“Kiki!”
She righted herself by pulling on her core muscles and straightened her body before bending down to scoop the rambunctious toddler into her arms.
“What did I say, little tigress?” she mock-roared at the little girl. “That’s an invite to get tickled, tickled, tickled!”
The kid squealed with laughter as Kseniya dropped with her to the floor and buried her nose into the tiny tummy and started blowing bubbles there while she tickled the delicate ribs with her fingers.
“Careful there,” a deep male voice said. “She just had a bottle.”
With one last bubble, she tore herself from the child and handed her over to her father. They all knew how hard it was to get any food into that little brat.
“Oops,” she muttered. “Sorry.”
Graeme Whitman extended a hand to her and pulled her to her feet. “No harm done.”
He smiled at her then, and she couldn’t help but smile back. Who could resist that gorgeous man and his incredibly green eyes? They looked like emeralds, which never ceased to startle her as she’d always imagined only dragon folk would have such jewel-hued eyes. But Graeme was as human as they came.
Across the room, a soft laugh resonated. Kseniya turned toward Alexis Friedrich, owner of Dynamogenics and the person she had come to see today. Her boss, in fact, but not just as the endorsement deal model. Because she worked for Alexis under another capacity. No one in the world knew that Alexis also headed a clandestine agency called the Corpus. A stealthy left hand, it worked where traditional methods of diplomacy and the military had failed to operate.
“As soon as she heard you were coming, she started jumping all over the place,” Alexis said with a nod toward her daughter.
“Kiki!” The child chose to lurch again in her direction from her father’s arms.
She gladly took the warm and squirming bundle into her arms and pressed a deep kiss onto her head, breathing in that baby powder and soft shampoo scent the little girl seemed to always carry. Antonia—for that was her name—returned the affection with a hug before almost dislocating Kseniya’s shoulder as she attempted to lunge at something on the nearby bookshelf.
Graeme grabbed her before she could do any harm.
Kseniya stood there, sheepish, as she realized she was interrupting a rare family moment this lot got to share together. “Sorry for disturbing you.”
Alexis waved her comment away and smiled. “Think nothing of it.”
Graeme propped his daughter on his hip and made his way to the windows. “I’m just killing time waiting for Seth. The chauffeur just picked him up at the air strip and will be delivering him here.”
As soon as he said that, the door burst open, and in walked a lanky blond youth that shared a striking similarity with Graeme in his facial features. No wonder, as that was his son.
He stopped dead once he saw her, pale face blushing a bright red. How adorable. She smiled at him, and he seemed to get over his being tongue-tied.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “Kiki. Didn’t hope I’d ever get to see you again. You wouldn’t believe how jealous all my friends were that we got to meet.”
She could hear the awe in his voice, and something in her heart melted. How easy it was sometimes to please younger people. An idea popped inside her head.
“Wanna make them more jealous?” she asked.
His eyes boggled. “Fuck, yeah!”
“Language!” both Graeme and Alexis chided.
The lad had the decency to look chastised, and as Kseniya pulled her phone from her tote, she motioned him over, then turned them in front of the bookshelves, with the windows angled to the side and slightly back, thus providing the best lighting angle.
Holding the camera in selfie position, she put it into quick shutter mode, then proceeded to draw near Seth and place a kiss on his cheek. She lingered there a second longer than necessary to get a few good shots, then pulled away. The boy looked slightly dazed as she plopped down onto the sofa, already updating her Instagram feed.
A notification beeped on Alexis’ phone, and the woman took a look and suppressed a guffaw. “Seriously, Kiki. ‘Lucky to be meeting the next generation of future red-hot men.’ That caption is asking for trouble.”
Kseniya laughed. She had littered the text with little heart emojis and had uploaded the full sequence of that kiss as an Instagram story. Her own phone started vibrating as the comments began to pour in. She threw the screen a quick glance.
Who is that hottie?
OMG! Turns out that’s the son of Alexis Friedrich’s baby daddy.
Is he even legal?
Not even close!
Man, I will sure start stalking him now. Anyone know his handle?
@SethWhitman360 That’s him. Stalk away! Joining u!
Good—she’d done her part to make the lad world-famous now. His friends would be green with envy.
“Okay, ladies. We are out of here,” Graeme said as he tugged the baby’s bag over one shoulder, the squirming toddler still squished against his side on one hip. “Say goodbye to Mummy and Kiki.”
“Look after the old man, Seth,” Alexis quipped.
Graeme rolled his eyes, and Seth exchanged a knowing look and smile with his stepmother. Antonia started waving and babbled away in her cute baby vocabulary, and before long, the three Whitmans had cleared out.
A dull hush fell over the room as the women found themselves alone. Alexis got up from the desk and went to the bar in the corner, then pouring herself and Kseniya a glass of white wine each. She returned to the sofa with the drinks and handed one over before daintily sitting down at the other end.
“You’re really good with kids. Ever thought of having any?”
She smiled. “I do think about it. Just not for now, though.”
“Well, don’t make the mistake I did and wait until it was almost too late.”
