Page 16 of Rurik
She covered her mouth to yawn, then smiled again. “I hope that’s a good thing.” That sheepish smile made his heart feel strange and fluttery. It confused his dragon too, which had gone very still inside him. Like it was watching a creature it didn’t understand yet was curious about and was afraid that one sudden movement might spookit.
“It is. She was an amazing woman. She was powerful in a time and place where women weren’t respected inRussia.”
“Was?” Charlotte pulled back the covers on the other side of the king-size bed, and he took the invitation to join her. His wounds had healed enough that they weren’t likely to bleed into thesheets.
“She died many years ago.” He watched her puff up her pillow and settle into the bed, lying on her side to facehim.
“Rurik, you’ll really be okay, won’t you?” she asked, her beautiful blue eyes cutting through him with genuineconcern.
“I’ll be fine. It was just a few scratches, remember?” He shifted down to lie beside her, curling an arm around her hips and tucking her against his chest so he could place a soft kiss to herforehead.
Her responding sigh made his dragon shift inside him, restless with curiosity. Normally when he bedded a woman his dragon seemed disinterested. Only Nikita had ever caught the dragon’s eye before. His dragon wanted to keep him awake all night to watch her while sheslept.
At times like this, sharing his body with another creature was a nuisance. Most of the time he and his dragon were in sync, but sometimes the beast rose to the surface. Right now, still healing in his human form, Rurik was too tired to watch her, and the dragon growled withdispleasure.
Soon. Soon I will possess her for us both. Then maybe he could clear his system of this wild, foolish desire for the quiet yet passionate American who’d stumbled into hislife.
A battle dragon could not afford to mate. He could not put his family at risk. He had known this the moment he’d learned what he was, when his father had discovered that his strength and skills surpassed those of hisbrothers.
“A battle dragon is a sacred position, Rurik. You will be the last thing between our family andextinction.”
It was a great weight to place on the shoulders of a fifteen-year-old boy, but fate had chosen him over Grigori and Mikhail. And that meant he wouldalwaysbe alone. No mate, no falling in love, no spending the next thousand years with a woman likeCharlotte.
He kissed her lips, even though she was asleep before he reached over and turned off the light. He wrapped himself around her, guarding her jealously the way a dragon guarded his most preciousjewels.
5
Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl. ?Peter S. Beagle,The Last Unicorn
Damien MacQueen holsteredhis gun as he reached the old abandoned ruins of the Detroit train station. Many years ago the station had fallen into disrepair, and he had moved the Brotherhood’s international headquarters from Boston to Detroit. It was a city that many people had given up on, but for his needs, that made it perfect. A crumbling city with high crime rates tended to draw in supernatural creatures, the sort who would make plays for localpower.
Not on mywatch…
As he got closer, he touched the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the building. A normal human couldn’t see what was really there. Hundreds of cleverly crafted spells projected the illusion of a ruined and abandoned station. Damien placed his hand on the main padlock. The spells around the station recognized him, and the facade of the old crumbling buildingfaded.
Now he could see what the spells had so carefully hidden. The station had been beautifully restored and looked just as it had in its prime—with a few additional features inside, of course. It now housed some of the toughest supernatural hunters and the most magically gifted humans in North America. The best the world had to offer and the last line of defense against thenight.
Damien had a laid-back yet vigilant approach to the supernatural. If they kept to themselves and didn’t cause trouble, he didn’t cause them trouble. But if they crossed that line, his people did what needed to be done. He was proud that his kill rate was low. His predecessors had been tougher, more ruthless, but times had changed, mankind had changed, and Damien knew that sometimes a situation was painted in shades of gray. But some in the Brotherhood still only saw things in terms of black andwhite.
Serena, the only woman he’d ever loved, had been one such hunter. Beautiful, brilliant, and utterly unforgiving. She’d been killed after murdering a nest of vampires who had been classified as a nonthreat. No such thing in her book. But that action had cost her dearly. They might not have been a threat, but they had friends in highplaces.
The vampire nobles didn’t care how many rogue corruptions the Brotherhood took down. They believed in law and order as much as anyone. But Serena’s rogue action had been seen as a threat, and they had responded accordingly, sending their best assassin to send amessage.
Damien still remembered the sight of Serena’s body laid bare and bloodless for him to find. It had taken every ounce of his self-control not to seek his own vengeance. But Serena had been in the wrong, acted against orders, and Damien wasn’t going to continue the chain of bloodshed and take more innocent lives. No matter how heartbroken Serena’s death had left him, his job was to make the world a better and saferplace.
The gates parted as he pushed them open, heading toward the station’s main entrance. He was going to need a shower and a beer after tonight’s fun. Damien had spent the last three hours in peace talks between the Snowfall Shifters and the Black Forest Wolfpack.
The names these guys givethemselves…
He’d had his gun loaded with silver, ready for things to go pear-shaped, but fortunately nothing had happened. Still, he felt safe enough to holster his gun only now that he was back at headquarters. Werewolves and other corruptions had tempers and serious aggressionissues.
One would think the wordcorruptionwas a derogatory term the Brotherhood had come up with, but in fact it came from the shifters themselves. For some reason no one was really sure of anymore, shifters like werewolves and vampires were referred to as corruptions, but not others like dragons or the thunderbirds of old. The Brotherhood’s official stance was that it had to do with the means of their creation. Magic was at the heart of every shifter, but corruptions could pass on their condition through a bite, like an infection, and this seemed to be something that the dragons and other preternatural creatures felt was notnormal.
But corruptions were also the ones the Brotherhood had more personal contact with. He was even considering allowing a few of the more levelheaded ones out there into their ranks to help act as liaisons as well as enforcers. Dragons, though, refused to have anything to do with the Brotherhood. And that was a problem, especiallynow.
As he walked into the lobby, he saw his brother, Jason, leaning against the front desk, flirting with the receptionist. Once he saw Damien, however, he straightened and dropped the receptionist cold, much to her chagrin. “Everything go all righttonight?”
“Fine. Kept me on my toes, though. Archer Falls is one scary bastard.” Damienchuckled.
