by Lauren Smith
“Piper…you’re safe. You’re safe.” He crooned her name with tenderness as he stroked a fingertip over her lips. “Stay with me, little dove.” He lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. The waves of soft, sweet emotions that filled her head made her want to curl up in his arms and forget the outside world.
“What happened?” Her voice was hoarse. The memories this time had been too dark, too real. They had choked her with despair. Was that how he’d felt when Elizabeth had imprisoned him? Her heart ached for him, knowing now why his dragon had been driven half-mad all those centuries ago.
“You fainted, I think,” he said. He moved his hand from her cheek and curled his arm around her waist, holding her close. “Your heart rate spiked and then plummeted, and it scared the hell out of me.”
“I saw something from your memories.” Her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember what she’d seen. “A dark hall with torches. A redheaded woman in a cream-and-orange gown, and suffocating darkness.” Her body shivered at the terrifying final memory.
Mikhail blew out a shaky breath. “That was the night Queen Elizabeth betrayed me. She drugged me. I told her where my jewels were, and the next thing I knew, I was imprisoned. For forty-four years I couldn’t shift, and it drove my dragon mad. That must have been what you were experiencing.” He gave his head a little shake.
“That was incredible…and honestly a little scary.” She closed her eyes, but the images were already beginning to fade, as though they’d never been in her mind.
“I was afraid I was too rough—you shouldn’t have taunted me. I can’t be like that with you. You’re fragile, and I should be gentler with you.” His words were painted with sorrow and frustration. “This was a mistake.”
Piper prickled with anger as she faced him. “Oh no you don’t. You can’t pull away from me. I want the real Mikhail. I need you to be yourself. The rough, fire-breathing animal that you are. I don’t regret a second of what we did. It was incredible. You were incredible.”
She ignored the rising blush in her cheeks and the realization that she was completely naked. The old Piper would have been scrambling for a blanket to hide her curves under. But she was changed now. There was no going back to who she was, who she had been. She wanted to be this new version of herself, and she wasn’t about to let him pull back after what had happened.
Mikhail pressed his forehead to hers, and they stayed close and quiet for a long while. Time seemed to be suspended. Even the sunlit motes of dust seemed to hang motionless in the air.
Mikhail coiled a tendril of her hair around his fingers. Piper studied his face, the way a shadow of a beard had already formed across his strong jaw. She trailed her fingertips along this line, letting the faint stubble tickle her. There was nothing more perfect than this moment. She felt giddy, unable to resist asking the question that had sparked the explosive sex they’d just shared.
“So what is the difference between werewolves and wolf shifters?” she asked.
He laughed and kissed her. “Werewolves are bitten; shifters are born. It’s a little more complicated than that, though. Shifters are more like us, their ancient ancestors born from binding to the spirits of animals, while werewolves are creatures of dark magic binding, a corruption that manifested itself to where the ability to shift can be transferred by bites.”
“So werewolves are bad? When you say dark magic…” She shivered at the thought.
“Not at all. Their ancestors might not have had good intentions when they bound their bodies to wolves, but the descendants are quite normal, some good some bad, just like dragons and humans.”
She tilted her head. “Why didn’t you want to tell me that?”
He grinned. “I wanted you to think about me, not some big hairy dogs.” He rubbed his nose against hers in an Eskimo kiss, and her heart turned over. The man was romantic as well as sexy. He couldn’t be more perfect if she’d wished upon a shooting star.
“I am definitely only thinking of you.” She kissed him, letting the passion burn like a winter fire in the middle of a snowstorm. Kissing a dragon was the most intoxicating thing she’d ever experienced. But then, all too soon, she had to bring herself back to reality, if only for a little while.
“Mikhail, what are we going to do about the jewels? Or the police, for that matter?” The last two days had been a wild sort of dream, but she had to face facts. She was a suspect in a jewel heist, and if she wasn’t already fired, she would be the moment she came back. Her life, the one that she’d worked so hard to build, was over.
He stroked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I have friends in high places. Or, more accurately, friends who have friends in high places. I will make sure you won’t suffer for what I’ve made you do.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that easy. This isn’t a trivial robbery. I don’t think anyone can call them off.”
He was silent for several long seconds. “I’ll figure something out.”
She closed her eyes and tucked her head under his chin. He didn’t seem to understand the depth of their situation. She couldn’t just leave with him and the jewels and live happily ever after. They’d stay on every major agency’s wanted list for the rest of their lives. Mikhail could easily mesmerize his way out of trouble if he had to, but what about her?
That voice inside her head, the one that whispered negative thoughts, came to the surface.
He doesn’t love me. He’s just infatuated. He’ll get tired of me like all my other boyfriends, and what then? I’ve destroyed my career and put a target on my back. For what? Great sex?
Piper wasn’t going to be stupid, not when it came to men. No matter how perfect Mikhail felt, she couldn’t just pretend that they could walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after. He was a dragon, so he would stay young and beautiful forever, and she was just a human. One who would grow old and die. She hadn’t forgotten what Belishaw said about dragons mating humans, about how it would kill him. But if they weren’t fully mated yet, perhaps there was still time.
