her beautiful eyes.
He didn’t want to tell her—he didn’t even want to remember the night he lost that particular war, but he couldn’t seem to deny her anything. Especially when she looked at him like she did now—as if he held the answers to all the questions she’d ever had. As if, with a word, he could give her the world. And I want to . . .
“Yes. Those Romanovs. The last Czars of Russia,” he admitted, voice heavy with memory. “My family fought hard to keep them in power.” He paused, swallowed the bitterness that came with this memory. “But in the end, we lost to the Reds. The Red Army swept through our defenses, and before we could save the family and escort them to our protected lands, they were gone.” And when they’d been shot in the basement, not even the jewels they’d sewn into their corsets could stop the bullets or the bayonet blades. The bodies had been burned and left in a shallow, ashen grave. That night the Barinov dragons roared and grieved for their human counterparts, the last royal line of humans in Russia . . . and their only allies in a country suddenly mad with communism.
Rurik and Grigori had stood next to their father, the ashes from the fire drifting like snow in the air around them. The Romanov family was gone. Grigori had tears of fury in his eyes as he remembered Tatiana’s laugh, the twinkling in young Anastasia’s eyes, the way Olga had danced. They were gone. Each light in the darkness snuffed out by the greed of men.
After that, no Barinov had ever trusted human men again. Their trust in alliances with humans had ended. They were too motivated by greed, like the Drakors.
“Holy crap. You knew the Romanovs.” Madelyn’s eyes were full of awe and it somehow lessened the sting of these older, painful memories. Her expression reminded him of when he first learned to fly as a dragon. He had entered a bank of storm clouds only to emerge on the other side and find he’d burst through a rainbow. The millions of fine raindrops misting in the air caught and fractured the light, making his scales shimmer. For an instant, he become something greater, something more wonderful. When he looked at her, the woman who could be his mate, it was like flying for that first time all over again. He felt weak with excitement but strong with passion. Even holding her like this felt right, natural, just like it felt to fly. In that moment he wanted to share himself with her, open his heart to her.
“Yes. I knew the Romanovs. We all did.” He glanced at Rurik whose jaw was clenched. “We had stayed in human form after the death of the Romanovs, determined to keep our lands and not interfere with mortal wars while in our dragon bodies. Even back then the Brotherhood had been causing us trouble and we didn’t want to risk a war with the supernatural hunters. The best way to do that was to show up on a battlefield as a dragon. It was smarter to hide what we were and interact with mortals while only in our human forms.”
“What were they like?” Madelyn asked, drawing him back to thoughts of the Czars.
Grigori buried the black memories and sought the ones that it stayed gold in his mind and matter how many years past.
“Nicholas was a stubborn man, but with a soft heart. His daughters were living, breathing gems, each one with laughter that was irresistible, and the boy, Alexei was mischievous. More than once the family invited us to their winter palace. We danced during snowstorms in those opulent rooms, full of light and merriment.” He sighed, sorrow carving deep into his heart. The burden of living for more than a millennia was knowing that a Gilded Age would come and go. Only gemstones remained unchanged. He often wondered if that was why his people hoarded jewels, because they were the only constant force in a world of things that were born and destined to die.
Like my mate. His heart clenched and he held Madelyn closer, kissing her cheek.
“What did Drakor say?” she asked, her gaze darkening with worry.
“I won’t have to see him again for two weeks.” He closed his eyes and let her scent and the feel of her in his arms envelope him. How could holding her feel so right? He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, but his dragon was already obsessed with her.
“What happens in two weeks?” she asked, her voice a soft, worried whisper. He didn’t want to answer and shatter a good moment.
“Tell her, Grigori. She has the right to know.” Rurik cleared his throat.
“Tell me what?” Madelyn pulled back to stare up at him. When he didn’t answer she grabbed the collar of his shirt. “Tell me!”
“Under the treaty, I must battle Drakor in single combat. He has given me two weeks.”
“Two weeks until what?” Madelyn demanded, her eyes wide.
“Until I must face him.”
Rurik was pensive. “Something doesn’t feel right about this, Grigori. There’s no reason for him to be lenient. I believe he has some scheme to hurt us, but I can’t figure out what it is. I only know my instincts are warning me.”
Madelyn bit her bottom lip. “Barrow’s diary said that older dragons were stronger. And he’s older than you isn’t he?”
Sighing, Grigori stared past her toward the elevators. “He is older, but strength isn’t always physical. My heart is stronger than his. I have reasons other than vengeance to fight him.”
“And I plan to teach him some tricks.” Rurik added with a grim smile.
“Madelyn, I need to return home to my land, Kholmy Ognya.” He gripped both of her hands in his left them to his lips.
