You turned your tears’

strength and pressure into your ripe gaze,

and were transforming every fluid inside you

into a strong reality, which would rise

and circulate, in equilibrium, blindly.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

This time Madelyn couldn’t shake off the fear and terror. She was frozen in that moment, terrified of the rain, the cold, and the silence. She could see the slither of a silver dragon through tall grass. Thunder rumbled like the low growl of wolves. The cold rain stung her skin, hot from running for her life. Fear punched her gut, making her taste bile and acid . . . Distantly as though from beneath a vast sea, she heard Grigori talking to her, whispering over and over words in a language she didn’t understand.

Bit by bit the nightmare began to fade, leaving her hollow and heavy-hearted. Tear tracks had dried on her cheeks and she was on the floor, wrapped around Grigori. Clinging to him. His dark gray sweater was damp when she buried her face against his shoulder. His body was shaking too, his hands curled tight around her back. He reached up to her neck massaging her tense muscles. His lips pressed into the crown of her hair and she slowly sagged in his hold.

“Talk to me, little one. Tell me. I know you want to hide your pain, but I can smell it. The bitter scent is hurting me almost as much as it hurts you.” His low voice was soft and decadent, almost hypnotizing. She didn’t want to hurt him. But perhaps now was the time to tell him about her nightmares and how being here was bringing them back. They felt more real, like memories rather than dreams.

Madelyn raised one hand and pointed at the woman in the painting. She stood in front of a large swing hanging from a tall tree, the fiery fall leaves above her seemed to ripple. Her sapphire blue gown was as deep as the oceans, and pearls and diamonds dotted the bodice and sleeves like the white caps of the cresting waves, sparkling in the morning light.

“Who is she?” Madelyn asked, her voice shaking.

Grigori looked over his shoulder at the painting. “That is my mother.”

“Your mother?” Madelyn sucked in a breath, unable to understand why she would recognize his mother. “But how could I know your mother?”

Grigori stiffened and looked down at her. “You knew my mother?”

“Yes.” Madelyn studied the woman’s features closely. That woman had carried her to safety, away from the rain and the silence. “At least I think I do. I have these dreams, nightmares really, where I’m caught in a storm. I’m terrified, and a dragon is hunting me.”

“You have nightmares about dragons hunting you?” Grigori’s eyes were wide as he studied her.

“Yes, ever since I was a child. But it’s not dragons, it’s one dragon. One that looks like you.”

Horror filled his eyes. “Me? But . . .” He didn’t seem to know what to say.

“But I don’t think it’s you.” She rushed to assure him.

He was silent for a long moment. “And you’ve seen my mother in these dreams?”

She nodded. “But she wasn’t a dragon. That’s why I thought maybe I knew her. Dreaming about dragons is one thing, my imagination might have made that up, but your mother? How could I know what she looks like if I didn’t already know her somehow?”

“But you couldn’t have,” Grigori said. “She died many years ago.”

Madelyn bit her lip, continued to stare at the portrait. Was Grigori right? Was she merely imagining things? She stared into the oil painting’s eyes and knew with dreaded certainty that she had known Grigori’s mother long ago. Somehow.

“You have been under a lot of stress, Madelyn. I believe discovering dragons are real has upset you more than either of us realized. It can be jarring to have what you thought to be true suddenly disrupted. Why don’t you lie on the bed and rest?”

She exhaled slowly, her breath still irregular but her heartbeat felt normal again.

“No, I don’t want to rest . . . I want to see you.” She lifted her head and he gazed at her, his eyes wide.

“By me, you mean . . .” he trailed off.

“Yes. The dragon.” She had to face her fears. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him, but the nightmares of a blue and silver dragon still haunted her.

Grigori’s lips slid into a firm line and he shook his head.

“No. You had a shock and you should rest.”

Madelyn crossed her arms over her chest, her temper from flaring slightly.

“Why do you always do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?” he asked, stroking her hip. The little touch was seemingly innocent, but it began to make her focus on the way her skin tingled rather than thinking about her dreams.

“Make me feel safe, right when I feel like the fear is closing in. You touch me and the fear just fades.”

“It’s my honor and my privilege to protect you and banish all your fears.” The words felt ancient, like a vow a dragon a thousand years ago would say, and it made her shiver in a good way.

The fear that had been fluttering inside her before slowly began to fade. She was safe here in this house with him. And that made her brave. She wanted to see Grigori as a dragon, because he wouldn’t hurt her and it would help her face her childhood fears.

