Page 44 of Rurik
Damien inserted the room key. The green light flashed on the reader, and he flung the door open, pistol raised. The room was dark, the lights off, and no sounds came from within. Charlotte’s suitcase stood on a wooden luggage rack, lid open. The rest of the team flowed in behind him and fanned out, each checking the room andbathroom.
“Allclear.”
“Clear.”
“Clearhere.”
Charlotte was nowhere to befound.
“Search everything,” Damien ordered. For the next ten minutes, he and his team scoured the hotelroom.
“Damien. Over here.” Nicholas was kneeling by the mini-fridge, pointing at a glass vial filled with green liquidinside.
“Meg, take a look at this,” Damiensaid.
Meg took the vial from Nicholas, holding it up to the light. “That’s the serum. Charlotte showed it to me when she made her bigbreakthrough.”
Damien stared at the bright liquid. The spare vials they’d taken from Charlotte’s lab didn’t have the same tint to them but rather looked blue-green, which made him wonder if there was a reason she’d left those versionsbehind.
So this was the magical dragon repressor his sister had reverse-engineered. It was a game changer to be sure, but Meg was right—if this fell into the wrong hands, it could lead to genocide. He didn’t want his name connected to such an event. The Brotherhood had enough blood on its hands, and he was committed to finding a better way. Nevertheless, he slipped the vial into a pocket in his coat, just incase.
“Listen up,” he said, addressing his team. “I want you to start prepping in the rooms on either side. Jason, get the manager to give us those rooms. Relocate anyone in them. Nicholas, review the security footage again, look for anything we might have missed, then put some wards around us. I want silencing spells, anti-fire spells, anything you can think of in case Barinov decides to put up a fight. Triple redundancies. Remember, this one’s a battledragon.”
“I’ll set up a post outside the hotel,” Tamara said. “Meg might be recognized. Red hair sticks out here inMoscow.”
Meg sighed. “And me without my wigcollection.”
Kathryn held her hands out, magic sparking from her palms. “I’ll get the spells started.” She began to twine her fingers and whisper ancient incantations. Shimmering blue waves passed through the room, tinting her skin and her brown eyes, so much like her older brother,Nicholas.
“Okay, people, let’s do this.” Damien watched his team get to work. He stared at Charlotte’s open suitcase and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling he had about this situation. Flashes of the video kept replaying in his mind. There was something about the way Charlotte and Barinov had fallen, the guarded posture the dragon had while on the floor, and the way he’d pushed her through the lobby, shielding her—shielding her. Something about all this didn’t ringtrue.
But the danger was there, even if the dragon had protected her, and Damien had to prepare for theworst.
I know I promised to slay your dragons, baby sis, but this battle could set the world onfire.
* * *
Charlotte stoodin the shadow of the beautiful imperial palace of Catherine the Great, her mind torn between the baroque architectural detail of the building and the legendary history of its onetime owner. Catherine had been an ambitious German lady who married into a Russian royal family that had been less effectual than its predecessors, and she soon became a better ruler than her own husband, much to the annoyance of most of her male contemporaries. History had not been kind to Catherine, even if it had allowed the beauty of her home to continue to flourish through thecenturies.
There was a healthy amount of snow on the ground, despite the weather reports from the previous day, and still more snow danced about the robin’s-egg-blue palace. Charlotte felt as though she stood in the middle of a vast snow globe that had just been shaken. Rurik stood quietly beside her, his emerald eyes tinged with melancholy. Was he thinking of his former lover? Or simply burdened by memories of thepast?
“It’s so strange coming back here,” he said. “A part of my life, part of everything I once knew is crystalized here like a world trapped in a snow globe, yet it’s closed off from meforever.”
Charlotte tucked her arm in his and squeezed hisarm.
“We don’t have to goinside.”
Rurik shook his head. “No, I want to. It’s just that my brothers and I have lived so long, dozens of lifetimes, yet we rarely talk about the past. It holds too much pain for us. I’m just not used toit.”
“My brothers are the same way. They never talk about our parents. The Brotherhood has taken so much from us, especially Damien. First our parents, then the woman he loved.” She paused, drawing a slow breath. “I understand why he doesn’t want me involved in his world, but shutting me out hurts just as much. He doesn’t even let me talk about them. It’s like I’m stuck in a half-life with my own family.” Sometimes she wanted to talk about her parents, because not talking about them only made their memories fade faster. She wasn’t even sure she remembered their voicessometimes.
They started walking toward the palace, the snow crunching softly beneath their boots. “How did your parents die?” Rurikasked.
“A vampire. My father was the head of the Brotherhood, trying to undo his father’s unforgiving policies, and my mother was a tracker. They were paired together, and worrying about each other is what got them killed. At least, that’s what I heard. It’s against policy now for teammates to become romantically involved.” She knew little of the details. Damien wouldn’t let her see the files or the crime scene photos. They wanted to spare her that pain, and she was okay withthat.
“I’m sorry,” Rurik murmured. “I lost my parents as well, but it was my father’s fault. He was obsessed with hunting down the last of thethunderbirds.”
Charlotte frowned. She knew the name but hadn’t read up on them. The Brotherhood had them listed as extinct, so she’d seen no need to learn about them. “Are they alsoshifters?”