Despite being privy to her nature, little would Alexis know it would never be too late for her—her kind didn’t have a cap on their reproductive years. Still, the idea trotted about in her head. As she thought back to the scene she’d just witnessed, something clanged in her heart.
“I want what you have, though,” she said.
Alexis raised an eyebrow. “A hell-raising stepson, a daughter with whom I’m already in over my head, and a man who drives me nuts more often than anything?”
Kseniya bit her lip. Could she say it?
“I want love, yes.”
“Then I agree. That is well worth waiting for.”
Alexis took a small sip of her drink, but Kseniya had no such qualms and drained her glass in one gulp. The cool, crisp wine sparked a wave of delicious cold inside her, and her ice dragon nature rejoiced in that escape from any type of heat. Most people took her knack for dressing with very little clothing as her being a shameless hussy out for attention, but necessity warranted that she wear as little as possible. Heat was not her friend, in any form or under any guise.
“Now that’s serious,” Alexis said in a soft voice as she eyed her over the rim of her glass. “What’s going on?”
She sighed. It had come to this, finally. She’d hoped and prayed this would never happen, but no. It had had to happen. Next to her, her tote bag seemed to pulse with heat, the note gaining in warmth the more time passed. She wouldn’t be able to keep it at bay much longer.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I could’ve spared you,” she said after another exhale.
Alexis put her glass down. “What is it?”
One more deep breath.
“That mission you gave me last time? I won’t be able to do it.”
Her boss remained silent for long seconds. “May I ask why?”
She could easily bow out here and cite a family emergency. The Corpus agents didn’t have families, generally, but those who did were allowed, since Alexis had taken the reins a little while ago from her father, to remain in close contact with their relatives. Everyone knew she had a big family back in Russi
a—parents, grandparents, a slew of younger siblings. She could easily invent an excuse and get out of this.
But she owed Alexis more. The woman was the only person outside of Ognennyy Ostrov—commonly known as Fire Island, which formed part of Russia’s most remote territories, separated from the mainland by hundreds of miles—who knew her true origins, that she was in fact a Metallic Ice Dragon living her first ninety years under human form and under a glamor that would make it look like she were aging every year. In reality, she would look like she’d hardly reached middle-age by the time she clocked in her first century.
And Alexis had expressly given her this top-secret mission because of her dragon origins, when the woman had never used that card ever, even though she could have. Seriously, she’d had a virtually indestructible agent at her beck and call, and she’d never pushed Kseniya to do more than little infiltrations here and there in the world of the rich and famous and had had her jet set as an agent provocateur for the Corpus.
Suddenly filled with rage, which burned hot and hard inside her, she jumped to her feet and reached the windows in a few long strides to place her palms and forearms against the cold glass, in an effort to cool herself down. God, how she hated the heat!
“It’s not fair,” she bit out. “You were counting on me.”
“That’s true. You are my best tracker, after all.”
Thanks to her dragon side. She used this ability to swift efficiency when out and about. She even had a talent to literally sniff out trails to information and people.
Her arms still against the glass, she pressed her forehead to the pane and closed her eyes.
“Finding the long-lost heir to the Pendrovia crown. Imagine what we could do if we installed him as an ally on that throne. A secure, friendly land with no other allegiance,” Kseniya continued.
Alexis remained silent for a long time, then spoke. “It would be to our advantage, indeed. We do need to find him as soon as possible.”
A cry of anguish threatened to tear out of her throat. Popping her eyes open, she then whirled to face her boss.
“And now, I can’t help you with that!”
Alexis watched her with narrowed eyes. “Why not? You haven’t told me the reason yet.”
She could tell … or she could show. With a resolute step, she marched back to the sofa and picked up her tote. She rummaged for the thick fold of the scratchy papyrus, which she then handed to Alexis.
The other woman unfolded the paper and stared at the two lines of text and the glowing gold seal of the royal family at the bottom. Then she handed it back.
“Watch this,” Kseniya said. “What did the paper feel like in your hands?”
Alexis shrugged. “Old paper, I guess.”
She nodded. “But cool, yes?”
“Yes.”
She held onto the note for a while, until a wince crossed her face. It was happening. Pain erupted along her palm, and when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she let the paper drop back into the bag and then showed her hand.
Alexis jumped to her feet, coming over to cradle the now-burned palm in her hand. “Oh my God! What happened? Wait, I have a first-aid kit somewhere—”
Alexis had been a doctor before taking over her father’s company. Those instincts were screaming out loud and hard right then.
Kseniya stopped her by wrapping her other hand around the woman’s delicate wrist. She then focused her attention inside her body, calling her latent energy into her lungs, before gently blowing on her red and raw palm. A breath of cold air fanned out from her lips, the frigid breeze making her skin hurt when it connected to the burns, but then working its magic and closing the wound right in front of Alexis’ baffled gaze.
“It will burn me more the longer I don’t reply,” she said.
Alexis lifted stricken eyes onto her. “Then you should answer this summons right away. How are you getting to Russia? I can arrange a plane from our fleet for you.”
At this, she shook her head. No need for a plane. She would get to their lands ASAP like the dragon in her was expected to. By flying in her beastly form.
Lord only knew what awaited her. Given the urgency of this message, it bade nothing good.
