The Lost Barinov Dragon, page 12
Was it the magic of dragon mating or something else? Something even harder to explain? Like a dragon soul hoarding the memories of a dead woman and keeping them safe in the heart of a sapphire?
Tasha lost track of time as they danced. If there were dragons here, she did not sense them. She was too absorbed in the moment and this man, her man, to think past the next song.
Randolph Belishaw stared at the humans dancing in the Printworks nightclub. He remembered, as all creatures do who sense time beyond a mere hundred years, a collection of moments in a vast and ever-shifting kaleidoscope. He could see this place as it was now, and he remembered the fields that had lain here before humans disturbed the wildflowers and stone with equal clarity. He remembered the early thatched-roof structures, and then later the stone edifices, and finally the factory that still stood.
It was another empty night, a night that had him wandering the club restlessly. Ever since he’d found his true mate four years ago, he had been yearning for more, but more was not something he could have.
The woman fated to be his was an American witch, and her life was subject to the control of the Salem Witch Council. They had ruled against one of their prized witch bloodlines mating with an English dragon.
His woman had been forced to go home to Boston and had not been able to return to England. This hollow ache he now felt was all that was left of his future. He was more than a thousand years old, young by dragon standards, yet the thought of living another moment without Jodie in his life made even one more day feel like too many.
He swept a tired gaze over the crowd below, hoping to find something, anything to distract him. What he didn’t expect to see was a familiar face among the crowd. A face he’d thought he would never see again.
Vasili Barinov. The Russian dragon who had once been his father’s dearest friend. Randolph peered down at Vasili, who dwarfed the human males near him.
It was him. There was no mistaking the face of a Barinov, nor was Vasili’s face unknown to Randolph. He had been a young dragon when Vasili had visited London, but he remembered him clearly enough. He remembered Vasili had a dragoness mate named Marina. Vasili wasn’t alone, which was to be expected. A beautiful woman was dancing with him.
However, it was the wrong woman.
Why wasn’t Marina here? Marina and Vasili had vanished in Europe, and the Barinov brothers now running the family had confirmed his death centuries ago.
But if Vasili was alive, Marina had to be too. So why was he dancing with this woman so intimately?
And if Vasili was alive, why did no one know before now?
Something was wrong. Perhaps the light was playing tricks on Randolph’s eyes and what he was seeing was an illusion, an old memory resurfacing, convincing him that he was seeing his long-dead family friend when it really was a different man.
Randolph retrieved his cell phone and zoomed in on the man below, snapping a photo, and then he sent it to his father. He didn’t say who he thought it was. He wanted to see if his father would have the same reaction.
He waited, keeping his eyes on Vasili and his female dance partner. It was obvious that Vasili had eyes only for the woman in his arms—a human, no less. The world could have crumbled around them and Vasili would not have noticed. A dragon only acted like that with a true mate.
What did it mean? Randolph pushed aside his thoughts of why he had come here tonight. His hunt for vampires and blood cults would have to wait. A moment later, his phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw his father’s name on the screen.
“Father?” he answered, ignoring the noise around him.
“Where are you?” Everett demanded.
“The Printworks. I was hunting those fools from the blood cults.”
“And he’s there?” his father asked. “Do you still see him?”
Randolph locked his eyes on the dragon one floor below. “Yes. Is it him?”
“I can’t be sure. Follow him. I will send a team to you. If it is him, we need answers, and he may not be in the mood to give them politely. He has been missing for too long for something not to be wrong. Is Marina there?”
“No,” Randolph said. “Do you think he has gone rogue?”
“I hope not. We have enough to deal with right now. A rogue dragon is not something I want to face, especially a Barinov. We’ll have to call Grigori. He needs to be here if we must put Vasili down. He is his uncle, after all.”
Rogue dragons were dragons who’d gone mad and killed their mates. The mate bond either never formed or it became somehow corrupted, and the dragon or dragoness severed the link by attacking and killing their mate. Those dragons didn’t die of mate grief, but lived on.
“You don’t think he . . . killed Marina?” Randolph hated even saying the words.
“I pray he did not,” his father replied. “But if he did, we shall deal with him.”
Randolph winced. His father’s voice would’ve sounded calm to anyone else, but his son knew better. Everett was old enough to have seen and done much in this world and jaded enough not to be affected too much by it, but Randolph could still hear the hint of pain in his father’s voice. If Vasili had gone rogue and Marina was missing, things were about to become dangerous in London.
Please let it not be Vasili, Randolph prayed as he stepped back into the shadows to keep watch on the couple dancing below.
Andre Murphy licked his lips of the blood he’d spilled as he fed a little too vigorously on the mortal woman he held pinned against the wall. The techno music bounced off the walls, and the human woman’s blood now coursed through him, making his body sing. She had been high on some designer drug, and Andre couldn’t resist. It was the only way a vampire could enjoy drugs or alcohol, by consuming it through the blood of a mortal.