“Kholmy Ognya? What is that?” she whispered, her eyes fixed on his mouth.
“It’s Russian for hills of fire, or Fire Hills. That is my home. The Barinov lands.”
“You’re leaving Moscow?” She spoke the words slowly and he caught a sharp aroma of pain roll off of her.
“Yes.”
She swallowed, tried to smile and failed. “So . . . I guess this is goodbye.”
She thought he was leaving her here alone? Silly female. He smiled and curled his fingers under her chin.
“Not goodbye, never that. I intend to carry you away with me. Do you have any objections?” He was only half-teasing her. He had every intention of taking her home, and if she resisted, he’d find a way to change her mind.
She blushed and glanced away before she peeped up at him from beneath her lashes.
“You really want me to go with you?” Her genuine surprise amazed him. She seemed to think she wasn’t a woman worth desiring. He would never understand females. She was beautiful and smart and his. Why would he not want her?
“He wasn’t kidding about carrying you away on his shoulder.” Rurik was watching Madelyn with amusement, his lips curving slightly. Madelyn glanced between them and then licked her lips nervously.
“You wil
l show me . . . About being a dragon?”
He could see in her eyes, the deep passion to learn and see what he truly was without fear now.
“I can show you everything,” he promised and unable to stop himself, he cupped her face and leaned down, brushing his lips over hers.
The sparks ignited like flint to tender, feeding an unstoppable surge of hunger and fiery passion that could not be quenched. How could so light a kiss, such an innocent brush of lips turn him completely inside out? Every time he kissed her it was like free falling through the clouds, his wings tucked back so he could explore a new level of speed. The adrenaline surged through him and he struggled to keep himself rooted to the ground. She was a dragon’s drug.
When they parted she was dreamy-eyed, but a glimmer of vulnerability in those pure silver depths called out to him. She was afraid of what she was beginning to feel. She shouldn’t fear it. The magic that tied two souls together as mates was ancient, older than time itself. He would have to teach her to trust her instincts and him.
“I’ll go with you to the Fire Hills.”
His heart gave a series of wild beats and he grinned. “And I will teach you to fly.”
* * *
Flames licked along the body that lay on the stack of wooden logs. The evening skies were a pale purple that was darkening with the smoke from the funeral pyre. Dimitri Drakor stood close to the flames, unbothered by the tremendous wave of heat that rolled off the fire.
Ruslan was dead. His eldest child had just celebrated his sixth century recently.
I waited too long before I started having children. He scowled at the flecks of burning wood that caught on the wind and floated up like angry fireflies. He didn’t want to think of Ruslan’s laugh, or the way he’d toddled around Dimitri’s study as a child so many centuries ago. Instead, he tried to harden his heart and remember that he had lost a loyal warrior in a fight against the Barinovs.
The Barinovs were too antiquated, too outdated with their beliefs in hiding from the world. Dimitri knew the Drakors could take over and rule Russia, perhaps even the world. Sure, there would be fights with the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon, but his family would win even if it cost him everything. And after today, when he’d seen Grigori’s tattoo, he had a plan. He knew the weak spot to strike against now.
The rest of his family stood in a ring around the funeral pyre, silently watching the flames turn Ruslan’s body to ash. They looked to him, waiting to hear him speak as the fire raged and his son’s body continued to vanish beneath the smoke.
Dimitri swallowed thickly and then spoke the burial words clearly. “Ruslan was born in fire and from fire he lived, with a dragon’s ferocity. He perished in battle and now must return to ash as the gods demand.”
The gods . . . Dimitri wasn’t sure he even believed in such forces or beings. Too many centuries had passed with silence from the clouds. Whatever his ancestors had believed in, he no longer did, but he would still honor the memory and traditions, at least in burying his son.
“From fire to ash, we bury Ruslan Drakor.” The men spoke as one, their deep voices rumbling as they began to shed their clothes. They transformed, their massive bodies black and sleek as they launched into the air, their wings created a vortex of wind that would have made a human man stumble back. Dimitri shed his own clothes finally and then leapt into the sky, his dragon body soaring upward. Then he and the others circled over the fire before he dove down and bathed the small clearing in flames.
May the gods watch over you, Ruslan.
Dimitri let out a roar full of rage and grief that shook the mountains of the valley where his family called home.
I will have my vengeance. The Barinovs will die!
Chapter 10
The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren’t supposed to hear what we are saying.
And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Madelyn didn’t think she’d be able to sleep once she, Grigori and Rurik boarded the private jet that flew them to an airport somewhere south of Samarra, in the southwestern part of Russia. She was too excited to see his home, to have some alone time with him, but once she settled into the lush leather seat on the plane, exhaustion took over.