But she couldn’t tell Mikhail that she was planning to leave. He wouldn’t understand. He would feel betrayed, and he’d had enough of that in his past already. But she had no other choice. He could run off to the wilds of Russia and never have to worry about his life or livelihood. But she couldn’t.
We aren’t mated, and we aren’t in love. We’re just…
She didn’t want to label the wild and passionate experiences she’d had with Mikhail. It was everything she’d always wanted with a man, but at the end of the day it was still lust. She couldn’t destroy her life simply because she wanted a few more nights in his bed and in his arms. Even as she tried to convince herself of that, she knew deep in her bones that there was something more, something deeper between them.
It can’t be love, but whatever it is, it’s scaring the hell out of me.
If she let her heart stay in control rather than her head, she’d stay with him, and damn the consequences. But someday, when he grew tired of her, her heart would break and her life would be over. She would have risked everything for him, and it would only destroy her. There was no way she could stay, facing that outcome. Piper could only pray that someday he’d forgive her for what she had to do.
13
Dragon kind was no less cruel than mankind. The Dragon, at least, acted from bestial need rather than bestial greed.
—Anne McCaffrey
Randolph Belishaw could still taste the sweet flavor of Jodie Harkness on his lips when he left the London residence she was renting. He was growing more and more attached to the woman, and that was dangerous. From the first kiss they’d shared, he’d glimpsed her as a little girl, running about a large backyard, her pigtails bouncing as she’d chased a puppy. He’d known then that Jodie was his true mate, and the longer he stayed around her, the more his dragon would bond with her, demand to claim her.
But Randolph could not afford to mate a human, not when they lived so short a life. He was the eldes
t son of his family. He had duties and traditions to uphold. Better to find a dragoness someday and continue the line.
His dragon keened with a sharp, protesting cry inside his head. It wanted Jodie—it wanted her and no one else. With practiced patience, he pushed the dragon back down inside his head, taking control.
Still, the thought of never seeing Jodie again made his chest tighten. He shook himself as he descended the townhouse steps and began the journey home. He usually took a car, but tonight he wanted to enjoy the bite of wintry air. He stayed on the pavement, watching the streetlamps glow, creating a hazy halo around the opalescent domes that protected the lights.
“Mr. Belishaw.” Someone called his name. He turned around. A man stood only ten feet away. A man he recognized.
“Mr. Sinclair!” He nodded and gave a bow of respect. Though the man was not part of the prime minister’s inner cabinet, he was one of the most powerful men in Parliament. Word was he would be running for the top position in the next election. “This is unexpected!”
“You can be a hard man to find. One has to take an opportunity when it presents itself.” Conrad Sinclair stepped closer. “I was wondering if you might have dinner with me. You see, I have something of a sensitive nature that perhaps you could shed some light on.”
Belishaw’s brows rose in surprise. “Me?” He hadn’t the faintest clue what Sinclair would want to talk to him about, either as a member of Parliament or as a dragon. He only knew the man by the briefest acquaintance in the dragon world and not at all in the human world, other than in the capacity every human with a TV knew him.
“Yes. Very important. Do you have time this evening?”
Belishaw checked his wristwatch. “I suppose I could.”
“Excellent. My car is just here.” Sinclair waved at the black sedan parked along the street.
The lights turned on, momentarily blinding Belishaw. He raised a hand to shield his eyes as Sinclair stepped out of the way to allow him to climb inside. He was halfway in when he was suddenly shoved from behind. He collapsed onto the seat, and something sharp jabbed into the side of his neck. The beast inside him, the one that always surged to the surface when his life was threatened, now sank deep into a dark abyss beyond his reach. The cool leather seat pressed against his cheek, and it was the only relief he felt as a flood of heat surged within his body.
“What is happen—ing?” His breath came in short, thin pants as his vision began to tunnel. The last thing he remembered was Sinclair climbing into the driver’s seat in front of him. Sinclair looked back at him, a cold, all-too-dangerous look in his eyes. Then everything went black.
When Belishaw struggled back to consciousness, he couldn’t move or think all that quickly. Everything felt muddled. He fought to push away the hazy quiet of darkness still drifting like a night fog inside him.
“Welcome back, Randolph,” a voice said from the darkness. A single light above illuminated him, and he stared down at his body. He was seated in some sort of chair, but his hands and wrists were clapped in iron manacles. The one metal that a dragon’s strength could not break. Dragons were weakened by iron just as silver affected vampires, werewolves, and other magical kin.
“What the bloody hell is going on? Release me at once!” Belishaw tugged on the restraints, foolishly hoping that the metal cuffs had a weak spot that would break under pressure. They didn’t. He sank back in the chair, his breath ragged. It felt as though he’d been running for an hour and his body was starting to tire.
“Randolph, please do not insult me by assuming that I did not come prepared.”
The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and a flash of memory returned. He had started to get into Conrad Sinclair’s car to go to dinner with him. Then…
“You drugged me.”
“It was necessary.” The man lifted up a syringe, the metal needle glinting dangerously in the bright light. “As is this.” He stepped toward Belishaw.
Belishaw roared, but the sound was human. His dragon was gone.