He let out a contented sigh as his vision splintered into shards of rainbow light as the spotlights in the factory swept around the crowd. The woman he’d lured into the dark crumpled to the floor as he released her. Another empty shell, another mindless twit to serve an immortal like him. Humans were sheep, temporary sustenance while he quested for rarer blood.
Only one type of blood had any real value, one that could give vampires a taste of true power. Shifter blood. The mere thought of it kept his fangs extended and his throat burning with an unquenchable thirst. Even now, he could imagine the sweet smell of powerful shifter blood nearby. Perhaps he was dreaming about it after so much unsatisfying mortal blood?
No, he did smell a shifter, and he heard a heartbeat pounding in a different rhythm from the loud bass of the music. Andre moved through the crowd, chasing that irresistible scent—ancient, powerful, full of magic.
A dragon. He halted as he spotted the tall man dancing in the crowd several yards from him. It wasn’t one of the damned Belishaw dragons. This was good. The Belishaws were protected. They drank wine laced with a cocktail of spells provided by the Lancashire Witch Council, which made their blood boil inside a vampire. The Belishaws had been chasing his blood coven for months now. But this dragon wasn’t putting off the scent of poisoned blood. He smelled mouthwateringly clean.
Andre weaved closer, taking in the air, sifting through the sweat and overdone perfumes of the human bodies until he found another smell, one softer and sweeter. A virgin . . . but more than that. She was unique. She smelled like sunshine, a scent he sometimes remembered with dark agony. The male dragon held the woman possessively, his cold eyes raw with lust.
A smile stretched Andre’s lips. So, the dragon had a human mate—a virgin, no less. Interesting. Andre would wait and watch for now. When the moment was right, he would take the human female, and her dragon would follow.
His lord would be pleased, most pleased. Two delicious beings to feast on. He licked his lips, and his fangs slowly retreated into his gums as he disappeared, unseen by his prey.
Chapter 9
Excerpt from Barrow’s Journal – My Year with Dragons
Dragonsong—I have heard it several times as I’ve stayed with the Barinov brothers, and I can honestly say there is nothing more musical. The notes and the patterns transcend time and space in ways I cannot begin to fathom, as though they are speaking back to the universe itself.
* * *
The music moved through Vasili as he danced. It was so much more intense than the music of the past. Each beat seemed to actually beat into him, matching his heart, and the haunting melodies played over and over through his mind as he held Tasha close. Her hips moved in time with his. These new hypnotic dance moves were so close to mating that his dragon paced hungrily at the corners of his mind with desire.
Soon he would take Tasha to bed. He would join his body with hers and see more of her life within his head. He wanted to be connected to her in all ways. She was beautiful inside and out. She was his future, the woman who’d saved him.
He smiled as he pressed his lips to her forehead. She was his rescuer and fast becoming his heart, and he would be her devoted mate, her fierce protector for however long they had in this life.
Vasili spun Tasha out on one hand, then tugged her back into his embrace. They swayed and whirled as the lights flashed all around them. Dancing. By the gods, he loved this more than he could say. He let the rhythmic moves energize him, and Tasha laughed along with him. Her silken hair fell down around her shoulders in wild waves, and her face glowed with light and joy. She was so lovely it hurt to look at her.
Only when the music slowed and changed did they take a moment to catch their breath.
“Sense anything?” Tasha asked.
Vasili, while quite distracted by dancing with Tasha, hadn’t immediately sensed any dragons nearby. Of course, it was a lot harder to sense them with all the other things going on with the music and the humans.
“Not yet. There is so much noise, so many strange smells. I haven’t had time to adjust to it.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t we try again tomorrow?”
“Yes, let’s try tomorrow.” He grasped her hand and led her away from the music to linger in an alcove.
“Do you want to get some ice cream and cool off?” Tasha leaned against him, her breath tickling his throat as he held her by the waist.
“Why would they put ice in cream?”
“Because it tastes like heaven. God, you’re adorable. I can’t wait to see you try it.” She kissed his chin, and her pleasure was infectious.
“Let’s go.” She pulled him through the crowd to the coat check and left the nightclub. They stopped on the street while she hailed a cab.
“So what is this ice cream?” he asked, wondering if maybe he had misheard her and it was an aggressive form of skating where they made the ice scream. He honestly didn’t know.
“Just wait,” Tasha promised him as they climbed into a cab. Her small hand found his, and their fingers threaded together. It gave him a flood of strength to feel her hand locked in his own.
Once they were near the hotel, she took him to a small shop that smelled like food but was very cold.
“This is ice cream,” she whispered in his ear, and he shivered with desire. She made him think of sex with just about anything, even this.
There was a counter of curved glass in the small restaurant. Vasili followed Tasha up to it. She ordered something called a waffle cone of chocolate marshmallow.
The young man behind the counter looked to Vasili next, and Vasili shrugged. “I will have the same thing, please.”
They received two cone objects with brown-and-white lumpy balls of what he now assumed was frozen sweetened milk of some sort, based on what he could smell. Tasha paid for the ice cream, and they sat down inside a cozy booth in the back of the restaurant. He watched Tasha in aroused fascination as she licked the ice cream on the top of her cone. It was hard not to imagine her tongue sliding over his body in a similar way. Vasili closed his eyes as his body hardened, and he fought for control.