She woke to find herself cuddled up beside Grigori, her head resting on his shoulder and her hands curled around his arm. She’d been using him as her own personal dragon teddy bear. It felt so wonderful to be sleeping against his hard, masculine body, which had been surprisingly comfortable. His scent had been all over her and she’d loved feeling his warm body. She hadn’t wanted it to end, but she knew she’d have to wake up officially at some point. When she did, she found him watching her, those blue eyes sparkling and his lips curving in a sweet, sexy smile. She shivered.
“Are you ready to see the Fire Hills?” he asked as they climbed into a black Range Rover.
“Why is it called the Fire Hills?” She buckled herself in.
“A few reasons,” Grigori explained as he reached over and took one of her hands into his, holding it. He stroked a fingertip along her palm as he talked, and her heart skipped a few beats. His fingertips were slightly rough, which surprised and delighted her. It almost felt unreal that his touch could set her skin on fire and yet perfect at the same. This man could shift into a dragon. He was a beast in the boardroom and the battlefield, and yet he was gentle with her.
“Long ago when the hills were full of Barinovs and other dragons, they fought for dominance and the trees were set ablaze with the fires from our bellies.” He paused as though he remembered darker days with the mountains glowing. The dragons fought through smoke and cloudy skies with the smoke stinging their eyes and beasts screaming in the darkness as they clawed and bit each other.
“Once the Barinovs controlled this area, the forest grew back. The Fire Hills’ name took on a new meaning because in the fall, the leaves changed color to a brilliant mix of gold, red and orange. The breeze filters through the trees and the leaves rippled like flames.”
Madelyn wished she could see it. It was fall now, but she’d left a rainy, and frankly bleak, Moscow. She wasn’t sure what to expect in southern Russia. “That sounds amazing.”
“It is, and you will see it soon enough.” He nodded out her window as Rurik turned the SUV around the bend. They descended down a winding gravel road. The line of trees had vanished and Madelyn gasped. For miles ahead of them, there were small, sloping hills bunched close and the trees were all turning in color. It truly looked like fire, but a beautiful fire, without the smoke and devastation.
“Oh my . . .” It was like nothing she’d ever seen. They had passed through a small village earlier with tiny cottages of gray stones and little shops. It was quaint and rustic, but Rurik had continued to drive them through the village and back into the thick woods. She was looking at a valley with beautiful flower covered fields and three immense buildings.
“And there’s my house.” Grigori leaned closer to her and pointed.
A palatial white house with multicolored onion domes winked in the bright sun. The idyllic setting was traditionally Russian and utterly beautiful. There were gardens on either side of the house, with fountains of nymphs dancing in the crystalline waters. Even from this distance she could see that some of the front facing windows were made of stained glass, the colors winking in the sunlight.
A smaller house was in the distance and a third was one closer to them. The trio of stunning residences formed a triangle in the center of the valley.
“Those are Mikhail and Rurik’s houses.” Grigori answered her unspoken question.
“You have your own houses? But they’re huge!”
Both Grigori and Rurik chuckled. Rurik met her gaze in the rearview mirror.
“You have a lot to learn ab
out dragon shifters. We need a lot of space and we like our own territory. We don’t share.”
Madelyn made yet another mental note of what she was learning about the Barinov brothers. One thing still bothered her. Mikhail. Where was he?
“Grigori, what happened to Mikhail? I read a little about him in the journal but it doesn’t say why he’s not here.” She learned one thing more clearly than anything else about the Barinov brothers. They loved each other fiercely and they were loyal to a fault. So why was Mikhail missing?
“He . . .” Grigori glanced away, then to Rurik. They shared a secret language of looks that could only be understood by brothers who had been together over several centuries.
“He fell in love with a human female and she betrayed him. She stole our vast family hoard of jewels we were transporting from England. It had been Mikhail’s duty to watch over the treasure. Our father was so furious that he exiled Mikhail. It’s been nearly six hundred years since Mikhail has been able to call Russia home.” His eyes darkened to sapphires as he continued to stroke her palm as though it soothed him as much as it was soothing her. She tried to control the flood of questions.
“But he came home in 1821 with James Barrow?”
“Yes, my parents were traveling the world for a year and I begged him to come home. He bought the naturalist here and we opened our house to him.” The small, sweet smile on Grigori’s too handsome face made Madelyn lean closer to him.
“You liked him. James Barrow, I mean.”
“We did. He was inquisitive, intelligent, and it was a pleasure to have him stay with us. Mikhail then escorted him back to London, and we haven’t heard from our brother since—except the night our parents died.”
Madelyn still had so much she wanted to know but she didn’t want to resurrect too many bad memories at once. She understood that, and the last thing she wanted was to upset Grigori.