“I need to see you. It might help me get over everything if I can see you, touch you.” Strangely the thought of touching Grigori, no matter what form he was in, did not scare her. It only enticed her. She knew he would be just as beautiful as a dragon as when he was a man. Grigori caught her by the waist, tugging her against him so their bodies pressed together. Heat blossomed in her cheeks at the intimate position, and Grigori’s indulgent smile turned slightly wicked.

“What if I found another way to distract you?” He backed them up so they bumped into the bed and she fell back on it. With a playful growl he pounced on her, crawling up her body to cage her to beneath him. Madelyn started to giggle, but it soon turned to breathless gasping as he lifted her sweater up and revealed her bare stomach and bra. He worked her sweater off and tossed it away.

“Take yours off.” She reached for the bottom of his sweater.

He sat back, straddling her waist as he pulled his sweater over his head, baring his chest. Madelyn reached up and stroked her palms over his chiseled abs, her own belly quivering in response. His skin was hot beneath her hands and it felt good. Grigori slid a hand underneath her and unclasped her bra. He tugged the white lacy cups down and made a soft throaty sound as he shifted down her body, sliding into the cradle of her thighs. Then he lowered his head, his lips gently sucking one of her nipples into his mouth. Madelyn whimpered as a bolt of pleasure shot straight through her and she arched her back, offering herself to him. They wouldn’t be disturbed . . . they were alone in the palace and the Fire Hills of rural Russia.

Grigori laved her sensitive nipple with his tongue before biting the tender peak. The sensation was too much. Madelyn wriggled, moaning in pleasure as he kissed and licked at her breast. She locked her legs around his waist, holding him to her. He was playing a wicked game with her body, like running his fingertips along a harp in an abandoned music room. She felt every touch, every kiss vibrate deep within her, shaking the dust off, making the motes of light dance amid the music she felt building inside her like a rising symphony. This . . . This was like nothing she’d ever experienced before and she knew it wasn’t just because she was a virgin.

There was something magical, almost mystical, in the way Grigori kissed her. The slow, practiced ease of a man who knew how to please a woman. She felt it in the firmness in his lips on her skin and the wild roughness of his hands as they shaped her legs and clenched her bottom when she nipped his bottom lip.

“Fire’s blood, what you do to me,” he whispered harshly in her ear as they rolled on the bed so that she straddled him.

With a wild excitement, Madelyn covered his palms with hers and pinned them into the bed, holding him prisoner this time. His hips bucked reflexively and she felt the bulge of his erection against her leg.

“Madelyn . . .” he warned.

She shook her head she bent over him. “You started this. I want to finish.” She kissed him, their bodies pressed together and her breasts pushed up against his chest. His mouth parted beneath hers, and she reveled in the way their tongues met for a sweet, simple kiss.

Madelyn never dreamed she would meet a man like Grigori or that she would lose herself in this way to someone she’d known only a few days. She didn’t want to fall in love, didn’t want to be addicted to him, but it was too late. Far too late . . . She was falling.

Grigori fisted one hand her hair at the nape of her neck as he rolled them again, trapping her. For a brief second she opened her eyes and their lips parted as he stared down at her. The intensity to his blue eyes were soft and endless, like a summer sky in the early morning right as the world began to stir awake. She closed her eyes again, letting herself fall deeper into the spell of his kiss.

He’s awakened me. That unsettling stir of some something beneath her skin began again and this time she was too lost in her desire to fight it.

“Madelyn . . . what are you . . .” Grigori whispered as the bed hangings around them began to stir in a faint breeze.

“Hmmm?” She sighed against his mouth, feeling for the first time like her body wasn’t trapped within an ill-fitting second skin. She was building toward something, a release that would change her forever and she wanted it with Grigori.

“Grigori,” she moaned his name. “Please.” She couldn’t say it, but she needed him to take her.

“What darling? Tell me what you want?” He growled against her mouth and it was the most exquisite feeling, to share an intimate moment like this, an intensity so full of joy. She hadn’t known it could be like this. She was hopelessly addicted to him.

“Take me.” Her own honest words startled them both.

“Yes—”

A shout from outside the door made them freeze, and Grigori’s dreamy face turned fierce as he muttered in Russian.

“Grigori! Now!” Rurik barked.

“Ignore him,” Madelyn insisted and Grigori nodded.

“Yes, I—”

The door handle rattled as the door started to open. With a loud hiss of disapproval approval, Grigori rolled off her and grabbed the coverlet to throw it over Madelyn’s body.

“Stay,” he commanded. Rather than be angry, Madelyn was even more turned on by him ordering her to stay half naked in her bed.

