by Lauren Smith
“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 though 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 sleeping 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 any 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.
Grigori removed Madelyn’s coat and slipped her boots off before he placed a pillow beneath her head. Her hair was soft, like silk beneath his hands as he brushed it away from her face. Even just an innocent touch made his body tense with hunger. He had to regain control.
He retrieved a white mink fur blanket and draped it over Madelyn’s sleeping form. Impulsively, he leaned over to brush his lips on hers before he turned off the lights and closed the bedroom door.
“You’re acting very strange, brother,” Rurik noted. He was leaning back the doorway to the bedroom.
Grigori bristled. “I am not acting any differently.” He used the tone that Rurik would recognize as a warning to drop the subject. But Grigori knew he was acting differently. The little human was bringing out old instincts in him, ones he thought he’d mastered long ago.
As the eldest of their family, his duty was the preservation of their lands and its protection. It
was also his duty to carry on their line by either finding his true mate or by breeding with an eligible dragoness. He couldn’t afford to let himself become entangled with a mortal that would leave him open and vulnerable. The pressure of his duties had left him cool, aloof, and in many ways unchanged over the years. But he was willing to let that part of himself go in order to seduce Madelyn.
“Come into the kitchen with me,” Grigori closed the bedroom door and they headed into his kitchen.
His brother trailed a fingertip along the onyx granite countertop. “You aren’t considering starting a relationship with a mortal. You know that doesn’t end well, at least not unless you promise to keep it to only one night. Let’s not forget she was researching the Barrow journal, and the last time I checked, that made her a possible enemy. She could be working for the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon. Or worse . . .” His brother frowned. “She could be working for the Drakors. Better be careful with this one, Grigori. After losing Mikhail, we cannot take any chances.”
“I know,” Grigori replied, not admitting he was planning more than one night with Madelyn. The last thing he needed was his little brother lecturing him on relationships and not sleeping with the enemy.
Their middle brother, Mikhail . . . The mere thought of his name struck Grigori like a dagger to his heart. His brother was in exile. They didn’t know if he was even still alive. The last time he’d seen Mikhail had been two hundred years ago, the year he had returned home and brought James Barrow with him.
We were the fools who spilled our secrets. Barrow had never intended his diary to be their potential downfall, but over the years it simply became a font of knowledge that no one expected to survive the ravages of time.
“Grigori, I know you. You hide in your office, running the family business and playing the part of a mortal, but you are not. You are the eldest Barinov dragon. You cannot lose yourself to some human female. Even assuming she’s not helping to bring us down and destroy our family, she will make you soft and when she’s gone . . . It will weaken you. You’re acting like she’s a possible true mate. Father warned us about mortals,” Rurik said.
The mention of their father brought back ancient memories. It was strange to think that their father had only died only two decades ago. It felt as though he’d been gone for a lifetime.
“I remember.” He shut his eyes for a brief moment and almost saw his father’s face, the stern but loving countenance as he told Grigori and his brothers the rules of dragons. “Never mate a mortal. When dragons lose their mates, they grieve deeply and don’t live much past the moment they their mate dies.”
“She isn’t my true mate, it’s simply her scent that’s caught me. But I do plan to seduce her.”
Rurik chuckled. “Father said that about mother, you know. He only wanted to seduce her and thought he could resist her being his true mate. They ended up mated for three thousand years.”
“But Mother was a Dragoness, not a mortal,” Grigori reminded him. He walked over to his stainless steel wine fridge and retrieved a fifty-year-old bottle of Bordeaux and a glass. He reached for second one but his brother interrupted him.
“None for me. I have to head back. The club needs me. Call if the little mortal gives you any trouble.”
“She won’t.” He listened to the sound of his brother’s laughter, scowling until he heard the door to his penthouse close.
Then he poured himself a glass of wine, retrieved a book of German poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, and sat in his favorite chair by the fire place in the center of the room. His fireplace was a circular stone structure two feet tall and was full of glass crystals with flames powered by gas. The sight was intoxicating, like diamonds on fire. Two of his favorite things. He tried to lose himself in the poetry and not think about Madelyn asleep in the other room. The scent of her filled his head and made his body throb with an almost violent need, but he kept control. Barely . . .
Chapter 4
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star’s vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Madelyn woke slowly, the memories of parents she didn’t know and the life she never had a chance to live fading to intangible presences at the back of her mind until they were half-forgotten dreams. Her eyelids were heavy and her tongue felt like sandpaper. She blinked slowly as the leaden feel of her limbs dissipated and the fog in her head lightened. She sat up, a thick blanket of white fur dropping down to her waist.
Fur? She stared around at the master bedroom she was in.
