Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Newsletter and Social Media Links

  About the Author

  Other books by Carole Mortimer

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2020 Carole Mortimer

  Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-89-7

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Dedication

  My husband, Peter

  Author’s Note

  Terms of address in Russian change depending on the relationship to that person. For ease of reading I have kept to a simple male/female term of address e.g. Petrov/Petrova.

  Prologue

  Three months previously,

  The Petrov Apartment, St. Petersburg

  “Where are the Romanov dragons?” Pyotr Petrov’s eyes glittered with a fevered hatred as he glared at each of the large men gathered in the kitchen of the small apartment he shared with his sister. “No doubt they have chosen to remain cowering in their palace,” he added contemptuously.

  “We are all here too,” Vladimir said coldly as he stepped into the room. Aware of how dire the situation was in the confines of the Petrovs’ apartment, he left his brothers out in the hallway with two of the Pendragon brothers.

  They were all here because Tanya and Pyotr Petrov had kidnapped Izzi, the daughter of Anna and Anton Mikhailov, the human servants who ran and appeared to the general public to own the palace which for generations had actually belonged to the Romanov dragon shifter family.

  Having feared for Izzi’s safety, Vladimir was surprised to see it was Pyotr Petrov who currently had a piece of broken glass pressing against his carotid artery, held there by Izzi.

  Vladimir had only minutes ago learned that Izzi had left the palace earlier and was now being held prisoner in the apartment of the people who had tried to kill Vladimir’s brother, Vaughn, the night before. Deryk Pendragon had reached the apartment first, as was fitting when Izzi was his fated mate, but it appeared that Izzi had already wrenched control from Petrov and his sister Tanya.

  The air whooshed from Vladimir’s lungs, and he found himself unable to look away again after a single glance across the room at the beautiful, dark-haired Tanya Petrova. Her scent of flowers and spring rain instantly invaded and then took control of his senses. He had to clench his hands at his sides to fight against the need to reach out to touch her too.

  Mine, his dragon growled.

  No, that couldn’t be so. Vladimir’s mate, if he ever met her, would be a fitting mother for their young. The queen worthy of the king Vladimir actually was, though he chose not to use the title when he now had only his own six brothers as his subjects and the few human servants they employed.

  Tanya Petrova was none of the things Vladimir had expected of his mate as she returned his gaze with the same fierce hatred and defiance that had caused her to dare to attempt to take his brother’s life the previous evening. She was also very much human.

  Such a woman could not be the mate of Vladimir, the king and eldest of the Romanov dragon shifters, when he had waited every one of his thousand years to meet the woman destined for him by the fates.

  Mine, his dragon disagreed.

  “You will both explain your behavior,” Vladimir instructed the brother and sister.

  Pyotr Petrov snorted his scorn. “Do not presume to order us about as you do your other human pets.”

  Vladimir was having difficulty concentrating on Petrov’s words, or remembering the reason they were here at all, with Tanya Petrova standing just feet away from him, exuding that exquisite perfume. It made him want nothing more than to throw her down on the floor, to take and claim her, no matter who else was in the room.

  It took all his considerable self-control to deny that need. “You would not understand the symbiotic relationship we have with the Mikhailov family.”

  It was a connection of many centuries, one in which the human Mikhailov family acted as a shield to the curious public for the long-living Romanov family of dragon shifters, and in return, the dragons gave the humans their protection. A protection which had sadly fallen short tonight in regard to Izzi Mikhailova.

  “Why did you try to kill Vaughn last night?” Vladimir now demanded to know.

  He wished to know the answer to that question, but he also wanted to divert attention from Izzi, whom he could see, by the shaking of her hand, was starting to tire of holding the jagged piece of glass against Petrov’s throat.

  Petrov’s fevered gaze moved to the hallway, where the rest of the dragon shifters stood, his top lip turning back in a sneer as he obviously saw Vaughn was amongst them. “For days, he’s wanted to fuck my sister, and last night, he believed he was about to succeed. Not quite the end to the evening you expected, was it, dragon?”

  Maim, kill, eviscerate. Vladimir’s dragon clamored to be free so that he might carry out those deadly deeds on anyone who dared to suggest laying so much as a finger on Tanya. Even if that someone was his own brother. No one touched his fated mate—

  Tanya was not his mate!

  “Why did you wish to kill Vaughn?” Vladimir pressed the brother. He could have used his compulsion to force the answer, but doubted it was necessary with zealots such as the Petrovs.

  Izzi was the one to answer. “They believe the Romanov dragons killed their parents ten years ago.”

  Deryk Pendragon glanced at Vladimir. “Did you?”

  “Absolutely not,” he answered without hesitation. It had been centuries since any of their dragons had killed anyone, and even then, it had only been in defense of their family or during war. Vladimir knew, without a doubt, that neither he nor any of his brothers had killed the older Petrov couple.

