Page 40 of Rurik
“Rurik, stop!” she shouted. “You want the truth? All ofit?”
“Yes,” he snarled as he spun to face her. “Tell me every damned detail. Leavenothingout.” He clenched his hands into fists as he glared ather.
Charlotte, to her credit, didn’t cower. But he would never hurt Charlotte, not even if she betrayed him to his worstenemy.
“I am just what I said. A biochemist. A lonely woman whose brothers left her out of everything. They refused to let me join the Brotherhood because it cost my parents their lives. But a few weeks ago, my friend Meg, who is a hunter, told me about a serum that someone had created that suppresses the dragon shifting ability. She asked me to try to re-create it. But I wanted more…” She paused, her face falling. “I wanted to show my brothers I have value, that I could be a part of their world. I thought I could help prevent a dragon war from spiraling out of control. So I took the serum I made and left for Moscow. My plan was to catch you, but the moment I met you…I couldn’t use it on you or take you to my brothers.” She pointed to her purse. “You will find two syringes inside. You can pour the contents down the drain and throw the syringes in the trash. There’s a third one in my hotel room in Moscow. I don’t care anymore. You matter too much to me. I couldn’t hurt someone I—” She halted abruptly, wiping a stream of tears from herface.
“Someone you…what?” he asked. His dragon had been ready to fight, just as he was, but now he and his dragon were both confused andpanicky.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she met his gaze and said the only words that could change the way hefelt.
“I couldn’t betray someone I was falling in love with.” The pain in her eyes was unmistakable. No one could affect that level of fear unless they were telling thetruth.
Rurik held his breath, trying to process what she’d just said. She was falling in love withhim.
Charlotte stumbled away from the bed, wrapping a sheet around herself. She looked so vulnerable and small as she approached him and the table where her purse sat. She held the small bag up tohim.
“Please. Take the syringes and destroy them.” His dragon paced inside his head, still puzzled. His enemy…his mate…what was shereally?
12
I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me. —Ursula K. Le Guin
Rurik dugthrough Charlotte’s purse, his dragon tense inside him, as though afraid of what he might find. His animal side wasn’t used to fearing anything, but the idea of a drug that could suppress that part of him, even temporarily, wasterrifying.
There were no weapons, no magical tokens or talismans to help her inside. Just…there itwas…
He pulled out a black case out and unzipped it. Two small syringes with gleaming green liquid were tucked in elastic straps. He removed them from the pouch. Without a word, he walked over to the bathroom sink. He depressed the plungers on the syringes and drained their contents. The third one in Moscow would be handled soon. There was bound to be more of this back at the Brotherhood labs, but he felt a small bit of relief destroying the immediatethreat.
Rurik flipped the taps on, splashing water to wash down the remnants of the drug. Charlotte stayed where she was, sheet wrapped around her body like a loose toga. Her blonde hair was in a wild tumble around her shoulders, and the light from the lamps illuminated the drying tears on her cheeks. It was a shock to his heart, strong enough that for a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He recovered at last and approached her, stopping just inchesaway.
The apprehension in her eyes cut his heart. She had no reason to be afraid, but she had no reason to believe that. The mistrust between their worlds randeep.
“If you are being truthful to me, if it is your intention to stand by my side, then from this moment on, we are in this together. No more secrets, no more lies, from either of us. Do you understand?” He needed to hear her say yes. If she couldn’t, it was going to rip himapart.
She nodded. “Yes. No more lies or secrets,” she vowed, and he knew she was telling the truth. The defenses around his heart crumbled. He wrapped her in his arms, holding her against him, her feet dangling off the ground. She curled her arms around his neck and choked on a sob as she nuzzled him. Their emotions, so close to each other in their bond, were onlymagnifying.
“I’m so sorry, little one. So very sorry,” he murmured over and over again as he carried her back to thebedroom.
He felt her heart, like a faint gold glimmer through a thick silver curtain. She was falling for him, and she wasn’t going to keep any more secrets from him. In that moment, knowing she was in love with him was all that mattered. He would face the problem of her family and his tomorrow. Right now, he needed to hold her and reassure himself and his dragon that she was allright.
“How did you find out?” she asked. “About my brothers, I mean.” Charlotte cuddled on his lap as they settled back on the bed. He pulled the comforter up around her, wanting to keep her warm. They had a few hours yet before they had toleave.
“Grigori received a call from another dragon. An enemy to our family. His name is Dimitri Drakor. I don’t trust that bastard, but Grigori had his reasons for believinghim.”
“Drakor? I know that name. His house is in control of eastern Russia, right? Or was, anyway. Didn’t you kill most of themrecently?”
Rurik gazed at her in surprise. “Yes, how didyou—”
“That’s what got me involved in finding you. The power vacuum the Drakors left is what’s got the Brotherhood worried. The idea that whoever is left might ally themselves with other houses, or others might try to move in. Russia’s a powder keg right now,” she said. “I had to know everything I could about dragons before I cameover.”
Rurik was torn between smiling and frowning. He liked that his mate was resourceful, but he didn’t like that she had access to files on him and his family. They worked hard to stay undocumented and off humanradar.
“How much information do they have on us?” heasked.
She shrugged and told him as much as she knew from the files. “You have to believe me—the Brotherhood is more worried about you fighting each other and causing harm to civilians than fighting you themselves. Those agents they sent after you before were just going to bring you in for questioning. They never planned to kill you. They hoped you had answers about the war with the Drakors, and they needed to know how serious the situation was from yourperspective.”
As she talked, she ran her fingers up and down his chest, seemingly unaware that she was stroking him in a soothing way. It felt good,reallygood. It would have felt even better if she’d wrapped her fingers around his cock, but now was not the time for that, much to his body’sdisappointment.