“You’ll just feel a little stick.” Sinclair chuckled as he plunged the needle into Belishaw’s arm, injecting a yellow liquid into him.
“What the bloody hell did you give me?” Despite the strength behind Belishaw’s voice, he was panicking. The dragon inside him had never left him before. It had been suppressed and buried, yes, but never gone.
“The first cocktail was a little something special I helped design long, long ago. For a day or so it makes you as human as the next man.” He chuckled. “Well, maybe not the next man, since that’s me, but suffice to say your dragon won’t be able to surface. I had originally planned on it being used against your family five hundred years ago, believe it or not. But things got unnecessarily complicated. It was eventually used against me, so I can vouch for its effectiveness.” Conrad smiled darkly. “There’s nothing so frightening as being effectively turned into a human, is there?”
Human? I’m human? Belishaw swallowed hard.
Sinclair lifted the second syringe. “And this…is a truth serum. Useless against normal humans, but I found it works surprisingly well on dragons once they are sufficiently weakened. Funny, isn’t it? The dragon protects us so much more than we know. Not just on the outside, but the inside. Poisons, serums, medicines—none of those work while we have a dragon inside us, alive and kicking, as the Americans would say.”
“Why did you give me truth serum?” Belishaw asked. He felt something crawl through his veins like slow-moving currents in the sea, well below the surface.
“Because I need a few questions answered, and I know you, Randolph. Your family has always been plagued by a sense of honor and loyalty, even when you back the wrong side. You wouldn’t willingly betray someone, which means I have to get creative.”
Sinclair set the syringe down on the small metal stand where a table was laden with sharp scalpels and other implements.
Bloody Christ. I should’ve stayed in Jodie’s bed.
“Now, the serum should be reaching your head in a few seconds, and then I can begin my questions.”
Sinclair pulled the chair in front of Belishaw and sat down, patiently watching him.
Slowly, bit by bit, a fuzzy warmth blanketed his chest and his head. The panic and anxiety of the moment faded into a relaxed calm.
“How are you feeling?” Sinclair asked. The words seemed to come from deep below a lake, distorted.
“Fuzzy…” Randolph said, then chuckled at how odd his voice sounded.
“Good, good.” Sinclair leaned forward. “Randolph, do you know who took the Cheapside hoard from Thorne Auction House?”
He pictured his good friend Mikhail. He loved that Russian bastard. Shadows flitted across his thoughts, and he blinked. The little voice in the back of his head murmured, Don’t tell him.
“Uh…” He dragged out the word and then laughed at the funny sound.
“Randolph, you feel good, don’t you?” Sinclair asked.
“Yes,” he answered without thinking. He was simply floating now.
“I can make it feel even better if you just say yes or no.”
“Yes or no.” Belishaw snickered like a schoolboy now, and the voice inside his head did too.
Sinclair’s black eyes turned reddish-gold with anger. He grabbed a scalpel from the table and slashed Belishaw’s cheek. Pain tore through him, far sharper than he expected.
“Humans feel physical pain much stronger than we do.” Sinclair’s voice was smooth again as he set the scalpel down.
Belishaw gave the other man his full attention, despite the throbbing pain and the hot blood trickling down his cheek.
“Now, let’s try this again. You know who stole the hoard of jewels?”
Belishaw didn’t speak, but his body betrayed him with a tiny nod.
“Good. Now give me a name.”
His lips parted, but his tongue was frozen against the roof of his mouth.
“The fact is, I already know who stole the jewels, Rand
olph. I just need you to confirm it for me. Since I already know the answer, you aren’t betraying anyone by confirming it.”
Another nod and a wave of nausea passed through him.
“Give me the name, Randolph.”
Belishaw struggled to stay silent, but it was like trying to catch grains of sand. Sinclair sighed and lifted the scalpel. This time he didn’t move out of anger. He flicked his wrist and sliced Belishaw’s other cheek. A cry escaped his lips, but he did not let the name out.
Sinclair set his weapon down. “I wonder if I need to bring additional motivation for you? Perhaps the human woman you’ve been seeing. Jodie Harkness? Would she loosen your tongue if I had her to play with?”
An icy wave of dread drowned him. “No,” he begged, tears flooding his eyes. He couldn’t control his emotions. Not with this drug in his system. But now he was mortal, and they were simply a sign of weakness.
“If you don’t want her involved, then you need to tell me a name.”
Forgive me, Mikhail. He sent his silent plea to the gods that his friend would understand.
“Mikhail. Mikhail Barinov.”
“There, was that so hard?” Sinclair mused. “So it was him after all. Again our paths cross. How interesting to have him prowling around my city like this, after so many years.”
“London doesn’t belong to you.”
“England belongs to me, or it will soon.” He leaned back in his chair, more relaxed, no doubt because he had the name he wanted. “So where has Barinov run off to with my jewels?”
Belishaw growled, though the sound wasn’t as deadly as it once was.
“The jewels are his. My family gave them to the Barinovs five hundred years ago as part of a treaty.”
“And they are mine now, because I wish it. Who currently holds them is immaterial. I need those gems for my own little treaty. Now tell me what rock Barinov is hiding under, or I’ll go see if Jodie wishes to join us in this little chat.”