He stalked over to the opening door and faced his brother, growling in low as they spoke. Rurik growled back and for a long moment Madelyn feared they would come to blows. But then Grigori nodded curtly and slammed the door in his brother’s face. He turned toward the bed, his eyes were blazing and a scowl marred his features.

“Rurik just reminded me that I need to train at least once a day, and we’ve lost much of the day as it is.” Grigori came over to her and leaned over her, kissing her softly. “We can continue this tonight. But for now I need to go outside to meet my brother.”

Madelyn set up, still clutching the coverlet to her chest. “I get to see you?” Finally. One of the things she wanted most, aside from being in Grigori’s arms. She blushed and shook her head to bury thoughts of them in bed. She needed to focus on the fact that she was finally going to see an honest-to-God dragon.

“Why don’t you change and meet me downstairs by the field in ten minutes.”

“Okay.” She curled one hand around his neck, pulling him down for one more lingering kiss before she let him go.

He didn’t bother dressing and simply left the room shirtless, which only made her hurry to get out of bed and throw her sweater back on. Then she ran to the opulent bathroom and splashed cold water over her face before she decided she was ready to face Grigori’s dragon.

* * *

Grigori stood in the open field and watch Rurik strip out of his clothes before he did the same. He could sense Madelyn was at a safe distance, studying them. Once they changed it could be dangerous to be too close to them.

“Ready?” Rurik asked, a cocky smile flitted across his lips.

Grigori balled his hands into fists. “You couldn’t have waited another hour? I was very busy.” He was furious that his little brother had interrupted a tender—not to mention hot as hell—moment with Madelyn. His dragon had been ready to claim her, and being deprived of that chance infuriated him.

“It’s better to train when you have an edge. If I let you sate yourself on that sweet mortal you’d never want to leave bed. That won’t help you when you have to face Drakor.”

Unfortunately, his brother had a point. Facing Drakor was going to be deadly and he couldn’t afford to get lost in any distractions.

Rurik smiled, his eyes starting to glow from brown to molten gold. In the blink of an eye, he threw back his head and shifted. Grigori closed his eyes and embraced his own shift.

The Dragon inside him came roaring out. His skin became silver scales, his mouth elongated into a fierce jaw that could snap trees in half. Two vast wings spread wide on either side of his shoulder blades and he flapped them, stretching the clawed tips and feeling the rush of becoming the beast inside him. The transformation always felt painful, at least for the first few seconds when his body seemed to split apart from the inside out and then the beast took over . . . The human part of him was now on the inside, and the creature was on the outside. When the dragon took over, Grigori wasn’t always in full control. The animal instincts often took over and they could ignore the mortal side of him sometimes, when the beast’s urges grew too strong.

He lowered his head to the ground, his snout sniffing the grass and scenting the wind as he studied the other dragon ahead of him. This beast he would know anywhere.

Brother . . . That bond went deeper than memory, it was as old as time itself.

Ahead of him, Rurik was prowling, his black head lowered, his scales glinting in the light like obsidian. Rurik flicked a long tongue out and huffed, small puffs of smoke escaping his nostrils.

Grigori scented the air again, the way the wind brought fresh hints of pine and crisp mountain smells . . . and something else, something that his dragon recognized on a deeply primitive level. An enemy . . .

He turned his head at the same moment Rurik did. Both of them stared at the small female figure of Madelyn who stood at the end of the field. Her scent was of a creature he never encountered before, but his instincts warned him she was deadly.

Not human . . . something dangerous.

He and Rurik began to stalk toward her, their massive bodies sliding in the grass. The human female stood her ground, her face ashen as she stared them both down.

The wind danced around her, pulling her hair around her face, playing with the golden auburn tendrils. A new, sweet scent, somehow stronger than the first scent that set him on edge, hit him and his body tensed with desire to get closer to her. This was the scent of his mate, but the dragon was confused. She smelled like his enemy too. However, the mating scent was too strong to ignore.

“Grigori,” Madelyn whispered. Her husky soft voice made him relax, she was his mate, even though he had not yet claimed her.

Beside him Rurik stood up on his hind legs and let out earsplitting roar seconds before he lunged toward the female to attack her. Panic seized Grigori and his dragon as they realized his female was in danger.

Must save her . . . Grigori and his dragon acted as one being, fully united.

He acted fast, lashing out one of his claws at his own brother. Rurik leapt back, his tail lashing out as he snarled at Grigori. Their dragons were in control, and the human blood that connected them as brothers wasn’t strong enough to stop what was to come . . .