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 will 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!