  “Liar!” Tanya bit out fiercely, trying and failing to break free of Deryk’s restraining hold. “You ripped them both apart like the wild animals you really are.”

  Mine.

  “Take Izabella and go,” Vladimir instructed Deryk as his dragon fought and railed against his confinement when they could both see another dragon shifter was touching their mate.

  The harshness of his voice caused Deryk to look at him through narrowed lids. A gaze Vladimir did his best to withstand, but knew he had failed when he saw the dawning realization in Deryk’s golden eyes.

  Deryk removed his hand from Tanya’s arm, which in turn immediately alleviated the tightness in Vladimir’s chest.

  Leaving him with no other choice but to accept that Tanya Petrova was indeed his mate.

  A mating he could choose not to accept if he so wished.

  Ours, his dragon disagreed.

  Chapter One

  Present day,

  Mikhailov Palace, St. Petersburg

  “Isn’t it time you killed her and put the both of you out of your misery? Or maybe to do that you need to fuck her and then kill her?”

  Vladimir had been enjoying the view of a snow-covered St. Petersburg from the window of his study in one of the turrets of the palace. A fitting place to welcome back his brother, Vaughn, from his few weeks sojourn at their winter dacha several hours’ dragon flight away.

  Turning away from the picture-postcard scene, Vladimir now moved to sit behind his desk before focusing glacial dark eyes on Vaughn, the youngest of his six brothers. Not that anyone seeing them together would make that familial connection.

  Admittedly, they were both six and a half feet tall, but Vaughn was fair-haired with green eyes, where Vladimir was dark-haired and had eyes as black as coal. Vaughn had the heavy and toned muscles of the superheroes the young of today loved so much, whereas Vladimir was elegance personified, though no less powerful. His defined musculature came from daily runs through the streets of St. Petersburg, but that strength was more often than not clothed in the bespoke suits and silk shirts and ties he preferred to wear, in contrast to Vaughn’s jeans and T-shirts.

  Vaughn’s casual clothing reflected the fact that, at only two hundred years old, he was the youngest and so the most adaptable of the seven Romanov dragon-shifter brothers. At a thousand years old, Vladimir was the eldest, and he had already lived through many changes, both in fashion and family. Amongst those changes were the deaths of his parents over a hundred years ago and that of his brother Karl, who had died half a century ago after his mate refused him.

  Which brought Vaughn’s comment into sharp focus.

  Vladimir looked down the sharp blade of his nose at his brother. “I believe, now you have returned, what we were discussing was you flying to London to assist the Pendragon brothers in the protection of a member of one of our Russian ballet companies currently touring Europe.”

  “I believe you were the one discussing that, Yo
ur Majesty,” Vaughn came back challengingly as he lounged in the chair on the opposite side of Vladimir’s desk.

  “Don’t call me that!” Vladimir rasped.

  Vaugh shrugged. “Not calling you by your title doesn’t change the fact that you’re our king.”

  Vladimir was well aware of that. He simply preferred not to use the title.

  The human Romanovs had been the tsars of Russia for three hundred years, but the dragon Romanovs had been kings of the dragon world for millennia. Unfortunately, during the course of the past five hundred years, the dragons had slowly begun to die, without procreating. Strangely, the royal family had not suffered the same dearth of younglings, having produced eight sons in all. The seven remaining Romanov brothers were all that remained of the Russian dragons.

  Vladimir saw no reason to call himself king over his own brothers.

  He gave a terse nod. “Or that you and our brothers are royal princes. But there is little point to any of those titles when we are the only remaining Russian dragons. So,” he continued briskly, “we will return to the subject of you going to England to assist the Pendragon brothers.”

  Vaugh’s eyes glittered a deep green. “The ballet company has its own security, and the Pendragon brothers are more than capable of taking care of any shortfall in that area. Besides, I see absolutely no reason for me to go anywhere to help those arrogant Welsh bastards do anything.”

  Vladimir’s lids narrowed. “The Pendragons now all have mates and some younglings, and must I remind you that they helped to save your life three months ago, and that our own Izzi, Anna and Anton’s daughter, is now married to one of those arrogant Welsh bastards?”

  Vaughn chuckled. “Deryk is badass.”

  Yes, he was, and he irritated Vladimir almost beyond endurance on the occasions he brought Izzi back to St. Petersburg for her monthly visit with her parents. Even so… “Three months ago, Deryk and several of those other arrogant Welsh bastards helped to search for and save Izzi, allowing us to apprehend the brother and sister who tried to kill you.” Vladimir regretted reminding Vaughn of the attack almost as soon as the words left his mouth.

  For two reasons.

  One, Vaughn hadn’t been his usual flirty and lighthearted self since the attack during which his throat was cut and his head almost severed from his body.