Barefoot, both wearing nothing but loose white linen pants with a drawstring waist, the two men considered each other warily like tigers biding their time to pounce, scoping each other out.
The African sun beat down on their heads, drawing sweat, and the earth rumbled under their feet as they moved and landed from their jumps. At the exact same moment, as though their bodies were synchronized, they broke into quick, graceful sparring movements, reminiscent of an ancient tribal dance. And then they sped up, got lightning fast, to the point that no human would be able to discern what they were doing or what direction they were taking to one-up each other.
Dizzying and seemingly impossible to fathom, this kind of training got the adrenalin flowing and the dragon fire tingling under the skin.
Moisture tickled the follicles on Djibril Antonovich Vasiliev’s shaved head as he slowed down to normal speed, and his smooth chest heaved with the exertion of a good damn workout. Doing what he was doing under a hot sun—that’s how he felt alive. As alive as he soared the skies in his Metallic Fire Dragon form.
Of course, he’d never admit how he enjoyed these moments way more than his full-time job as a professional tennis player. He’d trade all the tournaments, invasions of privacy, constant drug screenings, and the rest for this kind of freedom—for the opportunity to be himself all of the time. When your very body was magic, anything less seemed … boring.
And sometimes, too, he’d kill for a cup of good, strong Colombian coffee, which his fitness regimen forced him to stay away from—because a hot cup of tea just didn’t cut it on some days.
But his kind was allowed to live as humans for their early years, and he would never give up on this opportunity to be anything but the careful and responsible ruler he was expected to become one day. There’d be time enough for that later, in about a century, maybe.
The other man’s eyes narrowed on him, as though he believed that alone could win him this spar.
The fight had dragged on long enough. At least five minutes of casual offensive. About time to turn it up a notch or two. Someone would eat dust—and it wouldn’t be him. He smiled.
Making a sudden jerk to the right, he channeled all his strength to perform thirty cartwheels in a handful of seconds, landing with a cat’s agility on his feet. Grass flew in the gathering wind, and the earth cracked beneath him from the impact. His skin stretched and hardened like a layer of indestructible rock. His dragon pulsed underneath, his bones readjusting to accommodate the shifting energy.
His eyes burned.
He then broke out in a balança, a succession of moves with one purpose: to confuse his opponent and throw him off his game. Amped up, injected with superhuman speed, all of this would seem nothing but a constant blur. To the untrained eye who could, for argument’s sake, keep up with their actions—which was impossible to do for a regular human—the scene might conjure the impression of a unique, intense style of choreography. To them, this represented twelve years’ worth of Capoeira, fused in every practiced movement. Only a Fire Island royal and his opponent would naturally put their spin on this discipline.
And as always since the first day they’d started competing, they both fought to win, even though few ever stood a chance with him. Djibril smirked.
They slowed down again. The earth gave a last deep rumble, then settled, like metal music on pause.
“Show off,” Keith, his business partner at Sportology, Inc., scoffed.
His perfect footwork and arm moves matched Djibril’s. Pausing for a moment, the man spat on the ground and threw him a wicked look, his eyes glowing fiery amber. This was no place for suits, smooth talking, and petty courtesies. Here, they came to be themselves.
“Come at me, you son of a bitch.”
And apparently, no place fo
r respecting a member of Fire Island’s royal family, either. The Crown Prince, heir to the throne of the European territories, no less.
They kept circling each other like birds of prey honing over a dying animal, skirting that thin line between human and beast, in both form and mind.
“Come on, Gabe. Stop dallying like a pussy over there.”
“Heathen. You’ll pay for that big mouth of yours.”
Only his parents, his eighteen-year-old sister, and the man in front of him would call him that Westernized version of his name. The ones closest to him, who he’d trust with his life.
But enough was enough. He raised his leg and jumped up in the air, about a hundred feet up, then descended in a fraction of a moment to land his foot on Keith’s chest, before finding purchase on soft teff grass once more.
The hit caused the man to man fall backwards to the ground, catching himself on his elbows. Sweating and panting heavily, he sat up and placed his arms on raised knees. His eyes were flickering now, like a lightbulb on its last legs.
“Fuck this. Five-minute break!”
“You have the stamina of an eighty-year-old, buddy. And the mouth of a drunk construction worker.”
“Fuck you!” Keith rasped, winded. He caught his breath for a few seconds, then drank a few sips of his bottled water, which he’d tucked into his messenger bag. His skin seemed to smooth out and lighten as he gentled down.
“Aaaah!” he growled, ending the sound with a whistle. “If you kill me, you’ll have to get away from the cameras and go to all those boring board meetings yourself.”
This earned a guffaw from Djibril. Keith was a sore loser, but he’d gotten used to it by now. He used to complain a lot more.
“The cameras love me, especially since I haven’t dropped out of the top five rankings of the ATP in all my time on the circuit so far. Who’s the champ?”
“Vain ass motherfucker, too,” Keith mumbled. “I’m from New York, man. We invented plain speaking there. We don’t like beating around the bush.”
“I wonder sometimes how you got to be valedictorian at Yale. Did your folks bribe somebody?”
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