“Oh my . . .” The tall four-poster bed was made of dark black wood, a midnight blue bedspread beneath her and a mountain of feather-soft pillows behind her. She caught her reflection in a large mirror on a dresser table. Her face was ashen and her lips pale as she sat in a mountain of expensive white furs. Her hair was in wild disarray. She threaded her fingers through the messy mane and took a few steadying breaths. Where was she? She struggled to remember anything before she’d woken up here.
The elevator, the man following her, and then Grigori . . . in her hotel room.
Oh my God. I’ve been kidnapped.
She curled her arms around her chest for several seconds, just trying to calm her panicked breathing. They had kidnapped her and brought her here. A thousand horrible scenarios ran through her head of what they might to do with her . . . human trafficking being the worst. The thought of it brought bile up to her throat and she swallowed, gagging.
Just calm down. Just calm down . . .
Her body froze, and her heart stopped for a painful second before it jolted back into a steady beat. She summoned the scholarly side of herself to analyze her surroundings again. She needed to figure out where she was and what they wanted from her. Then she could plan her escape. Beside her on the table, was a leather bound book she was all too familiar with. James’s Barrow’s journal.
Heart still pounding, she pushed the furs down and slid off the bed. Her sock-covered feet sank into a creamy white carpet. Madelyn grabbed the nearest bedpost, her fingers gripping the spindle carved wood as she walked around the king-size bed. She moved through the room and caught a teasing sense of something dark, pine and masculine. A scent she’d recognized when she’d been standing close to the man in the suit who’d looked just like Grigori from the journal. He couldn’t be Grigori. She didn’t know his name, so she might as well call him that until she figured out who he really was.
Grigori. He was everywhere in this room, from the elegant furnishings to the clothes hanging in the closet. Madelyn wasn’t sure how she knew it was his room aside from the lingering scent, but it just felt like this was part of his world. She couldn’t explain it. She’d never been in a man’s bedroom before and it was exciting and scary.
Why had he brought her here? How had they knocked her out? And why did he want to know why she’d been interested in James Barrow’s book? She had a thousand questions and no answers. The smart thing would be to find her shoes and coat and get out of here . . . no matter how intrigued she was with the mystery of Grigori Barinov.
She bent down and looked in the closet and under the bed for her boots but couldn’t find them. She had a sneaking suspicion he had hidden them to keep her from escaping. She approached the beautifully carved bedroom door, gripping the antique glass doorknob. Would it be locked? Was she a prisoner? She turned the knob and it gave beneath the pressure.
The door opened and she entered a small corridor, passing a lavish master bathroom with a large tub and an oversized glass shower. Whoa. The next room she entered opened into a huge library and an office. Then the apartment gave way to a large living room with the kitchen at the back and a dining room. A roaring fire in a square pit in the center of the living room sparkled over crystal stones. A wing backed chair facing the fire creaked sligh
tly and a masculine hand extended past the arm of the chair as it swirled a glass of wine.
Someone was sitting there . . .
Madelyn held her breath, listening to every sound from the antique grandfather clock in the hall ticking away to the sounds of the man in the chair turning the pages of his book. The hand holding the glass suddenly disappeared and the chair creaked again as the occupant stood and turned to face her.
It was Grigori. He looked too damn sexy, and intimidating, in that expensive suit. His light hair fell across his blue eyes and he gazed at her with an unreadable expression. Her heart was racing again, and blood roared in her ears as she watched him, afraid of what he might do.
“You’re awake,” he noted. He moved slowly, setting the wine glass on the table beside his chair.
“Why am I here?” She was careful to keep a safe distance between them. They were facing each other, like two animals measuring each other up before they decided to fight or not. She wouldn’t hesitate to throw anything at him within her reach to escape.
“You’re here because you checked out a book.”
His cryptic reply made her bristle. The last thing she should be was argumentative, but she suddenly wanted to be brave in front of him.
“Is that against the law?” she asked, tilting her chin. She may have been scared out of her mind, but she was not going to let him see it.
Grigori’s lips twitched. “No, but that book belongs to me.”
She stiffened. “Then why did you leave it in a public library? You do understand that’s how libraries work, right?” How she had the nerve to be snarky, she’d never know.
He placed one hand on the back of the leather chair, his finger slowly tapping a pattern as though he was channeling all of his energy into the movement.
“A fiery creature,” he murmured. “I like that.” This was uttered so softly she thought she’d imagined it.
“So you have the book back, you can let me go. I can leave, can’t I?” Her eyes darted around the room, seeking out the front door. She inwardly groaned when she realized the only way out was behind him. She’d have to get past brooding, sexy, and scary Grigori.