  Two, it brought the subject back to the “she” Vaughn had been referring to earlier and whom Vladimir would prefer not to talk about.

  Tanya Petrova. Twenty-five years old, tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and one of the two dragon hunters, brother and sister, who had almost ended Vaughn’s life three months ago.

  The same woman who was, and had been for several months, safely locked away in their winter palace an hour’s drive into the countryside from St. Petersburg.

  And if Vaughn thought Vladimir staying away from her had been easy since that night in the Petrovs’ apartment, then he was mistaken. Majorly so.

  The knowledge of who and what Tanya was to him never left Vladimir’s thoughts for a second.

  The yearning of his body to claim her was a never-ending ache that rarely allowed him to sleep beyond a couple of hours each night, and even then that sleep would be filled with dreams of Tanya. Touching her. Tasting her. Claiming her.

  His waking hours had become an ordeal he had to get through each day, as much as the constant dreams of her had turned his sleeping hours into a nightmare.

  Vaughn scowled darkly. “The brother has since escaped and is believed to have fled to Europe,” he reminded. “It is time you disposed of the woman, before she has a chance to do the same.”

  Mine!

  It was nearly impossible for Vladimir to ignore his dragon’s possessive roar. He clench his hands into fists to prevent the dragon’s talons from piercing the ends of his fingers before he rushed across the desktop to rip out his brother’s throat.

  The same throat that Tanya had attempted to slice through and separate Vaughn’s head from his body, the only manner in which a Romanov dragon shifter could be killed.

  Well…not the only way, Vladimir reminded himself darkly, but it was the manner in which Tanya had chosen to try to eliminate Vaughn. A crime that, as Vaughn had minutes ago reminded him, should have already ended in Tanya’s execution.

  Except Vladimir couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Mine, his dragon roared for a second time.

  Vladimir had first begun a dedicated search for his fated mate eight hundred years ago. But after all these years had passed, he finally had to accept there were no female dragons left in the world with whom he could mate and continue the royal Romanov line of succession.

  A year ago, he’d had an unexpected meeting with a foreign dragon shifter, Grigor Pendragon. He was the eldest brother of the Pendragon dragons. Both of them had been flying in dragon form, but shielding themselves from the humans scurrying about below. A shielding which had not prevented dragon from seeing dragon.

  Vladimir had initially been shocked at the sight of the unfamiliar red dragon. That surprise was quickly followed by both dragons going into attack mode.

  The fight between the unfamiliar red dragon and Vladimir’s black dragon had been spectacular. A battle for the ages. But a battle neither could win when they were so well matched in size, agility, and skill.

  Having allowed the dragon aggression to run its course, they had returned to their human form and talked instead of fighting.

  It had been a revelation to both men to hear of each other’s dragon clan, one in Wales, the other in Russia, and to learn of their similarities and differences. The Pendragons were all males too, but the remaining eight brothers were all fifteen hundred years old and dragon made, initially from ten different mothers and one father. The Romanov brothers, on the other hand, were all dragon born, starting with Vladimir a thousand years ago and followed by his seven brothers, and all to a single mated couple.

  Unfortunately, the conversation had also revealed the Pendragon brothers had been no more successful in finding their mates than the Romanovs had.

  Not then, at least.

  Grigor and Vladimir had decided, until they knew more, to keep their meeting to themselves, but to keep each other apprised of any changes that might occur in their mating status.

  Months later, Grigor had contacted Vladimir to report that his brother Nathaniel had met his mate, and she was, to all intents and purposes, human. Blood tests had later revealed Grace had a trace of dragon in her DNA, no doubt from some long-forgotten ancestor having either joined or mated with a dragon shifter.

  News of the mating had caused both hope and despair in the remaining Pendragon and Romanov dragon shifters.

  Hope, because it meant there might be other human women out there who also carried that rare gene in their DNA.

  Despair, because after all these years of being alone, none of them had any idea if they would meet the woman destined for them before it was their turn to die.

  The Pendragon brothers, having been made rather than born, would eventually become feral without their mate. This would result in their remaining in dragon form during one of their shifts and having to be destroyed by their brothers before they turned the fierceness of their anger on the human population, thus revealing their existence.

  The Romanovs didn’t have that particular sword of Damocles hanging over their head. Their longevity was simply that of normal aging for a dragon shifter. But without a mate to love and to be loved by in return, that longevity could and did seem very long indeed before they would eventually die, alone and unmated.

  Miraculously, Nathaniel Pendragon’s mating had only been the first and was followed by the seven remaining Pendragon brothers all meeting their mates during the following months. All, on the surface, to human women, but blood tests revealed all those women also carried that same rare gene in their DNA that allowed them to survive the fierceness of a dragon mating.