“Try it.” Tasha’s foot rubbed his calf beneath the table. She was grinning mischievously at him. She knew exactly what she had done to him.
“I think perhaps I would rather lick you,” Vasili said before he attempted to eat his ice cream. Chilled milk and flavors he didn’t recognize exploded in an abundance of sweetness on his tongue. He wasn’t usually one for sweet foods, but this was delicious. It was also decadent.
He took another lick, and his eyes locked with Tasha’s. She was licking her treat at the same time, while her foot rubbed up and down his leg. He had the sudden urge to strip her naked and melt this frozen treat all over her body so he could lick it up while pleasuring her.
“So? Do you like it?” Tasha asked as she began to crunch on the edible cone.
“Yes, very much. It has given me many good ideas, little one.” He flashed her a wicked smirk, which made her flush red, and she smiled shyly back at him. He adored how one minute she acted like a wanton siren and next she was a shy, virginal creature. Life with her would never be dull. When they finished, he held out a hand across the table to her. She took it, and he wrapped his fingers around hers protectively.
“I want to know everything about you, Tasha,” he confessed. “Tell me of your life, of your hopes and dreams.”
She lowered her gaze, still shy, before drawing in a deep breath. “I want to know that about you too.”
“We have time, all the time in the world,” he promised. There would never be enough time with her, but he would savor and cherish every second he had. “Tell me about your parents. I saw your mother in the memory, but it was too quick for me to hold on to.”
Tasha licked her lips and then sighed. “My mom is wonderful, but she’s afraid of a lot of things, mainly the rest of the world.”
“That is a lot of things.”
“We had a fight before I left to go on this trip. She didn’t want me to go.”
“Why is she so scared?”
“As I mentioned before, my father was a dragon, a powerful man who had enemies who eventually murdered him. He only came to see us once a year. You can’t imagine what that was like, to grow up loving a father but seeing him only once a year. Because of the dangerous life he led, my mother raised me halfway around the world.” She was silent for a long moment. Her face paled even more.
“When I was little, I started having these daydreams about my dad. I could see him wherever he was, living his life. I thought for a long time that it was something I did to cope with him not being there, but after he died, the daydreams stopped, and I wondered if maybe . . . maybe they were real. That’s not possible, is it?” She sighed, the sound so heavy that Vasili was crushed beneath the weight.
He squeezed her hand, wanting her to know he was there for her, for whatever she needed.
“I’m not used to talking about my dad, not even with my mom. The way I grew up, I know it wasn’t normal. To live so remote and be afraid of everything. It took me four years after my father died to come this far and do the things I’m doing now.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s weird, but finding you, it’s made me feel less afraid.”
“I’m glad,” Vasili said. “The last thing I ever want is you to be afraid, especially of me.”
Her face reddened again, and she smiled bashfully. “The things I feel for you, they are so intense, and I don’t even know you.”
“I understand.” Vasili leaned forward in the booth, wishing he was closer. “Ask me anything, little one. I am open to you in all things.”
“What about your family? You said you had a brother and nephews?”
“My brother and his mate have three sons: Grigori, the eldest, then Mikhail, and finally Rurik. They were good men, my nephews. I hope they are still alive.”
“What about your parents?”
“My mother was a Nordic ice dragon, and my father also had Nordic blood. My father was killed in 832 by a thunderbird. His death took my mother a few hours later.”
“What’s a thunderbird?” Tasha still held his hand, her eyes soft and gentle as she asked her probing questions.
“It is another shifting being like dragons. It is a human and also a bird, just as we are humans and also dragons. Thunderbirds are rare and dangerous. They can create storms at will, and the powerful blast of their wings while in flight can kill dragons at close range or render them unconscious. They are the natural enemy of dragons.”
Tasha’s eyes widened. Vasili absorbed the look of her, memorizing everything he could. She was his private glory, one that he could gaze at forever and never lose interest. He wanted to count the endless lashes on her eyes, which cast spells on him. He longed to brush his fingers over the smooth, silky skin of her throat and taste the natural sweetness that clung to her lips. He loved it when her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and the breathless sound of her laugh filled him with joy. It was amazing how like Marina she was in some ways, and yet vastly different in others.
Marina had been born in an age when dragons were fearless and outgoing. They had to be in order to survive. But Tasha had been trapped by her life, caged by the fear of a parent who wanted to protect her, even at the cost of her living a full life. Yet Tasha had been brave enough to go out into the world and experience new things. She had found him, a creature that should have paralyzed her with fear. But fear hadn’t ruled her.
Vasili was humbled by Tasha, humbled by the knowledge that fate had given him a second chance and that even his dragon, and Marina’s dragon, wanted him to bond with Tasha. Perhaps he and his dragon would have a second chance and a second life after all, which was more than either of them deserved.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” Tasha said, her sweetness and compassion making him feel gloriously alive.
